I like the dreams of the future better than the history of the past.
Interpretation
This quote emphasizes the importance of focusing on future possibilities rather than being burdened by past events.
Thomas Jefferson highlights the value of aspiring towards a hopeful future and the potential it holds, suggesting that it is more beneficial to dream and envision what could be, rather than getting weighed down by historical events and past experiences. This perspective advocates for optimism and motivation to create a better tomorrow.
In practice
In a motivational speech to encourage young people to pursue their aspirations.
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.
The real problem, both in discussions of mass shootings and in discussions of gun control, is that too many people are too committed to a vision to allow mere facts to interfere with their beliefs, and the sense of superiority that those beliefs give them.
It seems to me a fundamental dishonesty, and a fundamental treachery to intellectual integrity to hold a belief because you think it's useful and not because you think it's true.
Democratic institutions form a system of quarantine for tyrannical desires.
What is faith? If you believe something because you have evidence for it, or rational argument, that is not faith. So faith seems to be believing something despite the absence of evidence or rational argument for it.
The English are predisposed to pride, the French to vanity.
Let go the past, let go the future, and let go the present (front, back, middle). Crossing to the farther shore of existence, with mind released everywhere, do not further undergo birth and decay.
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