On matters of style, swim with the current,” Thomas Jefferson allegedly advised, but “on matters of principle, stand like a rock.” The pressure to achieve leads us to do the opposite. We find surface ways of appearing original — donning a bow tie, wearing bright red shoes — without taking the risk of actually being original. When it comes to the powerful ideas in our heads and the core values in our hearts, we censor ourselves.

On matters of style, swim with the current, on matters of principle, stand like a rock.

In matters of principal stand like a rock.

It was actually Thomas Jefferson himself who said 'we might as well ask a man to wear the coat that fitted him when he was a boy' as expect future generations to live under what he called 'the regime of their barbarous ancestors.' So even the founders that these kind of dead-hand originalists claim fidelity to understood better than their ideological descendants — today's judicial so-called conservatives — the importance of keeping with the times. And we deserve judges and justices who understand that.

Why should I strive to swim against the current, and not rather ask pardon?

Do not go with the flow. Be the flow.

Swim against the current!
Follow your own path!
Find the courage within!

As to matters of dress, I would recommend one never to be first in the fashion nor the last out of it.

Are you gonna follow your soul? Or just the style of the day?

"Don't worry if some of your peers think that a strong commitment to Christianity is not very fashionable. You can be as fashionable as you want, while still believing in Jesus and giving witness to him".

But this does not detract from the wisdom of his faith in the people and his constant insistence that they be left to manage their own affairs. His opposition to bureaucracy will bear careful analysis, and the country could stand a great deal more of its application. The trouble with us is that we talk about Jefferson but do not follow him. In his theory that the people should manage their government, and not be managed by it, he was everlastingly right.

Washington was the right man at the right time – sometimes he was the first man, but sometimes he simply knew when to ride the crest of a wave or the leading edge of a trend.

Consistency was a matter of style and values-not where you parked your car.

It was like swimming against a current that swept you backwards however hard you struggled, and then suddenly deciding to turn round and go with the current instead of opposing it. Nothing had changed except your own attitude: the predestined thing happened in any case.