Thomas Jefferson
I have a quote by Thomas Jefferson signing my e-mails right now:
"Laws and institutions must go hand in hand with the progress of the human mind. As that becomes more developed...institutions must advance also to keep pace with the times. "
and as such I wanted know where it was from (it's on one of the pannels of the Jefferson Memorial - one of my favorites).
and in searching found other nifty quotes by this man who helped begin our nation:
"This institution will be based on the illimitable freedom of the human mind. For here we are not afraid to follow truth wherever it may lead, nor to tolerate any error so long as reason is left free to combat it."
- Thomas Jefferson to William Roscoe, 27 December 1820
"I hold it that a little rebellion now and then is a good thing, & as necessary in the political world as storms in the physical." - Thomas Jefferson to James Madison, Paris, 30 January 1787
"Difference of opinion is advantageous in religion. The several sects perform the office of a Censor morum over each other. Is uniformity attainable? Millions of innocent men, women and children, since the introduction of Christianity, have been burnt, tortured, fined, imprisoned: yet we have not advanced one inch towards uniformity. What has been the effect of coercion? To make one half the world fools, and the other half hypocrites. To support roguery and error all over the earth."
A doezen cannons of conduct in life:
- Never put off to tomorrow what you can do to-day.
- Never trouble another with what you can do yourself.
- Never spend your money before you have it.
- Never buy a thing you do not want, because it is cheap, it will be dear to you.
- Take care of your cents: Dollars will take care of themselves.
- Pride costs us more than hunger, thirst and cold.
- We never repent of having eat too little.
- Nothing is troublesome that one does willingly.
- How much pain have cost us the evils which have never happened.
- Take things always by their smooth handle.
- Think as you please, and so let others, and you will have no disputes.
- When angry, count 10. before you speak; if very angry, 100.
1789 Mar. 24. (to Joseph Willard) "We have spent the prime of our lives in procuring [young men] the precious blessing of liberty. Let them spend theirs in shewing that it is the great parent of science and of virtue; and that a nation will be great in both always in proportion as it is free."