“I have often thought that if heaven had given me choice of my position and calling, it should have been on a rich spot of earth, well watered, and near a good market for the productions of the garden. No occupation is so delightful to me as the culture of the earth, and no lucture comparable to that of the garden. Sucha a variety of subjeccts, some one always coming to perfection, the failure of one thing repaired by the succes of another, and instead of one harvest a continued one through the year. Under a total want of demand except for our family table, I am still devoted to the garden.”
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Thomas Jefferson
“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.”
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Thomas Jefferson
“That liberty [is pure] which is to go to all, and not to the few or the rich alone. (to Horatio Gates, 1798)”
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Thomas Jefferson
“I am bold to Say that neither you nor I, will live to See the Course which 'the Wonders of the Times' will take. Many Years, and perhaps Centuries must pass, before the current will acquire a Settled direction... yet Platonic, Pythagoric, Hindoo, and cabalistic Christianity, which is Catholic Christianity, and which has prevailed for 1,500 years, has received a mortal wound, of which the monster must finally die. Yet so strong is his constitution, that he may endure for centuries before he expires.
―
Thomas Jefferson
“The happiest moments of my life have been the few which I have passed at home in the bosom of my family.”
―
Thomas Jefferson
“The whole art of government consists in the art of being honest.”
―
Thomas Jefferson
“Timid men prefer the calm of despotism to the tempestuous sea of Liberty.”
―
Thomas Jefferson
“[Christianity is] the most ... perverted system that ever shone on man.”
―
Thomas Jefferson
“The Tree of Liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrant. It is its natural manure.”
―
Thomas Jefferson
“You are now old enough to know how very important to your future life will be the manner in which you employ your present time”
―
Thomas Jefferson
“I do not take a single newspaper, nor read one a month, and I feel myself infinitely the happier for it.”
―
Thomas Jefferson
“Those who expect to be both ignorant and free, expect what never was and never will be.”
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Thomas Jefferson
“If Americans desire to be both ignorant and free, they want what never has been and what never will be.”
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Thomas Jefferson
“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.”
―
Thomas Jefferson
