"Mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed"
About this Quote
Jefferson is naming a grim political reflex: people will tolerate a bad system longer than they will risk the psychic and social violence of changing it. The line isn’t tender; it’s diagnostic, almost prosecutorial. “While evils are sufferable” is the dagger. It implies that oppression rarely arrives as a single, cinematic outrage. It arrives as paperwork, routine, a tax here, a restriction there - just manageable enough that daily life continues. When hardship is survivable, the imagination shrinks to fit it.
The real target is “forms.” Jefferson isn’t just talking about tyrants; he’s talking about habits disguised as legitimacy. “Forms” are the rituals of authority: laws, offices, procedures, the choreography that makes power feel normal even when it’s predatory. The subtext is that injustice often endures not because people love it, but because they’ve learned to live inside its shape. Abolishing those forms isn’t only dangerous; it’s disorienting. Revolution doesn’t simply replace rulers - it breaks the furniture of reality.
Context matters: this argument sits in the Declaration of Independence as a strategic justification for rebellion. Jefferson is preempting the obvious critique (“Why didn’t you leave sooner?”) by insisting that delay is human nature, not evidence of consent. The sentence simultaneously flatters and scolds: it excuses patience as a common impulse, then warns that comfort with “accustomed” forms can become complicity. It’s a reminder that endurance is not a virtue when the thing being endured is designed to last.
The real target is “forms.” Jefferson isn’t just talking about tyrants; he’s talking about habits disguised as legitimacy. “Forms” are the rituals of authority: laws, offices, procedures, the choreography that makes power feel normal even when it’s predatory. The subtext is that injustice often endures not because people love it, but because they’ve learned to live inside its shape. Abolishing those forms isn’t only dangerous; it’s disorienting. Revolution doesn’t simply replace rulers - it breaks the furniture of reality.
Context matters: this argument sits in the Declaration of Independence as a strategic justification for rebellion. Jefferson is preempting the obvious critique (“Why didn’t you leave sooner?”) by insisting that delay is human nature, not evidence of consent. The sentence simultaneously flatters and scolds: it excuses patience as a common impulse, then warns that comfort with “accustomed” forms can become complicity. It’s a reminder that endurance is not a virtue when the thing being endured is designed to last.
Quote Details
| Topic | Freedom |
|---|---|
| Source | Declaration of Independence (1776), principally authored by Thomas Jefferson , contains: "...all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed." (National Archives transcript) |
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