“There is no act, however virtuous, for which ingenuity may not find some bad motive.”

Letter to Edward Dowse (19 April 1803)
1800s, First Presidential Administration (1801–1805)

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Thomas Jefferson456

3rd President of the United States of America 1743–1826

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Context: The undesirability of any system of rule not tempered with the quality of kindness is obvious; for "kindness" is a complex collection of various impulses, reactions and realisations highly necessary to the smooth adjustment of botched and freakish creatures like most human beings. It is a weakness basically—or, in some cases, and ostentation of secure superiority—but its net effect is desirable; hence it is, on the whole, praiseworthy. Since all motives at bottom are selfish and ignoble, we may judge acts and qualities only be their effects. Pessimism produces kindness. The disillusioned philosopher is even more tolerant than the priggish bourgeois idealist with his sentimental and extravagant notions of human dignity and destiny.