“I see the necessity of sacrificing our opinions sometimes to the opinions of others for the sake of harmony.” –Thomas Jefferson to Francis Eppes, 1790

“Is uniformity of opinion desirable? No more than of face and stature.” –Thomas Jefferson: Notes on Virginia 1782.

“It is a singular anxiety which some people have that we should all think alike. Would the world be more beautiful were all our faces alike? were our tempers, our talents, our tastes, our forms, our wishes, aversions and pursuits cast exactly in the same mould? If no varieties existed in the animal, vegetable or mineral creation, but all moved strictly uniform, catholic and orthodox, what a world of physical and moral monotony would it be!” –Thomas Jefferson to Charles Thomson, 1817

“I tolerate with the utmost latitude the right of others to differ from me in opinion without imputing to them criminality.” –Thomas Jefferson to Abigail Adams, 1804

“In the heat of debate, men are generally disposed to contradict every authority urged by their opponents.” –Thomas Jefferson to James Madison, 1789

“Things even salutary should not be crammed down the throats of dissenting brethren, especially when they may be put into a form to be willingly swallowed.” –Thomas Jefferson to Edward Livingston, 1824

“I see the necessity of sacrificing our opinions sometimes to the opinions of others for the sake of harmony.” –Thomas Jefferson to Francis Eppes, 1790

“People can never agree without some sacrifices.” –Thomas Jefferson to Lafayette, 1789

“Every man cannot have his way in all things. If his opinion prevails at some times, he should acquiesce on seeing that of others preponderate at other times. Without this mutual disposition we are disjointed individuals, but not a society.” –Thomas Jefferson to John Dickinson, 1801

The bulk of mankind are schoolboys through life.” –Thomas Jefferson: Notes on Coinage, 1784

"Men have differed in opinion and been divided into parties by these opinions from the first origin of societies, and in all governments where they have been permitted freely to think and to speak. The same political parties which now agitate the U.S. have existed through all time. Whether the power of the people or that of the [aristocracy] should prevail were questions which kept the states of Greece and Rome in eternal convulsions, as they now schismatize every people whose minds and mouths are not shut up by the gag of a despot. And in fact the terms of Whig and Tory belong to natural as well as to civil history. They denote the temper and constitution of mind of different individuals." --Thomas Jefferson to John Adams, 1813