I was born into the Chicago branch of Negroland. My father was a doctor, a pediatrician, and for some years head of pediatrics at Provident, the nation's oldest black hospital. My mother was a social worker who left her job when she married, and throughout my childhood, she was a full-time wife, mother, and socialite.
Margo Jefferson
Related I never liked my father. He really was a dullard and misanthrope. My mother and he were married for ... EDMUND WHITE That's what my mother did. And my father was the first person she'd met who treated her kind... LYNN JOHNSTON My mother was a full-time mother. She didn't have much of her own career, her own life, her own ... ANGELINA JOLIE My father was a farmer and my mother was a farmer, but, my childhood was very good. I am very gratef... ROBERTO BENIGNI My mother was born in your state, Mr. Walter, and my mother was a Quaker, and my ancestors in the ti... PAUL ROBESON My father was a history professor, and my mother a housewife—" She married a house? SHERRILYN KENYON My mother had a lot of phobias. She's pregnant with me and she was a very phobic person. So I wa... DANE COOK I had a friend, Melissa, who was 28 years old. She was my best friend's wife, and she was my wif... JASON ALDEAN Before she married my father, my mother was a film reviewer for The Akron Beacon Journal - a small n... JIM JARMUSCH My mother was a pediatrician, and she kept busy hours. I learned from her you could pack a lot into ... RISA LAVIZZO-MOUREY [But she was closer to her mother.] I adored my mother. She was very formal and proper, but she was ... JOAN RIVERS I had a little insight into life that most kids probably didn't have. My mother was a schoolteac... CHARLES KURALT My mother was a housewife. My father was a garment worker. ALAN SUGAR I grew up in Tuscany in a very poor family. My father was a farmer and my mother was a farmer, but, ... ROBERTO BENIGNI My father's from Australia and my mother was born in India, but she's actually Tibetan. I wa... DICHEN LACHMAN My mother born in Mexico, but was Lebanese in origin. She born 1902 the same year my father arrived ... CARLOS SLIM I lived in New York until I was eleven years old, when my mother left my two older sisters and my fa... VICTOR MITCHELL My father was a professor of folklore, and my mother was a teacher until she was married. I had a go... MAX VON SYDOW I love my mother. My mother made sure, her stubbornness - she made sure we was going to eat. She mad... TRACY MORGAN I was 20 when my daughter was born, and making all these plans during my wife's pregnancy. I was... KIEFER SUTHERLAND My mother married my father in 1956. She was twenty-eight, and he was thirty-one. She loved him with... JILL LEPORE And I come here as a daughter, raised on the South Side of Chicago - by a father who was a blue-coll... MICHELLE OBAMA My father was one of 11. He was an attorney. My mother worked for the Syracuse newspaper as a column... SIOBHAN FALLON HOGAN Before I was married to Martin and became a King, I was a proud Scott, shaped by my mother's dis... CORETTA SCOTT KING I come from a magnetic field of Catholicism. I was baptised by my mother's family, who were all ... PAWEL PAWLIKOWSKI My father was a military judge, and my mother was a psychiatric social worker. My brother and sister... JULIANNE MOORE My mother was a great believer in reincarnation — she believed she and my father had been married ... CATHERINE BARRETT ANDREWS My mother was a great believer in reincarnation she believed she and my father had been married m... CATHERINE BARRETT ANDREWS My childhood was kind of complicated. I have an older sister, but my father, my mother's husband... ORLANDO BLOOM My mother was actually born in Ohio but raised in West Virginia where her family had a laundry. She ... LAURENCE YEP My mother was born in Baltimore, and before her marriage, she was an artist and teacher of art. J. ROBERT OPPENHEIMER When I was born, the doctor looked at my mother and said, 'Congratulations, you have an actor!... SALLY FIELD I met Gemma, my wife, when she was 12. She had a schoolgirl crush on me and her dad had arranged for... GARY NUMAN But my mother and father were married when my mom was 20 and my dad was 24. RACHAEL LEIGH COOK When I was born I was so ugly the doctor slapped my mother. RODNEY DANGERFIELD I raised my sister. I was six when she was born. My mother had to make a living for herself and it w... NATALIA VODIANOVA My mother was 13 when I was born. My childhood was pretty frantic, to say the least. My mother left ... GEORGIA HOLT I had a very distant relationship with my father. It was always just me and my mother. It was a shat... JOAN LINGARD The difference between our family and other poor families was