The legislative powers of government reach actions only and not opinions.
Interpretation
Government can only control actions, not the beliefs or thoughts of individuals.
This quote by Thomas Jefferson emphasizes the limited scope of governmental authority, suggesting that while laws can regulate behavior, they cannot govern the beliefs or inner thoughts of citizens. Jefferson advocates for the notion of personal freedom, underscoring that opinions are private and should remain unregulated by law.
In practice
During a political rally discussing civil liberties.
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.
The weight of the old world is stifling, and trying to shovel its weight off your life is tiring just to think about. The constant shuttling of opinions is tiring, and the shuffling of papers across desks, the chopping of logic and the trimming of attitudes. There must, somewhere, be a simpler, more violent world.
Once you get to the Enlightenment, the way that powers get to be hyperpowers isn't just by conquest. It's through commerce and innovation. Societies like the Dutch Republic and the United States used tolerance to become a magnet for enterprising immigrants.
For darkness restores what light cannot repair.
in the presence of extraordinary actuality, consciousness takes the place of imagination.
Devout believers are safeguarded in a high degree against the risk of certain neurotic illnesses; their acceptance of the universal neurosis spares them the task of constructing a personal one.
When the palace is magnificent, the fields are filled with weeds, and the granaries are empty.
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