Quotes About Jefferson

In 1823 Thomas Jefferson, who as we shall see had long and painful experience with this incredible system, described it as, "The most dangerous blot on our Constitution, and one which some unlucky chance will some day hit." Today the danger is more grave than when Jefferson put his finger on it.

Men of Virginia, countrymen of Washington, of Patrick Henry, of Jefferson, and of Madison, will ye be true to your constitutional faith?

Both Jefferson and Adams were wary of priests in all forms, as they both knew theocracies are enemies of democracy. Jefferson pointed out that the Indians shared their wariness:

But Hamilton lost the day, Jefferson won, and we have a Bill of Rights built into our Constitution that, as Hamilton feared, has increasingly been used to limit, rather than expand, the range of human rights American citizens can claim. And because it's in our Constitution, the only way other than a Supreme Court decision to make explicit "new" rights (such as a right to health care) is through the process of amending that document.

Wechsler and the New York Times showed that Adams' two immediate successors as president, Thomas Jefferson and James Madison, as well as many others, regarded Adams' political censorship of 'seditious' newspapers that criticised the state as a clear breach of the First Amendment and an attack on democracy.

As always in the past, one can choose to be a democrat in Jefferson's sense, or an aristocrat. The latter path offers rich rewards, given the locus of wealth, privilege and power, and the ends it naturally seeks. The other path is one of struggle, often defeat, but also rewards that cannot be imagined by those who succumb to 'the New Spirit of the Age: Gain Wealth, forgetting all but Self.

The fathers of America had designed their capital city to form a crucifix. The Washington Monument marked the center, with the Capitol and the Lincoln Memorial forming the longer center line while the Jefferson Memorial and the White House formed the shorter horizontal

The fathers of America had designed their capital city to form a crucifix. The Washington Monument marked the center, with the Capitol and the Lincoln Memorial forming the longer center line while the Jefferson Memorial and the White House formed the shorter horizontal line.

The "rail splitter" from Illinois united the nationalism of Hamilton with the democracy of Jefferson, and his appeal was clothed in the simple language of the people, not

Do not, therefore, regard the critics as questionable patriots. What were Washington and Jefferson and Adams but profound critics of the colonial status quo?

On April 17 Jefferson Davis was still on his way to Charlotte. Seventy-two hours after Lincoln's assassination, he still had no idea that Lincoln had been murdered.

Sherman making a mockery of Confederate President Jefferson Davis's recent assertion, while visiting the Rebel army, that the Yankees would have to retreat from Georgia or starve, and predicting that the retreat would be "more disastrous than was that of Napoleon from Moscow.

I love heavy metal, Metallica. I'm into Jefferson Starship and acid rock.

In a letter to President Madison mainly about his sheep Jefferson concluded with a quotation from Horace's very Epicurean sixth epistle: Vive, vale, et siquid novisti rectius istis Candidus imperti sinon, his ulere mecum.73 That is, in the translation of the eighteenth-century English poet Christopher Smart, "Live: be happy. If you know of any thing preferable to these maxims, candidly communicate it: if not, with me make use of these.

Jefferson was notably ambivalent about the French philosopher. "In the science of government Montesquieu's spirit of laws is generally recommended. It contains indeed a great number of political truths; but almost an equal number of political heresies: so that the reader must be constantly on his guard.

Jefferson did not detail his objections, but he likely was irked by Montesquieu's conclusion that a major cause of Rome's decline was Epicurean thought.

Jefferson would remain devoted to Epicurean thought for the remainder of his life. He summarized that belief system thusly: Happiness the aim of life. Virtue the foundation of happiness Utility the test of virtue . . . Virtue consists in Prudence Temperance Fortitude Justice90

The idea of formulated 'rights ... comes not from John Locke and Thomas Jefferson ... but from the canon law of the Catholic Church.

Congress has not unlimited powers to provide for the general welfare, but only those specifically enumerated

By making this wine vine known to the public, I have rendered my country as great a service as if I had enabled it to pay back the national debt.

In America, Jefferson noted with approval, women knew their place.

Mark my words, when a government pretends that it is the highest judge of its own actions, the result is not freedom as Jefferson says, but chaos and oppression. When he shuts religion out of government, when men of faith are not listened to, then all that remains is venality, posturing, and ambition.

The most important of his edits was small but resounding. He crossed out, using the heavy backslashes that he often employed, the last three words of Jefferson's phrase "We hold these truths to be sacred and undeniable" and changed them to the words now enshrined in history: "We hold these truths to be self-evident.

Jefferson convinced his fellow Founding Fathers of the American republic to adopt the Roman grid barely four years after their victory against the British Empire.