Thomas Jefferson

“I haven't failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that don't work.”

“Nature intended me for the tranquil pursuits of science, by rendering them my supreme delight. But the enormities of the times in which I have lived, have forced me to take a part in resisti...”

“A nation which expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, expects that which never was and never will be.”

“Our civil rights have no dependence on our religious opinions any more than our opinions in physics or geometry...”

“There exists indeed an opposition to it [building of UVA, Jefferson's secular college] by the friends of William and Mary, which is not strong. The most restive is that of the priests of the...”

“Reason and free inquiry are the only effectual agents against error.”

“While the art of printing is left to us science can never be retrograde; what is once acquired of real knowledge can never be lost.”

“Speaking one day to Monsieur de Buffon, on the present ardor of chemical inquiry, he affected to consider chemistry but as cookery, and to place the toils of the laboratory on the footing wi...”

“Freedom, the first-born of science.”

“It be urged that the wild and uncultivated tree, hitherto yielding sour and bitter fruit only, can never be made to yield better; yet we know that the grafting art implants a new tree on the...”

“Even in Europe a change has sensibly taken place in the mind of man. Science has liberated the ideas of those who read and reflect, and the American example has kindled feelings of right in...”

“The attempt of Lavoisier to reform chemical nomenclature is premature. One single experiment may destroy the whole filiation of his terms; and his string of sulphates, sulphites, and sulphur...”

“You have heard of the new chemical nomenclature endeavored to be introduced by Lavoisier, Fourcroy, &c. Other chemists of this country, of equal note, reject it, and prove in my opinion that...”

“The more ignorant we become the less value we set on science, and the less inclination we shall have to seek it.”

“All that is necessary for a student is access to a library.”

“The man who reads nothing at all is better educated than the man who reads nothing but newspapers.”

“I know no safe depository of the ultimate powers of the society but the people themselves ; and if we think them not enlightened enough to exercise their control with a wholesome discretion,...”

“Experience hath shewn, that even under the best forms, those entrusted with power have, in time, and by slow operations, perverted it into tyranny; and it is believed that the most effectual...”

“If it is believed that these elementary schools will be better managed by the governor and council or any other general authority of the government, than by the parents within each ward, it...”

“He who receives an idea from me, receives instruction himself without lessening mine; as he who lights his taper at mine, receives light without darkening me. That ideas should freely spread...”