Men are disposed to live honestly, if the means of doing so are open to them.
Interpretation
People generally want to act with integrity, but they need the opportunities to do so.
This quote by Thomas Jefferson speaks to the inherent desire within individuals to lead honest lives. It suggests that the ability to live honestly is contingent upon the availability of means and opportunities; without such provisions, individuals may struggle to maintain their integrity in the face of challenges.
In practice
During a team-building workshop, to encourage openness and honesty among team members.
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.
We should not be so taken up in the search for truth, as to neglect the needful duties of active life; for it is only action that gives a true value and commendation to virtue.
Auschwitz begins wherever someone looks at a slaughterhouse and thinks: theyβre only animals.
The end of the human race will be that it will eventually die of civilization.
Mystical additions and subtractions always come out the way you want.
What scares me is what scares you. We're all afraid of the same things. That's why horror is such a powerful genre. All you have to do is ask yourself what frightens you and you'll know what frightens me.
All imperfections are forced upon the imperfect, so the 'perfect' can live content and oblivious.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.