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:

    A prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a people who mean to be free.
    Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826)

    The American is said to become full-flavored, and in time a most all-round man, through the polish which Europe can impart.
    M. E. W. Sherwood (1826–1903)

    Every two years the American politics industry fills the airwaves with the most virulent, scurrilous, wall-to-wall character assassination of nearly every political practitioner in the country—and then declares itself puzzled that America has lost trust in its politicians.
    Charles Krauthammer (b. 1950)

    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)

    [D]ispositions of the mind, like limbs of the body, acquire strength by exercise.
    —Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826)