Publius

"From this summary of what has taken place in other countries, whose situations have borne the nearest resemblance to our own, what reason can we have to confide in those reveries, which would seduce us into the expectation of peace and cordiality between the members of the present confederacy, in a state of separation? Have we not already seen enough of the fallacy and extravagance of those idle theories which have amused us with promises of an exemption from the imperfections, the weaknesses, and the evils incident to society in every shape? Is it not time to awake from the deceitful dream of a golden age, and to adopt as a practical maxim for the direction of our political conduct, that we, as well as the other inhabitants of the globe, are yet remote from the happy empire of perfect wisdom and perfect virtue?"

Publius, 
The Federalist 6

Cesare Beccaria

"Laws that forbid the carrying of arms ... disarm only those who are neither inclined nor determined to commit crimes. ... Such laws make things worse for the assaulted and better for the assailants."

--Cesare Beccaria, quoted by Thomas Jefferson in Commonplace Book

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Mercy Warren

"It is necessary for every American, with becoming energy to endeavor to stop the dissemination of principles evidently destructive of the cause for which they have bled. It must be the combined virtue of the rulers and of the people to do this, and to rescue and save their civil and religious rights from the outstretched arm of tyranny, which may appear under any mode or form of government."

--Mercy Warren, History of the Rise, Progress, and Termination of the American Revolution, 1805

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George Washington

"There is but one straight course, and that is to seek truth and pursue it steadily."

--George Washington

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Samuel Williams

"It is not necessary to enumerate the many advantages, that arise from this custom of early marriages. They comprehend all the society can receive from this source; from the preservation, and increase of the human race. Every thing useful and beneficial to man, seems to be connected with obedience to the laws of his nature, the inclinations, the duties, and the happiness of individuals, resolve themselves into customs and habits, favourable, in the highest degree, to society. In no case is this more apparent, than in the customs of nations respecting marriage."

--Samuel Williams, The Natural and Civil History of Vermont, 1794

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James Madison

"A just security to property is not afforded by that government, under which unequal taxes oppress one species of property and reward another species."

--James Madison, Essay on Property, 1792

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Richard Henry Lee

"It is certainly true that a popular government cannot flourish without virtue in the people." -

Richard Henry Lee, letter to Colonel Martin Pickett, 1786

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John Adams

"If men through fear, fraud or mistake, should in terms renounce and give up any essential natural right, the eternal law of reason and the great end of society, would absolutely vacate such renunciation; the right to freedom being the gift of God Almighty, it is not in the power of Man to alienate this gift, and voluntarily become a slave."

--John Adams, Rights of the Colonists, 1772

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Thomas Jefferson

"If, then, the control of the people over the organs of their government be the measure of its republicanism, and I confess I know no other measure, it must be agreed that our governments have much less of republicanism than ought to have been expected; in other words, that the people have less regular control over their agents, than their rights and their interests require."

--Thomas Jefferson, letter to John Taylor, 1816

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Joseph Story

"The right of the citizens to keep and bear arms has justly been considered as the palladium of the liberties of a republic."

--Joseph Story

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Patrick Henry

"Is the relinquishment of the trial by jury and the liberty of the press necessary for your liberty? Will the abandonment of your most sacred rights tend to the security of your liberty? Liberty, the greatest of all earthly blessings -- give us that precious jewel, and you may take every things else! Guard with jealous attention the public liberty. Suspect every one who approaches that jewel."

--Patrick Henry, Speech to the Virginia Convention, 1788

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Thomas Paine

"It is the madness of folly, to expect mercy from those who have refused to do justice; and even mercy, where conquest is the object, is only a trick of war; the cunning of the fox is as murderous as the violence of the wolf."

--Thomas Paine, The American Crisis, No. 1, 1776

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Thomas Jefferson

"If we can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people, under the pretence of taking care of them, they must become happy."

--Thomas Jefferson, letter to Thomas Cooper, 1802

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Joseph Warren

"Our country is in danger, but not to be despaired of. Our enemies are numerous and powerful; but we have many friends, determining to be free, and heaven and earth will aid the resolution. On you depend the fortunes of America. You are to decide the important question, on which rest the happiness and liberty of millions yet unborn. Act worthy of yourselves."

--Joseph Warren, Boston Massacre Oration, 1775

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James Madison

"The eyes of the world being thus on our Country, it is put the more on its good behavior, and under the greater obligation also, to do justice to the Tree of Liberty by an exhibition of the fine fruits we gather from it."

--James Madison, letter to James Monroe, 1824

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Chinese Proverb (ouch!)

"The tears of strangers are just water."

--Chinese Proverb

Commentary: Wow!!! And yet so very many people aspire to eastern spirituality. Why? Is it to lower their level of compassion? I've never seen any Christian speak like this who wasn't out on the extreme lunatic fringe in all aspects of his life. Yet the Chinese seem to think this way "en mass." Come to think of it, those aspiring to eastern spirituality seem to be the same ones who want to kill the unborn. Ok. Now it makes sense.

Thomas Jefferson

"Love your neighbor as yourself and your country more than yourself."

--Thomas Jefferson, letter to Thomas Jefferson Smith, 1825

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George Washington

"We have therefore to resolve to conquer or die: Our won Country's Honor, all call upon us for vigorous and manly exertion, and if we now shamefully fail, we shall become infamous to the whole world. Let us therefore rely upon the goodness of the Cause, and the aid of the supreme Being, in whose hands Victory is, to animate and encourage us to great and noble Actions."

--George Washington, General Orders, 1776

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John Jay

"But the safety of the people of America against dangers from foreign force depends not only on their forbearing to give just causes of war to other nations, but also on their placing and continuing themselves in such a situation as not to invite hostility or insult; for it need not be observed that there are pretended as well as just causes of war."

--John Jay, Federalist No. 4

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Nathan Hale

"I only regret that I have but one life to lose for my country."

--Nathan Hale, before being hanged by the British, 1776

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Thomas Jefferson

"The multiplication of public offices, increase of expense beyond income, growth and entailment of a public debt, are indications soliciting the employment of the pruning knife."

--Thomas Jefferson (1821)

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Alexander Hamilton

"Foreign influence is truly the Grecian horse to a republic. We cannot be too careful to exclude its influence."

--Alexander Hamilton, Pacificus, No. 6, 1793

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Thomas Jefferson

"Our peculiar security is in the possession of a written Constitution. Let us not make it a blank paper by construction."

--Thomas Jefferson, letter to Wilson Nicholas, 1803

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James Madison

"There is not a more important and fundamental principle in legislation, than that the ways and means ought always to face the public engagements; that our appropriations should ever go hand in hand with our promises. To say that the United States should be answerable for twenty-five millions of dollars without knowing whether the ways and means can be provided, and without knowing whether those who are to succeed us will think with us on the subject, would be rash and unjustifiable. Sir, in my opinion, it would be hazarding the public faith in a manner contrary to every idea of prudence."

