I look to the diffusion of light and education as the resource most to be relied on for ameliorating the condition, promoting the virtue and advancing the happiness of man.
Interpretation
Education and the spread of knowledge are essential for improving humanity's well-being and happiness.
Thomas Jefferson emphasizes the critical role that light, symbolizing knowledge and education, plays in enhancing the overall condition of humanity. He argues that these elements are the foundation for promoting virtue and increasing happiness among people, suggesting that education empowers individuals and fosters a better society.
In practice
This quote could be used in a speech at a graduation ceremony to inspire graduates about the value of their education.
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.
True education is awakening a love for truth...opening the eyes of the soul to the great purpose and end of life.
Real education should consist of drawing the goodness and the best out of our own students. What better books can there be than the book of humanity?
Reading, because we control it, is adaptable to our needs and rhythms. We are free to indulge our subjective associative impulse; the term I coin for this is deep reading: the slow and meditative possession of a book. We don't just read the words, we dream our lives in their vicinity. The printed page becomes a kind of wrought-iron fence we crawl through, returning, once we have wandered, to the very place we started.
Research shows that whether you are low-income or not, mindset is a bigger predictor of success than academic skills, and how students gain great academic skills and persevere in the face of challenges.
The unit of effectiveness of education is not the individual but the group. An individual's moral values are primarily important for society as they contribute to a moral social climate, not as they induce particular pieces of behavior.
When I got [my] library card, that was when my life began.
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