I couldn't help but to think back to my classmates at Thomas Jefferson High School in San Antonio. They had the same talent, the same brains, the same dreams as the folks we sat with at Stanford and Harvard. I realized the difference wasn't one of intelligence or drive. The difference was opportunity.

Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.

A professorship of theology should have no place in our institution.

We make no saint of Thomas Jefferson—we leave the mindless business of canonization and the worship of humans to the fanatics—but aware as we are of his many crimes and contradictions we say with confidence that his memory and example will endure long after the moral pygmies who try to blot out his name have been forgotten.

I think people understand I'm not actually the real Thomas Jefferson.

We confide in our strength, without boasting of it, we respect that of others, without fearing it.