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Thomas Jefferson: The Art of Power
Jon Meacham
Top 10 Best Quotes
“Our greatest leaders are neither dreamers nor dictators: They are, like Jefferson, those who articulate national aspirations yet master the mechanics of influence and know when to depart from dogma.”
“He dreamed big but understood that dreams become reality only when their champions are strong enough and wily enough to bend history to their purposes.”
“Broadly put, philosophers think: politicians maneuver. Jefferson's genius was that he was both and could do both, often simultaneously. Such is the art of power.”
“Politicians often talk too much and listen too little, which can be self-defeating, for in many instances the surer route to winning a friend is not to convince them that you are right but that you care what they think.”
“Leadership meant knowing how to distill complexity into a comprehensible message to reach the hearts as well as the minds of the larger world.”
“As much as Jefferson loved France residence abroad gave him greater appreciation for his own nation. He was a tireless advocate for things American while abroad, and a promoter of things European while at home. Moving between two worlds, translating the best of the old into the new and explaining the benefits of the new to the old, he created a role for himself as both intermediary and arbiter.”
“Sometimes paranoids have enemies, and conspiracies are only laughable when they fail to materialize.”
“Jefferson was ambivalent about executive power – until he bore executive responsibility.”
“Immaturity is the inability to use one’s understanding without guidance from another.”
“He turned the presidency – and the President's House – into something it had not been before: a center of curiosity and inquiry, of vibrant institution that played informal but important roles in the broader life of the nation, from science to literature.”
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Book Keywords:
curiosity, appreciation, pessimism, gratitude, leadership, intellectualism, rhetoric, difference, responsibility, liberal-arts, conspiracy, paranoia, motivation, politics, inquiry, accountability, popularity, history-politics-historyofpower