You live and learn. At any rate, you live.
The proposition that the people are the best keepers of their own liberties is not true. They are the worst conceivable, they are no keepers at all; they can neither judge, act, think, or will, as a political body.
I always consider the settlement of America with reverence and wonder, as the opening of a grand scene and design in providence, for the illumination of the ignorant and the emancipation of the slavish part of mankind all over the earth.
But a Constitution of Government once changed from Freedom, can never be restored. Liberty, once lost, is lost forever.
Children should be educated and instructed in the principles of freedom.
Life is wasted on the living.
In my many years I have come to a conclusion that one useless man is a shame, two is a law firm, and three or more is a congress.
All the perplexities, confusions, and distress in America arise, not from defects in their constitution or confederation, not from want of honor or virtue, so much as from the downright ignorance of the nature of coin, credit, and circulation.
Facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, or the dictates of our passions, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence.
Jefferson still survivies.