"Let those flatter who fear; it is..." - Quote by Thomas Jefferson
Let those flatter who fear; it is not an American art .
More by Thomas Jefferson
“I have but one system of ethics for men and for nations - to be grateful, to be faithful to all engagements under all circumstances, to be open and generous, promoting in the long run even the interests of both”
“Error indeed has often prevailed by the assistance of power or force. Truth is the proper and sufficient antagonist to error.”
“It is so difficult to draw a clear line of separation between the abuse and the wholesome use of the press, that as yet we have found it better to trust the public judgment, rather than the magistrate, with the discrimination between truth and falsehood. And hitherto the public judgment has performed that office with wonderful correctness.”
More on Integrity
“I don't want to be on the other side of the table from the customer. I was never selling anything that I didn't believe in myself or use myself.”
“To have acted otherwise ... would have been the betrayal of the interests of the United States.”
“If you would get money as a writer or lecturer, you must be popular, which is to go down perpendicularly.... You are paid for being something less than a man. The state does not commonly reward a genius any more wisely. Even the poet laureate would rather not have to celebrate the accidents of royalty. He must be bribed with a pipe of wine; and perhaps another poet is called away from his muse to gauge that very pipe.”
More on Character
“He brings something special. I don't know what it is, but if you ask him, you couldn't understand his answer.”
“Your word is your honor. If you say you're going to do something, then you need to do it.”
“There are three things which the superior man guards against. In youth ... lust. When he is strong ... quarrelsomeness. When he is old ... covetousness.”