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Broadly put, philosophers think; politicians maneuver. Jefferson’s genius was that he was both and could do both, often simultaneously. Such is the art of power.
It is the strong in body who are both the strong and free in mind.2 —PETER JEFFERSON, the father of Thomas Jefferson
Enlightenment is man’s emergence from his self-imposed immaturity.…1 Nothing is required for this enlightenment … except freedom; and the freedom in question is the least harmful of all, namely, the freedom to use reason publicly in all matters. —IMMANUEL KANT, “What Is Enlightenment?” The best news I can tell you is that Williamsburg begins to brighten up and look very clever.2 —PEYTON RANDOLPH
“Enlightenment is man’s emergence from his self-imposed immaturity,” Kant wrote.21 “Immaturity is the inability to use one’s understanding without guidance from another. This immaturity is self-imposed when its cause lies not in lack of understanding, but in lack of resolve and courage to use it without guidance from another.”
Our minds were circumscribed within narrow limits by an habitual belief that it was our duty to be subordinate to the mother country.1 —THOMAS JEFFERSON
Leadership, Jefferson was learning, meant knowing how to distill complexity into a comprehensible message to reach the hearts as well as the minds of the larger world.
Politicians often talk too much and listen too little, which can be self-defeating, for in many instances the surer route to winning a friend is not to convince them that you are right but that you care what they think.
You will perceive that I plead guilty to one of their charges, that when young and single I offered love to a handsome lady.1 —JEFFERSON, in an 1805 acknowledgment of his infatuation with Elizabeth Moore Walker
Under the law of nature, all men are born free [and] everyone comes into the world with the right to his own person which includes the liberty of moving and using it at his own will.2 —JEFFERSON in the Howell slavery case, 1770
Our revels now are ended.55 These our actors, As I foretold you, were all spirits and Are melted into air, into thin air: And, like the baseless fabric of this vision, The cloud-capp’d towers, the gorgeous palaces, The solemn temples, the great globe itself, Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve And, like this insubstantial pageant faded, Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff
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“Durate, et vosmet rebus servate secundis.” The line means “Carry on, and preserve yourselves for better times.”
Harmony in the marriage state is the very first object to be aimed at.1 —THOMAS JEFFERSON
The Man who has not Music in his Soul, Or is not touch’d with Concord of sweet Sounds, Is fit for Treason, Stratagems, and Spoils, The Motions of his Mind are dull as Night, And his Affections dark as Erebus: Let no such man be trusted.
Things seem to be hurrying to an alarming crisis, and demand the speedy, united councils of all those who have a regard for the common cause.2 —Letter of the Virginia House of Burgesses, May 31, 1774
“Non solum nobis, sed patriae”: “Not for ourselves only, but for our country.”
It was a rich man’s revolution, and Jefferson was a rich man. It was a philosophical revolution, and Jefferson was a philosophical man.
Blows must decide whether they are to be subject to this country or independent.1 —KING GEORGE III, on the American colonies
