Thomas Jefferson: The Art of Power Quotes

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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 ...

Thomas Jefferson: The Art of Power

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

Thomas Jefferson: The Art of Power

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 believ...

Thomas Jefferson: The Art of Power

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 li...

Thomas Jefferson: The Art of Power

The political nature of man made it highly unlikely that a society designed to meet regularly would remain peaceable. "The way to make friends quarrel is to pit them in disputation under the public eye," Jefferson said.

Thomas Jefferson: The Art of Power

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.

Thomas Jefferson: The Art of Power

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

Thomas Jefferson: The Art of Power

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

Thomas Jefferson: The Art of Power

There is usually a moment in the life of a new president when he begins to see himself not as an aspirant desperate to win but as a statesman above the squalor and sweat of actual vote getting. Rising men do not like to be reminded of the smell of th...

Thomas Jefferson: The Art of Power

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

Thomas Jefferson: The Art of Power

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

Thomas Jefferson: The Art of Power

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

Thomas Jefferson: The Art of Power

The Jefferson style – cultivate his elders, make himself pleasant to his contemporaries, and used his pen and his intellect to shape the debate – arm him well for the national arena.

Thomas Jefferson: The Art of Power