Lay down true principles and adhere to them inflexibly. Do not be frightened into their surrender by the alarms of the timid, or the croakings of wealth against the ascendency of the people.
Interpretation
Stay committed to your core beliefs, regardless of external pressures or fears.
Thomas Jefferson urges individuals to establish and stick firmly to their fundamental principles, despite any challenges or fears that may arise from others who are hesitant or influenced by wealth. He emphasizes the importance of maintaining one's convictions in the face of opposition and societal pressure.
In practice
This quote can be used in a speech about the importance of integrity and staying true to one’s values.
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.
She always imagined that evil played out on a large canvas- wars, concentration camps, gas chambers, the partitioning of nations. Now she realized that evil had a domestic side, and its very banality protected it from exposure.
What is prudence in the conduct of every private family can scarce be folly in that of a great kingdom.
It will, I believe, be everywhere found, that as the clergy are, or are not what they ought to be, so are the rest of the nation.
A man is an angel that has gone deranged.
Faith is a kind of knowing; it is different from hope. My faith is that life is purposeful; of that I'm sure. There is a God, there is intelligence, there is consciousness. And behind all of this, there is incredible compassion.
I think many people are terribly afraid of being demoted by the Darwinian scheme from the role of authors and creators in their own right into being just places where things happen in the universe.
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