"When young any composition pleases which unites a little sense, some imagination, and some rhythm, in doses however small. But as we advance in life these things fall off one by one, and I suspect we are left at last with only Homer and Virgil, perhaps Homer alone." - Thomas Jefferson, Thoughts on English Prosody

"and what finer specimens could [the teacher of Latin and Greek] produce & comment on ... in Belles lettres than Homer, Anacreon, Theocritus, Virgil, Horace, Terence & the Greek tragedians, all of them school books?" - Thomas Jefferson to Jason Chamberlain, 1 Jul. 1814 [PTJ:RS 28:447-448]

" ... the sublime measure of Homer ... " - Thomas Jefferson to John Adams, 21 Mar. 1819

"I would advise you to undertake a regular course of history & poetry in both languages, in Greek, go first thro’ the Cyropaedia, and then read Herodotus, Thucydides, Xenophon’s Hellenies & Anabasis, Arrian’s Alexander, & Plutarch’s lives, for prose reading: Homer’s Iliad & Odyssey, Euripides, Sophocles in poetry ... " - Thomas Jefferson to Francis Eppes, 6 Oct. 1820