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Today’s Hours
Gates open from 8:30 am to 6 pm
Spurious Quotations
- All tyranny needs to gain a foothold...
- Bad government results from too much government
- The beauty of the Second Amendment... (Quotation)
- The Bible is the source of liberty (Quotation)
- The Christian god is a three headed monster
- Democracy is nothing more than mob rule...
- The democracy will cease to exist...(Quotation)
- Dissent is the highest form of patriotism
- Do you want to know who you are?
- An educated citizenry...
- Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty
- Every man has two countries - his own and France
- Few die, none resign
- Government big enough...
- If a law is unjust...
- If we are to guard against ignorance...
- I would rather be judged by 12 farmers than 12 scholars
- In matters of style, swim with the current...
- Information is the currency of democracy
- Jewel among the states
- Making this wine vine known to the public
- Museum of our soul
- The nation was clothed with ample powers...(Quotation)
- Near-perfect republic
- No duty the Executive had to perform...
- No nation has ever yet existed or been governed without religion...
- Nothing can stop the man with the right mental attitude...
- The office of citizen
- Private Banks
- Some of my finest hours have been spent on my back veranda, smoking hemp...
- Spell a word only one way
- Strongest reason for the people to...keep and bear arms...
- Superstition of Christianity
- That goverment is best which governs the least. (Quotation)
- The two enemies of the people...(Quotation)
- Those who hammer their guns into plows...(Quotation)
- Tyranny is defined as that which is legal for the government
- The web of mutual obligations between generations...(Quotation)
- When you reach the end of your rope, tie a knot in it and hang on (Quotation)
- Without God, liberty will not last (Quotation)
Discussion
This one was slippery, but I think I figured it out. It's Noam Chomsky (or perhaps David Barsamian) + Jefferson. I've created a new spurious quotation page for this one, and you can see all the details there: http://www.monticello.org/site/research-and-collections/end-democracyquo...
Here's a curious one:
"Some people will believe anything, so long as it eliminates the awful requirement of thought. Our electors are like a cork in a bathtub, they bound joyfully about the tub without direction of plan, until the master of the System gives them direction and instruction, which they gladly Follow. Thomas Jefferson, 1816"
That's from Adrian Krieg. Our Political Systems. Oakland, OR: Elderberry Press, 2004. p.124. Among other red flags, Krieg's "Cultural Doctorate in Manufacturing Science" from World University reminds me of the first part of the "quote," that "Some people will believe anything"....
That is curious. The only source I can find, anywhere, that uses that quotation is Adrian Krieg's book. It also looks like something of a hybrid - the first sentence has a more modern ring than the rest of it. If you spot this quotation anywhere else, let me know.
I suspect this isn't Jefferson, as many claim: "In matters of style, swim with the current; in matters of principle, stand like a rock."
There are some close variations on it, some of which have a real Jefferson quote appended as part of it. Just trying to source it very quickly, the oldest occurrence I found was in More Borrowings. San Francisco: C.A. Murdock & Co., 1891, where it was unattributed. Oldest one attributing it to Jefferson was New Medical Schools at Home and Abroad: Report of a Macy Conference (1978).
Christopher, you are quite right - that is not a Jefferson quotation as far as we know. The variations of this quote that you found with real Jefferson quotes attached to them are interesting - I've seen that phenomenon before with other quotes, but not this one (until now).
I had another question about the "swim with the current" quote not too long ago, so it's on my list to do an article on this one. Stay tuned!
Undoubtedly sometime in our lives we hear someone begin a phrase, "Well, as Thomas Jefferson once said..." We typically go about our lives without wondering is that something that Thomas Jefferson actually said or wrote. Monticello's librarians, however, have taken on the task of verifying some popularly cited Jefferson "quotations" that they come across. Here's a collection of some of the bogus quotations containing interesting tidbits about the detective work the librarians undertook.
This is a fantastic example of our learned and witty librarians at work!
It's not that quotes get mistakenly attributed to Jefferson that fascinates me so much as the types of quotes that do and how, in a couple of cases, the quotes already have great pedigrees. For instance, the "That government is best which governs least" is by Henry David Thoreau, not Jefferson. But you get the sense that many people would rather it were by Jefferson because of his key role in the nation's founding. What's also fairly amusing is that when I check to see what search phrases bring people to the Thomas Jefferson Encyclopedia site (and not just the Spurious Quotes page), two of the top ten are quotes frequently misattributed to Jefferson.
I believe I have another spurious quote for you. It's found on a number of webpages but not one with a citation.
"The end of democracy and the defeat of the American Revolution will occur when government falls into the hands of lending institutions and moneyed incorporations."