It does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods or no God.
Interpretation
This quote emphasizes the importance of religious tolerance and the idea that one's beliefs should not harm others.
Thomas Jefferson's quote reflects the principle of religious freedom and tolerance. He implies that the beliefs of others, whether they believe in many gods, one god, or none at all, do not injure or affect his own beliefs. This statement champions the idea that individuals should respect varying perspectives on spirituality and coexist peacefully in a diverse society.
In practice
This quote could be used in a discussion about the importance of respecting different religious beliefs at a community meeting.
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.
There is still much debate about whether torture has been effective in eliciting information - the assumption being, apparently, that if it is effective, then it may be justified.
Oh what idiots we have all been, this is just as it must be
The contradiction [trying to use Russian model to reshape Italy] grew to such an extent that I felt totally cut off from the communist world and, in the end, from politics. That was fortunate. The idea of putting literature in second place, after politics, is an enormous mistake, because politics almost never achieves its ideals.
It is no longer socially permissible to use race, explicitly, as a justification for discrimination, exclusion, and social contempt. So we don't. Rather than rely on race, we use our criminal justice system to label people of color 'criminals' and then engage in all the practices we supposedly left behind.
The belief in a supernatural source of evil is not necessary; men alone are quite capable of every wickedness.
There's nothing in your life or in our collective problems that does not require our ability to put our attention where we care about. At the end of our lives, all we have is our attention and our time.
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