that my mother actively chose to be po... SAID SAYRAFIEZADEH I was born five days before D-Day in 1944. My father was a mechanical engineer, which was a reserved... ROBERT POWELL I have just one black and white photograph left of my mother when she was younger. She was 17 when i... LIZ MURRAY I don't believe in regretting - one should try to move on. My mum was good at that. She was deep... ROBERT WINSTON Keeping up with the Joneses was a full-time job with my mother and father. It was not until many yea... QUENTIN CRISP Like the graduates of some notorious boot camp, my brothers and sisters and I look back with a sort ... STEPHEN J. DUBNER I'm destiny's child. I wasn't meant to be born: my mother bled for four months when she ... SHILPA SHETTY My family was going back to England to visit my mother's grandmother, who was very ill. We went ... KIM CATTRALL My mother had early-onset Alzheimer's, and it took her four years to die. She was only 44; I was... KAROLYN GRIMES My mother was born in Wilmington, Delaware. She's a U.S. citizen, so I'm a U.S. citizen. TED CRUZ My mother was a housewife but she was also an artist. My father was an electrical engineer. JAMES CAMERON My mother's first career was physical therapy, her second was writer, and her third career was p... BETSY HODGES I am the grandson of immigrants from Japan who went to America, boldly going to a strange new world,... GEORGE TAKEI My mother and father had so many ups and downs and stayed with each other and helped each other. My ... PATTI SMITH My mother was madly adventurous. My father was an actor - he worked with Gielgud - and my mother cam... FRANCESCA ANNIS My mother was a domestic goddess and Mother Earth figure. She was sweet and placid - just what the p... JOAN COLLINS When my father died, my mother came back from being Mrs. Birkin to being Judy Campbell. She was a st... JANE BIRKIN My parents separated soon after I was born, so I left Helsinki when I was a year old. My mother took... GEORGE GAYNES At age 11, I went to a Jewish school. I speak Yiddish. I'm Church of England Protestant. My fath... MICHAEL CAINE My father, born in Colorado, met my mother, born in Switzerland, when he went into the finance compa... SUSAN STRAIGHT My mother was working on her college degree throughout my childhood, and being the youngest in the f... VALORIE CURRY My mother told me I was dancing before I was born. She could feel my toes tapping wildly inside her ... GINGER ROGERS I'm a strange mixture of my mother's curiosity; my father, who grew up the son of the manse ... RUPERT MURDOCH My father was a veteran and my mother a schoolteacher. They taught me the value of a good job and an... STEPHEN PAGLIUCA My father was a dark-skinned brother, but my mother was a very fair-skinned lady. From what I unders... ICE T My mother was a single working mother; she started having children very young. There was a tension i... NATALIE MERCHANT I come from a blue-collar family. My father worked at the American Can Company as a mechanic. He bro... JOSEPH ABBOUD I was always impressed by Betty Ford and what she went through and how full of integrity she was, an... TERESA HEINZ My mother was very strong. Once, she picked up a coconut and smashed it against my father's head... ALICE WALKER Although I come from a family who are Muslim - my mother is Egyptian, my father is Palestinian - my ... YASMINE AL MASRI My mother died of cystic fibrosis before I knew her. I was two years old, and I don't remember h... JOHN LLOYD YOUNG My father was a Jewish immigrant who settled in Argentina and was left to his own devices at the age... CESAR MILSTEIN When I was born, my parents and my mother's parents planted a dogwood tree in the side yard of t... JOHN UPDIKE My mom was a professional fitness competitor, so I go into the gym with her. I train with my dad and... BOOBOO STEWART My mother, at least twice, cancelled our family's subscription to the newspaper I was working on... CHARLES KURALT You see, my mother was a district nurse until she died when I was 14, and we used to move from time ... PAUL MCCARTNEY My mother Diana was a true-blue aristocrat, descended from William the Conqueror and listed in '... CELIA IMRIE I was named Margaret Yvonne. 