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About this quote

What does it mean?
A nation is truly blessed if its people live peacefully and happily without needing dramatic events to make history.
In plain terms
The best nations are so happy that there is no exciting history to write about them.
What can you take from it?
True national success is quiet and peaceful.

Where it applies

  • national development
  • policy success
  • social harmony

Putting it to work

  • measure well-being over news
  • prioritize stability
  • foster peace

Questions to consider

  • Is a boring history a sign of success?
  • What does history tell us about happiness?

Another view

Quiet times can sometimes hide underlying issues that history might later uncover.

More from Thomas Jefferson

  1. Nothing can now be believed which is seen in a newspaper. Truth itself becomes suspicious by being put into that polluted vehicle.

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  2. [M]y religious reading has long been confined to the moral branch of religion, which is the same in all religions; while in that branch which consists of dogma…

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  3. Whensoever hostile aggressions...require a resort to war, we must meet our duty and convince the world that we are just friends and brave enemies.

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