I’ve been Goggling around for a half an hour, or so, trying to find this pesky quote I only partially remember. The quote is, and I’m guessing at the wording, “The greatest danger to a democracy is from well-intentioned individuals…something.”
I think it’s on the DOJ or maybe the Supreme Court building but I just can’t find anything related. For all I know I’m wrong about it being from Jefferson.
Anyone live in the DC area? Anyone remember this from seeing it?
If it’s Jefferson, you might find it at the University of Virginia Jefferson Archive.
The only document in that archive that contains the word “intentioned” is Jefferson’s autogiograpy. Here is the context:
I also checked the inscriptions on the Jefferson Memorial, and none of them match what you’re looking for. They can be seen at http://www.nps.gov/thje/memorial/memorial.htm# (click on “Inscriptions”)
Googled: +“danger to democracy” +individual +intention*
The problem is that the quote does not include any form of ‘intention’ but ‘tendency’ instead. I was lucke that the rest of the article used ‘intention.’
Peace.
We’re not there yet. It’s a shorter quote. And it’s inscribed across the entrance or inside of some prominent building. Maybe I should have Bricker include it in his next trivia challenge.
To re-paraphrase: A man with good intentions bypassing the law is a grave threat to government. God, I dunno. I was originally struck by the quote after listening to Ollie North testify. FWIW.
Well, samclem, I guess my reference to Ollie North was a little vague. My oops. I viewed North as a person breaking the law for what he viewed as a good cause. Hence the reference.
And I guess my problem is that I don’t remember the quote, else I’d get hits Googling (Thanks Ravenman.) Furthermore, I only remember, or think I remember, that it is inscribed on a DC building. We all know memory can play some wicked tricks, but I’m pretty sure about these. I was really hoping for some DC pedestrian to chime in about how they walk by that phrase every morning.
And Nametag has that precise jist of the quote, though that isn’t the one.
Dantheman, was there something on that link I missed? I didn’t see any inscriptions but I’ve been dense before. Thanks.
I visited DC years ago but that’s not where I remember it from. I’m normally a great information sponge and can usually wring out data at will. For some reason the need for this bit of information got shoved to the front of the must-remember queue this morning, but no matter how hard I squeeze I can’t seem to get the location or quote out of core.
I can only recall the meaning and feeling of the quote and that it’s an inscription somewhere on some undoubtedly white marble building.
Yeah, I know the clues are, at best, sketchy. I know it’s out there though. That’s why I mentioned the possibility of someone piping up with, “Hey! I know exactly what he’s talking about!”
Any chance that what you want is “All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.” The attribution I find for it is Edmund Burke, not Jefferson, but it’s short, has the right feel, and is reasonably common.
At the time Jefferson was writing it was still common to spell both the possessive pronoun and the contraction of “it is” with an apostrophe. The hard and fast distinction between its and it’s wasn’t fully developed until almost the middle of the nineteenth century.
I sure hope that was a typo by someone at UVa.