If we move in mass, be it ever so circuitously, we shall attain our object; but if we break into squads, everyone pursuing the path he thinks most direct, we become an easy conquest to those who can now barely hold us in check.
Interpretation
Unity and collaboration lead to success, while division makes us vulnerable.
In this quote, Thomas Jefferson emphasizes the importance of collective effort and unity in achieving goals. When individuals work together, even if their paths are not straightforward, they are more likely to succeed than if they pursue their own separate agendas, which could lead to failure and vulnerability against external challenges.
In practice
In a leadership seminar to emphasize the importance of teamwork.
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.
Few people arise in the morning as hungry for God as they are for cornflakes or toast and eggs.
This is one of those cases in which the imagination is baffled by the facts.
To verify images kills them, and it is always more enriching to imagine than to experience.
..she began to stand around the gate and expect things. What things? She didn't know exactly. Her breath was gusty and short. She knew things that nobody ever told her. For instance, the words of the trees and the wind. .. She knew the world was a stallion rolling in the blue pasture of ether. She knew that God tore down the old world every evening and built a new one by sun-up. It was wonderful to see it take form with the sun and emerge from the gray dust of its making.
Contraceptive protection is something every woman must have access to, to control her own destiny.
Idealism increases in direct proportion to one's distance from the problem.
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