The multiplication of public offices, increase of expense beyond income, growth and entailment of a public debt are indications soliciting the employment of the pruning knife.
Interpretation
Excessive government expenditures and debt require careful reduction.
In this quote, Thomas Jefferson warns that the proliferation of public offices and the accumulation of debt signal a need for austerity measures. He suggests that when government spending exceeds income and debt grows unchecked, it is crucial to assess and eliminate unnecessary expenditures to restore fiscal responsibility.
In practice
During a town hall meeting about budget cuts, this quote can highlight the need for financial prudence.
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.
"I criticize America because I love her. I want her to stand as a moral example to the world."
Whoop it up for liberty! After Ireland is free, says the patriot who won't touch socialism, we will protect all classes, and if you won't pay your rent you will be evicted same as now. But the evicting party, under command of the sheriff, will wear green uniforms and the Harp without the Crown, and the warrant turning you out on the roadside will be stamped with the arms of the Irish Republic. Now, isn't that worth fighting for?
We all want prosperity, but not at the expense of liberty. Poverty is not as great a danger to liberty as is wealth, with its corrupting, demoralizing influences. Let us never have a Government at Washington owing its retention to the power of the millionaires rather than to the will of millions.
Elected officials shouldnβt get to choose who gets to choose elected officials.
That I am a national figure because I was the first person in 192 years to be at once a congressman, black, and a woman proves, I would think, that our society is not yet either just or free.
In the final analysis it doesn't really matter what the political system is...We don't need perfect political systems; we need perfect participation.
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