The liberty of speaking and writing guards our other liberties.
Interpretation
Freedom of speech and expression is essential for preserving other freedoms.
This quote by Thomas Jefferson emphasizes the fundamental role that free speech plays in protecting all other individual liberties. Without the ability to express thoughts and ideas openly, other freedoms become vulnerable, and conversely, robust freedom of expression nurtures a society where other rights can flourish and be protected.
In practice
During a lecture on civil rights, the speaker quoted Jefferson to highlight the importance of freedom of speech.
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.
You are dealing with people who have taken the responsibility of killing their own because they think that they are right, they think that they are serving the interests of their people. They not going to give that up easily, just because you've shown up.
Most of what matters in your life takes place in your absence.
Before he sets out, the traveler must possess fixed interests and facilities to be served by travel.
God cannot reveal anything to us if we have not His spirit.
I could have clasped the red walls to my bosom as a garment of eternal peace. "Death," I said, "any death but that of the pit!" Fool! might I have not known that into the pit it was the object of the burning iron to urge me?
"Then we are living in a place abandoned by God," I said, disheartened. "Have you found any places where God would have felt at home?" William asked me, looking down from his great height.
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