Laws provide against injury from others; but not from ourselves.
Interpretation
Laws protect us from the harm caused by others, but they cannot prevent us from harming ourselves.
This quote by Thomas Jefferson highlights the limitations of law as a protective mechanism. While laws are designed to safeguard individuals from wrongdoing by others, they cannot legislate personal responsibility or prevent individuals from making choices that lead to their own harm. It suggests that self-regulation and personal accountability are equally important in leading a safe and fulfilling life.
In practice
In a debate about personal freedom, you could use this quote to emphasize the importance of self-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.
There should be weeping at a man's birth, not at his death.
These practices - non-killing, truthfulness, non-stealing, chastity, and non-receiving - are to be practised by every man, woman, and child; by every soul, irrespective of nation, country, or position.
I have a sense of melancholy isolation, life rapidly vanishing, all the usual things. It's very strange how often strong feelings don't seem to carry any message of action
Until the day arrives when all women decide that our rights are not negotiable, our future choices will not be secure.
Man is certainly crazy. He could not make a mite, and he makes gods by the dozen.
Civilization survives on the constant discovery of amity and an equal supply of damnation.
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