of all the cankers of human happiness, none corrodes it with so silent, yet so baneful a tooth, as indolence. body & mind both unemployed, our being becomes a burthen, & every object about us loathsome, even the dearest. idleness begets ennui, ennui the hypochondria, & that a diseased...

I am never satiated with rambling through the fields and farms, examining the culture and cultivators, with a degree of curiosity which makes some take me to be a fool, and others to be much wiser than I am.

a mind always employed is always happy. this is the true secret, the grand recipe for felicity. the idle are the only wretched. in a world which furnishes so many emploiments which are useful, & so many which are amusing, it is our own fault if we we ever know what ennui is, or if we are ever...

the splendor of their shops, which is all that is worth seeing in London

I congratulate you, my dear friend, on the law of your state for suspending the importation of slaves, and for the glory you have justly acquired by endeavoring to prevent it for ever. this abomination must have an end, and there is a superior bench reserved in heaven for those who hasten it.

The distance to which I am removed has given a new value to all I valued before in my own country, and the day of my return to it will be the happiest I expect to see in this life.

by varying too the articles of culture, we multiply the chances for making something, & disarm the seasons in a proportionable degree of their calamitous effects.

3. Moral philosophy. ... read good books because they will encourage as well as direct your feelings.

5. Travelling. ... when men of sober age travel, they gather knowlege which they may apply usefully for their country

be good, be learned, & be industrious, & you will not want the aid of travelling to render you precious to your country, dear to your friends, happy within yourself. I repeat my advice to take a great deal of exercise, & on foot. health is the first requisite after morality.

I am as happy no where else & in no other society, & all my wishes end, where I hope my days will end, at Monticello. too many scenes of happiness mingle themselves with all the recollections of my native woods & feilds, to suffer them to be supplanted in my affection by any other.

with all the defects of our constitutions, whether general or particular, the comparison of our governments with those of Europe are like a comparison of heaven & hell. England, like the earth, may be allowed to take the intermediate station.