In matters of style, swim with the current; in matters of principle, stand like a rock.
Interpretation
Adapt your approach to style while remaining steadfast in your principles.
This quote by Thomas Jefferson emphasizes the importance of flexibility in superficial matters while maintaining firm convictions in core beliefs. It suggests that one should be adaptable and in tune with changing circumstances regarding style, but resolute and unyielding when it comes to fundamental principles and ethics.
In practice
This quote could be used during a leadership seminar to discuss the importance of adapting to trends.
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.
Every day after lunch when I was writing my first book, I'd nibble a square of fine chocolate and meditate on all that had gone into its creation: the sun and rain that spilled on the cocoa plant, the soil that nourished it, the hands that picked the beans, and so on. My taste of chocolate became a lesson on the interconnectedness of things, and the infinite blessings for which I am grateful.
Come, letβs be calm: no one incapable of restraint was ever a writer.
Compassionate action starts with seeing yourself when you start to make yourself right and when you start to make yourself wrong. At that point you could just contemplate the fact that there is a larger alternative to either of those, a more tender, shaky kind of place where you could live.
You may grow old and trembling in your anatomies, you may lie awake at night listening to the disorder of your veins, you may miss your only love, you may see the world about you devastated by evil lunatics, or know your honour trampled in the sewers of baser minds. There is only one thing for it then - to learn.
I think a lot of people, even Christians, are willing to be satisfied with gaining lots and lots of biblical knowledge - and many people go to Bible studies and don't realize it isn't enough to know what's right, it's applying the information and the knowledge that you have.
If you have not done things worthy of being written about, at least write things worthy of being read.
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