It is an axiom in my mind that our liberty can never be safe but in the hands of the people themselves, and that too of the people with a certain degree of instruction. This it is the business of the state to effect, and on a general plan.
Interpretation
True liberty relies on the people's empowerment and education.
Thomas Jefferson emphasizes that the safety of liberty fundamentally rests in the hands of the people, who must possess a degree of education to effectively govern themselves. This underscores the responsibility of the state to promote education and instill the principles of democracy among its citizens, ensuring that freedom is safeguarded through informed participation.
In practice
This quote could be used in a speech advocating for educational reforms.
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.
The testimony of scripture is so plain that to add anything were superfluous, were it not that the world is almost now come to that blindness, that whatsoever pleases not the princes and the multitude, the same is rejected as doctrine newly forged, and is condemned for heresy.
We all understand that we are living longer, and we are more likely to spend more years as frail, elderly people who can't work. We also recognize that the wonderful advances in medicine also come with wonderful price tags. Those are things you can't budget around.
I have always sought to guide the future-but it is very lonely sometimes trying to play God.
Being in a ship is being in a jail, with the chance of being drowned.
The hypocrite, certainly, is a secret atheist; for if he did believe there was a God, he durst not be so bold as to deceive Him to His face.
If you were an optimistic teen, then you'll be an optimist at 80. People's reactions to bad events are highly stable over a half century or more.
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