Thomas Jefferson Quotes About Art

• The whole art of government consists in the art of being honest.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Art, Honesty, Government

  Thomas Jefferson (1853). “The writings of Thomas Jefferson: being his autobiography, correspondence, reports, messages, addresses, and other writings, official and private”, p.141

• You see I am an enthusiast on the subject of the arts. But it is an enthusiasm of which I am not ashamed, as its object is to improve the taste of my countrymen, to increase their reputation, to reconcile to them the respect of the world, and procure them its praise.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Art, World, Enthusiasm

  Thomas Jefferson (1853). “The writings of Thomas Jefferson: being his autobiography, correspondence, reports, messages, addresses, and other writings, official and private : published by the order of the Joint Committee of Congress on the Library, from the original manuscripts, deposited in the Department of State”, p.433

• I view great cities as pestilential to the morals, the health and the liberties of man. True, they nourish some of the elegant arts; but the useful ones can thrive elsewhere; and less perfection in the others, with more health, virtue and freedom, would be my choice.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Art, Health, Men

  Thomas Jefferson (2010). “The Works of Thomas Jefferson: 1799-1803”, p.147, Cosimo, Inc.

• When I contemplate the immense advances in science and discoveries in the arts which have been made within the period of my life, I look forward with confidence to equal advances by the present generation, and have no doubt they will consequently be as much wiser than we have been as we than our fathers were, and they than the burners of witches.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Art, Father, Discovery

  Thomas Jefferson (1854). “The Writings of Thomas Jefferson”, p.101

• The art of life is the art of avoiding pain.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Inspirational, Funny, Life

  Letter to Maria Cosway, 12 October (1786)

• Let those flatter, who fear: it is not an American art. To give praise where it is not due, might be well from the venal, but would ill beseem those who are asserting the rights of human nature.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Art, Rights, Giving

  Thomas Jefferson (1829). “Memoirs, Correspondence, and Private Papers of Thomas Jefferson, Late President of the United States”, p.118

• It is a cruel thought, that, when we feel ourselves standing on the firmest ground in every respect, the cursed arts of our secret enemies, combining with other causes, should effect, by depreciating our money, what the open arms of a powerful enemy could not.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Art, Powerful, Enemy

  Thomas Jefferson (2010). “The Works of Thomas Jefferson: Correspondence 1771 - 1779, the Summary View, and the Declaration of Independence”, p.378, Cosimo, Inc.

• The art of life is the art of avoiding pain; and he is the best pilot, who steers clearest of the rocks and shoals with which it is beset.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Art, Pain, Rocks

  Thomas Jefferson (1830). “Memoir, Correspondence, and Miscellanies, from the Papers of Thomas Jefferson”, p.51

• Indeed, we need not look back half a century to times which many now living remember well, and see the wonderful advances in the sciences and arts which have been made within that period. Some of these have rendered the elements themselves subservient to the purposes of man, have harnessed them to the yoke of his labors and effected the great blessings of moderating his own, of accomplishing what was beyond his feeble force, and extending the comforts of life to a much enlarged circle, to those who had before known its necessaries only.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Life, Art, Science

  Thomas Jefferson (1964). “Crusade Against Ignorance”

• In a republican nation whose citizens are to be led by reason and persuasion and not by force, the art of reasoning becomes of first importance.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Art, Liberty, Citizens

  Thomas Jefferson, Jerry Holmes (2002). “Thomas Jefferson: A Chronology of His Thoughts”, p.299, Rowman & Littlefield

• The art of printing secures us against the retrogradation of reason and information.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Art, Information, Civil Rights

  Thomas Jefferson, Henry Augustine Washington (1859). “The Writings of Thomas Jefferson: Correspondence”, p.582

• I may grow rich by an art I am compelled to follow; I may recover health by medicines I am compelled to take against my own judgment; but I cannot be saved by a worship I disbelieve and abhor.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Art, Medicine, Religion

  Thomas Jefferson (1900). “The Life and Writings of ...”

• It be urged that the wild and uncultivated tree, hitherto yielding sour and bitter fruit only, can never be made to yield better; yet we know that the grafting art implants a new tree on the savage stock, producing what is most estimable in kind and degree. Education, in like manner, engrafts a new man on the native stock, and improves what in his nature was vicious and perverse into qualities of virtue and social worth.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Art, Nature, Science

  "Early history of the University of Virginia : as contained in the letters of Thomas Jefferson and Joseph C. Cabell, hitherto unpublished". Book by Thomas Jefferson, 1856.

• Let those flatter who fear; it is not an American art .

  Thomas Jefferson

  Art, Flattery

  Thomas Jefferson (1829). “Memoirs, correspondence and private papers of Thomas Jefferson, ed. by T.J. Randolph”, p.118

• You see I am an enthusiast on the subject of the arts.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Art, Subjects

  Thomas Jefferson (1853). “The writings of Thomas Jefferson: being his autobiography, correspondence, reports, messages, addresses, and other writings, official and private : published by the order of the Joint Committee of Congress on the Library, from the original manuscripts, deposited in the Department of State”, p.433

• In a republican nation whose citizens are to be led by reason and persuasion and not by force, the art of reasoning becomes of first importance.... Reason and persuasion are the only practicable instruments. To make way for these, free inquiry must be indulged.... Let them take arms. The remedy is to set them right as to the facts, pardon and pacify them.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Art, Citizens, Inquiry

• The art of reasoning becomes of first importance. In this line antiquity has left us the finest models for imitation; I should consider the speeches of Livy, Sallust, and Tacitus, as pre-eminent specimens of logic, taste, and that sententious brevity which, using not a word to spare, leaves not a moment for inattention to the hearer. Amplification is the vice of modern oratory.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Art, Taste, Firsts

  "The Writings of Thomas Jefferson". Book by Thomas Jefferson, p. 30, 1904.

• The art of governing consists simply of being honest, exercising common sense, following principle, and doing what is right and just.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Art, Exercise, Common Sense

• The contradictory experiments of chemists leave us at liberty to conclude what we please. My conclusion is, that art has not yet invented sufficient aids to enable such subtle bodies [air, light, &c.] to make a well-defined impression on organs as blunt as ours; that it is laudable to encourage investigation but to hold back conclusion.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Art, Science, Light

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