'Margaret' because my mother was very fond of one of the deriva... YVONNE DE CARLO My mother's family is Christian: her father was a Baptist lay preacher, and her brother, in a le... SHEREEN EL FEKI My mother was the first woman in the county in Indiana where we were born, in Jay County, to have a ... TWYLA THARP I was raised by my great-great aunt. I was adopted within our family. My mother had me when she was,... ERIC DICKERSON My mother was a dramatic and egocentric person, and she died before my father, who died of Alzheimer... SUE MILLER I was a kid, and I remember my mother singing. She was also a radio soap opera actress, but my mothe... RUBEN BLADES My father was a schoolteacher and my mother came from a teacher's family. SIMON VAN DER MEER My number one inspiration was my mother. She worked two jobs and had breakfast and dinner prepared. ... CHRISTOPHER JUDGE I was born in Brooklyn in 1922. Both my mother and father were Russian Jewish emigrants who came to ... STANLEY COHEN I was born on 7 September 1917 at Sydney in Australia. My father was English-born and a graduate of ... JOHN CORNFORTH My grandmother spoiled my father rotten, and he grew up expecting women to do whatever he wanted. Wh... JOAN COLLINS My father who was there in the house, he wasn't at all a role model. And my mother, who was tryi... TYLER PERRY My mother begged doctors to end her life. She was beyond the physical ability to swallow enough of t... POLLY TOYNBEE My mother was harsh and constantly told me I had jug ears and heaven knows what else. But she was de... CARMEN DELL'OREFICE No, I have not a drop of what they call white blood in my veins. My father was a full blooded Negro,... EDMONIA LEWIS My father was a Methodist and my mother was a Baptist. T. D. JAKES When I was nine years old, living on the south side of Chicago, my father was a minister and my moth... MR. T My mother was the greatest example to me of anyone I've ever known. She didn't have an easy ... LAUREN BACALL When I was a child I asked my mother what homosexuality was about and she said - and this was 100 ye... KARL LAGERFELD My father was a construction worker most of his life. My mother, when she came from Guadalajara, Jal... XAVIER BECERRA My father's very public life as Famous Amos was the opposite of that of his ex-wife, my mother S... SHAWN AMOS My father left school at 14, my mother at 13. My father was clever and well-read. He took a newspape... ROBERT HARRIS When I was a kid, my daily routine was playing make-believe, and I kind of created these stories thr... NINA ARIANDA When my first daughter was born, my husband held her in his hands and said, 'My God, she's s... AYELET WALDMAN Well I'm a third-generation musician. My Grandfather's a musician and my father and mother w... SAM RIVERS
More Margo Jefferson
My mind is stuffed with quotes. Lines, couplets, paragraphs, stanzas; Bessie Smith, Stevie Smith, Ti... MARGO JEFFERSON Even criticism is more interesting when the writer's authority does not only come through this o... MARGO JEFFERSON Depression is so treacherous - it can be so alluring as well as punishing. After all, it's yours... MARGO JEFFERSON Every mind is a clutter of memories, images, inventions and age-old repetitions. It can be a ghetto,... MARGO JEFFERSON Black Power was really a major challenge to the social privileges and structures of the kind of priv... MARGO JEFFERSON I do not regret the years I spent reading the traditional canon of white male writers in school. I d... MARGO JEFFERSON Fashion for my mother was about asserting and demonstrating you had aesthetics, tastes, sensibility,... MARGO JEFFERSON Michael Jackson loved epic symbols. In his shows and his videos, he always destroyed or salvaged wor... MARGO JEFFERSON Michael Jackson was one of popular culture's greatest artists. Nobody danced better. Few sang mo... MARGO JEFFERSON In many ways, everything about my upbringing decreed that I wouldn't write a memoir because in t... MARGO JEFFERSON Since pre-Emancipation, black 'females' have had to fight for the whites-only privilege of b... MARGO JEFFERSON The piece I most love wearing is Mother's gold brocade cocktail dress with matching jacket... It... MARGO JEFFERSON We Americans are childish about our celebrities and icons. We worship, then we denounce; we identify... MARGO JEFFERSON In general, fashion is decorative, it's protective, it acknowledges that the world does involve ... MARGO JEFFERSON I would certainly say that my life, and perhaps human life in general, follows an intricate pattern ... MARGO JEFFERSON Clever of me to become a critic. We critics scrutinize and show off to a higher end. For a greater g... MARGO JEFFERSON Popular music is one endless love song that, I suspect, the basically solitary Ella Fitzgerald appro... MARGO JEFFERSON I first wrote about Michael Jackson in the 1980s. His skin was growing paler, his features thinner, ... MARGO JEFFERSON Sometimes it feels as if the artist hasn't done the real work of engaging with the material. Fil... MARGO JEFFERSON I was nearing the end of childhood when I started to pay real attention to jazz singers. Women excel... MARGO JEFFERSON 'Melancholy' is prettier than 'depression'; it connotes a kind