--James Madison, Speech in Congress, 1790

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Benjamin Franklin

"In reality there is perhaps no one of our natural passions so hard to subdue as pride. Disguise it, struggle with it, beat it down, stifle it, mortify it as much as one pleases, it is still alive, and will now and then peek out and show itself."

--Benjamin Franklin, Autobiography, 1771

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Thomas Jefferson

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

--Thomas Jefferson

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Patrick Henry

"The battle, sir, is not to the strong alone; it is to the vigilant, the active, the brave."

--Patrick Henry, speech in the Virginia Convention, 1775

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Edmund Burke

"Criminal means, once tolerated are soon preferred...The moment one capitulates to the idea that mayhem and murder are justified for the greater good, the greater good is forgotten, and mayhem and murder become ends in themselves, until only violence can satiate their insatiable appetites."

--Edmund Burke

George Washington

"[T]he crisis is arrived when we must assert our rights, or submit to every imposition, that can be heaped upon us, till custom and use shall make us as tame and abject slaves.

--George Washington (1774)

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Noah Webster

"Every child in America should be acquainted with his own country. He should read books that furnish him with ideas that will be useful to him in life and practice. As soon as he opens his lips, he should rehearse the history of his own country."

--Noah Webster,
On the Education of Youth in America, 1788

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George Washington

"[T]he crisis is arrived when we must assert our rights, or submit to every imposition, that can be heaped upon us, till custom and use shall make us as tame and abject slaves.

--George Washington (1774)

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James Madison

"The essence of Government is power; and power, lodged as it must be in human hands, will ever be liable to abuse."

--James Madison

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G. Gordon Liddy

"When I was a kid, this was a free country."

--G. Gordon Liddy.
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Samuel Adams

"Let each citizen remember at the moment he is offering his vote that he is not making a present or a compliment to please an individual -- or at least that he ought not so to do; but that he is executing one of the most solemn trusts in human society for which he is accountable to God and his country."

--Samuel Adams (1781)

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George Washington

"We should never despair, our situation before has been unpromising and has changed for the better, so I trust, it will again. If new difficulties arise, we must only put forth new exertions and proportion our efforts to the exigency of the times."

--George Washington, letter to Philip Schuyler, 1777

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Thomas Jefferson

"If we can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people, under the pretence of taking care of them, they must become happy."

--Thomas Jefferson

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Flannery O’Connor

"You have to push as hard as the age that pushes against you." 

Flannery O'Connor
Author

George Washington

"All see, and most admire, the glare which hovers round the external trappings of elevated office. To me there is nothing in it, beyond the lustre which may be reflected from its connection with a power of promoting human felicity."

--George Washington, letter to Catherine Macaulay Graham, 1790

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George Washington

"To be prepared for war, is one of the most effectual means of preserving peace."

--George Washington

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Thomas Jefferson

"It has been a source of great pain to me to have met with so many among [my] opponents who had not the liberality to distinguish between political and social opposition; who transferred at once to the person, the hatred they bore to his political opinions."

--Thomas Jefferson, letter to Richard M. Johnson, 1808

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Thomas Jefferson

"Whatever enables us to go to war, secures our peace."

--Thomas Jefferson

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George W. Bush

"If we ensure that America's children succeed in life, they will ensure that America succeeds in the world."

--George W. Bush

George Washington

"A few short weeks will determine the political fate of America for the present generation, and probably produce no small influence on the happiness of society through a long succession of ages to come."

--George Washington (1778)

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George Washington

"No compact among men ... can be pronounced everlasting and inviolable, and if I may so express myself, that no Wall of words, that no mound of parchment can be so formed as to stand against the sweeping torrent of boundless ambition on the one side, aided by the sapping current of corrupted morals on the other."

--George Washington, draft of first Inaugural Address, 1789

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John Adams

"If the people are capable of understanding, seeing and feeling the differences between true and false, right and wrong, virtue and vice, to what better principle can the friends of mankind apply than to the sense of this difference?"

--John Adams

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Douglas Adams

"I may not have gone where I intended to go, but I think I've ended up where I needed to be."

--Douglas Adams


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Thomas Jefferson

"I know no safe depository of the ultimate powers of the society but the people themselves; and if we think them not enlightened enough to exercise their control with a wholesome discretion, the remedy is not to take it from them, but to inform their discretion by education. This is the true corrective of abuses of constitutional power."

--Thomas Jefferson, letter to William Charles Jarvis, 1820

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Patrick Henry

"It is natural to man to indulge in the illusions of hope. We are apt to shut our eyes against a painful truth - and listen to the song of that syren, till she transforms us into beasts. Is this the part of wise men, engaged in a great and arduous struggle for liberty? Are we disposed to be of the number of those, who having eyes, see not, and having ears, hear not, the things which so nearly concern their temporal salvation? For my part, whatever anguish of spirit it might cost, I am willing to know the whole truth; to know the worst, and to provide for it."

--Patrick Henry, speech in the Virginia Convention, 1775

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John Adams

"National defense is one of the cardinal duties of a statesman."

--John Adams

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Rudyard Kipling

"The Russian is a delightful person 'til he tucks in his shirt. As an Oriental, he is charming. It is only when he insists on being treated as the most easterly of Western peoples instead of the most westerly of Easterns that he becomes difficult to handle.

--Rudyard Kipling

Marquis de Custine

"Whenever you are unhappy, go to Russia. Anyone who has come to understand that country will find himself content to live anywhere else."

--Marquis de Custine
Russia, 1839

James Madison

"[A]mbitious encroachments of the federal government, on the authority of the State governments, would not excite the opposition of a single State, or of a few States only. They would be signals of general alarm."

--James Madison, Federalist No. 46, 1788

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George Washington

"There is but one straight course, and that is to seek truth and pursue it steadily."

--George Washington

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John Adams

"We should be unfaithful to ourselves if we should ever lose sight of the danger to our liberties if anything partial or extraneous should infect the purity of our free, fair, virtuous, and independent elections."

--John Adams, Inaugural Address, 1797

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George Washington

"There is but one straight course, and that is to seek truth and pursue it steadily."

--George Washington

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Thomas Jefferson

"Sometimes it is said that man can not be trusted with government of himself. Can he, then, be trusted with the government of others? Or have we found angels in the forms of kings to govern him? Let history answer this question."

--Thomas Jefferson, First Inaugural Address, 1801

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George Washington

"The preservation of the sacred fire of liberty, and the destiny of the republican model of government, are justly considered deeply, perhaps as finally, staked on the experiment entrusted to the hands of the American people."

--George Washington, First Inaugural Address, 1789

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Fisher Ames

"I am commonly opposed to those who modestly assume the rank of champions of liberty, and make a very patriotic noise about the people. It is the stale artifice which has duped the world a thousand times, and yet, though detected, it is still successful. I love liberty as well as anybody. I am proud of it, as the true title of our people to distinction above others; but...I would guard it by making the laws strong enough to protect it."

--Fisher Ames,
letter to George Richard Minot, 1789

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John Adams

"They define a republic to be a government of laws, and not of men."

