Never spend your money before you have earned it.
Interpretation
This quote advises against spending money that has not yet been earned, emphasizing financial prudence.
Thomas Jeffersonβs quote highlights the importance of financial responsibility and the necessity of earning money before making expenditures. It serves as a reminder to avoid living beyond one's means and to consider the consequences of debt or overspending, promoting a mindset of careful management of resources.
In practice
This quote can be used in a financial literacy workshop to stress the importance of budgeting.
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.
At the beginning of every winter people are careful to install storm windows. These extra panes of glass protect their houses against the bitter winds. We do something very similar to protect our minds through the practice of meditation.
Curiosity is the lust of the mind.
The strong manly ones in life are those who understand the meaning of the word patience. Patience means restraining one's inclinations. There are seven emotions: joy, anger, anxiety, adoration, grief, fear, and hate, and if a man does not give way to these he can be called patient. I am not as strong as I might be, but I have long known and practiced patience. And if my descendants wish to be as I am, they must study patience.
The main thing is to keep the main thing the main thing.
It is not by sitting still at a grand distance and calling the human race larvae that men are to be helped.
Many a serious thinker has been produced in prisons, where we have nothing to do but think.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.