"I do not pretend that language is..." - Quote by Thomas Jefferson

“History by apprising them [the people] of the past will enable them to judge of the future. . . . It will qualify them as judges of the actions and designs of men: it will enable them to know ambition under every disguise it may assume; and knowing it, to defeat its views.”

“Heliotrope. To be sowed in the spring. A delicious flower, but I suspect it must be planted in boxes and kept in the house in the winter. The smell rewards the care.”

“The present generation has the same right of self-government which the past one has exercised for itself.”

“And, of course, the funniest food: "kumquats". I don't even bring them home anymore. I sit there laughing and they go to waste.”

“Human society, the world, and the whole of mankind is to be found in the alphabet.”

“Definite speech means clarity of mind.”

“The man of science is a poor philosopher.”

“I am exclusively occupied with the problem of gravitation and hope with the help of a local mathematician friend [Marcel Grossman] to overcome all the difficulties. One thing is certain, however, that never in life have I been quite so tormented. A great respect for mathematics has been instilled within me, the subtler aspects of which, in my stupidity, I regarded until now as pure luxury.”

“From a certain temperature on, the molecules 'condense' without attractive forces; that is, they accumulate at zero velocity. The theory is pretty, but is there some truth in it.”