of nocturnal grace. M... MARGO JEFFERSON New Yorkers know how to borrow wildly. You know, Louis Armstrong was not a New York musician. He wen... MARGO JEFFERSON Noir is a court of human relations, and some crimes are beyond legal restitution. MARGO JEFFERSON Once avant-garde artists receive official recognition, they start a double life. In one, they inspir... MARGO JEFFERSON Like dancers with choreography or actors with scripts, jazz singers could take material that was kno... MARGO JEFFERSON No society ever rights a wrong without finding a new one to put in its place MARGO JEFFERSON As the years pass, I find that writers who were once central to me aren't anymore. I revered Yea... MARGO JEFFERSON Privilege is provisional. It can be denied, withheld, offered grudgingly, and summarily withdrawn. MARGO JEFFERSON You were not supposed to show off in Negroland because you are supposed to be perfectly decorous and... MARGO JEFFERSON Thank God for jazz. It gave black women what film and theater gave white women: a well-lighted space... MARGO JEFFERSON If you were a successful upper-middle-class Negro girl in the 1950s and '60s, you were, in pract... MARGO JEFFERSON A Negro girl could never be purely innocent. The vengeful Race Fairy always lurked nearby; your pare... MARGO JEFFERSON I need to acknowledge the toll certain parts of my life are taking on me. I have to do that, even if... MARGO JEFFERSON I think it's too easy to recount your unhappy memories when you write about yourself. You bask i... MARGO JEFFERSON At the very least, noir offers an alternate reality - moments of real passion, a bleak code of honor... MARGO JEFFERSON I think the most harmful belief passed on to me - not always directly - was the belief that whatever... MARGO JEFFERSON Negroland is my name for a small region of Negro America where residents were sheltered by a certain... MARGO JEFFERSON Many say that no real avant-garde - which I'll define as a combative group of free-thinking arti... MARGO JEFFERSON Several elementary school teachers had described me as a 'future authoress or poetess.' Moth... MARGO JEFFERSON I found literary idols in Adrienne Kennedy, Nella Larsen, and Ntozake Shange, writers who'd dare... MARGO JEFFERSON Why did Nature create man? Was it to show that she is big enough to make mistakes, or was it pure ig... MARGO KAUFMAN I would be willing to bet that if one day a woman walked barefoot to the moon and back and a man cle... MARGO KAUFMAN From my experience, the best advisors help in three ways: encourage you to look at the problem or op... MARGO GEORGIADIS Consumers have a different path to purchase. They don't shop less than they used to; it is just ... MARGO GEORGIADIS I'm a very promiscuous reader. My dad's a big science fiction fan, so I'd read 'Dune... MARGO LANAGAN The only thing worse than a man you can't control is a man you can. MARGO KAUFMAN Remarriage is an excellent test of just how amicable your divorce was. MARGO KAUFMAN I once complained to my father that I didn't seem to be able to do things the same way other people ... MARGO KAUFMAN How on earth do people imagine we equip children for life if we never show them the sorts of issues ... MARGO LANAGAN I know that there are people who believe that if they get to the stage where life is absolutely into... MARGO MACDONALD I would be willing to bet that if one day a woman walked barefoot to the moon and back and a man cle... MARGO KAUFMAN You can see and smell the habitat. It's a very pungent perfume. MARGO STAHL They had the foresight and donated the land. MARGO STAHL The percentage of fat in this product here is almost 50 percent fat. But it's turkey. But because it... MARGO RODRIGUEZ Life is happening so make it happen before it's happened MARGO VADER It's not enough any more for the government to publish dietary guidelines and point their finger at ... MARGO WOOTAN I work in this area, and I don't even know what some of those things are referring to. MARGO WOOTAN Schools can make money without selling junk food. MARGO WOOTAN The definition is out of date and out of sync with current nutritional concerns for children, MARGO WOOTAN It's as important for children to know how to prevent heart disease, cancer and diabetes as it is fo... MARGO WOOTAN This means that the policy effectively does not address high schools at all because it won't affect ... MARGO WOOTAN It's impressive that Kraft was able to do two 100 percent whole-grain cookies. MARGO WOOTAN [Communities that do step up to reverse poor nutrition trends often face considerable opposition fro... MARGO WOOTAN This is a good step toward reducing artery-clogging fat in french fries, but it doesn't make french ... MARGO WOOTAN The money from