I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies.
Interpretation
Jefferson warns that banks pose a greater threat to freedom than military forces.
In this quote, Thomas Jefferson expresses his concern over the influence and power of banking institutions, suggesting that they can undermine individual liberties more severely than the presence of a military. He emphasizes the potential for economic systems to manipulate and control societies, highlighting the need for vigilance in protecting democratic freedoms against the power of financial entities.
In practice
In a speech about financial reform, one might use this quote to emphasize the importance of regulating banking practices.
The firmness with which the (American) people have withstood the... abuses of the press, the discernment they have manifested between truth and falsehood, show that they may safely be trusted to hear everything true and false and to form a correct judgment between them.
I, place economy among the first & most important republican virtues, & public debt as the greatest of the dangers to be feared
βWe must make our choice between economy and liberty or confusion and servitude...If we run into such debts, we must be taxed in our meat and drink, in our necessities and comforts, in our labor and in our amusements...if we can prevent the government from wasting the labor of the people, under the pretense of caring for them, they will be happy.
Very many and very meritorious were the worthy patriots who assisted in bringing back our government to its republican tack. To preserve it in that, will require unremitting vigilance.
A nation, as a society, forms a moral person, and every member of it is personally responsible for his society.
Timid men prefer the calm of despotism to the tempestuous sea of liberty.
Perfect freedom is as necessary to the health and vigor of commerce as it is to the health and vigor of citizenship.
But, in fact, materialism is among the most problematic of philosophical standpoints, the most impoverished in its explanatory range, and among the most willful and (for want of a better word) magical in its logic, even if it has been in fashion for a couple of centuries or more.
And malt does more than Milton can to justify God's ways to man.
It doth not hurt", whispered a faint voice, "She will take you life and all you are and all you care'st for, and she will leave you with nothing but mist and fog. She'll take your joy. And one day you'll wake and your heart and soul will have gone. A husk you'll be, a wisp you'll be, and a thing no more than a dream on waking, or a memory of something forgotten.
It is enough for me to hear someone talk sincerely about ideals, about the future, about philosophy, to hear him say βwe" with a certain inflection of assurance, to hear him invoke "others" and regard himself as their interpreter - for me to consider him my enemy.
What would life be like if everybody insisted you must have actually built such-and-such a thing by yourself? I'd be an old man and have nothing to show for the aging.
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