I look to the diffusion of light and education as the resource most to be relied on for ameliorating the condition, promoting the virtue and advancing the happiness of man.
Interpretation
Education and the spread of knowledge are essential for improving humanity's well-being and happiness.
Thomas Jefferson emphasizes the critical role that light, symbolizing knowledge and education, plays in enhancing the overall condition of humanity. He argues that these elements are the foundation for promoting virtue and increasing happiness among people, suggesting that education empowers individuals and fosters a better society.
In practice
This quote could be used in a speech at a graduation ceremony to inspire graduates about the value of their education.
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.
Nothing would please us more than to see our beloved children form the habit of reading the Gospels - not merely from time to time, but every day.
Notice how many of the Olympic athletes effusively thanked their mothers for their success? βShe drove me to my practice at four in the morning,β etc. Writing is not figure skating or skiing. Your mother will not make you a writer. My advice to any young person who wants to write is: leave home.
As more people become more intelligent they care less for preachers and more for teachers.
Books won't stay banned. They won't burn. Ideas won't go to jail.
Reading papers and memorizing them doesn't make you a good researcher.
So much crap passes as information that not only does the audience sometimes miss the distinction between news and crap, the editors sometimes miss the distinction.
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