--John Adams,
Novanglus No. 7, 1775

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Benjamin Franklin

"Have you something to do to-morrow; do it to-day."

--Benjamin Franklin

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Q

Q: "Now pay attention, 007, I've always tried to teach you two things: First, never let them see you bleed;"

Bond: "And second?"

Q: "Always have an escape plan"

James Madison

"It is a principle incorporated into the settled policy of America, that as peace is better than war, war is better than tribute."

--James Madison, letter to the Dey of Algiers, 1816

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Benjamin Franklin

"Here comes the orator! With his flood of words, and his drop of reason."

--Benjamin Franklin

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Thomas Jefferson

"[T]he States can best govern our home concerns and the general government our foreign ones. I wish, therefore ... never to see all offices transferred to Washington, where, further withdrawn from the eyes of the people, they may more secretly be bought and sold at market."

--Thomas Jefferson, letter to Judge William Johnson, 1823

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Samuel Adams

"The public cannot be too curious concerning the characters of public men."

--Samuel Adams, letter to James Warren, 1775

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Samuel Adams

"[N]either the wisest constitution nor the wisest laws will secure the liberty and happiness of a people whose manners are universally corrupt."

--Samuel Adams (1749)

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Samuel Adams

"No people will tamely surrender their liberties, nor can any be easily subdued, when knowledge is diffusd and virtue is preserved. On the contrary, when people are universally ignorant, and debauchd in their manners, they will sink under their own weight without the aid of foreign invaders."

--Samuel Adams, letter to James Warren, 1775

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Alexander Hamilton

"[T]he fiery and destructive passions of war reign in the human breast with much more powerful sway than the mild and beneficent sentiments of peace."

--Alexander Hamilton

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John Adams

"Liberty cannot be preserved without a general knowledge among the people, who have a right, from the frame of their nature, to knowledge, as their great Creator, who does nothing in vain, has given them understandings, and a desire to know; but besides this, they have a right, an indisputable, unalienable, indefeasible, divine right to that most dreaded and envied kind of knowledge; I mean, of the characters and conduct of their rulers."

--John Adams, Dissertation on Canon and Feudal Law, 1765

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Thomas Paine

"Everything that is right or reasonable pleads for separation. The blood of the slain, the weeping voice of nature cries; tis time to part."

--Thomas Paine, Common Sense, 1776

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George Washington

"There can be no greater error than to expect, or calculate upon real favours from Nation to Nation."

--George Washington

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Thomas Jefferson

"They are not to do anything they please to provide for the general welfare, but only to lay taxes for that purpose. To consider the latter phrase not as describing the purpose of the first, but as giving a distinct and independent power to do any act they please which may be good for the Union, would render all the preceding and subsequent enumerations of power completely useless. It would reduce the whole instrument to a single phrase, that of instituting a Congress with power to do whatever would be for the good of the United States; and as they would be the sole judges of the good or evil, it would be also a power to do whatever evil they please...Certainly no such universal power was meant to be given them. It was intended to lace them up straightly within the enumerated powers and those without which, as means, these powers could not be carried into effect."

--Thomas Jefferson, Opinion on a National Bank, 1791

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Joseph Story

"The plain import of the clause is, that congress shall have all the incidental and instrumental powers, necessary and proper to carry into execution all the express powers. It neither enlarges any power specifically granted; nor is it a grant of any new power to congress. But it is merely a declaration for the removal of all uncertainty, that the means of carrying into execution those, otherwise granted, are included in the grant."

--Joseph Story, Commentaries on the Constitution, 1833

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Proverbs 29:9

"If a wise man has an argument with a fool, the fool only rages and laughs, and there is no quiet."

--Proverbs 29:9

President Thomas S. Monson

"The future is as bright as your faith."

--President Thomas S. Monson,
President and Prophet of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

President Thomas S. Monson

"In the performance of our responsibilities, I have learned that when we heed a silent prompting and act upon it without delay, our Heavenly Father will guide our footsteps and bless our lives and the lives of others. I know of no experience more sweet or feeling more precious than to heed a prompting only to discover that the Lord has answered another person's prayer through you."

-- President Thomas S. Monson
President and Prophet of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints

Groucho Marx

"Outside of a dog, a book is man's best friend. Inside of a dog it's too dark to read."

--Groucho Marx

Patrick Henry

"It is natural to man to indulge in the illusions of hope. We are apt to shut our eyes against a painful truth -- and listen to the song of that syren, till she transforms us into beasts. Is this the part of wise men, engaged in a great and arduous struggle for liberty?"

--Patrick Henry

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Winston Churchill

"Socialism is a Philosophy of Failure; The Creed of Ignorance; The Gospel of Envy. It's inherent virtue is the equal sharing of misery."

--Winston Churchill

John Adams

"Government is instituted for the common good; for the protection, safety, prosperity, and happiness of the people."

--John Adams

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John Witherspoon

"Nothing is more certain than that a general profligacy and corruption of manners make a people ripe for destruction. A good form of government may hold the rotten materials together for some time, but beyond a certain pitch, even the best constitution will be ineffectual, and slavery must ensue."

--John Witherspoon, The Dominion of Providence Over the Passions of Men, 1776

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John Adams

"Our obligations to our country never cease but with our lives."

--John Adams, letter to Benjamin Rush, 1808

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James Madison

"Is it not the glory of the people of America, that whilst they have paid a decent regard to the opinions of former times and other nations, they have not suffered a blind veneration for antiquity, for custom, or for names, to overrule the suggestions of their own good sense, the knowledge of their own situation, and the lessons of their own experience? To this manly spirit, posterity will be indebted for the possession, and the world for the example of the numerous innovations displayed on the American theatre, in favor of private rights and public happiness."

--James Madison, Federalist No. 14, 1787

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George Washington

"No country upon earth ever had it more in its power to attain these blessings than United America. Wondrously strange, then, and much to be regretted indeed would it be, were we to neglect the means and to depart from the road which Providence has pointed us to so plainly; I cannot believe it will ever come to pass."

--George Washington, letter to Benjamin Lincoln, 1788

Thomas Jefferson

"Love your neighbor as yourself and your country more than yourself."

— Thomas Jefferson

Benjamin Rush

"Patriotism is as much a virtue as justice, and is as necessary for the support of societies ..."

—Benjamin Rush

Thomas Jefferson

"A morsel of genuine history is a thing so rare as to be always valuable."

— Thomas Jefferson

George Washington

"There is but one straight course, and that is to seek truth and pursue it steadily."

— George Washington

James Madison

"It is impossible for the man of pious reflection not to perceive in it [the Constitution] a finger of that Almighty hand which has been so frequently and signally extended to our relief in the critical stages of the revolution."

— James Madison
 

James Wilson

"Law and liberty cannot rationally become the objects of our love, unless they first become the objects of our knowledge."

—James Wilson
 

Ronald Reagan

"America's best days are yet to come. Our proudest moments are yet to be. Our most glorious achievements are just ahead."

