We never repent of having eaten too little.
Interpretation
This quote suggests that moderation in consumption leads to satisfaction, while overindulgence often leads to regret.
Thomas Jefferson highlights the importance of moderation in our lives, specifically pertaining to eating habits. He implies that people typically do not look back and regret having eaten less, while they are more likely to regret overindulgence or poor choices related to excessive consumption. This underscores the value of self-control and the happiness that comes from making balanced choices.
In practice
In a health seminar discussing dietary habits.
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.
Deep at the center of my being there is an infinite well of gratitude. I now allow this gratitude to fill my heart, my body, my mind, my consciousness, my very being. This gratitude radiates out from me in all directions, touching everything in my world, and returns to me as more to be grateful for. The more gratitude I feel, the more I am aware that the supply is endless.
I remember one day sitting at the pool and suddenly the tears were streaming down my cheeks. Why was I so unhappy? I had success. I had security. But it wasn't enough. I was exploding inside.
A happy person is not a person in a certain set of circumstances, but rather a person with a certain set of attitudes.
They seemed to come suddenly upon happiness as if they had surprised a butterfly in the winter woods
Only a man who is happy can create happiness in others.
I lay in that tub on the seventeenth floor of this hotel for-women-only, high up over the jazz and push of New York, for near unto an hour, and I felt myself growing pure again. I don't believe in baptism or the waters of Jordan or anything like that, but I guess I feel about a hot bath the way those religious people feel about holy water.
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