Man [is] a rational animal, endowed by nature with rights and with an innate sense of justice.
Interpretation
This quote emphasizes the inherent nature of humans as rational beings who possess rights and a sense of justice.
Thomas Jefferson's quote reflects the Enlightenment belief in human nature's rationality and the intrinsic rights that every individual possesses. He argues that these rights are innate and foundational, suggesting that justice is not merely a societal construct but a natural law inherent in every person, linking morality with the essence of humanity.
In practice
In a speech advocating for human rights, one could quote Jefferson to highlight the inherent rights of all individuals.
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 world is split between those who do not sleep because they are hungry and those who do not sleep because they are afraid of those who are hungry.
Once you open up the Pandora's box of race and gender... you're never done.
The successful memoirist [blogger] respects facts, uses them accurately, rigorously represses the human impulse to lie or embellish, but knows that truth is both different from facts and greater than facts, and not always their sum.
Rightness expresses of actions, what straightness does of lines; and there can no more be two kinds of right action than there can be two kinds of straight lines.
Vaulting ambition, which o'erleaps itself And falls on the other side
Can you do Division? Divide a loaf by a knife - what's the answer to that?
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.