But this momentous question, like a fire bell in the night, awakened and filled me with terror.
Interpretation
This quote reflects the intense fear and urgency provoked by a significant issue, likening it to an alarming fire bell.
Thomas Jefferson uses the metaphor of a 'fire bell in the night' to describe how a critical and urgent issue can suddenly awaken deep fears and anxieties within a person. The imagery evokes a sense of immediate danger and the need for awareness, emphasizing how certain existential or societal questions can provoke profound emotional responses.
In practice
This quote can be shared during discussions about social or political issues that create fear and anxiety.
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 are the intelligent elite among animal life on earth and whatever our mistakes, [Earth] needs us. This may seem an odd statement after all that I have said about the way 20th century humans became almost a planetary disease organism. But it has taken [Earth] 2.5 billion years to evolve an animal that can think and communicate its thoughts. If we become extinct she has little chance of evolving another.
The attack on "selfishness" is an attack on man's self-esteem; to surrender one, is to surrender the other.
If the guy out in the woods with the Michigan Militia is a real estate negotiator, instead of some crackpot, and has a normal life, that's unnerving. You don't want to think it's as normal as the guy next door, hedging his lawn. It's easier to demonize or separate them off from 'us.'
We can no longer take our own way of life for granted - we know that it may be challenged. And we know this, too - and know it ever more deeply - we know that freedom and democracy are not just big words mouthed by orators but the rain and the wind and the sun, the air and the light by which we breathe and live.
A finely tempered nature longs to escape from the personal life into the world of objective perception and thought.
No amount of rationalizing can change God's laws. No amount of fashion designing can turn immodesty into virtue, and no amount of popularity can change sin into righteousness.
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