Nothing is more incumbent on the old than to know when they should get out of the way and relinquish to younger successors the honors they can no longer earn, and the duties they can no longer perform.
Interpretation
Older individuals should recognize when it's time to step aside and allow younger generations to lead.
This quote emphasizes the importance of wisdom and humility among the older generation. Thomas Jefferson suggests that with age comes the responsibility to acknowledge one's limitations and to make way for the youth who have the energy, ability, and potential to take on roles that the older generation can no longer fulfill effectively. It is a call for older individuals to pass on the torch to ensure progress continues in society.
In practice
This quote can be used in a speech at a retirement party to highlight the importance of passing on responsibilities.
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.
Many things which nature makes difficult become easy to the man who uses his brains.
I have always tried to make room for anything that wanted to come to me from within.
To realize that our knowledge is ignorance, This is a noble insight. To regard our ignorance as knowledge, This is mental sickness. Only when we are sick of the sickness Shall we cease to be sick. The Sage is not sick, being sick of sickness; This is the secret of health.
...we all must admit that everything is fine and there's no need in the world to worry, and in fact we should realize what it would mean to us to UNDERSTAND that we're not REALLY worried about ANYTHING.
I feel like role models today are not meant to be put on a pedestal. But more like angels with broken wings.
No one rises so high as he who knows not whither he is going.
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