in our village of Charlottesville there is a good degree of religion with a small spice only of fanatacism. we have four sects, but without either church or meeting house. the Court house is the common temple, one Sunday in the month to each. here episcopalian and presbyterian, methodist and...

truth advances, & error recedes step by step only; and to do to our fellow-men the most good in our power, we must lead where we can, follow where we cannot, and still go with them, watching always the favorable moment for helping them to another step.

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 promised you a sample from my Commonplace book ... when I was a student of the law, now half a century ago, after getting thro Coke Littleton, whose matter cannot be abridged, I was in the habit of abridging and commonplacing what I read meriting it, and of sometimes mixing my own reflections...

and Botany I rank with the most valuable sciences, whether we consider it’s subjects as furnishing the principal subsistence of life to man & beast, delicious varieties for our tables, refreshments from our orchards, the adornments of our flower-borders, shade and perfume of our groves,...

there is nothing I would not sacrifice to a practicable plan of abolishing every vestige of this moral and political depravity.

if we can but prevent the government from wasting the labours of the people, under the pretence of taking care of them, they must become happy.