If we did a good act merely from love of God and a belief that it is pleasing to Him, whence arises the morality of the Atheist? ...Their virtue, then, must have had some other foundation than the love of God.
Interpretation
This quote questions the origin of morality in those who do not believe in God, suggesting they must derive virtue from other sources.
Thomas Jefferson's quote challenges the notion that morality is exclusively derived from a divine source, specifically the love of God. He posits that if atheists can act virtuously, their moral compass must stem from a different foundation, prompting a deeper inquiry into the sources of ethical behavior beyond religious beliefs.
In practice
During a debate on ethics, one might refer to this quote to illustrate differing views on the source of morality.
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.
The possession of arbitrary power has always, the world over, tended irresistibly to destroy humane sensibility, magnanimity, and truth.
To be identified with your mind is to be trapped in time: the compulsion to live almost exclusively through memory and anticipation. This creates an endless preoccupation with past and future and an unwillingness to honor and acknowledge the present moment and allow it to be. The compulsion arises because the past gives you an identity and the future holds the promise of salvation, of fulfillment in whatever form. Both are illusions.
There's too much tendency to attribute to God the evils that man does of his own free will.
Without peace, there is little hope for human rights
God has given you one face, and you make yourself another.
Neither individuals nor corporations have any right to come into court and ask that the clock of history be stopped, or turned back.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.