Thomas Jefferson - Iconic Quotes

Jefferson wrote so much that a great many lines have been pinned on him. Four of the five here come with a source. "We hold these truths to be self-evident" is the Declaration of Independence, drafted in Philadelphia in June 1776. "I have sworn upon the altar of God eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man" is from a letter to Benjamin Rush dated September 23, 1800.

The "dangerous freedom" line is his too, though he wrote it in Latin, in a letter to James Madison on January 30, 1787: "Malo periculosam, libertatem quam quietam servitutem." The English is a translation. The call to "educate and inform the whole mass of the people" dates from December 1787.

The fifth, "In matters of style, swim with the current; in matters of principle, stand like a rock," is not found in anything Jefferson wrote. Monticello's researchers list it as a spurious quotation. It turns up in print in 1891 as an unsigned adage and is tied to his name only around 1973. It is still a fine motto. It just belongs to someone else.

The five lines run down a stack of red and cream stripes, one to a stripe, with a small field of five stars in the corner, a dark profile at the upper right, and his name in cream on a navy bar at the base.