Do not neglect your music. It will be a companion which will sweeten many hours of life to you.
Interpretation
Music is an essential part of life that brings joy and companionship.
Thomas Jefferson emphasizes the importance of music in our lives, suggesting that engaging with it can lead to deeper enjoyment and comfort. He sees music not merely as entertainment but as a lifelong companion that enriches our experiences and helps us navigate through various moments in life.
In practice
In a speech about the arts, one might quote Jefferson to inspire support for music programs.
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'm nothing else but an artist, I'm sure, and delighted to be.
There's something wonderfully exciting about the quiet sing song of an aeroplane overhead with all the guns in creation lighting out at it, and searchlights feeling their way across the sky like antennae, and the earth shaking snort of the bombs and the whimper of shrapnel pieces when they come down to patter on the roof.
Art is violent. To be decisive is violent. ... To place a chair at a partial angle on the stage destroys every other possible choice, every other option.
From my perspective, I'm trying to stand for a generation. You know, each generation has designers who go along with it.
A good artist is willing to die many times over. What's funny is, I've died so many times.
But the star thing I can live with. The music I can't live without. And that's how it lays out for me, you know. I got as big an ego and enjoy the attention.
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