Respectfully Quoted: A Dictionary of Quotations. 1989.
NUMBER:
1924
AUTHOR:
Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826)
QUOTATION:
You have not been mistaken in supposing my views and feeling to be in favor of the abolition of war. Of my dispos[i]tion to maintain peace until its condition shall be made less tolerable than that of war itself, the world has had proofs, and more, perhaps, than it has approved. I hope it is practicable, by improving the mind and morals of society, to lessen the dispos[i]tion to war; but of its abolition I despair.
ATTRIBUTION:
THOMAS JEFFERSON, letter to Noah Worcester, November 26, 1817.—The Writings of Thomas Jefferson, ed. Andrew A. Lipscomb, vol. 18, p. 298 (1903).
