Thomas Jefferson Quotes

The people cannot be all, and always well informed. The part which is wrong will be discontented in proportion to the importance of the facts they misconceive.

A country in which 42% of the population is totally misinformed is not a country where democracy is safe.

In a democracy you cannot stop public access to that art that will most misinform the people. You cannot stop people from being misinformed. But what you can do is to educate the people to the point that they will throw the rascals out.

You cannot have a democracy without an informed people.

It is with your aid, as the people, that I think we shall be able to preserve - not the country, for the country will preserve itself, but the institutions of the country - those institutions which have made us free, intelligent and happy - the most free, the most intelligent, and the happiest people on the globe.

In a democracy, dissent is an act of faith.

All free governments are managed by the combined wisdom and folly of the people.

People are voting for the kind of country they want to live in, and there are different views about what kind of country we should have.

I think comedy and satire are a very important part of democracy, and it's important we are able to laugh at the idiosyncrasies or the follies or vanities of people in power.

Opinion and protest are the life breath of democracy—even when it blows heavy.

Free and open communications is the best guarantee of democracy.

A people without reliable news is, sooner or later, a people without the basis of freedom.

A free press stands as one of the great interpreters between the government and the people. To allow it to be fettered is to fetter ourselves.

In democracy dissent is an act of faith. Like medicine, the test of its value is not its taste, but its effect,...

I'm very confident in the voice and the power of the American people.

Part of what's great about America, and Canada as well, is that we can talk about our political leaders in public.

American democracy depends on the public's ability to remain accurately informed on our state of affairs.

We're a robust democracy here. That's the wonderful thing about this country.

I want people to be able to give their voice.

This is a country that I love and that I believe in, but at the same time also believe that you should, as a part of this country, have the right to be able to talk very clearly about the issues that are happening, going on.

The free expression of the hopes and aspirations of a people is the greatest and only safety in a sane society.

I am not running for mayor yet. But if it comes to be true that people cannot voice an opinion unless they have been elected, then we are no longer in a democracy.

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.

Educate and inform the whole mass of the people.

Citizenship has been out of fashion for some decades in our country, but now it is back in fashion. Weekends are for fighting tyranny. And that's why it's going to be really fun to see Democracy Now!