I learn with great concern that [one] portion of our frontier so interesting, so important, and so exposed, should be so entirely unprovided with common fire-arms. I did not suppose any part of the United States so destitute of what is considered as among the first necessaries of a farm-house.
Interpretation
Jefferson expresses concern over the lack of basic resources in a frontier area.
In this quote, Thomas Jefferson reflects on the alarming absence of essential firearms in a part of the American frontier, highlighting the importance of such resources for the safety and security of those living in such exposed territories. He implies that these firearms are fundamental to both self-defense and the establishment of a functional homestead, emphasizing the dire need for better provision in areas that are critical to the nation's expansion and security.
In practice
In a discussion about the importance of preparedness in rural communities.
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.
The people always have some champion whom they set over them and nurse into greatness. ... This and no other is the root from which a tyrant springs; when he first appears he is a protector.
Because people have no thoughts to deal in, they deal cards, and try and win one another's money. Idiots!
What does it mean that I am in this endless universe, thinking that I'm a man sitting under the stars on the terrace of the earth, but actually empty and awake throughout the emptiness and awakedness of everything? It means that I'm empty and awake, that I know I'm empty and awake, and that there's no difference between me and anything else.
Already, he was dreaming of a refined solitude, a comfortable desert, a motionless ark in which to seek refuge from the unending deluge of human stupidity.
The reason death sticks so closely to life isn’t biological necessity – it’s envy.
The world is given to me only once, not one existing and one perceived. Subject and object are only one.
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