Quotes & Sayings About Citizenship By Thomas Jefferson

Nevertheless, (Jefferson) believed that the habit of skepticism is an essential prerequisite for responsible citizenship. He argued that the cost of education is trivial compared to the cost of ignorance, of leaving government to the wolves. He taught that the country is safe only when the people rule. — Carl Sagan

In a republican nation, whose citizens are to be led by reason and persuasion and not by force, the art of reasoning becomes of first importance — Thomas Jefferson

A nation, as a society, forms a moral person, and every member of it is personally responsible for his society. — Thomas Jefferson

In the constitution of Spain as proposed by the late Cortes, there was a principle entirely new to me: ... that no person born after that day should ever acquire the rights of citizenship until he could read and write. It is impossible sufficiently to estimate the wisdom of this provision. Of all those which have been thought of for securing fidelity in the administration of the government, constant reliance to the principles of the constitution, and progressive amendments with the progressive advances of the human mind or changes in human affairs, it is the most effectual. — Thomas Jefferson