I have lived temperately, eating little animal food, and that not as an aliment, so much as a condiment for the vegetables, which constitute my principal diet.
Interpretation
Thomas Jefferson emphasizes the importance of a primarily plant-based diet and moderation in consumption.
In this quote, Thomas Jefferson reflects on his dietary choices, highlighting that he has lived a temperate life with a focus on vegetables as the core of his nutrition. He suggests that animal food serves more as an enhancement to his meals rather than being the main component, illustrating a philosophy of moderation and respect for living foods.
In practice
In a speech about healthy eating habits.
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.
A nation that cannot control its borders is not a nation.
Nothing appears more surprising to those, who consider human affairs with a philosophical eye, than the easiness with which the many are governed by the few; and the implicit submission, with which men resign their own sentiments and passions to those of their rulers.
Seeking means: to have a goal; but finding means: to be free, to be receptive, to have no goal.
Losing my father made me want to find out if I could come up with a version of God or the afterlife that I could feel like was acceptable now that both my parents are in it.
The doing evil to avoid an evil cannot be good.
The only thing harder than getting a new idea into the military mind is to get an old one out.
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