We act not for ourselves but for the whole human race. The event of our experiment is to show whether man can be trusted with self - government.
Interpretation
This quote emphasizes the importance of collective responsibility and the challenge of self-governance among humanity.
Thomas Jefferson's quote highlights the idea that our actions should transcend individual interests and serve the greater good of humanity. It reflects on the concept of self-governance, questioning whether humans are capable of managing their own affairs without falling into disorder, thus suggesting a fundamental belief in the communal aspect of human existence and the potential for self-directed societies.
In practice
In a speech about teamwork, one could use Jefferson's quote to underline the importance of community involvement.
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.
So we don't believe that life is beautiful because we don't recall it but if we get a whiff of a long-forgotten smell we are suddenly intoxicated and similarly we think we no longer love the dead because we don't remember them but if by chance we come across an old glove we burst into tears.
To the indefinite, uncertain mind of the American radical the most contradictory ideas and methods are possible. The result is a sad chaos in the radical movement, a sort of intellectual hash, which has neither taste nor character.
You should always take a religion at its best and not at its worst, from its highest teachings and not from the lowest practices of some of its adherents.
We need to have empathy. When we lose empathy, we lose our humanity.
Doubt is a precipice on the way to God. Blessed is he who is freed from its bonds. He who fares without any doubt, adhere to his footprints if you do not know the way. Cleave to the footprints of the deer and advance with care that you may reach the musk-gland. By means of such trekking, even if you walk on fire, you will reach the luminous peak.
From meetings and partings none can ever escape. Nor from magic.
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