Thomas Jefferson Quotes

It is well, when the wise and the learned discover new truths; but how much better to diffuse the truths already discovered, amongst the multitude! Every addition to true knowledge is an addition to human power; and while a philosopher is discovering one new truth, millions may be propagated amongst the people. Diffusion, then, rather than discovery, is the duty of our government.

Widespread public access to knowledge, like public education, is one of the pillars of our democracy, a guarantee that we can maintain a well-informed citizenry.

We stand in the shadow of Jefferson who believed that a society founded upon the rule of law and liberty was dependent upon public education and the diffusion of knowledge.

The advancement and diffusion of knowledge is the only guardian of true liberty.

Next in importance to freedom and justice is popular education, without which neither justice nor freedom can be permanently maintained.

Let us by all wise and constitutional measures promote intelligence among the people as the best means of preserving our liberties.

O people of America. The destinies of your country are in your own hands. They are committed to your own keeping. It is for you to say which ye will have, liberty or slavery, knowledge or ignorance, happiness or misery.

The present age has witnessed an extraordinary increase of a thinking public, by the facilities afforded to the diffusion of reading; the former happy resignation to ignorance begins to make way for a state of half-enlightenment, and few persons are willing to remain in the condition in which their birth has placed then.

I don't even know in American educational history classes how much of D-Day, World War II, all of that is taught versus how much of it is just ignored or looked back on with mockery or insincerity or what have you. But it was one of the most crucially important events in all of human history in terms of the preservation of freedom and liberty and the notion of democracy and things associated with it.

I think books can give rise to empowerment.

Freedom is found through the portals of our nation's libraries.

The ultimate victory of tomorrow is democracy, and through democracy with education, for no people in all the world can be kept eternally ignorant or eternally enslaved.

America is a melting pot, and education has been a mainspring for our democracy and freedom, a means of providing gifts of knowledge and opportunity to all citizens, no matter how humble their background, so they could climb higher, help build the American dream, and leave a better life for those who follow.

In our democratic society, the library stands for hope, for learning, for progress, for literacy, for self-improvement and for civic engagement. The library is a symbol of opportunity, citizenship, equality, freedom of speech and freedom of thought, and hence, is a symbol for democracy itself.

Giving information that will help everybody live better. That's a teacher's dream - to accumulate information and disperse it in a form that allows people to choose the way they're going to use it. That's what I think I do best.

Teachers must be encouraged - I almost said 'freed', to pursue an education that strives for depth of understanding.

I don't think of my life as a career. I do stuff. I respond to stuff. That's not a career - it's a life!

The Taliban could take our pens and books, but they couldn’t stop our minds from thinking.

So the idea is to triangulate a sufficiently large number of data points in your set of experience that you can make a model of the world that is not imprisoning. That's why, second to psychedelics, I think travel is the most boundary-dissolving, educational enterprise that you can get mixed up in.

Libraries do one thing that no other institution does and that's provide access to all.

Education and justice are democracy's only life insurance.

Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction.

Do you, good people, believe that Adam and Eve were created in the Garden of Eden and that they were forbidden to eat from the tree of knowledge? I do. The church has always been afraid of that tree. It still is afraid of knowledge. Some of you say religion makes people happy. So does laughing gas. So does whiskey. I believe in the brain of man.

When someone takes away your pens you realise quite how important education is.

Education keeps the key of life; and liberal education insures the first conditions of freedom,--namely, adequate knowledge and accustomed thought.