The Bible is the cornerstone of liberty.
Interpretation
Jefferson emphasizes the importance of the Bible in establishing and preserving freedom.
In this quote, Thomas Jefferson highlights the idea that the Bible serves as a foundational text that contributes to the concept of liberty. He suggests that the moral and ethical teachings found within its pages provide guidance for just governance and the protection of individual rights, thereby acting as a cornerstone for a free society.
In practice
In a speech about the importance of moral foundations in society, one could cite this quote to stress the role of religious texts.
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.
Every established order tends to produce the naturalization of its own arbitrariness.
The cleverer I am at miniaturizing the world, the better I possess it.
Slavery was a long slow process of dulling.
Between the uprightness of my conscience and the hardness of my lot, I know not how either to show respect to my feelings or to the times. The bitterness of my mind urges me at all hazards to speak what I think, whereas the necessity of the times prompts me, however unbecomingly, to keep silence. Good God! Which way shall I turn myself?
You are living in a dream of your own creation. Let it be the dream of a lifetime, for that is exactly what it is.
A craving for freedom and independence is generated only in a man still living on hope.
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