"Whenever the people are well informed, they..." - Quote by Thomas Jefferson
Whenever the people are well informed, they can be trusted with their own government; that whenever things get so far wrong as to attract their notice, they may be relied on to set them to rights.
More by Thomas Jefferson
“One precedent in favor of power is stronger than a hundred against it.”
“As new discoveries are made, new truths discovered and manners and opinions change with the change of circumstances, institutions must advance also to keep pace with the times.”
“When you are doubting whether a thing is worth the trouble of going to see, recollect that you will never again be so near it. You may repent not having seen it, but you can never repent having seen it.”
More on People
“A room containing Philip Roth, I have noticed, begins hilariously to whirl and pulse with a mix of rebelliousness and constriction that I take to be Oedipal.”
“I like persons better than principles, and I like persons with no principles better than anything else in the world.”
“A people unused to restraint must be led, they will not be drove.”
More on Government
“No government can be maintained without the principle of fear as well as duty. Good men will obey the last, but bad ones the former only. If our government ever fails, it will be from this weakness.”
“[Oppose] with manly firmness [any] invasions on the rights of the people.”
“They took care to represent government as a thing made up of mysteries, which only themselves understood, and they hid from the understanding of the nation, the only thing that was beneficial to know, namely, that government is nothing more than a national association acting on the principles of society.”