"The man who reads nothing at all is better educated than the man who reads nothing but newspapers."
- Thomas Jefferson
"I know 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 remed..."
"If it is believed that these elementary schools will be better managed by the governor and council or any other general authority of the government, than by the parents within each ward, it is a belie..."
"The probable accumulation of the surpluses of revenue beyond what can be applied to the payment of the public debt... merits the consideration of Congress. Shall it lie unproductive in the public vaul..."
"I have indeed two great measures at heart, without which no republic can maintain itself in strength: 1. That of general education, to enable every man to judge for himself what will secure or endange..."
"Determine never to be idle. It is wonderful how much may be done if we are always doing."
"Our civil rights have no dependence on our religious opinions any more than our opinions in physics or geometry..."
"May it [American 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 monki..."
"While the art of printing is left to us science can never be retrograde what is once acquired of real knowledge can never be lost."
"The more ignorant we become the less value we set on science, and the less inclination we shall have to seek it."