Legislators invent too many devices for subdividing property, only taking care to let their subdivisions go hand in hand with the natural affections of the human mind.
Interpretation
This quote suggests that laws regarding property should align with human emotions and relationships.
Thomas Jefferson emphasizes the importance of ensuring that legislation regarding property ownership does not conflict with the innate emotional attachments and relationships people have. He argues that lawmakers should consider the natural affections of individuals while creating laws, as arbitrary subdivisions of property can disrupt social bonds and community cohesion.
In practice
In a discussion about zoning laws at a town hall meeting, one might use this quote to highlight the importance of community ties in property legislation.
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 break from the supposedly culturally-narrow religious bases of knowledge in favor of supposedly trans-cultural scientific bases of knowledge served as the self-justification of a particularly pernicious form of cultural imperialism.
The goal of life is not to possess power but to radiate it.
What is life without incompatible realities?
It is bad policy to regulate everything... where things may better regulate themselves and can be better promoted by private exertions; but it is no less bad policy to let those things alone which can only be promoted by interfering social power.
The trees reflected in the river - they are unconscious of a spiritual world so near to them. So are we.
Europe has grown to 27 member states, encompassing an amazing diversity and richness. Some argue this is part of the problem: Europe is simply too big and culturally disparate to be managed properly. But look to India for an example of how social unity can be forged within a culturally, linguistically, and ethnically complex nation.
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