I place economy among the first and most important virtues and public debt as the greatest dangers to be feared. To preserve our independence, we must not let our rulers load us with perpetual debt. If we run into such debts, we must be taxed in our meat and drink, in our necessities and in our 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.
Interpretation
Jefferson emphasizes the importance of economic responsibility and warns against the dangers of public debt.
In this quote, Thomas Jefferson asserts that economic prudence is a foundational virtue essential for a nation's independence. He warns that excessive public debt can enslave citizens by imposing heavy taxes on their basic needs and pleasures, advocating for a government that does not squander the people's labor under the guise of benevolence, which ultimately leads to a more content and self-reliant populace.
In practice
A speaker at a financial literacy seminar could use this quote to emphasize the importance of understanding public debt.
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.
While all doctors treat diseases, neurosurgeons' work is the crucible of identity. Every operation on the brain is, by necessity, a manipulation of the substance of our selves.
There is no point in being overwhelmed by the appalling total of human sufferring; such a total does not exist. Neither poverty nor pain is accumulable.
Institutionalised in sports, the military, acculturated sexuality, the history and mythology of heroism, violence is taught to boys until they becomes its advocates.
Not our Logical, Mensurative faculty, but our Imaginative one is King over us; I might say, Priest and Prophet to lead us heavenward; or Magician and Wizard to lead us hellward.
Our deeds still travel with us from afar, and what we have been makes us what we are.
A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said wouldn't be a great moral teacher. He'd be either a lunatic on a level with a man who says he's a poached egg or else he'd be the devil of hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God, or else a madman or something worse.
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