"Determine never to be idle. No person will have occasion to complain of the want of time who never loses any. It is wonderful how much may be done if we are always doing"
About this Quote
Jefferson turns time into a moral ledger: if you feel starved for hours, the fault is yours. The line is structured like a piece of early-American statecraft, brisk and prosecutorial. "Determine" isn’t advice so much as a command; "never" shuts the door on excuse. The rhetorical move is classic Jefferson: convert a messy human problem (fatigue, distraction, doubt) into a matter of discipline and will, then wrap it in the clean confidence of reason.
The subtext is sharper. Idleness isn’t merely unproductive; it’s suspect. In a young republic anxious about virtue, "idle" carried the stink of dependency and decay. Jefferson links personal time management to civic fitness: the self-governed citizen, like the self-governed nation, must not drift. Even the phrasing "have occasion to complain" reads like a courtroom aside, suggesting that complaining itself is a kind of indulgence, a secondary waste.
Context complicates the sermon. Jefferson was famously industrious, but his ability to be "always doing" relied on systems that bought him time: wealth, status, and enslaved labor. That doesn’t nullify the insight; it exposes its quiet exclusivity. The quote works because it flatters the reader with agency while applying pressure: you can do more than you think, and if you don’t, you’re choosing not to. It’s productivity as patriotism, ambition as virtue, and busyness as alibi - a founding-era mantra that still echoes in modern hustle culture, for better and for worse.
The subtext is sharper. Idleness isn’t merely unproductive; it’s suspect. In a young republic anxious about virtue, "idle" carried the stink of dependency and decay. Jefferson links personal time management to civic fitness: the self-governed citizen, like the self-governed nation, must not drift. Even the phrasing "have occasion to complain" reads like a courtroom aside, suggesting that complaining itself is a kind of indulgence, a secondary waste.
Context complicates the sermon. Jefferson was famously industrious, but his ability to be "always doing" relied on systems that bought him time: wealth, status, and enslaved labor. That doesn’t nullify the insight; it exposes its quiet exclusivity. The quote works because it flatters the reader with agency while applying pressure: you can do more than you think, and if you don’t, you’re choosing not to. It’s productivity as patriotism, ambition as virtue, and busyness as alibi - a founding-era mantra that still echoes in modern hustle culture, for better and for worse.
Quote Details
| Topic | Work Ethic |
|---|---|
| Source | Help us find the source |
More Quotes by Thomas
Add to List
