If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be.
About this quote
- What does it mean?
- An ignorant nation cannot remain free; education is necessary for liberty.
- In plain terms
- You can't be free if you don't know what's happening.
- What can you take from it?
- Education is essential for maintaining freedom.
Where it applies
Putting it to work
Questions to consider
- Why is education linked to freedom?
- How do you stay informed as a citizen?
Another view
Freedom can exist in other contexts beyond formal education.
More from Thomas Jefferson
The priests have so disfigured the simple religion of Jesus that no one who reads the sophistications they have engrafted on it, from the jargon of Plato, of A…
Permalink to quote #81 I, too, have made a wee-little book from the same materials, which I call the Philosophy of Jesus; it is a paradigma of his doctrines, made by cutting the text…
Permalink to quote #83 I cannot live without books.
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