War is an instrument entirely inefficient toward redressing wrong; and multiplies, instead of indemnifying losses.
Interpretation
War fails to solve injustices and often leads to greater losses.
In this quote, Thomas Jefferson emphasizes the futility of war as a means to address wrongs or injustices. Instead of rectifying problems, war tends to exacerbate them, resulting in increased suffering and loss rather than resolution.
In practice
This quote can be used in a speech about the importance of diplomacy over conflict.
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.
The qualities we have, make us so ridiculous as those which we affect.
What sense or thought do they have? They follow the popular singers, and they take the crowd as their teacher.
You can be as exclusive as you want to in your house, but once you walk outside your house, you have to realize that it's not your world anymore: it's all of our world.
Just as King Midas turned everything to gold, Stalin turned everything to mediocrity.
All beautiful forms of this world are in the process of transformation. Nothing is stable. With every moment, our reality is changing. Mother Ganges, like nature, is constant, but no manifestation of hers remains. Likewise, all that we hold dear in this world is imperceptibly vanishing. We cannot cling to anything. But if we can appreciate the beauty of the underlying current of truth, we can enjoy a reality deeper than the fickle waves of joy and sorrow.
We have grasped the mystery of the atom and rejected the sermon on the mount.
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