A Quote by Joe Biden

We Americans think, in every country in transition, there's a Thomas Jefferson hiding behind some rock or a James Madison beyond one sand dune.

Joe Biden

Quote Topics

Behind Beyond Country Dune Every Hiding James Jefferson Madison Rock Sand Some Think Thomas Transition

Quote Author

Joe Biden
American - President
Born: November 20, 1942

When John Adams - when - James Madison was writing - pretty much writing the Constitution, he got a letter from Thomas Jefferson, who was then-ambassador to France. And Jefferson said - I am paraphrasing - `Do not forget to keep habeas corpus and strengthen it.' That - in - that's the oldest English-speaking right. It goes back to the Magna Carta in 1215.

Nat Hentoff

If the federal government has the exclusive right to judge the extent of its own powers, warned the Kentucky and Virginia resolutions' authors (James Madison and Thomas Jefferson, respectively), it will continue to grow - regardless of elections, the separation of powers, and other much-touted limits on government power.

Thomas Woods

I knew Thomas Jefferson. He was a friend of mine. And believe me, you are no Thomas Jefferson. (at 1992 Republican party convention, referring to Bill Clinton)

Ronald Reagan

I want to say to you is that James Madison and Thomas Jefferson did not intend to drive a stake in the heart of religion and to drive it out of our public life. What they intended to do was to set up a system so that we could bring religion into our public life and into our private life without any of us telling the other what to do.

William J. Clinton

The sight of one man standing up to challenge God and country is something that Madison, Jefferson and Franklin would cheer, and every American can celebrate.

Kenneth C. Davis

Every ripple on the ocean, every leaf on every tree, every sand dune in the desert, every power we never see.

Sting

Thomas Jefferson once said: 'Of course the people don't want war. But the people can be brought to the bidding of their leader. All you have to do is tell them they're being attacked and denounce the pacifists for somehow a lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country.' I think that was Jefferson. Oh wait. That was Hermann Goering. Shoot." [Hosting the Peabody Awards for broadcasting excellence at the New York Waldorf-Astoria, June 6, 2006]

Jon Stewart

Most Americans are unaware that Thomas Jefferson was the first American president to go to war against radical Islam. Jefferson was very concerned with Islam's war-like doctrine and its inability to separate mosque and state.

Brad Thor

I got to dislike parties, like Jefferson and Madison. I think they're harmful. But the system is flawed so badly. I like what Plato said, long ago. Democracy is fit only for a small country. Can't survive in a large country.

Jack Kevorkian

... nature photographs downright bore me for some reason or other. I think: 'Oh, yes. Look at that sand dune. What of it?'

Walker Evans

Look, in 1800 the sainted Thomas Jefferson arranged to hire a notorious slanderer named James Callender, who worked as a writer at a Republican newspaper in Richmond, Va. Read some of what he wrote about John Adams. This was a personal slander.

Karl Rove

Thomas Jefferson—another gorgeous white boy who would not have been interested in me. This was my problem in a nutshell. To get some play in Charlottesville, you had to be either a Martha Jefferson or a Sally Hemings.

Tina Fey

I was reading a lot of Thomas Jefferson at the time, and Jefferson said that every 20 years, if one party has stayed in power, it's your obligation as an American to vote the other party in.

Dennis Hopper

One billion grains of sand come into existence in the world each second. That's a cyclical process. As rocks and mountains die, grains of sand are born. Some of those grains may then cement naturally into sandstone. And as the sandstone weathers, new grains break free. Some of those grains may then accumulate on a massive scale, into a sand dune.

Magnus Larsson

I'm a product of a Notre Dame education; those professors taught me a lot about how you separate the city of God from the state. I'm also a reverent follower of the tradition of Thomas Jefferson. My years of public life have simply confirmed the intensity of my belief that what I have learned from Joe Evans and Thomas Jefferson was correct.