I cannot live without books…

—--Thomas Jefferson to John Adams, 10 June 1815  {More}

…ours are the only farmers who can read Homer…

—Thomas Jefferson to St. John de Crevecoeur, January 15, 1787  {More}

…experience hath shewn, that even under the best forms, those entrusted with power have, in time, and by slow operations, perverted it into tyranny; and it is believed that the most effectual means of preventing this would be, to illuminate, as far as practicable, the minds of the people at large, and more especially to give them knowledge of those facts, which history exhibiteth, that, possessed thereby of the experience of other ages and countries, they may be enabled to know ambition under all its shapes, and prompt to exert their natural powers to defeat its purposes…

—Thomas Jefferson, A Bill for the More General Diffusion of Knowledge, Dec. 1778  {More}

Our laws, language, religion, politics, & manners are so deeply laid in English foundations, that we shall never cease to consider their history as a part of ours, and to study ours in that as it’s origin.

—Thomas Jefferson to William Duane, 12 Aug. 1810  {More}

. . .read good books because they will encourage as well as direct your feelings.

—Thomas Jefferson to Peter Carr, August 10, 1787 Knowledge  {More}