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Some men look at constitutions with sanctimonious reverence, and deem them like the ark of the Covenant, too sacred to be touched. They ascribe to the men of the preceding age a wisdom more than human, and suppose what they did to be beyond amendment.

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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The truth is that the want of common education with us is not from our poverty, but from the want of an orderly system. More money is now paid for the education of a part than would be paid for that of the whole if systematically arranged.
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My only fear is that I may live too long. This would be a subject of dread to me.
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I am not among those who fear the people. They, and not the rich, are our dependence for continued freedom.
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The colleges of Edinburgh and Geneva as seminaries of science, are considered as the two eyes of Europe. While Great Britain and America give the preference to the former, all other countries give it to the latter.
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The truth is, that the greatest enemies to the doctrines of Jesus are those, calling themselves the expositors of them, who have perverted them for the structure of a system of fancy absolutely incomprehensible, and without any foundation in His genuine words.
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The sun - my almighty physician.
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Those who would trade safety for freedom deserve neither.
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Our duty to ourselves, to posterity, and to mankind, call on us by every motive which is sacred or honorable, to watch over the safety of our beloved country during the troubles which agitate and convulse the residue of the world, and to sacrifice to that all personal and local considerations.
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Politics, like religion, hold up the torches of martyrdom to the reformers of error.
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To take a single step beyond the text would be to take possession of a boundless field of power.
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There is not a sprig of grass that shoots uninteresting to me.
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It is for the benefit of mankind to mitigate the horrors of war as much as possible.
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To preserve the freedom of the human mind then and freedom of the press, every spirit should be ready to devote itself to martyrdom for as long as we may think as we will, and speak as we think, the condition of man will proceed in improvement
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The legitimate powers of government extend to such acts only as are injurious to others. But it does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods, or no god. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg.
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While the farmer holds the title to the land, actually, it belongs to all the people because civilization itself rests upon the soil.
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Never put off your massage until tomorrow if you can get it today.
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You have never by a word or a deed given me one moment's uneasiness on the contrary I have felt perpetual gratitude to heaven forhaving given me, in you, a source of so much pure and unmixed happiness.
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On a hot day in Virginia, I know nothing more comforting than a fine spiced pickle, brought up trout-like from the sparkling depths of the aromatic jar below the stairs of Aunt Sally's cellar.
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Man, once surrendering his reason, has no remaining guard against absurdities the most monstrous. . . .
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Our bills shall not be killed.
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