Quotes by Thomas Jefferson

A little rebellion

A little rebellion is a good thing now and then.

— Thomas Jefferson

Information

Information is the currency of democracy.

— Thomas Jefferson

Exposed to the inconveniences

I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too much liberty than to those attending too small a degree of it.

— Thomas Jefferson

to Archibald Stuart, 1791. ME 8:276

The force of public opinion

The only security of all is in a free press. The force of public opinion cannot be resisted when permitted freely to be expressed. The agitation it produces must be submitted to. It is necessary, to keep the waters pure.

— Thomas Jefferson

to Lafayette, 1823. ME 15:491

Pacifying a nation

The most effectual engines for [pacifying a nation] are the public papers... [A despotic] government always [keeps] a kind of standing army of newswriters who, without any regard to truth or to what should be like truth, [invent] and put into the papers whatever might serve the ministers.

— Thomas Jefferson

to G. K. van Hogendorp, Oct. 13, 1785. (*) ME 5:181, Papers 8:632

The spirit of resistance

What county can preserve its liberties, if its rulers are not warned from time to time that its people preserve the spirit of resistance.

— Thomas Jefferson

The true barriers of our liberty

The true barriers of our liberty in this country are our state governments...

— Thomas Jefferson

Rightful liberty

Rightful liberty is unobstructed action according to our will within limits drawn around us by the equal rights of others. I do not add "within the limits of the law," because law is often but the tyrant's will, and always so when it violates the rights of the individual.

— Thomas Jefferson

No safe depository of the ultimate powers

I know of no safe depository of the ultimate powers of the society but the people themselves; and if we think them not enlightened enough to exercise their control with a wholesome discretion, the remedy is not to take it from them, but to inform their discretions.

— Thomas Jefferson

1802

It is error alone which needs the support of government. Truth can stand by itself.

— Thomas Jefferson