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
We must endeavor to forget our former love for them [the British] and to hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, enemies in war, in peace friends.
[I]n Great-Britain it is said that their constitution relies on the house of commons for honesty, and the lords for wisdom; whichwould be a rational reliance if honesty were to be bought with money, and if wisdom were hereditary.
The sun of her [Great Britain] glory is fast descending to the horizon. Her philosophy has crossed the Channel, her freedom the Atlantic, and herself seems passing to that awful dissolution, whose issue is not given human foresight to scan.
All things here appear to me to trudge on in one and the same round: we rise in the morning that we may eat breakfast, dinner andsupper and to bed again that we may get up the next morning and do the same: so that you never saw two peas more alike than our yesterday and to-day.
[T]he dignity of parliament it seems can brook no opposition to it's power. Strange that a set of men who have made sale of theirvirtue to the minister should yet talk of retaining dignity!
It is Mortifying to suppose it possible that a people able and zealous to contend with the Enemy should be reduced to fold their Arms for want of the means of defence; yet no resources that we know of, ensure us against this event.
Government is being founded on opinion, the opinion of the public, even when it is wrong, ought to be respected to a certain degree.
We are here lounging our time away, doing nothing, and having nothing to do. It gives me great regret to be passing my time so uselessly when it could have been so importantly employed at home.
There is not a single crowned head in Europe whose talents or merit would entitle him to be elected a vestryman by the people of any parish in America.
Of all the errors which can possibly be committed to the education of youth, that of sending them to Europe is the most fatal. I see [clearly] that no American should come to Europe under 30 years of age.
But of all the views of this law [universal education] none is more important, none more legitimate, than that of rendering the people the safe, as they are the ultimate, guardians of their own liberty.
I know nothing more important to inculcate into the minds of young people than the wisdom, the honor, and the blessed comfort of living within their income.
As you are entered with the class of Nat. philosophy, give to it the hours of lecture, but devote all your other time to Mathematics, avoiding company as the bane of all progress.
I advance it therefore as a suspicion only, that the blacks, whether originally a distinct race, or made distinct by time and circumstances, are inferior to the whites in the endowments of both body and mind.