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> Can you provide a reference onthe following quotation, attributed to Thomas > Jefferson: > > "If all the people knew all the facts, they would ever make a mistake." I do not believe the quotation, "If all the people knew all the facts, they would ever make a mistake." is by Jefferson. (That probably should be "never" in place of "ever" in any case.) But it does sound like someone else's summary of Jefferson's beliefs as expressed in the following quotations. "The people cannot be all, and always, well-informed. The part which is wrong will be discontented in proportion to the importance of the facts they misconceive. If they remain quiet under such misconceptions, it is a lethargy, the forerunner of death to the public liberty." --Thomas Jefferson to William Stephens Smith, 1787. ME 6:372, Papers 12:356 "I know no safe depositary of the ultimate powers of the society but the people themselves; and if we think them not enlightened enough to exercise their control with a wholesome discretion, the remedy is not to take it from them, but to inform their discretion by education. This is the true corrective of abuses of constitutional power." --Thomas Jefferson to William C. Jarvis, 1820. ME 15:278 I don't think Jefferson would ever express such thoughts by saying the people would NEVER make a mistake if they knew all the facts. Such unrealistic absolutes were not his style. But as you can see in the second quotation, he suggests that the people ARE the safest depositary. He does not say that they never make a mistake, only that they are as close to something that does not make a mistake as you are going to get.