thomas jefferson on america

Yesterday the spotlight was on quotes by the serious and somber John Adams. As we approach the 233rd birthday of the United States of America, who better to cite than Thomas Jefferson, political philosopher, primary author of the Declaration of Independence, and our third president, serving two terms. His presidency was marked by the Lewis and Clark Expedition and the Louisiana Purchase. He is the only two term president to never veto a bill from Congress.

Jefferson was a true Renaissance Man and was accomplished in areas as diverse as horticulture, archeology, and architecture. He was a gadget inventor with a fondness for clocks and was a student of the Bible, though not known for his orthodoxy. Even after his presidency he kept busy, founding the University of Virginia - another of his singular achievements among his presidential colleagues.

A wise and frugal government, which shall leave men free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned - this is the sum of good government.

All tyranny needs to gain a foothold is for people of good conscience to remain silent.

All, too, will bear in mind this sacred principle, that though the will of the majority is in all cases to prevail, that will to be rightful must be reasonable; that the minority possess their equal rights, which equal law must protect, and to violate would be oppression.

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.

As our enemies have found we can reason like men, so now let us show them we can fight like men also.

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 professional men, setting out in life, it is their only capital.

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.

Commerce with all nations, alliance with none, should be our motto.

Conquest is not in our principles. It is inconsistent with our government.

Delay is preferable to error.

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

Tomorrow? George Washington? Abraham Lincoln? Benjamin Franklin? All of the above? We'll see!