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The concentrating of powers in the same hands is precisely the definition of despotic government. It will be no alleviation that these powers will be exercised by a plurality of hands, and not by a single one.

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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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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When we get piled upon one another in large cities, as in Europe, we shall become as corrupt as Europe.
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The Christian god is a being of terrific character - cruel, vindictive, capricious and unjust.
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Whensoever the General Government assumes undelegated powers, its acts are unauthoritative, void, and of no force.
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Determine never to be idle. No person will have occasion to complain of the want of time who never loses any. It is wonderful how much may be done if we are always doing.
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Take not from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned.
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All the world would be Christian if they were taught the pure Gospel of Christ!.
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[Emigrants] will bring with them the principles of the governments they leave, imbibed in their early youth or, if able to throw off, it will be in exchange for an unbounded licentiousness, passing, as is usual, from one extreme to another. It would be a miracle were they to stop precisely at the point of temperate liberty.
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Lake George is without comparison, the most beautiful water I ever saw formed by a contour of mountains into a basin... finely interspersed with islands, its water limpid as crystal, and the mountain sides covered with rich groves... down to the water-edge: here and there precipices of rock to checker the scene and save it from monotony.
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The ocean ... like the air, is the common birth-right of mankind.
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The wise know too well their weakness to assume infallibility and he who knows most knows best how little he knows.
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Well, Page, I do wish the Devil had old Cooke, for I am sure I never was so tired of an old dull scoundrel in my life ... But the old-fellows say we must read to gain knowledge and gain knowledge to make us happy and be admired. Mere jargon! Is there any such thing as happiness in this world? No.
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It will be said that great societies cannot exist without government.
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It is more dangerous that even a guilty person should be punished without the forms of law than that he should escape.
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I prefer to be remembered for what I have done for others, not what others have done for me.
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For here we are not afraid to follow truth wherever it may lead.
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I shall need, too, the favor of that Being in whose hands we are, who led our fathers, as Israel of old, from their native land and planted them in a country flowing with all the necessaries of comforts of life.
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The system of banking have[for]ever reprobated. I contemplate it as a blot left in all our Constitutions, which, if not covered, will end in their destruction, which is already hit by the gamblers in corruption, and is sweeping away in its progress the fortunes and morals of our citizens.
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Taste cannot be controlled by law.
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Nothing can be believed but what one sees, or has from an eye witness.
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