Our people shall be free

The liberty of the whole earth was depending on the issue of the contest, and was ever such a prize won with so little innocent blood?

Man is fed with fables through life, and leaves it in the belief he knows something of what has been passing, when in truth he knows nothing but what has passed under his own eyes.

Whenever the people are well informed, they can be trusted with their own government; that whenever things get so far wrong as to attract their notice, they may be relied on to set them to rights.

[T]o preserve the republican form and principles of our Constitution and cleave to the salutary distribution of powers which that [the Constitution] has established . . . are the two sheet anchors of our Union. If driven from either, we shall be in danger of foundering.

The bloom of Monticello is chilled by my solitude.

A mind always employed is always happy. This is the true secret, the grand recipe, for felicity.