Today At Monticello
-
58°
Sunny
-
Sun
70°
/
49°
-
Mon
77°
/
55°
-
Tue
80°
/
55°
-
Wed
76°
/
56°
Today’s Hours
Gates are open from 8:30 a.m. to 7:30 p.m. First tour, 9 a.m.; last tour, 6:40 p.m.
TJE Original Title:
Quotations
- Famous Quotations
- Spurious Quotations
- Notable Comments on Jefferson
- On Agriculture
- On Albemarle County
- On Architecture
- On Birthday Celebration
- On Botany
- On Children
- On Jefferson in Conversation
- On Education
- On Nature and the Environment
- On Family
- On Great Britain
- On Idleness
- On the Jefferson Memorial
- On Liberty
- On Manufacturing
- On Monticello
- On Music
- On Old Age
- On Reading
- On Science
- On Slavery and Emancipation
- On Smell, Perfumes, Odors, and Fragrances
- On the University of Virginia
- On Views from Monticello
Comments
Hello, I am new and wish to find out if Mr. Jefferson said, "I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies. If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their currency, first by inflation then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow around (the banks) will deprive the people of all property until their children wake up homesless on the continent their fathers conquered. The issuing power should be taken from the banks and restored to the people to whom it propery belongs."
Although Jefferson was often suspicious of banks, we do not believe that quotation can be attributed to him. Check out this article about the veracity of this quotation researched and written by the good folks at our Jefferson Library - http://www.monticello.org/site/jefferson/private-banks-quotation.
Hello, I am trying to track down something i read many years ago. Somewhere along the line I came across a discription, which I believe was by Jefferson, about what made an educated man. The statement was that he considered an educated man to be one who was published, had invented something, and discovered something new. can anyone here help me out? PS I'm new to the site, and not sure how tags and discussions work , so forgive any transgressions till I figure it out , Please
Carl Johansson
To: Anna Berkes
Hello, I was wondering if you could tell me if Jefferson ever said or wrote anything referencing that the second amendment "SHOULD BE REVISITED ONCE EVERY 20 YEARS" (as society & technology evolves & advances).
On CNN January 9th, guest Christopher Kennedy quoted Thomas Jefferson of having said this.
Currently, there is A LOT of HEATED debate as to whether or not this is a spurious quote.
Anna, COULD YOU PLEASE ENLIGHTEN US ALL???!
This is probably a reference to TJ's letter of 6 September 1789 to James Madison, in which he states that "The earth belongs always to the living generation. They may manage it then, and what proceeds from it, as they please, during their usufruct. They are masters too of their own persons, and consequently may govern them as they please. But persons and property make the sum of the objects of government. The constitution and the laws of their predecessors extinguished then in their natural course with those who gave them being. This could preserve that being till it ceased to be itself, and no longer. Every constitution then, and every law, naturally expires at the end of 19 years. If it be enforced longer, it is an act of force, and not of right." I would strongly urge anyone reading this letter to read the editorial note that the Papers of Thomas Jefferson included with it, which gives some important context. (You can find it in a library here: http://tjportal.worldcat.org/oclc/16353926. This document appears in volume 15.)
I an wondering if the following quote is correctly attributed to Thomas Jefferson: "The rich alone use imported articles, and on these alone the whole taxes of the General Government are levied. ... Our revenues liberated by the discharge of the public debt, and its surplus applied to canals, roads, schools, etc., the farmer will see his government supported, his children educated, and the face of his country made a paradise by the contributions of the rich alone, without his being called on to spend a cent from his earnings." --Thomas Jefferson
Yes, this is from TJ's letter to Tadeusz Kosciuszko, 16 April 1811. The polygraph copy of this letter can be viewed here: http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.mss/mtj.mtjbib020578, and a transcription can be viewed here: http://hdl.handle.net/2027/uc1.b3488064?urlappend=%3Bseq=128
It's critical for me to know that I can trust the authenticity of a quote. Thank you for your good work in regard to Thomas Jefferson.
Once again will you please address the MIS-quotation from Jefferson's first inaugural address:
"A wise and frugal government, which shall leave men free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned - this is the sum of good government."
I believe I once read on your site that the misquotation began to show up in the 1980's and it is being widely circulated today. Thank you.
I know it has been some time since you made your post. But I found that particular quote on bartleby.com, it is from Jefferson's First Inaugural Address, Paragraph 3, "Let us, then, with courage and confidence pursue our own Federal and Republican principles, our attachment to union and representative government. Kindly separated by nature and a wide ocean from the exterminating havoc of one quarter of the globe; too high-minded to endure the degradations of the others; possessing a chosen country, with room enough for our descendants to the thousandth and thousandth generation; entertaining a due sense of our equal right to the use of our own faculties, to the acquisitions of our own industry, to honor and confidence from our fellow-citizens, resulting not from birth, but from our actions and their sense of them; enlightened by a benign religion, professed, indeed, and practiced in various forms, yet all of them inculcating honesty, truth, temperance, gratitude, and the love of man; acknowledging and adoring an overruling Providence, which by all its dispensations proves that it delights in the happiness of man here and his greater happiness hereafter—with all these blessings, what more is necessary to make us a happy and a prosperous people? Still one thing more, fellow-citizens—a wise and frugal Government, which shall restrain men from injuring one another, shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned. This is the sum of good government, and this is necessary to close the circle of our felicities."