I have lived temperately, eating little animal food, and that not as an aliment, so much as a condiment for the vegetables, which constitute my principal diet.
Interpretation
Thomas Jefferson emphasizes the importance of a primarily plant-based diet and moderation in consumption.
In this quote, Thomas Jefferson reflects on his dietary choices, highlighting that he has lived a temperate life with a focus on vegetables as the core of his nutrition. He suggests that animal food serves more as an enhancement to his meals rather than being the main component, illustrating a philosophy of moderation and respect for living foods.
In practice
In a speech about healthy eating habits.
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.
It is only when human beings see themselves simply as human beings, no longer as gods, that they are in a position to perceive the wholly other nature of God.
Today, we need a Church capable of walking at people's side, of doing more than simply listening to them; a Church which accompanies them on their journey.
The optimist thinks this is the best of all possible worlds. The pessimist fears it is true.
As buds give rise by growth to fresh buds, and these, if vigorous, branch out and overtop on all sides many a feebler branch, so by generation I believe it has been with the great Tree of Life, which fills with its dead and broken branches the crust of the earth, and covers the surface with its ever branching and beautiful ramifications.
We're like so many puppets hung on the wall, waiting for someone to come and move us or make us talk.
A Religion of Evolution: that, when all is said and done, is what Man needs ever more explicitly if he is to survive and 'superlive,' as soon as he becomes conscious of his power to ultra-hominize himself and of his duty to do so.
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