I think it is a great error to consider a heavy tax on wines as a tax on luxury. On the contrary, it is a tax on the health of our citizens.
Interpretation
Thomas Jefferson argues that taxing wine is not just a luxury tax but one that affects public health.
In this quote, Thomas Jefferson emphasizes the importance of understanding the broader implications of taxation, especially on items like wine. He critiques the perception that such taxes are simply levies on luxury consumption, instead framing them as detrimental to the health and well-being of citizens, revealing a deeper responsibility of governance and economic policy concerning public health.
In practice
During a public health seminar, this quote could illustrate the connection between taxation and health outcomes.
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.
Don't consider our interests or desires. You have no duty to anyone but yourself.
Was there ever in anyone's life span a point free in time, devoid of memory, a night when choice was any more than the sum of all the choices gone before?
From my first published paper in 1946, my obsession has been to objectify inner experiences, to demystify the software of human existence. How? By relating changes in external behavior, systematically and lawfully, to changes in the brain.
Looking at these stars suddenly dwarfed my own troubles and all the gravities of terrestrial life.
Take away from Genesis the belief that Moses was the author, on which only the strange believe that it is the word of God has stood, and there remains nothing of Genesis but an anonymous book of stories, fables, and traditionary or invented absurdities, or of downright lies.
A monk is a man who considers himself one with all men because he seems constantly to see himself in every man.
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