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Respectfully Quoted: A Dictionary of Quotations. 1989.

 
NUMBER: 726
AUTHOR: Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826)
QUOTATION: I think our governments will remain virtuous for many centuries; as long as they are chiefly agricultural; and this will be as long as there shall be vacant lands in any part of America. When they get piled upon one another in large cities, as in Europe, they will become corrupt as in Europe.
ATTRIBUTION: THOMAS JEFFERSON, letter to James Madison, December 20, 1787.—The Papers of Thomas Jefferson, ed. Julian P. Boyd, vol. 12, p. 442 (1955).
SUBJECTS: Government