It is error alone which needs the support of government. Truth can stand by itself.

The aphorism contrasts coercive power with the self-sustaining force of reasoned truth. Jefferson’s point is that governments tend to prop up falsehood—whether in religion, ideology, or policy—through legal privilege, censorship, or punishment, because error cannot survive open inquiry. Truth, by contrast, does not require compulsion; it can endure scrutiny and persuade on its merits. Read in a Jeffersonian key, the line aligns with arguments for freedom of conscience and press: the state should not enforce orthodoxy, because doing so signals insecurity about the claim’s validity. The quote thus functions as a compact defense of intellectual liberty and a warning about the political uses of authority to maintain mistaken beliefs.