Thomas Jefferson Quotes About Ignorance

• The tax which will be paid for the purpose of education is not more than the thousandth part of what will be paid to kings, priests and nobles who will rise up among us if we leave the people in ignorance

  Thomas Jefferson

  Kings, Ignorance, School

  Thomas Jefferson (1900). “The Life and Writings of ...”

• If we are to guard against ignorance and remain free, it is the responsibility of every American to be informed.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Ignorance, Responsibility, Ifs

• History, I believe, furnishes no example of a priest-ridden people maintaining a free civil government. This marks the lowest grade of ignorance of which their civil as well as religious leaders will always avail themselves for their own purposes.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Religious, Believe, Ignorance

  Thomas Jefferson, Joyce Appleby, Terence Ball (1999). “Jefferson: Political Writings”, p.193, Cambridge University Press

• Ignorance of the law is no excuse in any country. If it were, the laws would lose their effect, because it can always be pretended.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Country, Ignorance, Law

  Thomas Jefferson (1829). “Memoirs, correspondence and private papers of Thomas Jefferson, ed. by T.J. Randolph”

• Bigotry is the disease of ignorance, of morbid minds; enthusiasm of the free and buoyant. Education and free discussion are the antidotes of both.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Education, Ignorance, Racism

  Thomas Jefferson, Joyce Appleby, Terence Ball (1999). “Jefferson: Political Writings”, p.53, Cambridge University Press

• To constrain the brute force of the people, the European governments deem it necessary to keep them down by hard labor, poverty and ignorance, and to take from them, as from bees, so much of their earnings, as that unremitting labor shall be necessary to obtain a sufficient surplus to sustain a scanty and miserable life.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Ignorance, Government, People

  Thomas Jefferson (1829). “Memoir, Correspondence, and Miscellanies: From the Papers of Thomas Jefferson”, p.369

• If the children are untaught, their ignorance and vices will in future life cost us much dearer in their consequences than it would have done in their correction by a good education.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Life, Education, Children

  Thomas Jefferson (2010). “The Works of Thomas Jefferson: Correspondence and Papers, 1816-1826”, p.84, Cosimo, Inc.

• Ignorance is preferable to error, and he is less remote from the truth who believes nothing than he who believes what is wrong.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Truth, Mistake, Believe

  Thomas Jefferson (1977). “The Portable Thomas Jefferson”, p.71, Penguin

• If ignorance is bliss, why aren't more people happy?

  Thomas Jefferson

  Truth, Freedom, Ignorance

• May [our Declaration of Independence] be to the world, what I believe it will be (to some parts sooner, to others later, but finally to all), the signal of arousing men to burst the chains under which monkish ignorance and superstition had persuaded them to bind themselves, and to assume the blessings and security of self-government... All eyes are opened, or opening, to the rights of man.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Believe, Eye, Ignorance

  Thomas Jefferson (1943). “Thomas Jefferson: selections from his writings edited, with an introduction”

• Ignorance and bigotry, like other insanities, are incapable of self-government.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Ignorance, Government, Self

  Thomas Jefferson (1829). “Memoir, correspondence, and miscellanies from the papers of T. Jefferson”

• No nation is permitted to live in ignorance with impunity

  Thomas Jefferson

  Ignorance, Nigeria Independence, Impunity

  Thomas Jefferson (2004). “Light and Liberty: Reflections on the Pursuit of Happiness”, p.114, Modern Library

• We discover in the gospels a groundwork of vulgar ignorance, of things impossible, of superstition, fanaticism and fabrication .

