When, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and of nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
Thomas JeffersonThey are nations of eternal war. All their energies are expended in the destruction of the labor, property, and lives of their people.
Thomas JeffersonNever yet could I find that a black had uttered a thought above the level of plain narration; never saw even an elemental trait of painting or sculpture.
Thomas JeffersonTurning, then, from this loathsome combination of church and state, and weeping over the follies of our fellow men, who yield themselves the willing dupes and drudges of these mountebanks, I consider reformation and redress as desperate, and abandon them to the Quixotism of more enthusiastic minds.
Thomas Jefferson