In truth, politeness is artificial good humor, it covers the natural want of it, and ends by rendering habitual a substitute nearly equivalent to the real virtue.
Interpretation
Politeness often masks true feelings and can substitute for genuine kindness.
Thomas Jefferson suggests that politeness is a form of artificial good humor, which can disguise our natural inclination towards kindness. This facade of politeness may become so ingrained that it replaces authentic virtue, leading to a situation where true good humor is overshadowed by mere manners.
In practice
In a speech about social interactions, you could reference this quote to emphasize the importance of genuine kindness over mere politeness.
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.
Please open your eyes now, but keep attention in the inner energy field of the body as you look around the room. The inner body lies at the threshold between your form identity and your essence identity, your true nature. Never lose touch with it.
Opinions are formed in a process of open discussion and public debate, and where no opportunity for the forming of opinions exists, there may be moods -moods of the masses and moods of individuals, the latter no less fickle and unreliable than the former -but no opinion.
Until we Dream of Life and Life becomes a Dream.
You can never step in the same river twice.
Often a retrospect delights the mind.
Language is not a handmaiden to perception; it is perception; it gives shape to what would otherwise be inert and dead.
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