We 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.
Interpretation
This quote highlights the tension between economic freedom and governmental control, suggesting that excessive debt leads to a loss of liberty.
Thomas Jefferson emphasizes the importance of balancing economic freedom with responsible governance. He warns that succumbing to debt can result in a loss of liberty, where citizens may end up paying for governmental inefficiencies with their toil and pleasures. Jefferson advocates for minimizing government waste in order to ensure the happiness of the people, implying that true freedom allows for individual agency rather than dependence on state intervention.
In practice
This quote can be used in a speech about the importance of fiscal responsibility in government.
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
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.
There is not a sprig of grass that shoots uninteresting to me.
Amor Fati – “Love Your Fate”, which is in fact your life.
Show me a person who hasn´t known any sorrow and I´ll show you a superficial.
Every moment is as real as every other. Every 'now,' when you say, 'This is the real moment,' is as real as every other 'now' - and therefore all the moments are just out there. Just as every location in space is out there, I think every moment in time is out there, too.
The mentality of mankind and the language of mankind created each other. If we like to assume the rise of language as a given fact, then it is not going too far to say that the souls of men are the gift from language to mankind. The account of the sixth day should be written: He gave them speech, and they became souls.
Death is not the greatest of evils; it is worse to want to die, and not be able to.
That which has been believed by everyone, always and everywhere, has every chance of being false.
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