soda contracts comes out of children's and parents' pockets. Coke, Pepsi, and other j... MARGO WOOTAN New Dawn Coming MARGO TIMMINS How different other families were, the shape of them, the things they presumed, the children that gr... MARGO LANAGAN My aids, or my commands to the horse, should not be visible to the naked eye. It's kind of like when... MARGO DEWKETT It was great that we came from behind and had some adversity. It was a big win for us. MARGO JONKER It had 822 calories and 32 grams of fat. So the calorie content was much higher than the bacon doubl... MARGO RODRIGUEZ Disco-era nutrition standards don't make sense in 2006. MARGO WOOTAN Growing old happens but growing up needn't happen MARGO VADER Sweet Jane. MARGO TIMMINS There's this assumption that all children have the luxury of a childhood where their innocence i... MARGO LANAGAN Wilson was a consummate entertainer. He truly loved to perform, and when he took the stage, he would... MARGO LEWIS heavily tattooed women can be said to control and subvert the ever-present 'male gaze' by forcing me... MARGO DEMELLO Our officers worked tirelessly to ensure evidence is preserved and the birds are treated for their w... MARGO CASTORENA We found all the training paraphernalia, boots, spurs and all the equipment that they need to train ... MARGO CASTORENA If your laptop gets stolen, they still can't get to your data. MARGO DAY There's a process of educating both the customer and the partners that serve them on the kinds of so... MARGO DAY I am one of the few people that I know who has done the prevention, intervention and treatment. I so... MARGO DEANE I would say since we've been doing it, at least 60 to 70 percent of the people who have completed th... MARGO DEANE It's been a combination of issues for us. A lot of it depends on how we do in the circle, but we als... MARGO JONKER We played extremely poor in Saturday's game. Defensively, offensively, the whole game was poorly pla... MARGO JONKER Kent State is coming from behind and scoring a lot of runs. They are playing confidently. It should ... MARGO JONKER We are beating ourselves. We're giving them too much, giving them too many opportunities. We need to... MARGO JONKER In order for us to be effective as a pitching staff, we have to get ahead in the count. We have to m... MARGO JONKER Obviously it's nice, but I've been fortunate to be in an environment that allows me to succeed. It's... MARGO JONKER We'll have live entertainment, music, dancers, anything and everything keeping in the time frame of ... MARGO JARVIS There's no doubt from this survey that people think the problems that led to the creation of the Cap... MARGO FENN You get a lot more money than you put in - in services and actual mitigation money. MARGO FENN This is a town project. It's the towns' call. MARGO FENN I know the difference between an inconvenience and a problem, an inconvenience is losing a job. A pr... MARGO DEWKETT And their first instinctual reaction is to flee. Everything we do in education is to teach the horse... MARGO DEWKETT All of that snorting, it's just like an algebra problem. We're going to give him a job. By giving hi... MARGO DEWKETT We've wanted to come back here since the end of last year. MARGO MUHLBAUER I thought it was pretty cool. Not many people get a chance to do that. MARGO MUHLBAUER I can't think of a better place to end it but Wells Fargo Arena. MARGO MUHLBAUER We see each other at dance on Sundays and always talk about the big game. It's not just competition;... MARGO MUHLBAUER I've been very fortunate to play with a lot of great players. They always seem to find me on the cou... MARGO MUHLBAUER Our second half pressure defense helped us win the game. MARGO MUHLBAUER We tried to stay focused after they surprised us with their out-side shooting in the first quarter. MARGO MUHLBAUER As the service moved forward toward its powerful climax, the miracles would begin. Kathryn would sud... MARGO MONG Not everyone was healed during these services. She would tell those who looked to her for a healing ... MARGO MONG ... Her gradual ascent to stardom began right here in western Pennsylvania. MARGO MONG This is a trigger time for youth to start to obsess about weight and body image. MARGO MAINE This is a trigger time for youth to start to obsess about weight and body image. By the beginning of... MARGO MAINE It happens to the best of us. When I am in the Scottish Parliament chamber, I often feel the need to... MARGO MACDONALD They are fantastic, a real rainbow alliance, with Muslims, Christians and a Jewish player joining to... MARGO MACDONALD He was in hospital very near his home in Virginia. MARGO LEWIS He was always in demand. He last performed at the end