evidence: Anytime I’ve been asked, "If you could have dinner with anyone — living or dead, who would it be?" My answer has always been Thomas Jefferson. Yes, we know that he is a flawed character, but he was also such a Renaissance man. He appreciated beauty, good food, big ideas and words — a man after my own heart. "We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness," is my favorite of all the brilliant things he wrote and said, but here are a few other Jefferson quotes I adore: [...] But I believe Thomas himself would advise me to take his own advice. He said, "I like the dreams of the future better than the history of the past."