Taxes should be proportioned to what may be annually spared by the individual.
Interpretation
Taxes should be based on a person's financial ability to contribute.
In this quote, Thomas Jefferson suggests that the tax system should be fair and equitable, meaning that individuals should be taxed in accordance with their ability to afford it. The principle underlying this idea is that those who can spare more should contribute a larger share, promoting a sense of justice and financial responsibility within the community.
In practice
In a discussion about tax reform, this quote can illustrate the need for a fair tax system.
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.
What else can I do, a lame old man, but sing hymns to God? If I were a nightingale, I would do the nightingale's part; if I were a swan, I would do as a swan. But now I am a rational creature, and I ought to praise God. This is my work. I do it, nor will I desert my post, so long as I am allowed to keep it. And I ask you to join me in this same song.
So long as you create laws that define women as victims, as creatures that demand protection, that need bodyguards, you are going to perpetuate the very worst of our sexist past.
The purpose of abstraction is not to be vague, but to create a new semantic level in which one can be absolutely precise.
Whatever is received is received according to the nature of the recipient.
I can explain my body and my brain, but there's something more. I can't explain my own existence - what makes me a unique human being.
Both dreams and myths are important communications from ourselves to ourselves.
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