Now, where did I put that ….?
… while I was Secretary of State … I saw the importance of [taking notes] … in aid of my memory. Very often, therefore, I made memorandums on loose scraps of paper, taken out of my pocket in the...
View ArticleI just want you to know …
Very early in the course of my researches into the laws of Virginia, I observed that many of them were already lost, and many more on the point of being lost, as existing only in single copies … This...
View ArticleIs there “good” folly and “bad” folly?
We shall have our follies without doubt. Some one or more of them will always be afloat. But ours shall be the follies of enthusiasm, not of bigotry, not of Jesuitism. Bigotry is the disease of...
View ArticleHands off for now, or it will destroyed!
Those [Virginia's laws] in MS. [manuscript, i.e. hand-written] were not sent, … because some of them will not bear removal, being so rotten, that in turning over a leaf it sometimes falls into powder....
View ArticlePlease wait until I am dead.
I do not think a biography should be written, or at least published, during the life of the person the subject of it. It is impossible that the writer’s delicacy should permit him to speak as freely of...
View ArticleIf it has been done well already, why do it over?
On the 1st of June 1779. I was appointed Governor of the Commonwealth [of Virginia] … Being now, as it were, identified with the Commonwealth itself, to write my own history during the two years of my...
View Article20,000 letters but only one book …
… in the year 1781. I had received a letter from M. de Marbois, of the French legation in Philadelphia … addressing to me a number of queries relative to the state of Virginia. I had always made it a...
View ArticleThese two things are of supreme importance.
I have safely received the copy of your history of the American revolution … it is a happy circumstance for our country that it’s fortunes interest the eloquent writers of your country and through them...
View ArticleWhat does a local library mean for US? Part 3 of 4
these should be such [books in your library] as would give them a general view of other history & particular view of that of their own country, a tolerable knolege of geography, the elements of...
View ArticleI insist that you not write about me!
The enquiries in your printed letter of Aug. 1808. would lead to the writing the history of my whole life, than which nothing could be more repugnant to my feelings. I have been connected, as many...
View ArticleI opened it by mistake. I apologize.
Th: Jefferson presents his respectful salutations to Judge Washington and incloses him a package which came to Th:J. in a very voluminous mail. opening the letters hastily & without always reading...
View ArticleJesus trumps all the ancient moral philosophers!
I had promised some day to write … my view of the Christian system … [after taking] a general view of the moral doctrines of the most remarkeable of the antient philosophers … I should proceed to a...
View ArticleI admire smart women!
Th: Jefferson presents his compliments to mrs Warren & returns her the paper she had been pleased to inclose to him with his own subscription & that of the heads of departments … he learns with...
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