I don't want them to kill no hog . . . . I want a man to go to that chair, on his own two feet.
Interpretation
The quote emphasizes personal responsibility and dignity in facing consequences.
In this quote, Thomas Jefferson expresses the belief that individuals should take responsibility for their actions and confront their fate with dignity. He underscores the importance of one's agency and the strength it takes to face difficult situations, suggesting that a true measure of a person is their ability to stand tall and accept the consequences of their choices, rather than relying on others to intervene on their behalf.
In practice
This quote can be used in a motivational speech about personal responsibility.
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.
Don't you know that everybody's got a Fairyland of their own?
...the more a person becomes spiritually minded or advances towards God, the more tolerant he becomes and the less differentiation he sees.
That in the soul which is called the mind is, before it thinks, not actually any real thing.
Our greatest gain is to lose the wealth that is of such brief duration and, by comparison with eternal things, of such little worth; yet we get upset about it and our gain turns to loss.
Every legend, moreover, contains its residuum of truth, and the root function of language is to control the universe by describing it.
What I believe in my heart must make sense in my mind.
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