books are indeed with me a necessary of life; and since I ceded my library to Congress I have been annually importing from Paris.

in that branch of religion which regards the moralities of life, and the duties of a social being, which teaches us to love our neighbors as ourselves, and to do good to all men, I am sure that you & I do not differ. we probably differ on that which relates to the dogmas of theology, the...

among the values of classical learning I estimate the Luxury of reading the Greek & Roman authors in all the beauties of their originals ... I think myself more indebted to my father for this, than for all the other luxuries his cares and affections have placed within my reach.

the revolution of 1800 ... was as real a revolution in the principles of our government as that of 76. was in it’s form; not effected indeed by the sword, as that, but by the rational and peaceable instrument of reform, the suffrage of the people.

my business is to beguile the wearisomness of declining life, as I endeavor to do, by the delights of classical reading and of Mathematical truths, and by the consolations of a sound philosophy, equally indifferent to hope & fear.

fortitude, you know, is one of his four cardinal virtues. that teaches us to meet and surmount difficulties; not to fly from them, like cowards. and to fly too in vain, for they will meet and arrest us at every turn of our road.

this Missouri question by a geographical line of division is the most portentous one I have ever contemplated. King is ready to risk the union for any chance of restoring his party to power and wriggling himself to the head of it. nor is Clinton without his hopes nor scrupulous as to the means of...

But while this Syllabus is meant to place the character of Jesus in it’s true and high light, as no imposter himself, but a great Reformer of the Hebrew code of religion, it is not to be understood that I am with him in all his doctrines. I am a Materialist; he takes the side of spiritualism: he...

but this momentous question, like a fire bell in the night, awakened and filled me with terror. I considered it at once as the knell of the Union. it is hushed indeed for the moment. but this is a reprieve only, not a final sentence. a geographical line, coinciding with a marked principle, moral...

Mr Jeffersons thinks the Banking System has been the ruin of this Country

I will not despair then of the avail of your services in an establishment which I contemplate as the future bulwark of the human mind in this hemisphere.

I know no safe depository of the ultimate powers of the society, but the people themselves: and if we think them not enlightened enough to exercise their controul with a wholsome discretion, the remedy is, not to take it from them, but to inform their discretion by education. this is the true...