I know of 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 remedy is not to take it from them but to inform their discretion.
Interpretation
Thomas Jefferson emphasizes the importance of an informed citizenry in exercising power within society.
In this quote, Thomas Jefferson argues that the true power of society lies in the hands of the people, and rather than stripping them of their power due to a lack of enlightenment, it is essential to educate and inform them. He expresses the belief that an informed populace is crucial to the functioning of democracy and that the solution to potential misuse of power is not to take away that power but to enhance the capability of the citizens to wield it responsibly.
In practice
In a speech advocating for civic education.
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
We 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.
I believe that men are generally still a little afraid of the dark though the witches are all hung, and Christianity and candles have been introduced.
What good is all this free-thinking, modernity, and turncoat flexibility if at some gut level you are still a Christian, a Catholic, and even a priest!
The acceptance of certain realities doesn't preclude idealism. It can lead to certain breakthroughs.
It requires an effort of logical acrobatics to believe that carnage of innocents is an instrument for freedom and elections are a symbol of deception and repression!
What seems fair enough against a squalid huckster of bad liquor may take on a different face, if used by a government determined to suppress political opposition under the guise of sedition.
Truth, Sir, is a cow which will yield such people no more milk, and so they are gone to milk the bull.
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