I find friendship to be like wine, raw when new, ripened with age, the true old man's milk and restorative cordial.
Interpretation
Friendship matures and deepens over time, much like wine that improves with age.
In this quote, Thomas Jefferson compares friendship to wine, suggesting that it begins as something raw and unrefined but grows richer and more rewarding with time. Just as quality wine develops its character and complexity through aging, true friendships flourish, providing comfort and rejuvenation as they endure life's challenges.
In practice
In a speech about the importance of relationships, one might say, 'As Thomas Jefferson wisely noted, friendship is like wine, ripening with age.'
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 always like to know everything about my new friends, and nothing about my old ones.
I ended up being friends with all my heroes. Lefty Frizzell, George Jones, Johnny Cash - it was incredible.
There is no friend as loyal as a book.
I don't have many friends; I'm very much a loner. As a child I was very isolated and I've never been really close to anyone.
No man can be called friendless who has God and the companionship of good books.
Good friends are hard to find and impossible to forget.
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