I just thought I'd share some quotations made by the U.S.'s third president and revolutionary statesman. "A bill of rights is what the people are entitled to against every government on earth, general or particular, and what no just government should refuse, or rest on inferences." "A coward is much more exposed to quarrels than a man of spirit." "A republican government is slow to move, yet when once in motion, its momentum becomes irresistible." "A single good government is a blessing to the whole earth." "A single zealot may commence prosecutor, and better men be his victims." "A society that will trade a little liberty for a little order will lose both, and deserve neither." "Agreeable society is the first essential in constituting the happiness and of course the value of our existence." "All authority belongs to the people." "An honest man can feel no pleasure in the exercise of power over his fellow citizens." "Another means of silently lessening the inequality of property is to exempt all from taxation below a certain point, and to tax the higher portions of property in geometric progression as they rise."
"What has destroyed liberty and the rights of men in every government that has ever existed under the sun? The generalizing and concentrating of all cares and powers into one body." "The spirit of resistance to government is so valuable on certain occasions that I wish it to be always kept alive." "He who knows best knows how little he knows."
<table id="personal-table" class="profileTable" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0"><tbody><tr id="Quote"><td class="label"> </td> <td class="data">"The eyes of our citizens are not sufficiently open to the true cause of our distress. They ascribe them to everything but their true cause: the banking system... a system which if it could do good in any form is yet so certain of leading to abuse as to be utterly incompatible with the public safety and prosperity." - Thomas Jefferson </td></tr></tbody></table>
"Blacks are inferior to whites in both mind and body. Their inferiority is not the effect merely of the condition of their life...It is not their condition...but nature, which has produced the distinction." "Besides differences in color and hair, black people secreted less by the kidneys and more by the glands of the skin,which gives them a very strong and disagreeable odor." "Negroes are more ardent after their female, but love seems to them to be more an eager desire, than a tender delicate mixture of sentiment and sensation. Their griefs are transient...their existence appears to participate more of sensation than reflection." - Thomas Jefferson
"Be assured that no person living wishes more sincerely than I do, to see a complete refutation of the doubts I have myself entertained and expressed on the grade of understanding allotted to them by nature, and to find that in this respect they are on a par with ourselves ... but whatever may be the degree of talent it is no measure of their rights." - thomas jefferson "I advance it, therefore, that the blacks, whether originally a distinct race, or made distinct by time and circumstances, are inferior to the whites in the endowments both of body and mind. It is not against experience to suppose that different species of the same genus, or varieties of the same species, may possess different qualification." Thomas "J-money" Jefferson
some very little used quotes right there.. he was a genius of course..but still very backward in thinking when it relates to blacks
Yeah, I did a little reading up on that yesterday... It appears that at some point he attempted to recant... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Jefferson#Jefferson_and_slavery