American Sphinx: The Character of Thomas Jefferson

American Sphinx: The Character of Thomas Jefferson, is a 1996 book written by Joseph Ellis, a professor of History at Mount Holyoke College. It won the 1997 National Book Award for Nonfiction.

Read more about American Sphinx: The Character Of Thomas Jefferson:  Overview, Reception, Relationship Between Jefferson and Hemings

Famous quotes containing the words thomas jefferson, american, character, thomas and/or jefferson:

    For themselves they fought, for themselves they conquered, and for themselves alone they have they have right to hold.
    Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826)

    The American doctrinaire is the converse of the American demagogue, and, in this way, is scarcely less injurious to the public. The first deals in poetry, the last in cant. He is as much a visionary on one side, as the extreme theoretical democrat is a visionary on the other.
    James Fenimore Cooper (1789–1851)

    What the statesman is most anxious to produce is a certain moral character in his fellow citizens, namely a disposition to virtue and the performance of virtuous actions.
    Aristotle (384–22 B.C.)

    I see you boys of summer in your ruin.
    Man in his maggot’s barren.
    And boys are full and foreign in the pouch.
    I am the man your father was.
    We are the sons of flint and pitch.
    O see the poles are kissing as they cross.
    —Dylan Thomas (1914–1953)

    The history of his present majesty, is a history of unremitting injuries and usurpations ... all of which have in direct object the establishment of an absolute tyranny over these states. To prove this, let facts be submitted to a candid world, for the truth of which we pledge a faith yet unsullied by falsehood.
    —Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826)