The care of human life and happiness, and not their destruction, is the first and only object of good government.
Interpretation
Good government prioritizes the well-being of its citizens over any form of destruction.
Thomas Jefferson emphasizes that the primary responsibility of a government is to care for the lives and happiness of its people. This indicates that governance should aim to enhance the quality of life rather than bring harm, highlighting the moral obligation that leaders have to prioritize the welfare of the population they serve.
In practice
Using this quote in a speech about effective governance.
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.
Mankind, when left to themselves, are unfit for their own government.
Every vote counts and every vote must be counted
Political figures who talk a lot about liberty and freedom invariably turn out to mean the freedom to not pay taxes and discriminate based on race; freedom to hold different ideas and express them, not so much.
I have always seen the United States as a force of good. And I have learned that there is the idealistic part about what we can do at the U.N. and there is a doable part. And I have learned what is more doable.
China's republican politics is like a child who just started schooling. He must have a good teacher and be surrounded by good friends. By the same token, the Chinese people, new to the republican politics, must be educated properly. The revolutionary government should be the people's tutor to impart advanced awareness and experience.
People finally understood that the role of the social-democratic party rests on its conscious leadership of the mass struggle against the existing society, a struggle that must reckon with the vital, necessary conditions of capitalist society.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.