Every human being must be viewed according to what it is good for. For not one of us, no, not one, is perfect. And were we to love none who had imperfection, this world would be a desert for our love.
Interpretation
This quote emphasizes the importance of accepting imperfections in others and recognizing their value despite flaws.
Thomas Jefferson's quote suggests that every individual has inherent worth, even if they are not perfect. He argues that if we were to only love those who are without flaws, we would find ourselves in a world devoid of love, as imperfection is a universal human condition. This perspective encourages compassion and understanding towards one another.
In practice
In a speech about the importance of compassion, one might use this quote to highlight the need for understanding in relationships.
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's clear to me now that I have been moving toward you and you toward me for a long time. Though neither of us was aware of the other before we met, there was a kind of mindless certainty bumming blithely along beneath our ignorance that ensured we would come together. Like two solitary birds flying the great prairies by celestial reckoning, all of these years and lifetimes we have been moving toward one another.
It is the nature of love to love as much as we feel we are loved and to love whatever the one we love loves.
I believe that marriage isn't between a man and woman; but between love and love.
Let men tremble to win the hand of woman, unless they win along with it the utmost passion of her heart! Else it may be their miserable fortune, when some mightier touch than their own may have awakened all her sensibilities, to be reproached even for the calm content, the marble image of happiness, which they will have imposed upon her as the warm reality.
I fell in love with music by listening to R&B, & it's the core of who I am.
What power has love but forgiveness? In other words by its intervention what has been done can be undone. What good is it otherwise?
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