There is a natural aristocracy among men. The grounds of this are virtue and talents.
Interpretation
Natural aristocracy is based on virtue and talents rather than birthright.
In this quote, Thomas Jefferson suggests that true leadership and distinction in society should come from an individual's qualities such as virtue and talent, rather than their social status or lineage. Jefferson emphasizes the importance of merit and personal character as the foundation of a just and equal society, advocating for recognition of individuals based on their abilities and moral compass rather than their aristocratic heritage.
In practice
During a graduation speech to inspire young leaders about the importance of character.
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.
The lives of individuals of the human race form a constant plot, in which every attempt to isolate one piece of living that has a meaning separate from the rest-for example, the meeting of two people, which will become decisive for both-must bear in mind that each of the two brings with himself a texture of events, environments, other people, and that from the meeting, in turn, other stories will be derived which will break off from their common story.
Suppose you were the last one left? Suppose you did that to yourself?
The progress of the world means more enjoyment and more misery too.
When the Way governs the world, the proud stallions drag dung carriages. When the Way is lost to the world, war horses are bred outside the city.
History does not repeat itself. Nor does it unfold in cycles. The real future is contingent, rich beyond imagining, a perennial gobsmack, tragic and glorious in equal measure; the pundits' future, spun of 'conventional wisdom,' is only a sucker punch to that common-sense fact.
But that is the thing about miracles: it is perception that determines them as such, not facts.
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