Legislators invent too many devices for subdividing property, only taking care to let their subdivisions go hand in hand with the natural affections of the human mind.
Interpretation
This quote suggests that laws regarding property should align with human emotions and relationships.
Thomas Jefferson emphasizes the importance of ensuring that legislation regarding property ownership does not conflict with the innate emotional attachments and relationships people have. He argues that lawmakers should consider the natural affections of individuals while creating laws, as arbitrary subdivisions of property can disrupt social bonds and community cohesion.
In practice
In a discussion about zoning laws at a town hall meeting, one might use this quote to highlight the importance of community ties in property legislation.
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.
I'm called 'the poorest president', but I don't feel poor.
Though I still turn up my coat-collar in a lonely way and am always looking at myself in mirrors, they’re only habits and give no clue at all to my character, whatever that is. The most difficult performance in the world is acting naturally isn’t it? Everything else is artful.
Nothing is secure. That is my message. Nothing can be secure, because a secure life will be worse than death. Nothing is certain. Life is full of uncertainties, full of surprises - that is its beauty! You can never come to a moment when you can say, "Now I am certain." When you say you are certain, you simply declare your death, you have committed suicide.
The snow in the mountains was melting and Bunny had been dead for several weeks before we came to understand the gravity of our situation.
Mankind's role is to fulfil his heaven-sent purpose through a sincere heart that is in harmony with all creation and loves all things.
A child born today will grow up with no conception of privacy at all. They'll never know what it means to have a private moment to themselves an unrecorded, unanalysed thought. And that's a problem because privacy matters, privacy is what allows us to determine who we are and who we want to be.
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