Happy birthday to Thomas Jefferson, a great American. Here is some of his timeless wisdom to help guide us.
“I am persuaded myself that the good sense of the people will always be found to be the best army. They may be led astray for a moment, but will soon correct themselves.” 1-16-1787
“The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots & tyrants.” 11-13-1787
“I think our governments will remain virtuous for many centuries; as long as they are chiefly agricultural; and this will be as long as there shall be vacant lands in any part of America. When they get piled upon one another in large cities, as in Europe, they will become corrupt as in Europe.” 12-20-1787
“I would rather be exposed to the inconveniencies attending too much liberty than those attending too small a degree of it.” 12-23-1791
“We have always seen a small council get into cabals and quarrels, the more bitter and relentless the fewer they are.” 2-28-1796
“I am for a government rigorously frugal & simple.” 1-26-1799
“Before the revolution there existed no such nation as the US.” 9-18-1799
“A just and solid republican government maintained here, will be a standing monument & example for the aim & imitation of the people of other countries.” 3-6-1801
“I have looked on our present state of liberty as a short-lived possession unless the mass of the people could be informed to a certain degree.” 1-5-1805
“Nothing can now be believed which is seen in a newspaper.” 6-14-1807
“I have often thought that nothing would do more extensive good at small expense than the establishment of a small circulating library in every county, to consist of a few well-chosen books, to be lent to the people of the county, under such regulations as would secure their safe return in due time.” 5-19-1809
“No occupation is so delightful to me as the culture of the earth, and no culture comparable to that of the garden.” 9- 20-1811
“I have given up newspapers in exchange for Tacitus and Thucydides, for Newton and Euclid; and I find myself much the happier.” 1-21-1812
“The fore horse of this frightful team is public debt. Taxation follows that, and in its train wretchedness and oppression.” 7-12-1816
Here’s Jefferson, late in his life, explaining the purpose behind the Declaration of Independence –
“When forced, therefore, to resort to arms for redress, an appeal to the tribunal of the world was deemed proper for our justification. This was the object of the Declaration of Independence. Not to find new principles, or new arguments, never before thought of, not merely to say things which had never been said before; but to place before mankind the common sense of the subject, in terms so plain and firm as to command their assent, and to justify ourselves in the independent stand we are compelled to take. Neither aiming at originality of principle or sentiment, nor yet copied from any particular and previous writing, it was intended to be an expression of the American mind, and to give to that expression the proper tone and spirit called for by the occasion.” 5-8-1825
