Respectfully Quoted: A Dictionary of Quotations. 1989.
NUMBER:
1246
AUTHOR:
Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826)
QUOTATION:
But let me beseech you, Sir, not to let this letter get into a newspaper. Tranquillity, at my age, is the supreme good of life. I think it a duty, and it is my earnest wish, to take no further part in public affairs…. The abuse of confidence by publishing my letters has cost me more than all other pains.
ATTRIBUTION:
THOMAS JEFFERSON, letter to Charles Hammond, August 18, 1821.—The Writings of Thomas Jefferson, ed. Andrew A. Lipscomb, vol. 15, p. 331 (1903).