  Thomas Jefferson

  Religious, Father, Ignorance

• preach, my dear Sir, a crusade against ignorance; establish & improve the law for educating the common people.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Wisdom, Educational, Ignorance

  Thomas Jefferson, Henry Augustine Washington (1859). “The Writings of Thomas Jefferson: Correspondence”, p.8

• Religious leaders will always avail themselves of public ignorance for their own purpose.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Religious, Atheist, Ignorance

• A cold-blooded, calculation, unprincipled, usurper, without a virtue, no statesman, knowing nothing of commerce, political economy, or civil government, and supplying ignorance by bold presumption.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Ignorance, Knowing Nothing, Government

  Thomas Jefferson, Henry Augustine Washington (1859). “The Writings of Thomas Jefferson: Correspondence”, p.352

• Bigotry is the disease of ignorance.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Ignorance, Disease, Bigotry

  Thomas Jefferson, Joyce Appleby, Terence Ball (1999). “Jefferson: Political Writings”, p.53, Cambridge University Press

• Old heads as well as young may sometimes be charged with ignorance and presumption. The natural course of the human mind is certainly from credulity to skepticism.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Ignorance, Mind, May

  Thomas Jefferson (1829). “Memoir, Correspondence, and Miscellanies: From the Papers of Thomas Jefferson”, p.94

• Even in Europe a change has sensibly taken place in the mind of man. Science has liberated the ideas of those who read and reflect, and the American example has kindled feelings of right in the people. An insurrection has consequently begun of science talents and courage against rank and birth, which have fallen into contempt. It has failed in its first effort, because the mobs of the cities, the instrument used for its accomplishment, debased by ignorance, poverty and vice, could not be restrained to rational action. But the world will soon recover from the panic of this first catastrophe.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Change, Taken, Ignorance

  Thomas Jefferson (1977). “The Portable Thomas Jefferson”, p.426, Penguin

• ... I am not afraid of priests. They have tried upon me all their various batteries of pious whining, hypocritical canting, lying and slandering. I have contemplated their order from the Magi of the East to the Saints of the West and I have found no difference of character, but of more or less caution, in proportion to their information or ignorance on whom their interested duperies were to be played off. Their sway in New England is indeed formidable. No mind beyond mediocrity dares there to develop itself.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Religious, Lying, Father

• Among the sayings and discourses imputed to him (i.e. Jesus) by his biographers, I find many passages of fine imagination, correct morality, and of the most lovely benevolence; and others again of so much ignorance, so much absurdity, so much untruth, charlatanism, and imposture, as to pronounce it impossible that such contradictions should have proceeded from the same being.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Religious, Jesus, Ignorance

• Both of our political parties, at least the honest portion of them, agree conscientiously in the same object: the public good; but they differ essentially in what they deem the means of promoting that good. One side believes it best done by one composition of the governing powers, the other by a different one. One fears most the ignorance of the people; the other the selfishness of rulers independent of them. Which is right, time and experience will prove.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Party, Believe, Ignorance

  B. L. Rayner, Thomas Jefferson (1834). “Life of Thomas Jefferson: with selections from the most valuable portions of his voluminious and unrivalled private correspondence : with portrait”, p.386

• Our [Virginia's] act for freedom of religion is extremely applauded. The Ambassadors and ministers of the several nations of Europe resident at this court have asked me copies of it to send to their sovereigns, and it is inserted at full length in several books now in the press; among others, in the new Encyclopédie. I think it will produce considerable good even in those countries where ignorance, superstition, poverty and oppression of body and mind in every form, are so firmly settled on the mass of the people, that their redemption from them can never be hoped.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Country, Book, Ignorance

  Thomas Jefferson (1830). “Memoir, Correspondence, and Miscellanies, from the Papers of Thomas Jefferson”, p.44

• Ignorance is a poor tool in a battle of wits.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Ignorance, Battle, Tools

• I am sorry they began their deliberations by so abominable a precedent as that of tying up the tongues of their members. Nothing can justify this example but the innocence of their intentions and ignorance of the value of public discussions. I have no doubt that all their other measures will be good and wise. It is really an assembly of demigods.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Wise, Sorry, Ignorance

  Thomas Jefferson (1829). “Memoirs, 2: Correspondence and Private Papers”, p.228

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