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Extract from Thomas Jefferson to Richard Price, 7 Aug. 1785 [Quote]

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...

Extract from Thomas Jefferson to Peter Carr, 19 Aug. 1785 [Quote]

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...

Extract from Thomas Jefferson to Peter Carr, 19 Aug. 1785 [Quote]

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...

Extract from Thomas Jefferson to Peter Carr, 19 Aug. 1785 [Quote]

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...

Extract from Thomas Jefferson to Peter Carr, 19 Aug. 1785 [Quote]

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...

Extract from Thomas Jefferson to James Madison, 20 Sept. 1785 [Quote]

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...

Extract from Thomas Jefferson to Abigail Adams, 25 Sept. 1785 [Quote]

I fancy it must be the quantity of animal food eaten by the English which renders their character insusceptible of civilisation. I suspect it is in their kitchens & not in their churches that their reformation must be worked, & that Missionaries of that description from hence would avail...

Extract from Thomas Jefferson to Charles Bellini, 30 Sep. 1785 [Quote]

you are perhaps curious to know how this new scene has struck a savage of the mountains of America. Not advantageously I assure you. I find the general fate of humanity here most deplorable. The truth of Voltaire’s observation offers itself perpetually, that every man here must be either the...

Extract from Thomas Jefferson to John Adams, 7 Nov. 1785 [Quote]

Chocolate. this article when ready made, and also the Cacao becomes so easily soon rancid, and the difficulties of getting it fresh have been so great in America that it’s use has spread but little. the way to increase it’s consumption would be to permit it to be brought to us immediately from...

Extract from John Adams to Henry Knox, 15 Dec. 1785 [Quote]

You can Scarcely have heard a Character too high of my Friend and Colleague Mr. Jefferson, either in point of Power or Virtues. My Fellow Labourer in Congress, eight or nine years ago, upon many arduous Tryals, particularly in the draught of our Declaration of Independence and in the formation of...

Extract from Thomas Jefferson to Archibald Stuart, 25 Jan. 1786 [Quote]

I fear from an expression in your letter that the people of Kentucké think of separating, not only from Virginia (in which they are right,) but also from the confederacy. I own I should think this a most calamitous event, and such an one as every good citizen on both sides should set himself...