-- Ronald Reagan

Samuel Adams

"It does not take a majority to prevail ... but rather an irate, tireless minority, keen on setting brushfires of freedom in the minds of men."

--Samuel Adams

George Washington

"We should never despair. Our situation before has been unpromising and has changed for the better, so I trust, it will again. If new difficulties arise, we must only put forth new exertions and proportion our efforts to the exigency of the times."

--George Washington

Thomas Paine

"These are the times that try men's souls."
 
--Thomas Paine

Edmund Burke

"All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing."

--Edmund Burke
 18th century English statesman

James Madison

"[T]he citizens of the United States are responsible for the greatest trust ever confided to a political society. If justice, good faith, honor, gratitude and all the other qualities which ennoble the character of a nation and fulfill the ends of government be the fruits of our establishments, the cause of liberty will acquire a dignity and lustre, which it has never yet enjoyed, and an example will be set, which cannot but have the most favourable influence on the rights on Mankind. If on the other side, our governments should be unfortunately blotted with the reverse of these cardinal and essential virtues, the great cause which we have engaged to vindicate, will be dishonored and betrayed; the last and fairest experiment in favor of the rights of human nature will be turned against them; and their patrons and friends exposed to be insulted and silenced by the votaries of tyranny and usurpation."

--James Madison

Ronald Reagan

"There are no easy answers, but there are simple answers. We must have the courage to do what we know is morally right. ... You and I have a rendezvous with destiny. We will preserve for our children this, the last best hope of man on earth, or we will sentence them to take the last step into a thousand years of darkness."

--Ronald Reagan

Thomas Paine

"If there must be trouble, let it be in my day, that my child may have peace."

--Thomas Paine
1776.
 

Patrick Henry

"It is natural to man to indulge in the illusions of hope. We are apt to shut our eyes against a painful truth -- and listen to the song of that syren... For my part, whatever anguish of spirit it might cost, I am willing to know the whole truth; to know the worst, and to provide for it."
 
--Patrick Henry

John Adams

"I am well aware of the toil and blood and treasure that it will cost to maintain this Declaration..."

--John Adams
Upon signing of the Declaration of Independence

Thomas Jefferson

The tree of Liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. ... Resistance to tyrants is obedience to God."

--Thomas Jefferson

James Madison

"There are more instances of the abridgment of the freedom of the People by gradual and silent encroachments of those in power than by violent and sudden usurpations."

--James Madison

Samuel Adams

"If men of wisdom and knowledge, of moderation and temperance, of patience, fortitude and perseverance, of sobriety and true republican simplicity of manners, of zeal for the honour of the Supreme Being and the welfare of the commonwealth; if men possessed of these other excellent qualities are chosen to fill the seats of government, we may expect that our affairs will rest on a solid and permanent foundation."

--Samuel Adams

Thomas Jefferson

"We must make our election between economy and Liberty, or profusion and servitude."

--Thomas Jefferson

Thomas Jefferson

"I place economy among the first and most important virtues and public debt as the greatest dangers to be feared. ... To preserve independence ... we must not let our rulers load us with perpetual debt. ... [W]hen all government ... shall be drawn to Washington as the center of all power, it will render powerless the checks provided of one government on another. ... Were we directed from Washington when to sow, and when to reap, we should soon want bread. ... The fore horse of this frightful team is public debt. Taxation follow that, and in its turn wretchedness and oppression."

--Thomas Jefferson

Ronald Reagan

"I wasn't a great communicator, but I communicated great things, and they didn't spring full bloom from my brow, they came from the heart of a great nation -- from our experience, our wisdom, and our belief in principles that have guided us for two centuries."

--Ronald Reagan
Farewell Address

Martin Luther King Jr.

"I have a dream that my children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character."

--Martin Luther King Jr.
1963.

John F. Kennedy

"My fellow Americans: Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country."
 
--John F. Kennedy, 1961
Inaugural Address

Ronald Reagan

"You and I are told increasingly that we have to choose between a left or right, but I would like to suggest that there is no such thing as a left or right. There is only an up or down -- up to a man's age-old dream; the ultimate in individual freedom consistent with law and order -- or down to the ant heap of totalitarianism, and regardless of their sincerity, their humanitarian motives, those who would trade our freedom for security have embarked on this downward course."

--Ronald Reagan, 1964
"A Time for Choosing."

Ronald Reagan

"I think it's time we ask ourselves if we still know the freedoms that were intended for us by the Founding Fathers. ... Whether we believe in our capacity for self-government or whether we abandon the American Revolution and confess that a little intellectual elite in a far-distant capital can plan our lives for us better than we can plan them ourselves."

--Ronald Reagan, 1964
"A Time for Choosing."
 

Clint Eastwood / Rush Limbaugh

"President Obama is the greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American People."

--Clint Eastwood

"No. He's the second. Global Warming is the greatest hoax."

--Rush Limbaugh

George Washington

"Guard against the impostures of pretended patriotism."

--George Washington

George Washington

"Citizens by birth or choice of a common country, that country has a right to concentrate your affections. The name of American, which belongs to you, in your national capacity, must always exalt the just pride of Patriotism, more than any appellation derived from local discriminations. ... Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, Religion and morality are indespensible supports. In vain would that man claim the tribute of patriotism who should labor to subvert these great Pillars of human happiness - these firmest props of the duties of men and citizens."

--George Washington
Farewell Address

Alexander Hamilton

"A nation which can prefer disgrace to danger is prepared for a master, and deserves one!"
 
--Alexander Hamilton

Patrick Henry

"Is life so dear or peace so sweet as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take, but as for me, give me Liberty or give me death!"

--Patrick Henry

Benjamin Franklin

"They who can give up essential Liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither Liberty nor safety."

--Benjamin Franklin

Thomas Jefferson

"Honor, justice, and humanity, forbid us tamely to surrender that freedom which we received from our gallant ancestors, and which our innocent posterity have a right to receive from us. We cannot endure the infamy and guilt of resigning succeeding generations to that wretchedness which inevitably awaits them if we basely entail hereditary bondage on them."

--Thomas Jefferson

James Madison

"Conscience is the most sacred of all property."

--James Madison

Via Patriot Post.

Samuel Adams

"Contemplate the mangled bodies of your countrymen, and then say 'what should be the reward of such sacrifices?' ... If ye love wealth better than Liberty, the tranquility of servitude than the animated contest of freedom, go from us in peace. We ask not your counsels or arms. Crouch down and lick the hands which feed you. May your chains sit lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that you were our countrymen!"

--Samuel Adams
 

William J. H. Boetcker

"The Ten Cannots":

You cannot bring about prosperity by discouraging thrift.

You cannot strengthen the weak by weakening the strong.

You cannot help the poor man by destroying the rich.

You cannot further the brotherhood of man by inciting class hatred.

You cannot build character and courage by taking away man's initiative and independence.

You cannot help small men by tearing down big men.

You cannot lift the wage earner by pulling down the wage payer.

You cannot keep out of trouble by spending more than your income.

You cannot establish security on borrowed money.

You cannot help men permanently by doing for them what they will not do for themselves.

