How Did Jefferson Know?

John F. Kennedy held a dinner in the white House for a group of  the brightest minds in the nation at that time. He made this statement: “This is perhaps the assembly of the most intelligence ever together at one time in the White House with the exception of when Thomas Jefferson dined alone.”

Here are some Jefferson Quotes:

• When we get piled upon one another in large cities, as in Europe, we shall become as corrupt as Europe
• The democracy will cease to exist when you take away from those who are willing to work and give to those who would not.
• It is incumbent on every generation to pay its own debts as it goes. A principle which if acted on would save one-half the wars of the world.
• I predict future happiness for Americans if they can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them.
• My reading of history convinces me that most bad government results from too much government.
• No free man shall ever be debarred the use of arms.
  The strongest reason for the people to retain the right to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in government.
• The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.
• To compel a man to subsidize with his taxes the propagation of ideas which he disbelieves and abhors is sinful and tyrannical.

And this one (prophetic) from 1802:

I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies. If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their currency, first by inflation, then by  deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around the banks will deprive the people of all property until their children wake-up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered.

A couple more (as you can see, I am a fan):

“I am among those who think well of the human character generally.  I consider man as formed for society, and endowed by nature with those dispositions which fit him for society.  I believe  also…that his mind is perfectible to a degree of which we cannot as yet form any conception.”

“It is still more certain that in the other branches of science, great fields are yet to be explored to which our faculties are equal, & that to an extent of which we cannot fix the limits.  I join you therefore in branding as cowardly the idea that the human mind is incapable of further advances.  This is precisely the doctrine which the present despots of the earth are inculcating, & their friends here re-echoing; & applying especially to religion and politics; ‘that it is not probable that any thing will be discovered than what was known to our fathers.’ ”

Last two from a letter to William Green Munford, June 18, 1799