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.
Interpretation
This quote highlights the tension between economic freedom and governmental control, suggesting that excessive debt leads to a loss of liberty.
Thomas Jefferson emphasizes the importance of balancing economic freedom with responsible governance. He warns that succumbing to debt can result in a loss of liberty, where citizens may end up paying for governmental inefficiencies with their toil and pleasures. Jefferson advocates for minimizing government waste in order to ensure the happiness of the people, implying that true freedom allows for individual agency rather than dependence on state intervention.
In practice
This quote can be used in a speech about the importance of fiscal responsibility in government.
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
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.
There is not a sprig of grass that shoots uninteresting to me.
Perhaps a man may commit suicide in self-defense.
I was a victim of a stereotype. There were only two of us Negro kids in the whole class, and our English teacher was always stressing the importance of rhythm in poetry. Well, everybody knows - except us - that all Negroes have rhythms, so they elected me class poet.
Glorious indeed is the world of God around us, but more glorious the world of God within us.
At times when people fear death, they go along with measures that they believe, rightly or wrongly, will save them - even if that means a loss of freedom. Such measures have been popular in the past.
All of my misfortunes come from having thought too well of my fellows.
One of the most important and rewarding ways in which we can serve our fellowmen is by living and sharing the principles of the gospel. We need to help those whom we seek to serve to know for themselves that God not only loves them but he is ever mindful of them and their needs. To teach our neighbors of the divinity of the gospel is a command reiterated by the Lord: 'It becometh every man who hath been warned to warn his neighbor' (D&C 88:81).
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