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In truth, politeness is artificial good humor, it covers the natural want of it, and ends by rendering habitual a substitute nearly equivalent to the real virtue.

Thomas Jefferson

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Thomas Jefferson
Age: 83 †
Born: 1743
Born: April 2
Died: 1826
Died: July 4
3Rd U.S. President
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President Jefferson
T. Jefferson
Natural
Courtesy
Ends
Substitute
Truth
Substitutes
Real
Artificial
Rendering
Good
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Politeness
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Habitual
Humor
Covers
Virtue
Equivalent

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It is not the policy of the government in America to give aid to works of any kind. They let things take their natural course without help or impediment, which is generally the best policy.
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If the happiness of the mass of mankind can be secured at the expense of a little tempest now and then, or even of a little blood, it will be a precious purchase.
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It has been a source of great pain to me to have met with so many among [my] opponents who had not the liberality to distinguish between political and social opposition who transferred at once to the person, the hatred they bore to his political opinions.
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When we get piled upon one another in large cities, as in Europe, we shall become as corrupt as Europe.
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An individual, thinking himself injured, makes more noise than a State.
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Men possessing minds of the first order and who have had opportunities of being known and of acquiring the general confidence do not abound in any country beyond the wants of the country.
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In a world which furnishes so many employments which are useful, and so many which are amusing, it is our own fault if we ever know what ennui [boredom] is, or if we are ever driven to the miserable resource of gaming, which corrupts our dispositions, and teaches us a habit of hostility against all mankind.
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Religious leaders will always avail themselves of public ignorance for their own purpose.
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Rightful liberty is unobstructed action according to our will within limits drawn around us by the equal rights of others. I do not add 'within the limits of the law' because law is often but the tyrant's will, and always so when it violates the rights of the individual.
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To be really useful, we must keep pace with the state of society, and not dishearten it by attempts at what its population, means, or occupations will fail in attempting.
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I think all the world would gain by setting commerce at perfect liberty.
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The price of barbecue is eternal vigilance.
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If you have any duty which must be done, and it seems disagreeable, do it promptly and have it over.
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All we can do is to make the best of our friends, love and cherish what is good in them, and keep out of the way what is bad.
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Taste cannot be controlled by law. We must resist at all costs any attempt to regulate our individual freedoms and to legislate our personal moralities.
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A superintending power to maintain the Universe in its course and order.
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Man is fed with fables through life, and leaves it in the belief he knows something of what has been passing, when in truth he knows nothing but what has passed under his own eyes.
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Reading, reflection and time have convinced me that the interests of society require the observation of those moral precepts only in which all religions agree.
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We may consider each generation as a distinct nation, with a right, by the will of its majority, to bind themselves, but none to bind the succeeding generation, more than the inhabitants of another country.
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While wading through the whimsies, the puerilities, and unintelligible jargon of this work [Plato's Republic], I laid it down often to ask myself how it could have been that the world should have so long consented to give reputation to such nonsense as this?
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