"I think this is the most extraordinary collection of talent, of human knowledge, that has ever been gathered together at the White House, with the possible exception of when Thomas Jefferson dined alone." So said John F Kennedy, at a White House dinner honoring Nobel Prize winners on the 29 April 1962.
In my view Kennedy was right.
The 4th July - in reality it is all about Jefferson. A founding father and drafter of the American constitution he was many things: lawyer, architect, farmer, statesman, President of the USA, French Ambassador and so much more. But also an owner of many hundreds of slaves, a tobacco planter, and possible father to several slave children after his wife died. He also did the greatest land deal in history - buying Louisana from the French for a song. But above all he was wise: below are a few of his sayings:
"A Bill of Rights is what the people are entitled to against every government, and what no just government should refuse, or rest on inference. "
"A wise and frugal Government, which shall restrain men from injuring one another, which shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned. This is the sum of good government, and this is necessary to close the circle of our felicities."
"All tyranny needs to gain a foothold is for people of good conscience to remain silent."
"All, too, will bear in mind this sacred principle, that though the will of the majority is in all cases to prevail, that will to be rightful must be reasonable; that the minority possess their equal rights, which equal law must protect, and to violate would be oppression."
"Commerce with all nations, alliance with none, should be our motto."
"Dependence begets subservience and venality, suffocates the germ of virtue, and prepares fit tools for the designs of ambition."
