The Correspondence of Thomas Jefferson
By Subject
VIRTUOUS BEHAVIOR
When your mind shall be well improved with science, nothing will be
necessary to place you in the highest points of view, but to pursue
the interests of your country, the interests of your friends, and your
own interests also, with the purest integrity, the most chaste honor.
The defect of these virtues can never be made up by all the other
acquirements of body and mind. Make these, then, your first object.
Give up money, give up fame, give up science, give the earth itself
and all it contains, rather than do an immoral act. And never suppose,
that in any possible situation, or under any circumstances, it is best
for you to do a dishonorable thing, however slightly so it may appear
to you. Whenever you are to do a thing, though it can never be known
but to yourself, ask yourself how you would act were all the world
looking at you, and act accordingly. Encourage all your virtuous
dispositions, and exercise them whenever an opportunity arises; being
assured that they will gain strength by exercise, as a limb of the
body does, and that exercise will make them habitual. From the
practice of the purest virtue, you may be assured you will derive the
most sublime comforts in every moment of life, and in the moment of
death. If ever you find yourself environed with difficulties and
perplexing circumstances, out of which you are at a loss how to
extricate yourself, do what is right, and be assured that that will
extricate you the best out of the worst situations. Though you cannot
see, when you take one step, what will be the next, yet follow truth,
justice, and plain dealing, and never fear their leading you out of
the labyrinth, in the easiest manner possible. The knot which you
thought a Gordian one, will untie itself before you. Nothing is so
mistaken as the supposition, that a person is to extricate himself
from a difficulty, by intrigue, by chicanery, by dissimulation, by
trimming, by an untruth, by an injustice. This increases the
difficulties tenfold; and those, who pursue these methods, get
themselves so involved at length, that they can turn no way but their
infamy becomes more exposed. It is of great importance to set a
resolution, not to be shaken, never to tell an untruth. There is no
vice so mean, so pitiful, so contemptible; and he who permits himself
to tell a lie once, finds it much easier to do it a second and third
time, till at length it becomes habitual; he tells lies without
attending to it, and truths without the world's believing him. This
falsehood of the tongue leads to that of the heart, and in time
depraves all its good dispositions. An honest heart being the first
blessing, a knowing head is the second.
to Peter Carr, 19 August 1785
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