I like the dreams of the future better than the history of the past.
Interpretation
This quote emphasizes the importance of focusing on future possibilities rather than being burdened by past events.
Thomas Jefferson highlights the value of aspiring towards a hopeful future and the potential it holds, suggesting that it is more beneficial to dream and envision what could be, rather than getting weighed down by historical events and past experiences. This perspective advocates for optimism and motivation to create a better tomorrow.
In practice
In a motivational speech to encourage young people to pursue their aspirations.
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 do pray for mercy, and that same prayer doth teach us all to render the deeds of mercy.
Man's life is like a drop of dew on a leaf.
[Humans'] capacity to intervene, to compare, to judge, to decide, to choose, to desist makes them capable of acts of greatness, of dignity, and, at the same time, of the unthinkable in terms of indignity.
To see the other side, to defend another people, not despite your tradition but because of it, is the heart of pluralism
I'm not interested in living in a world where my race is not a part of who I am. I am interested in living in a world where our races, no matter what they are, don't define our trajectory in life.
Spirit vibrated into matter; hence, both Spirit and matter exist. Matter, however, does not exist in the way that it appears to us. It exists as we see it owing to the delusive force of maya, which makes the indivisible Spirit seem finite and divisible to all appearances. Matter has existence in the same delusive way as does a mirage in the desert.
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