One loves to possess arms, though they hope never to have occasion for them.
Interpretation
People often desire power or capacity for defense, even if they hope never to need to use it.
This quote by Thomas Jefferson reflects on the human tendency to seek means of protection or strength, such as arms or power, despite wishing for peace and safety where they are unnecessary. It highlights the paradox of wanting to be prepared for potential threats while desiring a world where such threats do not exist, suggesting a deeper contemplation on the balance between safety and the potential for conflict.
In practice
In a discussion about the Second Amendment and personal defense.
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.
Religion is about turning untested belief into unshakable truth through the power of institutions and the passage of time.
There is no line between the 'real world' and 'world of myth and symbol.' Objects, sensations, hit with the impact of hallucination.
There is a moment in the history of every nation, when . . . the perceptive powers reach their ripeness and have not yet become microscopic: so that man, at that instant . . . with his feet still planted on the immense forces of night, converses by his eyes and brain with solar and stellar creation.
The last function of reason is to recognize that there are an infinity of things which surpass it.
You can find the entire cosmos lurking in its least remarkable objects.
We're being sold a brand new idea of patriotism. It never occurred to me that patriotism had to be advertised. Patriotism is something you deeply felt. You didn't have to wear it on your lapel or show it in your window or on a bumper sticker. That kind of patriotism does not appeal to me at all.
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