"He who made us would have been..." - Quote by Thomas Jefferson
He who made us would have been a pitiful bungler, if he had made the rules of our moral conduct a matter of science. For one man of science, there are thousands who are not. What would have become of them? Man was destined for society. His morality, therefore, was to be formed to this object. He was endowed with a sense of right and wrong, merely relative to this.
More by Thomas Jefferson
“The best (remedy) I can devise would be to give future commissions to (federal) judges for six years with a re-appointability by the President with the approbation of both houses. If this would not be independence enough, I know not what would be.”
“I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too much liberty than those attending too small a degree of it.”
“The issuing power [of money] should be taken from the banks and restored to the people, to whom it properly belongs.”
More on Morality
More on Human Nature
“Begin each day by telling yourself: Today I shall be meeting with interference, ingratitude, insolence, disloyalty, ill-will, and selfishness – all of them due to the offenders’ ignorance of what is good or evil.”
“He is a good man, who can receive a gift well. We are either glad or sorry at a gift, and both emotions are unbecoming.”
“Nor dread nor hope attend a dying animal; a man awaits his end dreading and hoping all.”