No instance exists of a person's writing two language perfectly. That will always appear to be his native language which was most familiar to him in his youth.
Interpretation
Mastery of a language is often tied to the one learned in childhood, reflecting familiarity and comfort.
Thomas Jefferson's quote highlights the idea that language acquisition is deeply rooted in our early experiences. A person's proficiency in a language is typically strongest in the one they were exposed to during their formative years, emphasizing the lasting impact of childhood learning on linguistic skills and expression.
In practice
In a language class to emphasize the importance of early 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.
In a television interview, I said that diversity in our children's books should include the adventures of disabled children, travellers and gipsies, LGBT teens, different cultures, classes, colours, religions. It shouldn't be a token gesture, nor do such stories need to be 'issue-based'.
It may be said that an education which does not succeed in making poetry a resource in the business of life as well as in its leisure, has something the matter with it.
We will ask two central questions throughout this course: 1. What difference does gender make? 2. For which women does it make a difference? Which women?
There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there has always been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that "my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge."
In the end, excellence in education means excellence in teaching, and if this country would give the status to first grade teachers that we give to full professors, this one act alone would revitalize the nation's schools.
Schools teach you how to work for money, but don't teach how to make money work for you
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