On her twelfth birthday, Cornelia Jefferson Randolph received a letter from her grandfather that she often reread. Thomas Jefferson told his granddaughter that the “Canons of Conduct in Life” were:
1.Never put off to tomorrow what you can do today.
2.Never trouble another with what you can do yourself.
3.Never spend your money before you have it.
4.Never buy a thing you do not want because it is cheap.
5.Take care of your cents. Dollars will take care of themselves.
6.Pride costs more than hunger, thirst and cold.
7.We never repent of eating too little.
8.Nothing is troublesome that one does willingly.
9.When angry, count to ten before you speak, if very angry, count to one hundred.
Funny how much of it still applies to life 200+ years later…
