Quotes Thomas Jefferson did not say...

Portrait of President Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) by Revolutionary War hero Tadeusz Kosciuszko (1746-1817)

Dissent is the highest form of patriotism

"Dissent is the highest form of patriotism" is often attributed to Thomas Jefferson, but to date we have found no evidence that he said or wrote this. Its true origins are uncertain, but the saying may have entered popular culture during the Vietnam era.

 

The earliest usage of the phrase we have found is in a 1961 publication, The Use of Force in International Affairs: "If what your country is doing seems to you practically and morally wrong, is dissent the highest form of patriotism?"^[1]

 

The phrase was used repeatedly during the Vietnam era, and this may be when it came into general currency. On October 15, 1969, in a speech at Columbia University, Mayor John Lindsay of New York City stated, "We cannot rest content with the charge from Washington that this peaceful protest is unpatriotic...The fact is that this dissent is the highest form of patriotism."^[2]

Footnotes

1. The Use of Force in International Affairs (Philadelphia: Friends Peace Committee, 1961), 6.
2. As reported by Bernard Weinraub, "Bells Toll and Crosses Are Planted Around U.S. as Students Say 'Enough!' to War: Campuses Remember Slain G.I.'s," New York Times, October 16, 1969, 19.

See the Monticello website for more information.

 

Quotes Thomas Jefferson did not say...

Portrait of President Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) by Revolutionary War hero Tadeusz Kosciuszko (1746-1817)

Quotation: "Democracy is nothing more than mob rule, where 51% of the people may take away the rights of the other 49%."

Variations:

1. "A democracy is nothing more than mob rule, where 51 percent of the people may take away the rights of the other 49."
2. "A democracy is nothing more than mob rule, where fifty-one percent of the people may take away the rights of the other forty-nine."

Earliest known appearance in print: 2004^[1][2]

Status: We currently have no evidence to confirm that Thomas Jefferson ever said or wrote, "Democracy is nothing more than mob rule, where 51% of the people may take away the rights of the other 49%" or any of its listed variations. We do not know the source of this statement's attribution to Thomas Jefferson.
Footnotes

1.  Ken Schoolland, The Adventures of Jonathan Gullible: A Free Market Odyssey (Cape Town, South Africa: Leap Publishing, 2004), 235. PDF version available online.
2.  To establish the earliest appearance of this phrase in print, the following sources were searched for the phrase, "democracy is nothing more than mob rule": Google Books, Google Scholar, Amazon.com, Internet Archive, America's Historical Newspapers, American Broadsides and Ephemera Series I, Early American Imprints Series I and II, Early English Books Online, Eighteenth Century Collections Online, 19th Century U.S. Newspapers, American Periodicals Series Online, JSTOR.

For further information see the Monticello website here.

Quotes Thomas Jefferson did not say...

Portrait of President Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) by Revolutionary War hero Tadeusz Kosciuszko (1746-1817)

The Christian god is a three headed monster

This quotation is frequently seen on the World Wide Web, attributed to Thomas Jefferson:

"The Christian god can easily be pictured as virtually the same god as the many ancient gods of past civilizations. The Christian god is a three headed monster; cruel, vengeful and capricious. If one wishes to know more of this raging, three headed beast-like god, one only needs to look at the caliber of people who say they serve him. They are always of two classes: fools and hypocrites."^[1]

This quotation has not been found in any writings of Thomas Jefferson. However, it does bear some slight resemblance to several genuine Jefferson quotations, so it is feasible that the above could be traced back to these. On 8 December 1822, Jefferson wrote to James Smith,

No historical fact is better established than that the doctrine of one god, pure and uncompounded was that of the early ages of Christianity; and was among the efficacious doctrines which gave it triumph over the polytheism of the antients, sickened with the absurdities of their own theology. Nor was the unity of the supreme being ousted from the Christian creed by the force of reason, but by the sword of civil government wielded at the will of the fanatic Athanasius. The hocus-pocus phantasm of a god like another Cerberus with one body and three heads had it's birth and growth in the blood of thousands and thousands of martyrs. And a strong proof of the solidity of the primitive faith is it's restoration as soon as a nation arises which vindicates to itself the freedom of religious opinion, and it's eternal divorce from the civil authority. The pure and simply unity of the creator of the universe is now all but ascendant in the Eastern states; it is dawning in the West, and advancing towards the South; and I confidently expect that the present generation will see Unitarianism become the general religion of the United states. The Eastern presses are giving us many excellent pieces on the subject, and Priestly's learned writings on it are, or should be in every hand. In fact the Athanasian paradox that one is three, and three but one is so incomprehensible to the human mind that no candid man can say he has any idea of it, and how can he believe what presents no idea. He who thinks he does only decieves himself. He proves also that man, once surrendering his reason, has no remaining guard against absurdities the most monstrous, and like a ship without rudder is the sport of every wind. With such persons gullability which they call faith takes the helm from the hand of reason and the mind becomes a wreck.^[2]

