Wednesday, April 22, 2009

Thomas Jefferson on A Nation's Abandonment of Morality

clipped from etext.virginia.edu


"When great evils happen, I am in the habit of looking out for what good may arise from them as consolations to us, and Providence has in fact so established the order of things, as that most evils are the means of producing some good." --Thomas Jefferson to Benjamin Rush, 1800. ME 10:173


"[Montesquieu wrote in Spirit of the Laws, III,c.3:] 'When virtue is banished, ambition invades the minds of those who are disposed to receive it, and avarice possesses the whole community." --Thomas Jefferson: copied into his Commonplace Book.


"[Algernon Sidney wrote in Discourses Concerning Government, Sect. II, Par. 8:] 'Those who have no sense of right, reason or religion, have a natural propensity to make use of their strength to the destruction of such as are weaker than they.'" --Thomas Jefferson: copied into his Commonplace Book.

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