--William J. H. Boetcker

Mark Alexander

The Cycle of Democracy has been summarized as follows: From bondage to spiritual faith; From spiritual faith to great courage; From courage to Liberty (Rule of Law); From Liberty to abundance; From abundance to complacency; From complacency to apathy; From apathy to dependence; From dependence back into bondage (rule of men).
 
--Mark Alexander

F.A. Hayek

"There is no difference in principle, between the economic philosophy of Nazism, socialism, communism, and fascism and that of the American welfare state and regulated economy."
 
--F.A. Hayek

Thomas Jefferson

"The principle of spending money to be paid by posterity, under the name of funding, is but swindling futurity on a large scale."

--Thomas Jefferson

George Bernard Shaw

"A government which robs Peter to pay Paul can always depend on the support of Paul."
 
--George Bernard Shaw

Justice John Marshall

"An unlimited power to tax involves, necessarily, a power to destroy; because there is a limit beyond which no institution and no property can bear taxation."
 
--Justice John Marshall

James Madison

"I cannot undertake to lay my finger on that article of the Constitution which granted a right to Congress of expending, on objects of benevolence, the money of their constituents. ... Charity is no part of the legislative duty of the government."
 
--James Madison

Noah Webster

"In the formation of our constitution the wisdom of all ages is collected -- the legislators are antiquity are consulted, as well as the opinions and interests of the millions who are concerned. It short, it is an empire of reason."

--Noah Webster, An Examination into the Leading Principles of the Federal Constitution, 1787

Via Patriot Post.

Thomas Jefferson

"We are firmly convinced, and we act on that conviction, that with nations as with individuals our interests soundly calculated will ever be found inseparable from our moral duties, and history bears witness to the fact that a just nation is trusted on its word when recourse is had to armaments and wars to bridle others."

--Thomas Jefferson, Second Inaugural Address, 1805

Via Patriot Post.

Matthew 15: 13

"Let them alone. They be blind leaders of the blind. And if the blind lead the blind, both shall fall into the ditch."

Matthew 15: 13

Thomas Jefferson

"The republican is the only form of government which is not eternally at open or secret war with the rights of mankind."

--Thomas Jefferson (1790)

Via Patriot Post.

Joseph Story

"Republics are created by the virtue, public spirit, and intelligence of the citizens. They fall, when the wise are banished from the public councils, because they dare to be honest, and the profligate are rewarded, because they flatter the people, in order to betray them."

--Joseph Story, Commentaries on the Constitution, 1833

Via Patriot Post.

Joseph Story

"The state governments have a full superintendence and control over the immense mass of local interests of their respective states, which connect themselves with the feelings, the affections, the municipal institutions, and the internal arrangements of the whole population. They possess, too, the immediate administration of justice in all cases, civil and criminal, which concern the property, personal rights, and peaceful pursuits of their own citizens."

--Joseph Story, Commentaries on the Constitution, 1833

Via Patriot Post.

H. L. Mencken

"Democracy is a form of religion. It is the worship of jackals by jack asses."

--H. L. Mencken

Via Patriot Post.

George Washington

"My policy has been, and will continue to be, while I have the honor to remain in the administration of the government, to be upon friendly terms with, but independent of, all the nations of the earth. To share in the broils of none. To fulfil our own engagements. To supply the wants, and be carriers for them all: Being thoroughly convinced that it is our policy and interest to do so."

--George Washington, letter to Gouverneur Morris, 1795

Via Patriot Post.

Alexander Hamilton

"Let us recollect that peace or war will not always be left to our option; that however moderate or unambitious we may be, we cannot count upon the moderation, or hope to extinguish the ambition of others."

--Alexander Hamilton

Benjamin Franklin

"I am for doing good to the poor, but I differ in opinion of the means. I think the best way of doing good to the poor, is not making them easy in poverty, but leading or driving them out of it. In my youth I travelled much, and I observed in different countries, that the more public provisions were made for the poor, the less they provided for themselves, and of course became poorer. And, on the contrary, the less was done for them, the more they did for themselves, and became richer."

--Benjamin Franklin
 

Roosevelt or Marx?

"Here is my principle: Taxes shall be levied according to ability to pay. That is the only American principle."

--Franklin Roosevelt

"From each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs."

--Karl Marx

John Adams

"A Constitution of Government once changed from Freedom, can never be restored. Liberty, once lost, is lost forever."

--John Adams

Isaiah 21: 11

"The burden of Dumah. He calleth to me out of Seir, Watchman, what of the night? Watchman, what of the night?"

John Adams

"Is the present state of the national republic enough? Is virtue the principle of our government? Is honor? Or is ambition and avarice, adulation, baseness, covetousness, the thirst for riches, indifference concerning the means of rising and enriching, the contempt of principle, the spirit of party and of faction the motive and principle that governs?"

--John Adams

Alexander Hamilton

"Of those men who have overturned the liberties of republics, the greatest number have begun their career by paying an obsequious court to the People, commencing demagogues and ending tyrants."

--Alexander Hamilton

Daniel Webster

"Good intentions will always be pleaded for every assumption of authority. It is hardly too strong to say that the Constitution was made to guard the People against the dangers of good intentions. There are men in all ages who mean to govern well, but they mean to govern. They promise to be good masters, but they mean to be masters."
 
--Daniel Webster

Thomas Jefferson

"Laws are made for men of ordinary understanding and should, therefore, be construed by the ordinary rules of common sense. Their meaning is not to be sought for in metaphysical subtleties which may make anything mean everything or nothing at pleasure."

--Thomas Jefferson

Thomas Jefferson

"[G]iving [Congress] a distinct and independent power to do any act they please which may be good for the Union, would render all the preceding and subsequent enumerations of power completely useless. It would reduce the whole [Constitution] to a single phrase, that of instituting a Congress with power to do whatever would be for the good of the United States; and as sole judges of the good or evil, it would be also a power to do whatever evil they please. Certainly no such universal power was meant to be given them. [The Constitution] was intended to lace them up straightly within the enumerated powers and those without which, as means, these powers could not be carried into effect."

--Thomas Jefferson

James Madison

"If Congress can do whatever in their discretion can be done by money, and will promote the General Welfare, the Government is no longer a limited one, possessing enumerated powers, but an indefinite one, subject to particular exceptions."

--James Madison

Joseph Story

"Republics are created by the virtue, public spirit, and intelligence of the citizens. They fall, when the wise are banished from the public councils, because they dare to be honest, and the profligate are rewarded, because they flatter the people, in order to betray them."

--Joseph Story, Commentaries on the Constitution, 1833

Via Patriot Post

James Madison

"The powers delegated by the proposed Constitution to the federal government are few and defined. Those which are to remain in the State governments are numerous and indefinite."
 
--James Madison
Federalist No. 45

James Madison

"Each State, in ratifying the Constitution, is considered as a sovereign body, independent of all others, and only to be bound by its own voluntary act. In this relation, then, the new Constitution will, if established, be a FEDERAL, and not a NATIONAL constitution."
 
