Those who live by mystery & charlatanerie, fearing you would render them useless by simplifying the Christian philosophy - the most sublime and benevolent, but most perverted system that ever shone on man - endeavored to crush your well-earned & well-deserved fame.
Interpretation
This quote critiques those who manipulate religious beliefs to maintain their own importance, fearing that clarity will expose their deceit.
In this quote, Thomas Jefferson highlights the conflict between genuine understanding of Christian philosophy and the actions of individuals who distort it for personal gain. He asserts that those who thrive on ambiguity and deception fear a simplified version of Christian teachings that might reveal their trickery, thus attempting to undermine the reputation of those who strive for truth and simplicity in their discourse.
In practice
In a discussion about the integrity of philosophical ideas in a debate setting.
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.
Men do not mirror themselves in running water - they mirror themselves in still water. Only what is still can still the stillness of other things.
We Protestants automatically assume that the Pharisees are the Catholics. They are the self-righteous people who have made Christianity a form of legalistic religion, thereby destroying the free grace of the Gospel. We Protestants are the tax collectors, knowing that we are sinners and that our lives depend upon God's free grace.
From birth, man carries the weight of gravity on his shoulders. He is bolted to earth. But man has only to sink beneath the surface and he is free.
Without desire there is stillness, and the world settles by itself.
What we see as death, empty space, or nothingness is only the trough between the crests of this endlessly waving ocean. It is all part of the illusion that there should seem to be something to be gained in the future, and that there is an urgent necessity to go on and on until we get it. Yet just as there is no time but the present, and no one except the all-and-everything, there is never anything to be gained - though the zest of the game is to pretend that there is.
In general there is something puzzling about the fact that the most renowned figures in chess - Morphy, Pillsbury, Capablanca and Fischer - were born in America.
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