The press is impotent when it abandons itself to falsehood.
Interpretation
The quote emphasizes the importance of truth in journalism, suggesting that when the press deviates from honesty, it loses its power and credibility.
Thomas Jefferson's quote highlights the critical role of truth in the media. It suggests that the press, when it resorts to falsehoods, undermines its own authority and effectiveness, failing to serve the public interest. The freedom of the press is most meaningful when it holds itself accountable to the truth, and abandoning this principle results in a weakened and untrustworthy institution.
In practice
This quote can be used in a speech about media ethics at a journalism conference.
The firmness with which the (American) people have withstood the... abuses of the press, the discernment they have manifested between truth and falsehood, show that they may safely be trusted to hear everything true and false and to form a correct judgment between them.
I, place economy among the first & most important republican virtues, & public debt as the greatest of the dangers to be feared
βWe must make our choice between economy and liberty or confusion and servitude...If we run into such debts, we must be taxed in our meat and drink, in our necessities and comforts, in our labor and in our amusements...if we can prevent the government from wasting the labor of the people, under the pretense of caring for them, they will be happy.
Very many and very meritorious were the worthy patriots who assisted in bringing back our government to its republican tack. To preserve it in that, will require unremitting vigilance.
A nation, as a society, forms a moral person, and every member of it is personally responsible for his society.
Timid men prefer the calm of despotism to the tempestuous sea of liberty.
...for me there is too little of life to spend most of it forcing myself into detachment from it.
If you are on an honest journey to find yourself, you'll find God.
I regret profoundly that I was not an American and not born in Greenwich Village. It might be dying, and there might be a lot of dirt in the air you breathe, but this is where it's happening.
A lot of attention has been going to social values - abortion, gay rights, other divisive issues - but economic values are equally important.
Without doubt, the Lord grants all favors which are asked of Him in Mass, provided they be fitting for us.
It is surely unreasonable to credit that only one small star in the immensity of the universe is capable of developing and supporting intelligent life. But we shall not get to them and they will not come to us.
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