I am sure that in estimating every man's value either in private or public life, a pure integrity is the quality we take first into calculation, and that learning and talents are only the second.
Interpretation
Integrity is the most important quality in assessing a person's worth, more than knowledge or skills.
In this quote, Thomas Jefferson emphasizes the primacy of integrity in evaluating an individual's character, both in personal and public contexts. He argues that while knowledge and talent are valuable, they are secondary to the fundamental quality of being honest and having strong moral principles, suggesting that a person's true worth is ultimately defined by their integrity.
In practice
In a motivational speech about ethics in leadership.
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
We 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.
Talent is God given. Be humble. Fame is man-given. Be grateful. Conceit is self-given. Be careful.
The best thing that can happen to a human being us to find a problem, to fall in love with that problem, and to live trying to solve that problem, unless another problem even more lovable appears.
Guns aren't lawful; nooses give; gas smells awful. So you might as well live.
The frail, vulnerable sounds of which we are capable seem to be essential to a later ability to roar like a lion without scaring everyone to death.
Mix a little foolishness with your serious plans. It is lovely to be silly at the right moment.
The things you refuse to meet today always come back at you later on, usually under circumstances which make the decision twice as difficult as it originally was.
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