An ornate gold frame hangs on a plum wall around a swirling dark storm-cloud image.

Original artwork, not a still

Thomas Jefferson

How much pain have cost us the evils which have never happened.

Behind the line

What it means

Our interpretation.

The speaker reflects that much of our pain has come from dreaded misfortunes that never actually arrived. Anxiety about imagined disasters, they suggest, can hurt as much as real ones, so fear of what might happen exacts a heavy toll.

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