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Thomas Jefferson: The Art of Power QUOTES

Thomas Jefferson: The Art of Power QUOTES

1 " No government can be maintained without the principle of fear as well as duty. "

― Jon Meacham , Thomas Jefferson: The Art of Power

2 " As much as Jefferson loved France residence abroad gave him greater appreciation for his own nation. He was a tireless advocate for things American while abroad, and a promoter of things European while at home. Moving between two worlds, translating the best of the old into the new and explaining the benefits of the new to the old, he created a role for himself as both intermediary and arbiter. "

― Jon Meacham , Thomas Jefferson: The Art of Power

3 " Jefferson was ambivalent about executive power – until he bore executive responsibility. "

― Jon Meacham , Thomas Jefferson: The Art of Power

4 " He turned the presidency – and the President's House – into something it had not been before: a center of curiosity and inquiry, of vibrant institution that played informal but important roles in the broader life of the nation, from science to literature. "

― Jon Meacham , Thomas Jefferson: The Art of Power

5 " Jefferson was the rare leader who stood out from the crowd without intimidating it. "

― Jon Meacham , Thomas Jefferson: The Art of Power

6 " Horace Walpole, the writer and politician, meanwhile, once saw Mademoiselle la Chevalière d’Éon, known in her day as a transvestite-diplomat-spy, teaching fencing to the Cosways’ guests in the midst of a party.16,17 "

― Jon Meacham , Thomas Jefferson: The Art of Power

7 " The best political figures create the impression that they find everyone they encounter to be what Abigail Adams said Jefferson was: “one of the choice ones of the earth. "

― Jon Meacham , Thomas Jefferson: The Art of Power

8 " He dreamed big but understood that dreams become reality only when their champions are strong enough and wily enough to bend history to their purposes. "

― Jon Meacham , Thomas Jefferson: The Art of Power

9 " Our greatest leaders are neither dreamers nor dictators: They are, like Jefferson, those who articulate national aspirations yet master the mechanics of influence and know when to depart from dogma. "

― Jon Meacham , Thomas Jefferson: The Art of Power

10 " Broadly put, philosophers think: politicians maneuver. Jefferson's genius was that he was both and could do both, often simultaneously. Such is the art of power. "

― Jon Meacham , Thomas Jefferson: The Art of Power

11 " Politicians often talk too much and listen too little, which can be self-defeating, for in many instances the surer route to winning a friend is not to convince them that you are right but that you care what they think. "

― Jon Meacham , Thomas Jefferson: The Art of Power

12 " Leadership meant knowing how to distill complexity into a comprehensible message to reach the hearts as well as the minds of the larger world. "

― Jon Meacham , Thomas Jefferson: The Art of Power

13 " Sometimes paranoids have enemies, and conspiracies are only laughable when they fail to materialize. "

― Jon Meacham , Thomas Jefferson: The Art of Power

14 " You are now old enough to know how very important to your future life will be the manner in which you employ your present time "

― Jon Meacham , Thomas Jefferson: The Art of Power

15 " Immaturity is the inability to use one’s understanding without guidance from another. "

― Jon Meacham , Thomas Jefferson: The Art of Power

16 " Baron Humboldt asked Jefferson, 'Why are these libels allowed? Why is not this libelous journal suppressed, or its editor at least, fined and imprisoned?' The question gave Jefferson a perfect opening. 'Put that paper in your pocket, Baron, and should you hear the reality of our liberty, the freedom of our press, questioned, show this paper, and tell where you found it. "

― Jon Meacham , Thomas Jefferson: The Art of Power

17 " I think this is the most extraordinary collection of talent, of human knowledge, that has ever been gathered together at the White House, with the possible exception of when Thomas Jefferson dined alone.2 —PRESIDENT JOHN F. KENNEDY, at a dinner in honor of all living recipients of the Nobel Prize, 1962 "

― Jon Meacham , Thomas Jefferson: The Art of Power

18 " It did not speak well of the power of God, in other words, if He needed a human government to prop him up. "

― Jon Meacham , Thomas Jefferson: The Art of Power

19 " A politician's task was to bring reality and policy into the greatest possible account with the ideal and the principled. "

― Jon Meacham , Thomas Jefferson: The Art of Power

20 " For Jefferson, William and Mary was largely about what university life is supposed to be about: reading books, enjoying the company of like-minded, and savoring teachers who seemed to be ambassadors from other, richer, writer worlds. Jefferson believed Williamsburg "the finest school of manners and morals that ever existed in America. "

― Jon Meacham , Thomas Jefferson: The Art of Power