If I could not go to Heaven but with a party, I would not go there at all.
Interpretation
The quote suggests that the value of companionship and social interaction outweighs the desire for individual gain or spiritual reward.
Thomas Jefferson's quote reflects the idea that personal connections and the enjoyment of shared experiences with others are more meaningful than solitary achievements, even in the pursuit of lofty goals such as entering Heaven. It emphasizes the importance of community and relationships, suggesting that a joyful experience is preferred over a solitary one, even if that means foregoing something traditionally considered desirable, like eternal paradise.
In practice
During a speech at a community gathering, when discussing the importance of relationships in our lives.
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.
I think perhaps the most important problem is that we are trying to understand the fundamental workings of the universe via a language devised for telling one another when the best fruit is.
Under the First Amendment there is no such thing as a false idea. However pernicious an opinion may seem, we depend for its correction not on the conscience of judges and juries but on the competition of other ideas.
To advance the Gospel by political lobbying, by any form of pragmatism, shallow Gospel entertainment, emotional manipulation, acceptance of sin and sinners, is to cross over into the devil's work.
Many persons nowadays seem to think that any conclusion must be very scientific if the arguments in favor of it are derived from twitching of frogs' legs (especially if the frogs are decapitated) and that, on the other hand, any doctrine chiefly vouched for by the feelings of human beings (with heads on their shoulders) must be benighted and superstitious.
Although gold and silver are not by nature money, money is by nature gold and silver.
Years, following years, steal something every day; At last they steal us from ourselves away.
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