Thomas Jefferson - dude!

I rise with the sun

"But whether I retire to bed early or late, I rise with the sun."

(Jefferson to Dr. Vine Utley, March 21, 1819. Peterson, Merrill, ed. Jefferson: Writings. New York: Literary Classics of the U.S.: Distributed to the trade in the U.S. and Canada by the Viking Press, c1984, p. 1417.)

"I cannot live without books: but fewer will suffice where amusement, and not use, is the only future object."

(Jefferson to John Adams, June 10, 1815. Cappon, Lester J., ed. The Adams-Jefferson Letters. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1987, p. 443.)

Gardening

"No occupation is so delightful to me as the culture of the earth, and no culture comparable to that of the garden … But though an old man, I am but a young gardener."

(Jefferson to Charles W. Peale, August 20, 1811. Lipscomb, Andrew A. and Albert Ellery Bergh, ed. The Writings of Thomas Jefferson, Volume 13. Washington D.C.: Issued under the auspices of the Thomas Jefferson Memorial Association of the United States, 1903-04, p. 79.)

A Decalogue of Canons for Observation in Practical Life

• Never put off till to-morrow what you can do to-day.
• Never trouble another for what you can do yourself.
• Never spend your money before you have it.
• Never buy what you do not want, because it is cheap; it will be dear to you.
• Pride costs us more than hunger, thirst, and cold.
• We never repent of having eaten too little.
• Nothing is troublesome that we do willingly.
• How much pain have cost us the evils which have never happened.
• Take things always by their smooth handle.
• When angry, count ten, before you speak; if very angry, a hundred.

(Randall, Henry S. The Life of Thomas Jefferson, Volume 3. New York: Derby & Jackson, 1858, p. 525.)

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