We must meet our duty and convince the world that we are just friends and brave enemies.
Interpretation
The quote emphasizes the importance of acknowledging alliances and rivalries with respect and courage.
Thomas Jefferson's quote highlights the necessity of striking a balance between fulfilling our responsibilities and maintaining a cordial relationship with others. It suggests that even in conflict or competition, one should approach the situation with honor, presenting oneself as a friend to allies while being brave towards adversaries. This duality presents an understanding that courage and diplomacy go hand in hand.
In practice
During a team-building workshop, this quote can be used to encourage collaboration among colleagues with differing opinions.
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.
Between friends differences in taste or opinion are irritating in direct proportion to their triviality.
Friendship is born at that moment when one man says to another: "What! You too? I thought that no one but myself . . ."
You cannot be friends upon any other terms than upon the terms of equality.
I can do much, I can do everything for a man who will be my friend. I can give him power; I can give him wealth. I can give him reputation - the power, the wealth, the reputation which come to a man who speaks to a million people a day in the columns of a great paper.
They're a rotten crowd', I shouted across the lawn. 'You're worth the whole damn bunch put together.
If this is the way You treat Your friends, no wonder You have so few!
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