Dissonance Quote by Anonymous

“America has always been torn between the ideal and the real, between noble goals and inevitable compromises. So was Jefferson. In his head and…

— Jon Meacham

“In politics and in his personal life, Thomas Jefferson was a complicated man, but in one thing he was consistent: the wanted the best…

— Thomas J. Craughwell

Jefferson refused to pin his hopes on the occasional success of honest and unambitious men; on the contrary, the great danger was that philosophers…

— Daniel J. Boorstin

“But this does not detract from the wisdom of his faith in the people and his constant insistence that they be left to manage…

— Calvin Coolidge

“I do not believe that Mr. Jefferson ever hated me. On the contrary, I believe he always like me: but he detested Hamilton and…

— John Adams

“Jefferson was ambivalent about executive power – until he bore executive responsibility.”

— Jon Meacham

“Jefferson was relentless in pursuing and putting down threats to his vision of a republican nation. Whether they were Federalist judges and other officeholders—including…

— Jon Meacham

But, Jefferson worried that the people - and the argument goes back to Thucydides and Aristotle - are easily misled. He also stressed, passionately…

— Carl Sagan

“It was of course Jefferson’s gift at one time or another to put with eloquence the “right” answer to every moral question. In practice,…

— Gore Vidal

“When we seek to understand liberty, equality, progress, constitutional governance, separation of church and state, and the meaning of the American Revolution, we do…

— R.B. Bernstein

“Deeply reluctant to judge a Founder as wanting in moral force, modern commentators retreat to a range of adjectives such as ‘flawed,’ ‘human,’ ‘contradictory,’…

— Henry Wiencek

“Alas, he himself was a man too easily encouraged, too completely seduced by hope, only to be devastated by disappointment. He’d been born to…

— Richard Russo