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.
They say if one understands himself, he understands all people. But I say to you, when one loves people, he learns something about himself.
We need to learn how to capture and kill wild fish humanely - or, if that is not possible, to find less cruel and more sustainable alternatives to eating them.
Everything on earth is beautiful, everything -- except what we ourselves think and do when we forget the higher purposes of life and our own human dignity.
Dat veniam corvis, vexat censura columbas. - Censure acquits the raven, but pursues the dove.
When we die, these are the stories still on our lips. The stories weβll only tell strangers, someplace private in the padded cell of midnight. These important stories, we rehearse them for years in our head but never tell. These stories are ghosts, bringing people back from the dead. Just for a moment. For a visit. Every story is a ghost.
We're children. We're supposed to be childish.
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