Journalism Quotes by Thomas Jefferson

I'd rather have newspapers and no government than government and no newspapers.

— Thomas Jefferson

If I had to choose between government and a free press, I would choose a free press.

— Thomas Jefferson

As for what is not true, you will always find abundance in the newspapers.

— Thomas Jefferson

Our liberty depends on freedom of the press.

— Thomas Jefferson

Newspapers . . . serve as chimnies to carry off noxious vapors and smoke.

— Thomas Jefferson

The press is impotent when it abandons itself to falsehood.

— Thomas Jefferson

The most truthful part of a newspaper is the advertisements

— Thomas Jefferson

Nothing can now be believed that is seen in a newspaper.

— Thomas Jefferson

The man who reads nothing at all is better educated than the man who reads nothing but newspapers.

— Thomas Jefferson

Our liberty depends on the freedom of the press, and that cannot be limited without being lost.

— Thomas Jefferson

It is a melancholy truth, that a suppression of the press could not more completely deprive the nation of its benefits than…

— Thomas Jefferson

The freedom of the press is on of the great bulwarks of liberty, and can never be restrained but by a despotic…

— Thomas Jefferson

No government ought to be without censors; and where the press is free no one ever will.

— Thomas Jefferson

I would rather have newspapers without a government than a government without newspapers.

— Thomas Jefferson

I have given up newspapers in exchange for Tacitus and Thucydides, for Newton and Euclid; and I find myself much the happier.

— Thomas Jefferson

Were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers or newspapers without government, I should not…

— Thomas Jefferson

If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, it expects what never was and never will be ... The People cannot…

— Thomas Jefferson

Considering the great importance to the public liberty of the freedom of the press, and the difficulty of submitting it to very…

— Thomas Jefferson

Those who don’t read the newspapers are better off than those who do insofar as those who know nothing are better off…

— Thomas Jefferson

This formidable censor of the public functionaries [the press], by arraigning them at the tribunal of public opinion, produces reform peaceably, which…

— Thomas Jefferson

Were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers, or newspapers without a government, I should…

— Thomas Jefferson

Were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers, or newspapers without a government, I should…

— Thomas Jefferson

From forty years' experience of the wretched guess-work of the newspapers of what is not done in open daylight, and of their…

— Thomas Jefferson

“[T]he artillery of the press has been leveled against us, charged with whatsoever its licentiousness could devise or dare. These abuses of…

— Thomas Jefferson

Nothing can now be believed which is seen in a newspaper. Truth itself becomes suspicious by being put into that polluted vehicle...…

— Thomas Jefferson

To your request of my opinion of the manner in which a newspaper should be conducted, so as to be most useful,…

— Thomas Jefferson

You know well that government always kept a kind of standing army of newswriters who, without any regard to truth or to…

— Thomas Jefferson

The basis of our governments being the opinion of the people, the very first object should be to keep that right; and…

— Thomas Jefferson

The press is the best instrument for enlightening the mind of man, and improving him as a rational, moral and social being

— Thomas Jefferson

Nothing can now be believed which is seen in a newspaper. Truth itself becomes suspicious by being put into that polluted vehicle.

— Thomas Jefferson

I do not take a single newspaper, nor read one a month, and I feel myself infinitely the happier for it.

— Thomas Jefferson

If I had to choose between government without newspapers, and newspapers without government, I wouldn't hesitate to choose the latter

— Thomas Jefferson

But the fact being once established, that the press is impotent when it abandons itself to falsehood, I leave to others to…

— Thomas Jefferson

I really look with commiseration over the great body of my fellow citizens who, reading newspapers, live and die in the belief…

— Thomas Jefferson

Nothing can now be believed which is seen in a newspaper. Truth itself becomes suspicious by being put into that polluted vehicle.…

— Thomas Jefferson

The only security of all is in a free press. The force of public opinion cannot be resisted when permitted freely to…

— Thomas Jefferson

I deplore with you the putrid state into which our newspapers have passed, and the malignity, the vulgarity, and mendacious spirit of…

— Thomas Jefferson

It is so difficult to draw a clear line of separation between the abuse and the wholesome use of the press, that…

— Thomas Jefferson

A truth now and then projecting into the ocean of newspaper lies serves like headlands to correct our course. Indeed, my scepticism…

— Thomas Jefferson

During the course of administration, and in order to disturb it, the artillery of the press has been levelled against us, charged…

— Thomas Jefferson