“If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be.”

“A nation which expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, expects that which never was and never will be.”

“Those who expect to be both ignorant and free, expect what never was and never will be.”

“History, I believe, furnishes no example of a priest-ridden people maintaining a free civil government. This marks the lowest grade of ignorance of which their civil as well as religious leaders will always avail themselves for their own purposes.”

“no people can be both ignorant and free.”

“We are not to expect to be translated from despotism to liberty in a featherbed.”

“It is an axiom in my mind, that our liberty can never be safe but in the hands of the people themselves, and that too of the people with a certain degree of instruction. This it is the business of the State to effect, and on a general plan.”