evidence: - There is no evidence that Franklin ever actually said or wrote this, but it's remarkably similar a quote often attributed, without proper sourcing, to Alexis de Tocqueville and Alexander Fraser Tytler: [...] - Libraries ... will be the best security for maintaining our liberties. It is in the regions of ignorance that tyranny reigns. [...] - This is actually from an essay "On Government No. I" that appeared in Franklin's paper, The Pennsylvania Gazette, on 1 April 1736. The author was John Webbe. He wrote about the privileges enjoyed under British rule, - Thank God! we are in the full enjoyment of all these privileges. But can we be taught to prize them too much? or how can we prize them equal to their value, if we do not know their intrinsic worth, and that they are not a gift bestowed upon us by other men, but a right that belongs to us by the laws of God and nature?