I have done for my country, and for all mankind, all that I could do, and I now resign my soul, without fear, to my God - my daughter to my country.
Interpretation
This quote expresses a deep sense of duty and surrender to both a higher power and a nation, reflecting on personal sacrifice and responsibility.
In this quote, Thomas Jefferson articulates his commitment to serving his country and humanity at large, suggesting that he has given his all in his efforts. It reflects the profound human experience of balancing personal sacrifice, religious faith, and allegiance, as he resigns his soul to God while entrusting his daughter to the nation he has served, highlighting the interconnectedness of personal and public duty.
In practice
During a remembrance ceremony for veterans, one might quote Jefferson to honor those who have served.
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
We 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.
It is always interesting to see people in dead earnest, from whatever cause, and earthquakes make everybody earnest.
Is it not enough that 'things are cruel and blind'? Must we also be cruel and blind?
The beloved does not drink a single drop of water without seeing His Face in the cup. Allah is He Who flows between the pericardium and the heart, just as the tears flow from the eyelids.
The dead are visible only in the terrible lidless eye of memory.
For this is the truth about our soul, he thought, who fish-like inhabits deep seas and plies among obscurities threading her way between the boles of giant weeds, over sun-flickered spaces and on and on into gloom, cold, deep, inscrutable; suddenly she shoots to the surface and sports on the wind-wrinkled waves; that is, has a positive need to brush, scrape, kindle herself, gossiping.
Me this uncharted freedom tires; I feel the weight of chance desires, My hopes no more must change their name, I long for a repose that ever is the same.
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