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.
we are the lords of all eternity
But you can catch yourself entertaining habitually certain ideas and setting others aside; and that, I think, is where our personal destinies are largely decided.
Destiny is no matter of chance. It is a matter of choice. It is not a thing to be waited for, it is a thing to be achieved.
The government is best which makes itself unnecessary.
All essential knowledge relates to existence, or only such knowledge as has an essential relationship to existence is essential knowledge.
The Christian of the future will be a mystic or he will not exist at all.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.