Thomas Jefferson
Thomas Jefferson
Thomas Jeffersonwas an American Founding Father who was the principal author of the Declaration of Independence. He was elected the second Vice President of the United States, serving under John Adams and in 1800 was elected the third President. Jefferson was a proponent of democracy, republicanism, and individual rights, which motivated American colonists to break from Great Britain and form a new nation. He produced formative documents and decisions at both the state and national level...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionUS President
Date of Birth13 April 1743
CityShadwell, VA
CountryUnited States of America
I am opposed to any form of tyranny over the mind of man.
We could in the United States make as great a variety of wines as are made in Europe, not exactly of the same kinds, but doubtless as good.
By making this wine known to the public, I have rendered my country as great a service as if I had enabled it to pay back the national debt.
For if one link in nature's chain might be lost, another might be lost, until the whole of things will vanish by piecemeal.
Take more pleasure in giving what is best to another than in having it for yourself, and then all the world will love you.
The greatest good we can do our country is to heal its party divisions and make them one people.
In every free and deliberating society, there must, from the nature of man, be opposite parties, and violent dissensions and discords; and one of these, for the most part, must prevail over the other for a longer or shorter time.
By oft repeating an untruth, men come to believe it themselves.
Difference of opinion leads to enquiry, and enquiry to truth; and I am sure...we both value too much the freedom of opinion sanctioned by our Constitution, not to cherish its exercise even where in opposition to ourselves.
I hope that we have not labored in vain, and that our experiment will still prove that men can be governed by reason.
We are now vibrating between too much and too little government, and the pendulum will rest finally in the middle.
Government as well as religion has furnished its schisms, its persecutions and its devices for fattening idleness on the earnings of the people.
If ever we are constrained to lift the hatchet against any tribe, we will never lay it down till that tribe is exterminated, or driven beyond the Mississippi... in war, they will kill some of us; we shall destroy them all.
With your talents and industry, with science, and that steadfast honesty which eternally pursues right, regardless of consequences, you may promise yourself every thing-but health, without which there is no happiness. An attention to health then should take place of evey other object. The time necessary to secure this by active exercises, should be devoted to it in preference to every other pursuit.