I have never been so well pleased, as when I could shift …

I have never been so well pleased, as when I could shift power from my own, on the shoulders of others; nor have I ever been able to conceive how any rational being could propose happiness to himself from the exercise of power over others. Thomas Jefferson
Thomas Jefferson, letter to Monsieur Destutt de Tracy, January 26, 1811, reprinted in The Writings of Thomas Jefferson, XIII, ed. A. E. Bergh (1853) (1743-1826)