--James Madison
In Federalist No. 39

Noah Webster

"Tyranny is the exercise of some power over a man, which is not warranted by law, or necessary for the public safety. A people can never be deprived of their liberties, while they retain in their own hands, a power sufficient to any other power in the state."
 
--Noah Webster

Justice Joseph Story

"The right of the citizens to keep and bear arms has justly been considered as the palladium of the liberties of the republic; since it offers a strong moral check against usurpation and arbitrary power of the rulers; and will generally, even if these are successful in the first instance, enable the People to resist and triumph over them."
 
--Justice Joseph Story
In his Commentaries on the Constitution (1833

James Madison

"The ultimate authority ... resides in the People alone. ... The advantage of being armed, which the Americans possess over the people of almost every other nation ... forms a barrier against the enterprises of ambition."
 
--James Madison
Federalist No. 46

Samuel Adams

"No people will tamely surrender their Liberties, nor can any be easily subdued, when knowledge is diffusd and Virtue is preservd. On the Contrary, when People are universally ignorant, and debauchd in their Manners, they will sink under their own weight without the Aid of foreign Invaders."

--Samuel Adams

Via Patriot Post.

Samuel Adams

"The Constitution shall never be construed ... to prevent the People of the United States who are peaceable citizens from keeping their own arms."

--Samuel Adams
During the 1788 Massachusetts Convention debates to ratify the U.S. Constitution

William Rehnquist

"The wall of separation between church and state is a metaphor based upon bad history, a metaphor which has proved useless as a guide to judging. It should be frankly and explicitly abandoned. ... The greatest injury of the 'wall' notion is its mischievous diversion of judges from the actual intention of the drafters of the Bill of Rights."

--William Rehnquist
Chief Justice
of the Supreme Court

Justice James Wilson

"The first and governing maxim in the interpretation of a statute is to discover the meaning of those who made it."

--Justice James Wilson

Thomas Jefferson

"The original error [was in] establishing a judiciary independent of the nation, and which, from the citadel of the law, can turn its guns on those they were meant to defend, and control and fashion their proceedings to its own will. ... The opinion which gives to the judges the right to decide what laws are constitutional and what not, not only for themselves in their own sphere of action but for the Legislature and Executive also in their spheres, would make the Judiciary a despotic branch."

--Thomas Jefferson

Thomas Jefferson

"In questions of power, then, let no more be heard of confidence in man, but bind him down from mischief by the chains of the Constitution."

--Thomas Jefferson
 

Thomas Jefferson

"The God that gave us life gave us Liberty at the same time."

--Thomas Jefferson

John Adams

"Public affairs go on pretty much as usual: perpetual chicanery and rather more personal abuse than there used to be."

--John Adams

Via Patriot Post.

George Washington

"We are either a United people, or we are not. If the former, let us, in all matters of general concern act as a nation, which have national objects to promote, and a national character to support. If we are not, let us no longer act a farce by pretending to it."

--George Washington, letter to James Madison, 1785

Via Patriot Post.

Alexander Hamilton

"There is a certain enthusiasm in liberty, that makes human nature rise above itself, in acts of bravery and heroism."

--Alexander Hamilton

Via Patriot Post.

Thomas Jefferson

"The republican is the only form of government which is not eternally at open or secret war with the rights of mankind."

--Thomas Jefferson, Letter to William Hunter, 1790

Via Patriot Post.

Thomas Jefferson

"[A] wise and frugal government ... shall restrain men from injuring one another, shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned. This is the sum of good government."

--Thomas Jefferson

Via Patriot Post.

James Madison

"What is to be the consequence, in case the Congress shall misconstrue this part [the necessary and proper clause] of the Constitution and exercise powers not warranted by its true meaning, I answer the same as if they should misconstrue or enlarge any other power vested in them ... the success of the usurpation will depend on the executive and judiciary departments, which are to expound and give effect to the legislative acts; and in a last resort a remedy must be obtained from the people, who can by the elections of more faithful representatives, annul the acts of the usurpers."

--James Madison, Federalist No. 44, 1788

Via Patriot Post.

John Adams

"But what do we mean by the American Revolution? Do we mean the American war? The Revolution was effected before the war commenced. The Revolution was in the minds and hearts of the people; a change in their religious sentiments, of their duties and obligations... This radical change in the principles, opinions, sentiments, and affections of the people was the real American Revolution."

--John Adams, letter to H. Niles, 1818

Via Patriot Post.

John Dickinson and Thomas Jefferson

"With hearts fortified with these animating reflections, we most solemnly, before God and the world, declare, that, exerting the utmost energy of those powers, which our beneficent Creator hath graciously bestowed upon us, the arms we have compelled by our enemies to assume, we will, in defiance of every hazard, with unabating firmness and perseverance employ for the preservation of our liberties; being with one mind resolved to die freemen rather than to live as slaves."

--John Dickinson and Thomas Jefferson, Declaration of the Cause and Necessity of Taking up Arms, 1775

Via Patriot Post.

John Adams

"[D]emocracy will soon degenerate into an anarchy, such an anarchy that every man will do what is right in his own eyes and no man's life or property or reputation or liberty will be secure, and every one of these will soon mould itself into a system of subordination of all the moral virtues and intellectual abilities, all the powers of wealth, beauty, wit and science, to the wanton pleasures, the capricious will, and the execrable cruelty of one or a very few."

--John Adams, An Essay on Man's Lust for Power, 1763

Via Patriot Post.

Thomas Jefferson

"History by apprising [citizens] of the past will enable them to judge of the future; it will avail them of the experience of other times and other nations; it will qualify them as judges of the actions and designs of men; it will enable them to know ambition under every disguise it may assume; and knowing it, to defeat its views."

--Thomas Jefferson, Notes on the State of Virginia, Query 14, 1781

Via Patriot Post.

Ronald Reagan

"Right now American business and industry are in the deepest trouble they have even been in our Nation's entire history. A large percentage of people in this country today lay all their troubles at the door of business. The word profit is synonymous with evil as with the term 'private property' and therefore personal freedom, freedom of choice for everybody is in danger. Profit, property, and freedom are inseparable; you can't have any one of them without the other two."
--Ronald Reagan,
Remakes during the 1974 Young Americans for Freedom conference in San Francisco.

Benjamin Franklin

"Work as if you were to live 100 Years, Pray as if you were to die To-morrow."
--Benjamin Franklin

Via Patriot Post.

Benjamin Rush

"Patriotism is as much a virtue as justice, and is as necessary for the support of societies as natural affection is for the support of families."

--Benjamin Rush, letter to His Fellow Countrymen: On Patriotism, 1773

Via Patriot Post.

Thomas Jefferson

"Dependence begets subservience and venality, suffocates the germ of virtue, and prepares fit tools for the designs of ambition."

--Thomas Jefferson, Notes on Virginia, Query 19, 1781

Via Patriot Post.

Thomas Paine

"We fight not to enslave, but to set a country free, and to make room upon the earth for honest men to live in."