of 2004. MARGO LEWIS It's very uplifting to see the response. People are learning about our history and how to care for t... MARGO STRINGFIELD We don't know what, if anything, was taken. But it does look like there was thought to this. It was ... MARGO STRINGFIELD The beach is Mother Nature's trail. You can walk for 3 miles to the St. Lucie Inlet State Park. MARGO STAHL It was supposed to be a very friendly, very self-esteem building environment for women. Compared to ... MARGO SCHLANGER If the alternative to a temporary race segregation is a riot, where people get hurt, then yeah, you ... MARGO SCHLANGER It's not clear to me that the big loss to women is the loss of a woman justice, it's the loss of a m... MARGO SCHLANGER It's got the exact same grams of fat. If we take the calories from fat, which are 30, and divide it ... MARGO RODRIGUEZ We're confused because information on a food label is in a different language. MARGO RODRIGUEZ He's the Bono of Canada. This sort of work that these guys do, they're not just talking about it all... MARGO TIMMINS Everybody wants to change the world. But I guess how we want to change it is a little bit more quiet... MARGO TIMMINS It's one of those songs that when we play for an audience it's interesting to see people's reactions... MARGO TIMMINS I'd like to see a quiet album and go back to being sparse again, because this album is such a big al... MARGO TIMMINS It's not that we don't want to be all over the radio, ... I'd love to have a hit single. However, I ... MARGO TIMMINS Every so often in the last 20 years, Hollywood has called, ... And every MARGO TIMMINS By 2010, the net reduction in global emissions from Europe meeting the Kyoto Protocol will be only 0... MARGO THORNING A cooperative global approach to reducing emission growth is more likely to produce real emissions r... MARGO THORNING The findings of our research suggest that an alternative approach (to climate change) is urgently ne... MARGO THORNING We need to focus on things like the [Asia Pacific Partnership on Clean Development and Climate], whi... MARGO THORNING It's just really gross to see kids who don't do a thing, while the grandpas and uncles are working h... MARGO WILLIAMS I let her take control. The older kids listen to her. Sometimes, I feel like it's not my place. My p... MARGO WILLIAMS It'll take months... and potentially years before the ultimate outcome is known. The management rema... MARGO VIGNOLA Punishing the prostitute promotes the rape of all women. When prostitution is a crime, the message c... MARGO ST. JAMES All the things that you said when you thought I wasn't there, I just tell them to my corner, 'c... MARGO T. ROSE Did you say all that you meant to Before the curtain closed? Or did you feel so much more<... MARGO T. ROSE My mind is like a little house, My peers break into. They rearrange my furniture, And... MARGO T. ROSE It doesn't mean anything; It doesn't change anything, Except the way I see myself, An... MARGO T. ROSE I'm still looking for someone Who said they were here for me, And I thought I was once the... MARGO T. ROSE I know you're feeling worried, But I promise I'm okay. You think I'm missing all the fun,<... MARGO T. ROSE We met at a cross-roads in life, But we were going different directions. We were part of e... MARGO T. ROSE It's not that I'm angry; You've done nothing wrong. I'm just not sure why I'm staying MARGO T. ROSE I know I've got no reason to be crying; I know that there is nowhere left to run. I know t... MARGO T. ROSE Your smile breaks my heart, And your laughter burns my skin, And if I had to tell you how ... MARGO T. ROSE That thing you thought you'd do You start to think you can't; You always say tomorrow, MARGO T. ROSE There's no room for me in your world; It's time I stopped pretending. But nothing hurts me... MARGO T. ROSE Don't be sorry; Don't you cry. It's enough That you tried. I love you, And ... MARGO T. ROSE An injured friend is the bitterest of foes. THOMAS JEFFERSON A coward is much more exposed to quarrels than a man of spirit. THOMAS JEFFERSON The most successful war seldom pays for its losses. THOMAS JEFFERSON The second office in the government is honorable and easy; the first is but a splendid misery. THOMAS JEFFERSON Difference of opinion is advantageous in religion. The several sects perform the office of a Censor ... THOMAS JEFFERSON So confident am I in the intentions, as well as wisdom, of the government, that I shall always be sa... THOMAS JEFFERSON I abhor war and view it as the greatest scourge of mankind. THOMAS JEFFERSON We are not to expect to be translated from despotism to liberty in a featherbed. THOMAS JEFFERSON There is not a sprig of grass that shoots uninteresting to