Truth will do well enough if left to shift for herself. She seldom has received much aid from the power of great men to whom she is rarely known and seldom welcome. She has no need of force to procure entrance into the minds of men.
Interpretation
Truth can stand on its own and often doesn't require help from powerful individuals to be acknowledged.
In this quote, Thomas Jefferson emphasizes the resilience of truth, suggesting that it inherently has the capacity to be recognized and accepted by individuals without needing validation from influential figures. He notes that truth is often unwelcomed by those in power, and that it possesses its own means of penetrating human consciousness regardless of external endorsement or force.
In practice
During a debate about integrity in leadership, one might cite this quote to emphasize the importance of truth.
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.
ACCUSE, v.t. To affirm another's guilt or unworth; most commonly as a justification of ourselves for having wronged him.
If you live today, you breath in nihilism ... it's the gas you breathe. If I hadn't had the Church to fight it with or to tell me the necessity of fighting it, I would be the stinkingest logical positivist you ever saw right now.
The great decisions of government cannot be dictated by the concerns of religious factions. We have succeeded for 205 years in keeping the affairs of state separate from the uncompromising idealism of religious groups and we mustn't stop now. To retreat from that separation would violate the principles of conservatism and the values upon which the framers built this democratic republic.
The rain came down upon my head - Unshelter'd. And the wind rendered me mad and deaf and blind.
Remember the emphasis on the heart. the mind lives in doubt and the heart lives in trust. When you trust, suddenly you become centered.
She asked where he lived. Second to the right,' said Peter, 'and then straight on till morning.
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