In conversation, he is free and communicative. All topics that fall under discussion are treated by him with equal unreservedness. He seems, indeed, to have no thought or opinion to conceal, and his stores of knowledge are unlocked and laid open with the same freedom in which nature unfolds her...
the class principally defective is that of agriculture. it is the first in utility, & ought to be the first in respect. the same artificial means which have been used to produce a competition to learning, may be equally successful in restoring agriculture to it’s primary dignity in the eyes...
altho’ we have, in the old countries of Europe, the lesson of their experience, to warn us, yet I am not satisfied we shall have the firmness & wisdom to profit by it. the general desire of men to live by their heads rather than their hands, & the strong allurements of great cities to...
there is nothing I desire so much as that all the young people in the estate should intermarry with one another and stay at home. they are worth a great deal more in that case than when they have husbands and wives abroad.
let the beer be put into the cellar immediately, for fear of it’s freezing, setting the proper head of the barrels uppermost, that the bottles in them may stand with the corks up.
of publishing a book on religion, my dear Sir, I never had an idea. I should as soon think of writing for the reformation of Bedlam, as of the world of religious sects. of these there must be at least ten thousand, every individual of every one of which believes all are wrong but his own. to...
it’s only merit was in being the first publication which carried the claim of our rights their whole length, and asserted that there was no rightful link of connection between us and England but that of being under the same king.
Mr. Jefferson entered; and if I was astonished to find Mr. Madison short and somewhat awkward, I was doubly astonished to find Mr. Jefferson, whom I had always supposed to be a small man, more than six feet high, with dignity in his appearance, and ease and graciousness in his manners ... ... To...
The evening passed away pleasantly in general conversation, of which Mr. Jefferson was necessarily the leader ... He has the same discursive manner and love of paradox, with the same appearance of sobriety and cool reason. He seems equally fond of American antiquities, and especially the...
Perhaps the most curious single specimen—or, at least, the most characteristic of the man and expressive of his hatred of royalty—was a collection which he had bound up in six volumes, and lettered “The Book of Kings,” consisting of the “Memoires de la Princesse de Bareith,” two volumes; “Les...
The evening passed away pleasantly in general conversation, of which Mr. Jefferson was necessarily the leader. I shall probably surprise you by saying that, in conversation, he reminded me of Dr. Freeman. He has the same discursive manner and love of paradox, with the same appearance of sobriety...
We left Charlottesville on Saturday morning, the 4th of February, for Mr. Jefferson’s. He lives, you know, on a mountain, which he has named Monticello ... The ascent of this steep, savage hill, was as pensive and slow as Satan’s ascent to Paradise. We were obliged to wind two thirds round its...
nothing is more incumbent on the
old than to know when they should get out of the way, and relinquish to younger successors the honors they can no
longer
earn, and the duties they can no longer perform.
I have no idea of selling the land. I view it in some degree as a public trust, and would on no consideration permit the bridge to be injured, defaced or masked from the public view
As to what is to be said of myself, I of course am not the judge. but my sincere wish is that the faithful historian, like the able Surgeon, would consider me in his hands, while living, as a dead subject: that the same judgment may now be expressed which will be rendered hereafter, so far as my...
I am lately become a brewer for family use, having had the benefit of instruction to one of my people but by an English brewer of the first order. I had noted the advertisement of your book in which the process of malting corn was promised & had engaged a bookseller to send it to me as soon...
I find more amusement in studies to which I
was always more
attached, and from which I was dragged by the events of the times in which I have
happened to
live.