Jefferson does also use the phrase "fools and hypocrites" (although not as such) in his famous passage in Query 17 on religion in his Notes on the State of Virginia:

Difference of opinion is advantageous in religion. The several sects perform the office of a Censor morum over each other. Is uniformity attainable? Millions of innocent men, women, and children, since the introduction of Christianity, have been burnt, tortured, fined, imprisoned; yet we have not advanced one inch towards uniformity. What has been the effect of coercion? To make one half the world fools, and the other half hypocrites. To support roguery and error all over the earth.^[3]

Footnotes

1.  This quotation is sometimes cited as "from a letter to Peter Carr" (no date).
2. Jefferson to James Smith, Monticello, 8 December 1822. EG, 408-410. Polygraph copy of letter at the Library of Congress.

     3.   Notes, 160. Also available online at the UVA Etext Center.

This article from the Monticello website here.


 

Quotes Thomas Jefferson did not say, and a few that he did say...

Portrait of President Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) by Revolutionary War hero Tadeusz Kosciuszko (1746-1817)

Chain Email with 10 Jefferson Quotations

Since 2008, a list of ten purported Jefferson quotations has been passed around via email and posted in many places on the Internet. This list contains some genuine Jefferson quotations, some misquoted Jefferson quotations, some completely spurious quotations, and some that are mixture of genuine and spurious. The quotations are listed below with comments regarding their authenticity.

1. "When we get piled upon one another in large cities, as in Europe, we shall become as corrupt as Europe." This is a genuine quotation, although slightly altered from the original, which reads, "I think our governments will remain virtuous for many centuries; as long as they are chiefly agricultural; and this will be as long as there shall be vacant lands in any part of America. When they get piled upon one another in large cities, as in Europe, they will become corrupt as in Europe."[1]
2. "The democracy will cease to exist when you take away from those who are willing to work and give to those who would not." This quotation is entirely spurious. See its article for more details.
3. "It is incumbent on every generation to pay its own debts as it goes. A principle which if acted on would save one-half the wars of the world." This quotation is genuine, from a letter to Antoine Louis Claude Destutt de Tracy of December 26, 1820: "it is incumbent on every generation to pay it’s own debts as it goes. a principle which, if acted on, wou [ld] save one half the wars of the world; and justifies, I think our present circumspection."[2]
4. "I predict future happiness for Americans if they can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them." This is a genuine quotation, although slightly altered from the original. See article for more details.
5. "My reading of history convinces me that most bad government results from too much government." This is actually a quotation by someone else, talking about Jefferson. See this quotation's article for more details.
6. "No free man shall ever be debarred the use of arms." This is from Jefferson's draft of the Virginia Constitution.
7. "The strongest reason for the people to retain the right to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in government." This quotation is often appended to #6, but it is spurious. See the link in #6 for details.
8. "The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants." This is a genuine Jefferson quotation; see article for further context and citation.
9. "To compel a man to subsidize with his taxes the propagation of ideas which he disbelieves and abhors is sinful and tyrannical." This quotation comes from Jefferson's Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom, although it is slightly misquoted. The original reads, "...to compel a man to furnish contributions of money for the propagation of opinions which he disbelieves and abhors, is sinful and tyrannical..."
10. "I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies. If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their currency, first by inflation, then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around the banks will deprive the people of all property until their children wake-up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered." Parts of this quotation may be paraphrases of Jefferson's writings, while other parts are entirely spurious. See article for more details.

Footnotes

• 1. Jefferson to James Madison, December 20, 1787, in PTJ, 12:442.
• 2. Polygraph copy at the Library of Congress.

This article from Monticello here.

 

Quotes Thomas Jefferson did not say...

Portrait of President Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) by Revolutionary War hero Tadeusz Kosciuszko (1746-1817)

The quotation, "the Bible is the source of liberty" has not been found in any writings of Thomas Jefferson.

