Religious leaders will always avail themselves of public ignorance for their own purpose.
Interpretation
Religious leaders often exploit the lack of knowledge among the public to serve their own agendas.
This quote reflects Thomas Jefferson's critique of the way some religious leaders manipulate the beliefs and ignorance of people to further their own interests. It highlights the potential for power dynamics within religion, suggesting that leaders may take advantage of followers' lack of understanding to maintain control or influence.
In practice
During a speech on the importance of critical thinking, one might use this quote to illustrate the dangers of blind faith.
The firmness with which the (American) people have withstood the... abuses of the press, the discernment they have manifested between truth and falsehood, show that they may safely be trusted to hear everything true and false and to form a correct judgment between them.
I, place economy among the first & most important republican virtues, & public debt as the greatest of the dangers to be feared
βWe must make our choice between economy and liberty or confusion and servitude...If we run into such debts, we must be taxed in our meat and drink, in our necessities and comforts, in our labor and in our amusements...if we can prevent the government from wasting the labor of the people, under the pretense of caring for them, they will be happy.
Very many and very meritorious were the worthy patriots who assisted in bringing back our government to its republican tack. To preserve it in that, will require unremitting vigilance.
A nation, as a society, forms a moral person, and every member of it is personally responsible for his society.
Timid men prefer the calm of despotism to the tempestuous sea of liberty.
People can only live fully by helping others to live. When you give life to friends you truly live. Cultures can only realize their further richness by honoring other traditions. And only by respecting natural life can humanity continue to exist.
We need not resolve the difficult question of when life begins. When those trained in the respective disciplines of medicine, philosophy, and theology are unable to arrive at any consensus, the judiciary, at this point in the development of man's knowledge, is not in a position to speculate as to the answer.
I look up at the night sky, and I know that, yes, we are part of this Universe, we are in this Universe, but perhaps more important than both of those facts is that the Universe is in us. When I reflect on that fact, I look up β many people feel small, because theyβre small and the Universe is big, but I feel big, because my atoms came from those stars.
Is not the very beginning of privilege, monopoly and industrial slavery this erecting of the ballot-box above the individual?
In our society, as people pass out of young adulthood, they tend to relate to themselves more in terms of what they are no longer than what they are now, and that's psychologically low-grade devastating.
There's a Mr. Hyde for every happy Jekyll face, a dark face on the other side of the mirror. The brain behind that face never heard of razors, prayers, or the logic of the universe. You turn the mirror sideways and see your face reflected with a sinister left-hand twist, half mad and half sane.
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