Thomas Jefferson Quotes

But, Jefferson worried that the people - and the argument goes back to Thucydides and Aristotle - are easily misled. He also stressed, passionately and repeatedly, that it was essential for the people to understand the risks and benefits of government, to educate themselves, and to involve themselves in the political process. Without that, he said, the wolves will take over.

With a perfect system of schools and colleges for the people, alone, can we rely for the virtuous exercise of the elective franchise, for the steady discipline of civil society and for the permanent power of order and religion over anarchy.

the qualifications for self-government in society are not innate. they are the result of habit and long training.

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.

To suppose that any form of government will secure liberty or happiness without any virtue in the people, is a chimerical idea.

Without an educated populace, democracy cannot sustain itself.

The maxim, that governments ought to train the people in the way in which they should go, sounds well. But is there any reason for believing that a government is more likely to lead the people in the right way than the people to fall into the right way of themselves?

Whenever the people are well-informed, they can be trusted with their own government.

It is only when the people become ignorant and corrupt, when they degenerate into a populace, that they are incapable of exercising their sovereignty.

Government will not fail to employ education, to strengthen its hands, and perpetuate its institutions.

Our system of checks and balances .... The people keep the politicians from stealing too much, and the politicians keep the people from getting too crazy.

The proper function of a government is to make it easy for the people to do good, and difficult for them to do evil.

Democracy depends on well educated and engaged citizens.

If we advert to the nature of republican government, we shall find that the censorial power is in the people over the government, and not in the government over the people.

The only foundation of a free Constitution, is pure Virtue, and if this cannot be inspired into our People, in a great Measure, than they have it now. They may change their Rulers, and the forms of Government, but they will not obtain a lasting Liberty.

If in a democratic country nothing can be permanently achieved save through the masses of the people, it will be impossible to establish a higher political life than the people themselves crave.

We are a nation that has a government - not the other way around. And this makes us special among the nations of the earth. Our government has no power except that granted to it by the people It is time to check and reverse the growth of government which shows signs of having grown beyond the consent of the governed.

No government can continue good, but under the control of the people.

Beneath a free government there is nothing but the intelligence of the people to keep the people's peace. Order must be preserved, not by a military police or regiments of horse-guards, but by the spontaneous concert of a well-informed population, resolved that the rights which have been rescued from despotism shall not be subverted by anarchy.

Only a virtuous people are capable of freedom.

A government or a party gets the people it deserves and sooner or later a people gets the government it deserves.

Government is not infallible. Government is only an executive control, a centralized authority for the purpose of expressing the will of the people; before you have a government you must have the people. Without the people there can be no government. The government must be, therefore, an expression of the will of the people.

The devotion of democracy to education is a familiar fact. The superficial explanation is that a government resting upon popular suffrage cannot be successful unless those who elect and who obey their governors are educated. Since a democratic society repudiates the principle of external authority, it must find a substitute in voluntary disposition and interest; these can be created only by education.

It is an axiom in my mind that our liberty can never be safe but in the hands of the people themselves, and that too of the people with a certain degree of instruction. This it is the business of the state to effect, and on a general plan.

A government of, by and for the people is obligated to conduct the nation's business in a manner that respects dissent.