Thomas Jefferson

“But friendship is precious, not only in the shade, but in the sunshine of life, and thanks to a benevolent arrangement the greater part of life is sunshine.”

“Books constitute capital. A library book lasts as long as a house, for hundreds of years. It is not, then, an article of mere consumption but fairly of capital, and often in the case of prof...”

“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.”

“An association of men who will not quarrel with one another is a thing which has never yet existed, from the greatest confederacy of nations down to a town meeting or a vestry.”

“When a man assumes a public trust he should consider himself a public property.”

“Merchants have no country. The mere spot they stand on does not constitute so strong an attachment as that from which they draw their gains.”

“I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too much liberty than those attending too small a degree of it.”

“Here was buried Thomas Jefferson Author of the Declaration of American Independence Of the Statute of Virginia for religious freedom & Father of the University of Virginia.”

“I was bold in the pursuit of knowledge, never fearing to follow truth and reason to whatever results they led, and bearding every authority which stood in their way.”

“Leave no authority existing not responsible to the people.”

“History, in general, only informs us of what bad government is.”

“Do not bite at the bait of pleasure, till you know there is no hook beneath it.”

“Wisdom I know is social. She seeks her fellows. But Beauty is jealous, and illy bears the presence of a rival.”

“Dependence begets subservience and venality, suffocates the germ of virtue, and prepares fit tools for the designs of ambition.”

“Ignorance is preferable to error, and he is less remote from the truth who believes nothing than he who believes what is wrong.”

“An enemy generally says and believes what he wishes.”

“The earth belongs to the living, not to the dead.”

“I like the dreams of the future better than the history of the past.”

“A Bill of Rights is what the people are entitled to against every government, and what no just government should refuse, or rest on inference.”

“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...”