Thomas Jefferson
“I cannot live without books.”
letter to John Adams, June 10, 1815
Documented source
Source
Thomas Jefferson, letter to John Adams, June 10, 1815
Wording
Exact — from the original letter
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About this line
Jefferson was 72 when he wrote this, and he’d just done something remarkable: sold his personal library — nearly 6,500 volumes, the largest private collection in America — to Congress after the British burned the Capitol in 1814. The nation needed books more than he did. Within weeks of the sale, he was buying again. He wrote to Adams almost apologetically: he simply could not stop. The man who helped found a country on the power of ideas could not imagine a life without the ideas themselves.
Why we carry this line
He sold his library to help rebuild a nation’s collection of knowledge, and immediately started over. I understand that impulse completely. Any book lover does.
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“I have sworn upon the altar of God eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man.”
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