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Were I to commence my administration again, the first question I would ask respecting a candidate would be, Does he use ardent spirits?

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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If ever this vast country is brought under a single government, it will be one of the most extensive corruption.
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I served with General Washington in die Legislature of Virginia...and...with Doctor Franklin in Congress. I never heard neither of them speak ten minutes at a time, nor to any but the main point.
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I shall rejoin myself to my native country, with new attachments, and with exaggerated esteem for its advantages for though there is less wealth there, there is more freedom, more ease, and less misery.
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By a declaration of rights, I mean one which shall stipulate freedom of religion, freedom of the press, freedom of commerce against monopolies, trial by juries in all cases, no suspensions of the habeas corpus, no standing armies. These are fetters against doing evil which no honest government should decline.
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A man's moral sense must be unusually strong if slavery does not make him a thief.
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The love of justice and the love of country plead equally the cause of these people, and it is a moral reproach to us that they should have pleaded it so long in vain.
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The man who would choose security over freedom deserves neither.
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[n regard to Jesus believing himself inspired] This belief carried no more personal imputation than the belief of Socrates that he was under the care and admonition of a guardian demon. And how many of our wisest men still believe in the reality of these inspirations while perfectly sane on all other subjects
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War is not the best engine for us to resort to nature has given us one in our commerce, which if properly managed, will be a better instrument for obliging the interested nations of Europe to treat us with justice.
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Though [the people] may acquiesce, they cannot approve what they do not understand.
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... the common law existed while the Anglo-Saxons were yet pagans, at a time when they had never yet heard the name of Christ pronounced or knew that such a character existed.
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Say nothing of my religion. It is known to God and myself alone.
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Instead of an aristocracy of wealth, of more harm and danger than benefit to society, to make an opening for the aristocracy of virtue and talent, which nature has wisely provided for the direction of the interests of society and scattered with equal hand through all its conditions, was deemed essential to a well-ordered republic.
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Scenes are now to take place as will open the eyes of credulity and of insanity itself, to the dangers of a paper medium abandoned to the discretion of avarice and of swindlers.
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Politics, like religion, hold up the torches of martyrdom to the reformers of error.
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The good opinion of mankind, like the lever of Archimedes, with the given fulcrum, moves the world.
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That liberty [is pure] which is to go to all, and not to the few or the rich alone.
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By [the] operations [of public improvement] new channels of communication will be opened between the States the lines of separation will disappear, their interests will be identified, and their union cemented by new and indissoluble ties.
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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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The opinions and beliefs of men follow involuntarily the evidence proposed to their minds.
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