me. THOMAS JEFFERSON When we get piled upon one another in large cities, as in Europe, we shall become as corrupt as Euro... THOMAS JEFFERSON Where the press is free and every man able to read, all is safe. THOMAS JEFFERSON For a people who are free, and who mean to remain so, a well-organized and armed militia is their be... THOMAS JEFFERSON If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was a... THOMAS JEFFERSON If there is one principle more deeply rooted in the mind of every American, it is that we should hav... THOMAS JEFFERSON The natural cause of the human mind is certainly from credulity to skepticism. THOMAS JEFFERSON One loves to possess arms, though they hope never to have occasion for them. THOMAS JEFFERSON I have no ambition to govern men; it is a painful and thankless office. THOMAS JEFFERSON Leave no authority existing not responsible to the people. THOMAS JEFFERSON Ignorance is preferable to error, and he is less remote from the truth who believes nothing than he ... THOMAS JEFFERSON It takes time to persuade men to do even what is for their own good. THOMAS JEFFERSON Every government degenerates when trusted to the rulers of the people alone. The people themselves a... THOMAS JEFFERSON It does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods or no God. THOMAS JEFFERSON Friendship is but another name for an alliance with the follies and the misfortunes of others. Our o... THOMAS JEFFERSON I was bold in the pursuit of knowledge, never fearing to follow truth and reason to whatever results... THOMAS JEFFERSON No duty the Executive had to perform was so trying as to put the right man in the right place. THOMAS JEFFERSON It is our duty still to endeavor to avoid war; but if it shall actually take place, no matter by who... THOMAS JEFFERSON The moment a person forms a theory, his imagination sees in every object only the traits which favor... THOMAS JEFFERSON To compel a man to furnish funds for the propagation of ideas he disbelieves and abhors is sinful an... THOMAS JEFFERSON Our country is now taking so steady a course as to show by what road it will pass to destruction, to... THOMAS JEFFERSON Don't talk about what you have done or what you are going to do. THOMAS JEFFERSON The man who reads nothing at all is better educated than the man who reads nothing but newspapers. THOMAS JEFFERSON I believe that every human mind feels pleasure in doing good to another. THOMAS JEFFERSON Truth is certainly a branch of morality and a very important one to society. THOMAS JEFFERSON Always take hold of things by the smooth handle. THOMAS JEFFERSON Do you want to know who you are? Don't ask. Act! Action will delineate and define you. THOMAS JEFFERSON Nothing is unchangeable but the inherent and unalienable rights of man. THOMAS JEFFERSON It is always better to have no ideas than false ones; to believe nothing, than to believe what is wr... THOMAS JEFFERSON No government ought to be without censors; and where the press is free no one ever will. THOMAS JEFFERSON No freeman shall be debarred the use of arms. THOMAS JEFFERSON No man will ever carry out of the Presidency the reputation which carried him into it. THOMAS JEFFERSON He who knows best knows how little he knows. THOMAS JEFFERSON Experience hath shewn, that even under the best forms of government those entrusted with power have,... THOMAS JEFFERSON To penetrate and dissipate these clouds of darkness, the general mind must be strengthened by educat... THOMAS JEFFERSON Whenever you do a thing, act as if all the world were watching. THOMAS JEFFERSON It is neither wealth nor splendor; but tranquility and occupation which give you happiness. THOMAS JEFFERSON The great object of my fear is the federal judiciary. That body, like gravity, ever acting, with noi... THOMAS JEFFERSON The judiciary of the United States is the subtle corps of sappers and miners constantly working unde... THOMAS JEFFERSON When a man assumes a public trust, he should consider himself as public property. THOMAS JEFFERSON The second office of this government is honorable & easy, the first is but a splendid misery. THOMAS JEFFERSON The mobs of great cities add just so much to the support of pure government, as sores do to the stre... THOMAS JEFFERSON A sense of this necessity, and a submission to it, is to me a new and consolatory proof that whereve... THOMAS JEFFERSON With earnest prayers to all my friends to cherish mutual good will, to promote harmony and conciliat... THOMAS JEFFERSON The question Whether one generation of men has a right to bind another, seems never to have been sta... THOMAS JEFFERSON The art of reasoning becomes of first importance. In this line antiquity has left us the finest mode... THOMAS JEFFERSON