Truth will do well enough if left to shift for herself. She seldom has received much aid from the power of great men to whom she is rarely known and seldom welcome. She has no need of force to procure entrance into the minds of men.
Interpretation
Truth can stand on its own and often doesn't require help from powerful individuals to be acknowledged.
In this quote, Thomas Jefferson emphasizes the resilience of truth, suggesting that it inherently has the capacity to be recognized and accepted by individuals without needing validation from influential figures. He notes that truth is often unwelcomed by those in power, and that it possesses its own means of penetrating human consciousness regardless of external endorsement or force.
In practice
During a debate about integrity in leadership, one might cite this quote to emphasize the importance of truth.
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.
So great an advantage is given to sin and Satan by your temper and disposition, that without extraordinary watchfulness, care, and diligence, they will prevail against your soul.
With the strength of his spiritual sight and insight the distance, and as it were the space, around man continually expands: his world grows deeper, ever new stars, ever new images and enigmas come into view.
The soul of man, left to its own natural level, is a potentially lucid crystal left in darkness. It is perfect in its own nature, but it lacks something that it can only receive from outside and above itself. But when the light shines in it, it becomes in a manner transformed into light and seems to lose its nature in the splendor of a higher nature, the nature of the light that is in it.
The most interesting conversation is not about why Donald Trump lies. Many public figures lie, and he's only a severe example of a common type. The interesting conversation concerns how we come to accept those lies.
What we call real estate - the solid ground to build a house on - is the broad foundation on which nearly all the guilt of this world rests.
But for me the sweetest contact with God has no form. I close my eyes, look within, and enter a deep soft silence. The infinity of God's creation embraces me.
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