Thomas Jefferson Quotes About Knowledge

• When all government ...in little as in great things... shall be drawn to Washington as the center of all power; it will render powerless the checks provided of one government on another, and will become as venal and oppressive as the government from which we separated.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Freedom, Truth, Knowledge

  Thomas Jefferson, Henry Augustine Washington (1854). “The Writings of Thomas Jefferson: Correspondence, cont”, p.216

• Do not bite at the bait of pleasure, till you know there is no hook beneath it.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Motivational, Truth, Freedom

  Thomas Jefferson, Henry Augustine Washington (1859). “The Writings of Thomas Jefferson: Correspondence”, p.37

• Can the liberties of a nation be thought secure when we have remover their only firm basis, a conviction in the minds of the people that these liberties are the gift of God? That they are not to be violated but with His wrath? Indeed, I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just; that His justice cannot sleep forever.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Inspirational, Bible, God

  Notes on the State of Virginia, query 18 (1781 - 1785)

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

  Thomas Jefferson

  Truth, Freedom, Ignorance

• I think by far the most important bill in our whole code is that for the diffusion of knowlege among the people. no other sure foundation can be devised for the preservation of freedom, and happiness.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Educational, Knowledge, Thinking

  Thomas Jefferson, Joyce Appleby, Terence Ball (1999). “Jefferson: Political Writings”, p.251, Cambridge University Press

• I was bold in the pursuit of knowledge, never fearing to follow truth and reason to whatever results they led, and bearding every authority which stood in their way.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Truth, Knowledge, Politics

  Thomas Jefferson (2010). “The Works of Thomas Jefferson: Autobiography, Anas, Writings 1760-1770”, p.454, Cosimo, Inc.

• Man is fed with fables through life, and leaves it in the belief he knows something of what has been passing, when in truth he knows nothing but what has passed under his own eyes.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Knowledge, Eye, Men

  Thomas Jefferson (1941). “The Wisdom of Thomas Jefferson: Including the Jefferson Bible, "The Life and Morals of Jesus of Nazareth,"”

• the field of knolege is the common property of all mankind

  Thomas Jefferson

  Educational, Knowledge, Fields

  Thomas Jefferson (1898). “The Writings of Thomas Jefferson: 1807-1815”

• I am not fully informed of the practices at Harvard, but there is one from which we shall certainly vary, although it has been copied, I believe, by nearly every college and academy in the United States. That is, the holding the students all to one prescribed course of reading, and disallowing exclusive application to those branches only which are to qualify them for the particular vocations to which they are destined. We shall, on the contrary, allow them uncontrolled choice in the lectures they shall choose to attend, and require elementary qualification only, and sufficient age.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Education, Reading, Believe

  Thomas Jefferson, Jerry Holmes (2002). “Thomas Jefferson: A Chronology of His Thoughts”, p.294, Rowman & Littlefield

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