Thomas Jefferson Quotes About Science

• I find that the harder I work, the more luck I seem to have.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Inspirational, Success, Determination

• Freedom, the first-born of science.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Freedom, Science, Firsts

  Thomas Jefferson, Richard Holland Johnston, Thomas Jefferson Memorial Association of the United States (1903). “The writings of Thomas Jefferson”

• That the enthusiasm which characterizes youth should lift its parricide hands against freedom and science would be such a monstrous phenomenon as I cannot place among possible things in this age and country.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Country, Freedom, Science

  Letter to William Green Mumford, June 18, 1799.

• Nature intended me for the tranquil pursuits of science, by rendering them my supreme delight. But the enormities of the times in which I have lived, have forced me to take a part in resisting them, and to commit myself on the boisterous ocean of political passions.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Ocean, Passion, Commitment

  Thomas Jefferson, Joyce Appleby, Terence Ball (1999). “Jefferson: Political Writings”, p.32, Cambridge University Press

• Chemistry is yet, indeed, a mere embryon. Its principles are contested; experiments seem contradictory; their subjects are so minute as to escape our senses; and their result too fallacious to satisfy the mind. It is probably an age too soon to propose the establishment of a system.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Science, Mind, Age

  Thomas Jefferson (1829). “Memoir, correspondence, and miscellanies from the papers of T. Jefferson”

• 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”

• A schism has taken place among the chemists. A particular set of them in France have undertaken to remodel all the terms of the science, and to give every substance a new name, the composition, and especially the termination of which, shall define the relation in which it stands to other substances of the same family.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Taken, Science, Names

  Thomas Jefferson (1829). “Memoirs, 2: Correspondence and Private Papers”, p.454

• The ocean ... like the air, is the common birth-right of mankind.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Ocean, Science, Air

• Even in Europe a change has sensibly taken place in the mind of man. Science has liberated the ideas of those who read and reflect, and the American example has kindled feelings of right in the people. An insurrection has consequently begun of science talents and courage against rank and birth, which have fallen into contempt. It has failed in its first effort, because the mobs of the cities, the instrument used for its accomplishment, debased by ignorance, poverty and vice, could not be restrained to rational action. But the world will soon recover from the panic of this first catastrophe.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Change, Taken, Ignorance

  Thomas Jefferson (1977). “The Portable Thomas Jefferson”, p.426, Penguin

• The plough is to the farmer what the wand is to the sorcerer. Its effect is really like sorcery.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Science, Sorcery, Wands

  Thomas Jefferson (2010). “The Papers of Thomas Jefferson: 11 March to 27 November 1813”

• I do not know whether you are fond of chemical reading. There are some things in this science worth reading.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Reading, Science, Chemistry

  Thomas Jefferson (1829). “Memoirs, Correspondence, and Private Papers of Thomas Jefferson: Late President of the United States”, p.434

• I have wished to see chemistry applied to domestic objects, to malting, for instance, brewing, making cider, to fermentation and distillation generally, to the making of bread, butter, cheese, soap, to the incubation of eggs, &c.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Science, Eggs, Cheese

  Thomas Jefferson (1855). “The Writings of Thomas Jefferson”, p.73

• While wading through the whimsies, the puerilities, and unintelligible jargon of this work [Plato's Republic], I laid it down often to ask myself how it could have been that the world should have so long consented to give reputation to such nonsense as this?

  Thomas Jefferson

  Plato, Philosophy, Science

  Thomas Jefferson (1829). “Memoirs, Correspondence, and Private Papers of Thomas Jefferson: Late President of the United States”, p.248

• 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

  Science, Thinking, Race

  Thomas Jefferson, Jerry Holmes (2002). “Thomas Jefferson: A Chronology of His Thoughts”, p.102, Rowman & Littlefield

• The attempt of Lavoisier to reform chemical nomenclature is premature. One single experiment may destroy the whole filiation of his terms; and his string of sulphates, sulphites, and sulphures, may have served no end than to have retarded the progress of science by a jargon, from the confusion of which time will be requisite to extricate us.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Science, Confusion, Confusing

  Thomas Jefferson, H. A. Washington (2011). “The Writings of Thomas Jefferson: Being His Autobiography, Correspondence, Reports, Messages, Addresses, and Other Writings, Official and Private”, p.432, Cambridge University Press

• I do not pretend that language is science. It isan instrument for the attainment of science.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Science, Language, Instruments

• 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

• 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

  Country, Science, Thinking

• 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.

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