I own that I am not a friend to a very energetic government. It is always oppressive.
Interpretation
Thomas Jefferson emphasizes his skepticism toward a powerful government, viewing it as likely to be oppressive.
In this quote, Thomas Jefferson expresses his belief that a highly energetic or powerful government tends to infringe on the liberties of individuals. He suggests that such governments, while often created with good intentions, can become oppressive and undermine the freedoms they are meant to protect.
In practice
In a discussion about government policies, this quote can illustrate the importance of maintaining personal freedoms.
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 are intelligent beings: intelligent beings cannot have been formed by a crude, blind, insensible being: there is certainly some difference between the ideas of Newton and the dung of a mule. Newton's intelligence, therefore, came from another intelligence
Every one speaks well of his own heart, but no one dares speak well of his own mind.
Life itself is but the shadow of death, and souls departed but the shadows of the living.
When fanatics are on top there is no limit to oppression.
The United States in particular and the West in general should be feeling a little embarrassed about all that lecturing we did to the Third World.
If you write a novel where war is nothing but hell and no one experiences excitement or cracks a dark joke, then you're not actually admitting the full experience.
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