He is an old Friend with whom I have often had Occasion to labour at many a knotty Problem, and in whose Abilities and Steadiness I always found great Cause to confide.
This day your mother and myself recd your letters from London dated augt. 1st & 2d and it was with great pleasure we heard of your safe arrival in England, and that you are in good health, and God grant our letters may find you so—I hope you will, as well as myself, always with gratitude...
there has been a lamp called the Cylinder lamp, lately invented here. it gives a light equal as is thought to that of six or eight candles. it requires olive oil, but it’s consumption is not great.
My new Partner, is an old Friend and Co-adjutor, whose Character I Studied, nine or ten Years ago, and which I do not perceive to be altered. The Same industry, Integrity, and Talents remain without diminution. I am very happy in him but whether We Shall be able to accomplish any Thing here, I...
Mr Jefferson, spoke concerning Virginia, a State, which he knows very particularly as it is his native Country. The blacks, he tells me, are very well treated there; and increase in population, more in proportion, than the whites. before the War, he says the negroes, were to the whites, in the...
I beleive the Indian then to be in body & mind equal to the whiteman. I have supposed the black man, in his present state, might not be so. but it would be hazardous to affirm that, equally cultivated for a few generations, he would not become so.
I sincerely wish you may find it convenient to come here. the pleasure of the trip will be less than you expect, but the utility greater. it will make you adore your own country, it’s soil, it’s climate, it’s equality, liberty, laws, people & manners. my god! how little do my countrymen know...
I shall be happy to receive your corrections of these ideas as I have found in the course of our joint services that I think right when I think with you.
Southward of the Chesapeak it will find but few readers concurring with it in sentiment on the subject of slavery. from the mouth to the head of the Chesapeak, the bulk of the people will approve it in theory, and it will find a respectable minority ready to adopt it in practice, a minority which...
give up money, give up fame, give up science, give the earth itself & all it contains rather than do an immoral act. and never suppose that in any possible situation or under any circumstances that it is best for you to do a dishonourable thing however slightly it may appear to you. whenever...
if ever you find yourself environed with difficulties & perplexing circumstances, out of which you are at a loss how to extricate yourself, do what is right, and be assured that that will extricate you the best out of the worst situations. tho’ you cannot see when you fetch one step, what...
nothing is so mistaken as the supposition that a person is to extricate himself from a difficulty, by intrigue, by chicanery, by dissimulation, by trimming, by an untruth, by an injustice. this increases the difficulties tenfold, & those who pursue these methods, get themselves so involved at...
it is of great importance to set a resolution, never not to be shaken, never to tell an untruth. there is no vice so mean, so pitiful, so contemptible & he who permits himself to tell a lie once, finds it much easier to do it a second & third time, till at length it becomes habitual, he...
cultivators of the earth are the most valuable citizens. they are the most vigorous, the most independant, the most virtuous, & they are tied to their country & wedded to it’s liberty & interests by the most lasting bands.
I am savage enough to prefer the woods, the wilds, & the independance of Monticello, to all the brilliant pleasures of this gay capital. ... for tho’ there is less wealth there, there is more freedom, more ease & less misery.
but how is a taste in this beautiful art to be formed in our countrymen, unless we avail ourselves of every occasion when public buildings are to be erected, of presenting to them models for their study & imitation?
I received this summer a letter from Messrs Buchanan & Hay as directors of the public buildings desiring I would have drawn for them plans of sundry buildings, & in the first place of a Capitol ... we took for our model what is called the Maison-quarrèe of Nismes, one of the most...
you see I am an enthusiast on the subject of the arts. but it is an enthusiasm of which I am not ashamed, as it’s object is to improve the taste of my countrymen, to increase their reputation, to reconcile to them the respect of the world & procure them it’s praise.