My only fear is that I may live too long. This would be a subject of dread to me. - (Jefferson, Thomas - Age and Aging)

Peace, commerce and honest friendship with all nations; entangling alliances with none. - (Jefferson, Thomas - Alliances)

When angry, count to ten before you speak. If very angry, count to one hundred. - (Jefferson, Thomas - Anger)

An association of men who will not quarrel with one another is a thing which has never yet existed, from the greatest confederacy of nations down to a town meeting or a vestry. - (Jefferson, Thomas - Argument)

There is a natural aristocracy among men. The grounds of this are virtue and talents. - (Jefferson, Thomas - Aristocracy)

Nothing can stop the man with the right mental attitude from achieving his goal; nothing on earth can help the man with the wrong mental attitude. - (Jefferson, Thomas - Attitude)

Banking establishments are more dangerous than standing armies. - (Jefferson, Thomas - Bankers and Banking)

I sincerely believe that banking establishments are more dangerous than standing armies, and that the principle of spending money to be paid by posterity, under the name of funding, is but swindling futurity on a large scale. - (Jefferson, Thomas - Bankers and Banking)

I cannot live without books. - (Jefferson, Thomas - Books - Reading)

Books constitute capital. A library book lasts as long as a house, for hundreds of years. It is not, then, an article of mere consumption but fairly of capital, and often in the case of professional men, setting out in life, it is their only capital. - (Jefferson, Thomas - Books - Reading)

The most valuable of all talents is that of never using two words when one will do. - (Jefferson, Thomas - Brevity)

The selfish spirit of commerce, which knows no country, and feels no passion or principle but that of gain. - (Jefferson, Thomas - Business)

I find the pain of a little censure, even when it is unfounded, is more acute than the pleasure of much praise. - (Jefferson, Thomas - Censure)

It is part of the American character to consider nothing as desperate -- to surmount every difficulty by resolution and contrivance. - (Jefferson, Thomas - Character)

A strict observance of the written laws is doubtless one of the high virtues of a good citizen, but it is not the highest. The laws of necessity, of self-preservation, of saving our country when in danger, are of higher obligation. - (Jefferson, Thomas - Citizenship)