James Monroe Quotes

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.

Liberty cannot be preserved without general knowledge among people.

Education, then, as universally diffused as the elements of God, is the life-blood of our body politic. The intelligence of the people is the one great fact of our civilization and our prosperity, — it is the beating heart of our age and of our land. It is education alone which makes equality possible without anarchy, and liberty without license.

A well-instructed people alone can be permanently a free people.

On the diffusion of education among the people rest the preservation and perpetuation of our free institutions.

Education is not just another consumer item. It is the bedrock of our democracy.

Learned institutions ought to be favorite objects with every free people. They throw a light over the public mind which is the best security against crafty & dangerous encroachments on the public liberty.

Young people today know little of our history—of freedom and democracy. You cannot support and defend what you do not understand.

Let us give our Republic not the best possible laws but the best which they will bear.

The health of our republic depends on shared principles like the First Amendment, but it is also built on the Teddy Roosevelt-like vigor of its citizens and local self-reliance.

Essentially, social education is moral education, and moral education is preparation for citizenship... When Jefferson and others advocated public education, it was to prepare for citizenship in a new, constitutional, democratic society.

We... are not really free if we can't control our own government and its policies. And we will never do that if we remain ignorant.

Democracy cannot succeed unless those who express their choice are prepared to choose wisely. The real safeguard of democracy, therefore, is education.

An educated people can be easily governed.

Education is a better safeguard of liberty than a standing army.

Reading and writing, like everything else, improve with practice. And, of course, if there are no young readers and writers, there will shortly be no older ones. Literacy will be dead, and democracy - which many believe goes hand in hand with it - will be dead as well.

You can't be a full participant in our democracy if you don't know our history.

We Americans have the great gifts of freedom and democracy, but it has been our education system that has fulfilled the promise of democracy.

If you know how to read, you have a complete education about life, then you know how to vote within a democracy. But if you don't know how to read, you don't know how to decide. That's the great thing about our country - we're a democracy of readers, and we should keep it that way.

I do not believe 'Newsweek' is the only catcher in the rye between democracy and ignorance, but I think we're one of them, and I don't think there are that many on the edge of that cliff.

Without an educated populace, democracy cannot sustain itself.

If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be.

We are in this business, whether it be intelligence or the government, to protect freedom, democracy and liberty, not to violate that.

We need to get back to reasoning and thinking things through. The future generation is being brought up in greed and without a true understanding of civics. There is no more emphasis on knowledge and time. As a society we need to process ideas and understand what certain principles are based upon.

Reading builds the educated and informed electorate so vital to our democracy.