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Nearly all of it is now called in by the banks, who have the regulation of the safety-valves of our fortunes, and who condense and explode them at their will.

— Thomas Jefferson Letter to John Adams (1819)

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Luck

More quotes by Thomas Jefferson

I have sworn upon the altar of god eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man.

Our liberty depends on the freedom of the press, and that cannot be limited without being lost.

I have ever deemed it more honorable and profitable, too, to set a good example than to follow a bad one.

For a people who are free, and who mean to remain so, a well organized and armed militia is their best security.

The God who gave us life, gave us liberty at the same time; the hand of force may destroy, but cannot disjoin them.

Summary View of the Rights of British America (1774)

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In the fields of observation chance favors only the prepared mind.

Louis Pasteur

Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon 'em.

William Shakespeare Twelfth Night (1601)

O Fortune, cruellest of heavenly powers,
Why make such game of this poor life of ours?

Horace Satires (-35)

Vicissitudes of fortune, which spares neither man nor the proudest of his works, which buries empires and cities in a common grave.

Edward Gibbon The History of the Decline And Fall Of The Roman Empire (1776)

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Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Thomas Jefferson (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.