--Thomas Paine, The Crisis, no. 4, 1777

Via Patriot Post.

Thomas Jefferson

"The same prudence which in private life would forbid our paying our own money for unexplained projects, forbids it in the dispensation of the public moneys."

--Thomas Jefferson

Via Patriot Post.

Thomas Jefferson

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

--Thomas Jefferson

Via Patriot Post.

Benjamin Franklin

"The ordaining of laws in favor of one part of the nation, to the prejudice and oppression of another, is certainly the most erroneous and mistaken policy. An equal dispensation of protection, rights, privileges, and advantages, is what every part is entitled to, and ought to enjoy."

--Benjamin Franklin, Emblematical Representations, 1774

Via Patriot Post.

Oliver Ellsworth

"Liberty is a word which, according as it is used, comprehends the most good and the most evil of any in the world. Justly understood it is sacred next to those which we appropriate in divine adoration; but in the mouths of some it means anything, which enervate a necessary government; excite a jealousy of the rulers who are our own choice, and keep society in confusion for want of a power sufficiently concentered to promote good."

--Oliver Ellsworth, A Landholder, No. III, 1787

Via Patriot Post.

John Adams

"Human nature itself is evermore an advocate for liberty. There is also in human nature a resentment of injury, and indignation against wrong. A love of truth and a veneration of virtue. These amiable passions, are the 'latent spark'... If the people are capable of understanding, seeing and feeling the differences between true and false, right and wrong, virtue and vice, to what better principle can the friends of mankind apply than to the sense of this difference?"

--John Adams, the Novanglus, 1775

Via Patriot Post.

George Washington

"The foundation of our Empire was not laid in the gloomy age of Ignorance and Superstition, but at an Epocha when the rights of mankind were better understood and more clearly defined, than at any former period."

--George Washington, Circular to the States, 1783

Via Patriot Post.

Ken Blackwell

"Dogs don't bark at parked cars."

--Ken Blackwell

Rush Limbaugh

"You're defined by your enemies."

--Rush Limbaugh

John Marshall

"An unlimited power to tax involves, necessarily, a power to destroy; because there is a limit beyond which no institution and no property can bear taxation."

--John Marshall, McCullough v. Maryland, 1819

Via Patriot Post.

James Monroe

"How prone all human institutions have been to decay; how subject the best-formed and most wisely organized governments have been to lose their check and totally dissolve; how difficult it has been for mankind, in all ages and countries, to preserve their dearest rights and best privileges, impelled as it were by an irresistible fate of ."

--James Monroe, speech in the Virginia Ratifying Convention, 1788

Via Patriot Post.

Tim Kizziar

"Our greatest fear… should not be of failure but of succeeding at things in life that don't really matter."

--Tim Kizziar

Via Family First.

George Mason

"Those gentlemen, who will be elected senators, will fix themselves in the federal town, and become citizens of that town more than of your state."

--George Mason, speech in the Virginia Ratifying Convention, 1788

Via Patriot Post.

Colonel John Brooks

"Under all those disadvantages no men ever show more spirit or prudence than ours. In my opinion nothing but virtue has kept our army together through this campaign."

--Colonel John Brooks, 1778

Via Patriot Post

Thomas Paine

"Society in every state is a blessing, but government, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil; in its worst state an intolerable one; for when we suffer or are exposed to the same miseries by a government, which we might expect in a country without government, our calamity is heightened by reflecting that we furnish the means by which we suffer."

--Thomas Paine, Common Sense, 1776

Via Patriot Post.

Declaration of Independence

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness."

Declaration of Independence

Thomas Jefferson and John Dickinson

"With hearts fortified with these animating reflections, we most solemnly, before God and the world, declare, that, exerting the utmost energy of those powers, which our beneficent Creator hath graciously bestowed upon us, the arms we have been compelled by our enemies to assume, we will, in defiance of every hazard, with unabating firmness and perseverance employ for the preservation of our liberties; being with one mind resolved to die freemen rather than to live as slaves."
 
--Thomas Jefferson and John Dickinson, "Declaration of the Cause and Necessity of Taking up Arms." 1775

Thomas Paine

"These are the times that try men's souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of his country; but he that stands it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman."

--Thomas Paine.

Samuel Adams

"[T]he People alone have an incontestable, unalienable, and indefeasible right to institute government and to reform, alter, or totally change the same when their protection, safety, prosperity, and happiness require it."

--Samuel Adams

James Wilson

"The first and governing maxim in the interpretation of a statute is to discover the meaning of those who made it."

--James Wilson, Of the Study of Law in the United States, 1790

Via Patriot Post.

Thomas Jefferson

"I consider the foundation of the Constitution as laid on this ground that 'all powers not delegated to the United States, by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states or to the people.' To take a single step beyond the boundaries thus specially drawn around the powers of Congress, is to take possession of a boundless field of power, not longer susceptible of any definition."

--Thomas Jefferson, Opinion on the Constitutionality of a National Bank, 1791

Via Patriot Post.

Thomas Jefferson

"It is error alone which needs the support of government. Truth can stand by itself. Subject opinion to coercion: whom will you make your inquisitors?"

--Thomas Jefferson, Notes on the State of Virginia, Query 17, 1781

Via Patriot Post.

Noah Webster

"The virtues of men are of more consequence to society than their abilities; and for this reason, the heart should be cultivated with more assiduity than the head."

--Noah Webster, On the Education of Youth in America, 1788

Via Patriot Post.

George Washington

"[T]here exists in the economy and course of nature, an indissoluble union between virtue and happiness; between duty and advantage; between the genuine maxims of an honest and magnanimous policy, and the solid rewards of public prosperity and felicity."

--George Washington, First Inaugural Address, 1789

Via Patriot Post.

John Adams

"The foundation of national morality must be laid in private families. ... How is it possible that children can have any just sense of the sacred obligations of morality or religion if, from their earliest infancy, they learn their mothers live in habitual infidelity to their fathers, and their fathers in as constant infidelity to their mothers?"

--John Adams, Diary, 1778

Via Patriot Post.

Benjamin Franklin

"A man may, if he know not how to save, keep his nose to the grindstone, and die not wirth a groat at last."

--Benjamin Franklin, Poor Richard's Almanack, 1742

Via Patriot Post.

Thomas Paine

"Now is the seedtime of continental union, faith and honor. The least fracture now, will be like a name engraved with the point of a pin on the tender rind of a young oak; the wound would enlarge with the tree, and posterity read in it full grown characters."

--Thomas Paine, Common Sense, 1776

Via Patriot Post.


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George Mason

"[W]hen the resolution of enslaving America was formed in Great Britain, the British Parliament was advised by an artful man, - who was governor of Pennsylvania, to disarm the people; that it was the best and most effectual way to enslave them; but that they should not do it openly, but weaken them, and let them sink gradually, by totally disusing and neglecting the militia."

