The past stays put, I just keep moving farther away from it.
Interpretation
The past is fixed and unchangeable, while we can choose to move forward in life.
This quote by Thomas Jefferson emphasizes the idea that the past is immutable and does not change, while our actions and decisions drive us into the future. It serves as a reminder that we have the power to leave behind what has already occurred, allowing us to focus on growth and progress as we navigate through life.
In practice
This quote can be used in a motivational speech to encourage people to focus on their future rather than dwelling on past mistakes.
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.
Neither science, nor the politics in power, nor the mass media, nor business, nor the law nor even the military are in a position to define or control risks rationally.
If I was freer than I had ever been in my life, I was not yet entirely free, for I still hung on to an idea that had been set deep in me by all my schooling so far: I was a bright boy and I ought to make something out of myself... something else that would be a cut or two above my humble origins.
Crisis alone is not enough. There must also be a basis, though it need be neither rational nor ultimately correct, for faith in the particular candidate chosen.
What gives value to travel is fear. It is a fact that, at a certain moment, when we are so far from our own country, we are seized by a vague fear and an instinctive desire to go back to the protection of old habits. I look upon it more as an occasion for testing.
What I believe in my heart must make sense in my mind.
Once I lived in time as a fish in water, breathing it, drinking it, sustained by it. Now I kill time and time kills me.
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