Were we directed from Washington when to sow and when to reap, we should soon want bread.
Interpretation
Without personal initiative and the ability to make our own decisions, we would struggle to fulfill our basic needs.
This quote by Thomas Jefferson emphasizes the importance of personal freedom and self-reliance in achieving success. It suggests that if individuals were solely reliant on external direction for their actions, such as when to plant and harvest crops, they would inevitably face failure and lack basic necessities like food. The underlying message advocates for individual initiative and the ability to make choices, as these are essential for personal and societal prosperity.
In practice
During a commencement speech to inspire graduates to take initiative in their careers.
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.
There's zero correlation between being the best talker and having the best ideas.
We are free to choose our actions, . . . but we are not free to choose the consequences of these actions.
I never felt I knew it all. I always felt there's something new to learn, something new to do.
The egocentric is always frustrated, simply because the condition of self-perfection is self-surrender. There must be a willingness to die to the lower part of self, before there can be a birth to the nobler.
When you have to prove the value of your ideas by persuading other people to pay for them, it clears out an awful lot of woolly thinking.
And as the ax bites into the wood, be comforted in the fact that the ache in your heart and the confusion in your soul means that you are still alive, still human, and still open to the beauty of the world, even though you have done nothing to deserve it.
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