Tomas Jefferson Quotes

• [Tomas] Jefferson believed that the United States was a chosen nation with a special responsibility to spread democracy around the world.

  Gordon S. Wood

  Responsibility, Democracy, Special

  Source: www.theimaginativeconservative.org

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• Basically [Louise] Brandeis was a Jeffersonian. And you say the timing is great, and it is in a lot of senses, except not for [Tomas] Jefferson, because this is a Hamiltonian moment, and he's the rock star of the minute with a great musical.

  Jeffrey Rosen

  Stars, Rocks, Musical

  Source: www.slate.com

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• Again and again [Tomas] Jefferson deftly sidesteps many of [John] Adams's often provocative remarks. They both felt the correspondence, which was written for posterity, was too important to risk by being too candid with one another.

  Gordon S. Wood

  Risk, Important, Provocative

  Source: www.theimaginativeconservative.org

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• A mutual friend, Benjamin Rush, brought [Tomas Jefferson and John Adams] together in 1812, and they went on to exchange letters for the rest of their lives. But in their correspondence they tended to avoid the most controversial issues, such as slavery.

  Gordon S. Wood

  Issues, Together, Slavery

  Source: www.theimaginativeconservative.org

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• After [Tomas] Jefferson's defeat of [John] Adams in the presidential election of 1800, they didn't communicate with one another for more than a decade.

  Gordon S. Wood

  Presidential, Election, Defeat

  Source: www.theimaginativeconservative.org

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• [John Adams and Tomas Jefferson] shared experience in 1775 - 1776 in bringing about the separation from Britain and their service in Europe cemented a friendship that in the end withstood the most serious political and religious differences that one could imagine, especially their differences over the French Revolution. It was probably Jefferson's obsession with politeness and civility that kept the relationship from becoming irreparably broken.

  Gordon S. Wood

  Religious, Europe, Differences

  Source: www.theimaginativeconservative.org

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• The relationship between [John] Adams and [Tomas] Jefferson was extraordinary. They differed on every conceivable issue, except on the Revolution and the love of their country.

  Gordon S. Wood

  Country, Issues, Revolution

  Source: www.theimaginativeconservative.org

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• [John] Adams's perception of Europe, and especially France, was clearly different than [Tomas] Jefferson's. For Jefferson, the luxury and sophistication of Europe only made American simplicity and virtue appear dearer. For Adams, by contrast, Europe represented what America was fast becoming - a society consumed by luxury and vice and fundamentally riven by a struggle between rich and poor, gentlemen and commoners.

  Gordon S. Wood

  Struggle, Europe, Luxury

  Source: www.theimaginativeconservative.org

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• The Declaration [of Independence] was a committee report, and [Tomas] Jefferson was simply the draftsman. [John] Adams's crucial role in bringing about independence in the Continental Congress has tended to get forgotten.

  Gordon S. Wood

  Independence, Roles, Forgotten

  Source: www.theimaginativeconservative.org

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• [John Adams] always felt that his contribution to bringing about independence went unappreciated, especially after the 1790s when [Tomas] Jefferson began to be lauded as the "author" of the Declaration of Independence.

  Gordon S. Wood

  Independence, Contribution, Declaration

  Source: www.theimaginativeconservative.org

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• [John Adams] is impressed with [Tomas] Jefferson's learning, but noted his silence during the debates in the Congress: "I never heard him utter three Sentences together."

  Gordon S. Wood

  Silence, Together, Three

  Source: www.theimaginativeconservative.org

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• I think [John's Adams] descriptions of the personalities of [Benjamin] Franklin and [Tomas] Jefferson and others were pretty accurate. It is only when he felt he was wronged by them that he lets loose his anger and resentment.

  Gordon S. Wood

  Thinking, Personality, Resentment

  Source: www.theimaginativeconservative.org

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• [John] Adams was the best and most colorful stylist among the Founders. Although [Tomas] Jefferson is widely regarded as the smoothest writer, Adams is by far the most engaging and imaginative.

  Gordon S. Wood

  Stylist, Founders, Imaginative

  Source: www.theimaginativeconservative.org

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• When [Jimmy] Carter did quote them, he quoted them in what I believe were misapplications, such as arguing for the creation of a federal Department of Education. In one case, Carter quoted [Tomas] Jefferson's and [George] Washington's appreciation of education and then, in a leap, implied that they would be delighted that he was creating a giant federal bureaucracy for education.

  Paul Kengor

  Appreciation, Believe, Creating

  Source: www.visionandvalues.org

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• That strain of anti-monopoly crusading egalitarianism really runs throughout American history from [Tomas] Jefferson to Woodrow Wilson, that finds its apotheosis in [Louis] Brandeis, continues through the New Deal, but then it sort of peters out in the '60s because progressives in particular become more interested in extending equality to minorities, and women, and other excluded groups, and little more suspicious of these old white guys, often from the south, who were crusaders against monopolies.

  Jeffrey Rosen

  Running, Egalitarianism, White

  Source: www.slate.com

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• [Louis] Brandeis, like [Tomas] Jefferson, is an equal opportunity critic of bigness. And he, like Jefferson, sees American history as this incredible clash between small producers, farmers, and small business people on the one hand, and wicked oligarchs and financiers and monopolists on the other.

  Jeffrey Rosen

  Opportunity, Hands, People

  Source: www.slate.com

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• [Tomas] Jefferson is more out of fashion, both because of his views on race, where he's properly questioned, that part of his legacy, but also because the libertarian critique of bigness in business and government, the idea that size is a danger is something that's shared on the right when it comes to government and on the left when it comes to corporations, but not both.

  Jeffrey Rosen

  Fashion, Race, Government

  Source: www.slate.com

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• More than any other figure in our history [Tomas] Jefferson is responsible for the idea of American exceptionalism.

  Gordon S. Wood

  Ideas, Responsible, Figures

  Source: www.theimaginativeconservative.org

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