The first known appearance of this quotation, attributed to Jefferson, is in the book Our Public Schools - Christian or Secular, by Renwick Harper Martin.^[1] It could possibly be an inaccurate paraphrase of the famous line in the Declaration of Independence, "...they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness." However, "endowed by their Creator with...Liberty" is not equivalent to "the Bible is the source of liberty."

This quotation has also appeared as the prelude to a longer quotation: "The Bible is the source of liberty. I have always said, and I always will say, that the studious perusal of the sacred volume will make better citizens." This complete quotation appears, attributed to Jefferson, in the published transcript of a Senate Subcommittee hearing in 1954.^[2]

The second part of this quotation (starting with "I have always said...") has a much older pedigree. Daniel Webster, in a letter he wrote in 1852, described a conversation he had with Jefferson some twenty-seven years earlier, in which (Webster says) Jefferson said, "I have always said, and always will say, that the studious perusal of the sacred volume will make better citizens, better fathers, and better husbands."^[3] This letter first appeared in print in the Christian Union in 1875;^[4] the letter had been discovered and submitted to the Christian Union by a Mr. John Abbott of Fairhaven, Connecticut, who explained that the letter had been saved by a friend of his who had corresponded with Webster. Abbott commented that "It seemed to me just one of those letters which would go the rounds of the newspapers and never be forgotten."^[5] Webster's recounting of Jefferson's comments in the letter have indeed had a remarkable lifespan, although, like "the Bible is the source of liberty," Webster's story has not been confirmed in Jefferson's own writings.

Footnotes

1.  Renwick Harper Martin, Our Public Schools - Christian or Secular (Pittsburgh: National Reform Association, 1952), 39.
2. Christian Amendment. Hearings Before a Subcommittee, Eighty-third Congress, Second Session, on S.J. Res. 87, Proposing an Amendment to the Constitution of the United States Recognizing the Authority and Law of Jesus Christ. May 13, 17, 1954. (Washington: GPO, 1954), 45
3. Daniel Webster to Professor Pease, 15 June 1852. Writings and Speeches of Daniel Webster (Boston: Little, Brown & Co., 1903), 16:656.
4. Daniel Webster, "Letter from Daniel Webster." Christian Union (1870-1893), June 2, 1875, 459. http://www.proquest.com/ (accessed October 18, 2007).
5. John S. C. Abbott, "Memorable Letter from Daniel Webster." Christian Union (1870-1893), June 2, 1875, 459. http://www.proquest.com/ (accessed October 18, 2007).

For a discussion of this spurious quote see the Monticello website here.

Quotes Thomas Jefferson did not say...

Portrait of President Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) by Revolutionary War hero Tadeusz Kosciuszko (1746-1817)

Quotation: "The beauty of the Second Amendment is that it will not be needed until they try to take it."

Earliest known appearance in print attributed to Thomas Jefferson:: 2007


Comments: We currently have no evidence that Thomas Jefferson said or wrote, "The beauty of the Second Amendment is that it will not be needed until they try to take it" or any of its listed variations.

For a discussion of this spurious quote see the Monticello website here.

Quotes Thomas Jefferson did not say...

Portrait of President Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) by Revolutionary War hero Tadeusz Kosciuszko (1746-1817)

Quotation: "My reading of history convinces me that most bad government results from too much government."

Earliest known appearance in print, attributed to Jefferson: 1950

Comments: This exact quotation has not been found in any of the writings of Thomas Jefferson. It bears some slight resemblance to a statement he made in a letter to John Norvell of June 14, 1807: "History, in general, only informs us what bad government is." However, the quotation as it appears above can definitely be attributed to John Sharp Williams in a speech about Jefferson, which has most likely been mistaken at some point for a direct quotation of Jefferson.

For a discussion of this spurious quote see the Monticello website here.

Quotes Thomas Jefferson did not say...

Portrait of President Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) by Revolutionary War hero Tadeusz Kosciuszko (1746-1817)

Quotation: "The democracy will cease to exist when you take away from those who are willing to work and give to those who would not."

Earliest known appearance in print: 1986

Status: This exact quotation has not been found in any of the writings of Thomas Jefferson. It bears a very vague resemblance to Jefferson's comment in a prospectus for his translation of Destutt de Tracy's Treatise on Political Economy: "To take from one, because it is thought that his own industry and that of his fathers has acquired too much, in order to spare to others, who, or whose fathers have not exercised equal industry and skill, is to violate arbitrarily the first principle of association, —the guarantee to every one of a free exercise of his industry, & the fruits acquired by it."

For a discussion of this spurious quote see the Monticello website here.