Writings: Autobiography/Notes on the State of Virginia/Public & Private Papers/Addresses/Letters Quotes.

1. "Whereas it appeareth that however certain forms of government are better calculated than others to protect individuals in the free exercise of their natural rights, and are at the same time themselves better guarded against degeneracy, yet experience hath shewn, that even under the best forms, those entrusted with power have, in time, and by slow operations, perverted it into tyranny; and it is believed that the most effectual means of preventing this would be, to illuminate, as far as practicable, the minds of the people at large, ....whence it becomes expedient for promoting the publick happiness that those persons, whom nature hath endowed with genius and virtue, should be rendered by liberal education worthy to receive, and able to guard the sacred deposit of the rights and liberties of their fellow citizens, and that they should be called to that charge without regard to wealth, birth or accidental condition of circumstance."
- Thomas Jefferson, Writings: Autobiography/Notes on the State of Virginia/Public & Private Papers/Addresses/Letters

2. "All should be laid open to you without reserve, for there is not a truth existing which I fear, or would wish unknown to the whole world."
- Thomas Jefferson, Writings: Autobiography/Notes on the State of Virginia/Public & Private Papers/Addresses/Letters

3. "I wish that all nations may recover and retain their independence; that those which are overgrown may not advance beyond safe measures of power, that a salutary balance may be ever maintained among nations, and that our peace, commerce, and friendship, may be sought and cultivated by all. It is our business to manufacture for ourselves whatever we can, to keep our markets open for what we can spare or want; and the less we have to do with the amities or enmities of Europe, the better. Not in our day, but at no distant one, we may shake a rod over the heads of all, which may make the stoutest of them tremble. But I hope our wisdom will grow with our power, and teach us, that the less we use our power, the greater it will be."
- Thomas Jefferson, Writings: Autobiography/Notes on the State of Virginia/Public & Private Papers/Addresses/Letters

4. "Reason and free inquiry are the only effectual agents against error."
- Thomas Jefferson, Writings: Autobiography/Notes on the State of Virginia/Public & Private Papers/Addresses/Letters

5. "The main objects of all science, the freedom and happiness of man. . . . [are] the sole objects of all legitimate government. (A plaque with this quotation, with the first phrase omitted, is in the stairwell of the pedestal of the Statue of Liberty.)"
- Thomas Jefferson, Writings: Autobiography/Notes on the State of Virginia/Public & Private Papers/Addresses/Letters

6. "Speaking one day to Monsieur de Buffon, on the present ardor of chemical inquiry, he affected to consider chemistry but as cookery, and to place the toils of the laboratory on the footing with those of the kitchen. I think it, on the contrary, among the most useful of sciences, and big with future discoveries for the utility and safety of the human race."
- Thomas Jefferson, Writings: Autobiography/Notes on the State of Virginia/Public & Private Papers/Addresses/Letters

7. "You have heard of the new chemical nomenclature endeavored to be introduced by Lavoisier, Fourcroy, &c. Other chemists of this country, of equal note, reject it, and prove in my opinion that it is premature, insufficient and false. These latter are joined by the British chemists; and upon the whole, I think the new nomenclature will be rejected, after doing more harm than good. There are some good publications in it, which must be translated into the ordinary chemical language before they will be useful."
- Thomas Jefferson, Writings: Autobiography/Notes on the State of Virginia/Public & Private Papers/Addresses/Letters

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