> Awesome websight.  Thank you.  I could spend a day absorbing the quotes and
> reflected on the nobler ideals therein espoused.  Good stuff.
>
> I stumbled upon your websight looking to confirm a quote I came across in a
> book of quotations.  One was attributed to Thomas Jefferson that did not
> necessarily sound like Jefferson, or perhaps was being used in a different
> context.  In any event, no site was provided to trace back to the original
> text to read in full.  Could you help me.  Are you familiar with it.  I
> searched your website but could not find it.
>
> It is "the Bible is the cornerstone of liberty."
>
> Can you reference me to a source for this quote?

Many thanks for visiting the website, and for your kind remarks.  Yes, I
believe that Jefferson's thoughts on government, which I tried to set down
in this website, are truly awesome.  On the quotation you ask about,
however, I feel compelled to agree with you.  I don't think it sounds like
Jefferson, and I do not believe it is a genuine Jefferson quotation.  There
are many false TJ quotes around -- most notably "That government is best
that governs least."  Also, there are many that were by someone else that
are attributed to Jefferson, such as "Power corrupts, and absolute power
corrupts absolutely"  But I don't believe Jefferson would ever have said
"The Bible is the cornerstone of liberty."  That doesn't make any real
political sense -- not to me, anyway -- and what Jefferson wrote ALWAYS made
sense, usually infinite sense.

If you ask yourself, What does "the Bible is the cornerstone of liberty"
mean, I think you will find it hard to come up with a good answer.  If one
said "the TEACHINGS of the Bible etc."  or "a faith in the message of the
Bible etc.", that would make a little more sense, whether you agreed with it
or not.  But just saying "the Bible is..." is pretty close to a solecism,
IMO.  How could a book be the cornerstone of an idea or concept?  Now a
person might say, "Oh well, what Jefferson meant was the Bible teaches the
true meaning of liberty."  But the problem with that is, in all my
acquaintance with Jefferson's writings, he NEVER -- NEVER! -- wrote with
that kind of ambiguity.  That's why I say I don't think it is Jefferson.  He
was a brilliant writer, and this statement which he is accused of making is,
literarily speaking, inferior in concept, in my opinion.

One might say that the Bible (as a whole) is the cornerstone of the
Christian religion.  One could even say, incorrectly in my opinion, that the
United States is founded on the principles contained in the Bible.  But I do
not believe it can be said that the term "liberty" and the concept of
liberty are founded on the Bible.  Jefferson wrote:

"Of liberty I would say that, in the whole plenitude of its extent, it is unobstructed
action according to our will. But rightful liberty is unobstructed action according to
our will within limits drawn around us by the equal rights of others. I do not add 'within
the limits of the law,' because law is often but the tyrant's will, and always so when
it violates the right of an individual." --Thomas Jefferson to Isaac H. Tiffany, 1819.

It is difficult to believe that the person who wrote the above brilliant
analysis of liberty would then write that the Bible was the cornerstone of
liberty.  That, in my opinion, is an idea foreign to all of Jefferson's
pronouncements on liberty and an unspecific statement that is not
characteristic of the way Jefferson wrote.  The concept of liberty is not
established in any religious context in any of his writings.  That is the
way I see it.  Now it is possible I could be wrong.  I have not seen every
word that Jefferson wrote, although I have carefully gone through the 20
volume set of the Lipscomb and Bergh Memorial Edition, and I can guarantee
it is not in there.  But I would be very surprised if this is a genuine
Jefferson quote.