Quotes from Thomas Jefferson, 1786

His fortune is shipwrecked...

Who then can so softly bind up the wound of another as he who has felt the same wound himself?

When Heaven has taken from us some object of our love, how sweet is it to have a bosom whereon to recline our heads, and into which we may pour the torrent of our tears! Grief, with such a comfort, is almost a luxury!

A friend dies or leaves us: we feel as if a limb was cut off.

And what more sublime delight than to... share our bread with one to whom misfortune has left none!

Believe me then, my friend, that that is a miserable arithmetic which would estimate friendship at nothing, or at less than nothing.

Fill paper as you please with triangles and squares...

Let the sublimated philosopher grasp visionary happiness while pursuing phantoms dressed in the garb of truth! Their supreme wisdom is supreme folly: and they mistake for happiness the mere absence of pain. Had they ever felt the solid pleasure of one generous spasm of the heart, they would exchange for it all the frigid speculations of their lives...

This world abounds indeed with misery: to lighten its burthen we must divide it with one another.