--George Mason, speech in the Virginia Ratifying Convention, 1788

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James Madison

"Besides the advantage of being armed, which the Americans possess over the people of almost every other nation, the existence of subordinate governments, to which the people are attached and by which the militia officers are appointed, forms a barrier against the enterprises of ambition, more insurmountable than any which a simple government of any form can admit of."

--James Madison, Federalist No. 46, 1788

Via Patriot Post.


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Thomas Jefferson

"A strong body makes the mind strong. As to the species of exercises, I advise the gun. While this gives moderate exercise to the body, it gives boldness, enterprise and independence to the mind. Games played with the ball, and others of that nature, are too violent for the body and stamp no character on the mind. Let your gun therefore be your constant companion of your walks."

--Thomas Jefferson, letter to Peter Carr, 1785

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Thomas Jefferson

"It is the manners and spirit of a people which preserve a republic in vigor. A degeneracy in these is a canker which soon eats to the heart of its laws and constitution."

--Thomas Jefferson, Notes on the Virginia Query 19, 1781

Via Patriot Post.


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John Adams

"We ought to consider what is the end of government before we determine which is the best form. Upon this point all speculative politicians will agree that the happiness of society is the end of government, as all divines and moral philosophers will agree that the happiness of the individual is the end of man."

--John Adams, Thoughts on Government, 1776

Via Patriot Post.


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Thomas Jefferson

"My construction of the constitution is very different from that you quote. It is that each department is truly independent of the others, and has an equal right to decide for itself what is the meaning of the constitution in the cases submitted to its action; and especially, where it is to act ultimately and without appeal."

--Thomas Jefferson, letter to Samuel Adams Wells, 1819

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George Washington

"I rejoice in a belief that intellectual light will spring up in the dark corners of the earth; that freedom of enquiry will produce liberality of conduct; that mankind will reverse the absurd position that the many were, made for the few; and that they will not continue slaves in one part of the globe, when they can become freemen in another."

--George Washington, draft of First Inaugural Address, 1789

Via Patriot Post


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John Witherspoon

"Nothing is more certain than that a general profligacy and corruption of manners make a people ripe for destruction."

--John Witherspoon

Via Patriot Post


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John Adams

"Without wishing to damp the ardor of curiosity or influence the freedom of inquiry, I will hazard a prediction that, after the most industrious and impartial researchers, the longest liver of you all will find no principles, institutions or systems of education more fit in general to be transmitted to your posterity than those you have received from your ancestors."

--John Adams, 1798

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Benjamin Franklin

"Wish not so much to live long as to live well."

--Benjamin Franklin, Poor Richard's Almanack, 1746

Via Patriot Post


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Patrick Henry

"Guard with jealous attention the public liberty. Suspect every one who approaches that jewel. Unfortunately, nothing will preserve it but downright force. Whenever you give up that force, you are inevitably ruined."

--Patrick Henry, speech in the Virginia Ratifying Convention, 1788

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Fisher Ames

"We are, heart and soul, friends to the freedom of the press. It is however, the prostituted companion of liberty, and somehow or other, we know not how, its efficient auxiliary. It follows the substance like its shade; but while a man walks erect, he may observe that his shadow is almost always in the dirt. It corrupts, it deceives, it inflames. It strips virtue of her honors, and lends to faction its wildfire and its poisoned arms, and in the end is its own enemy and the usurper's ally. It would be easy to enlarge on its evils."
--Fisher Ames, 1807

Via Patriot Post


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John Adams

"The foundation of national morality must be laid in private families... In vain are Schools, Academies, and Universities instituted, if loose principles and licentious habits are impressed upon children in their earliest years... The vices and examples of the parents cannot be concealed from the children. How is it possible that children can have any just sense of the Sacred Obligations of Morality or Religion if, from their earliest Infancy, they learn their mothers live in habitual infidelity to their fathers, and their fathers in as constant infidelity to their mothers?"

--John Adams 1778

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Lord Baden Powell

"An invaluable step in character training is to put responsibility on the individual."

--Lord Baden Powell
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Albert Gallatin

"The whole of that Bill [of Rights] is a declaration of the right of the people at large or considered as individuals... [I]t establishes some rights of the individual as unalienable and which consequently, no majority has a right to deprive them of."

--Albert Gallatin, letter to Alexander Addison, 1789

Via Patriot Post.


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Rabindranath Tagore

Our passions and desires are unruly, but our character subdues these elements into a harmonious whole. Does something similar to this happen in the physical world? Are the elements rebellious, dynamic with individual impulse? And is there a principle in the physical world which dominates them and puts them into an orderly organization?

Candidus

"[I]f the public are bound to yield obedience to laws to which they cannot give their approbation, they are slaves to those who make such laws and enforce them."

--Candidus, in the Boston Gazette, 1772

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Thomas Jefferson

"If we can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people, under the pretence of taking care of them, they must become happy."

--Thomas Jefferson, letter to Thomas Cooper, 1802

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Thomas Jefferson

"I think we have more machinery of government than is necessary, too many parasites living on the labor of the industrious."

--Thomas Jefferson, letter to William Ludlow, 1824

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James Madison

"There is not a more important and fundamental principle in legislation, than that the ways and means ought always to face the public engagements; that our appropriations should ever go hand in hand with our promises. To say that the United States should be answerable for twenty-five millions of dollars without knowing whether the ways and means can be provided, and without knowing whether those who are to succeed us will think with us on the subject, would be rash and unjustifiable."

--James Madison, Speech in Congress, 1790

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James Madison

"There is not a more important and fundamental principle in legislation, than that the ways and means ought always to face the public engagements; that our appropriations should ever go hand in hand with our promises. To say that the United States should be answerable for twenty-five millions of dollars without knowing whether the ways and means can be provided, and without knowing whether those who are to succeed us will think with us on the subject, would be rash and unjustifiable."

--James Madison, Speech in Congress, 1790

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Thomas Jefferson

"In our private pursuits it is a great advantage that every honest employment is deemed honorable. I am myself a nail-maker."

--Thomas Jefferson, letter to Jean Nicolas DÈmeunier, 1795

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Thomas Jefferson

"It would reduce the whole instrument to a single phrase, that of instituting a Congress with power to do whatever would be for the good of the United States; and as they would be the sole judges of the good or evil, it would be also a power to do whatever evil they please. Certainly no such universal power was meant to be given them. It [the Constitution] was intended to lace them up straightly within the enumerated powers and those without which, as means, these powers could not be carried into effect."

--Thomas Jefferson, Opinion on a National Bank, 1791

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Alexander Hamilton

"Of those men who have overturned the liberties of republics, the greatest number have begun their career by paying an obsequious court to the people, commencing demagogues and ending tyrants."

--Alexander Hamilton, Federalist No. 1, 1787

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Baron de Montesquieu Charles-Louis de Secondat

"Useless laws weaken necessary laws."

--Baron de Montesquieu Charles-Louis de Secondat (1689-1755)

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Noah Webster

"In selecting men for office, let principle be your guide. Regard not the particular sect or denomination of the candidate -- look to his character."

--Noah Webster

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James Madison

"If Congress can do whatever in their discretion can be done by money, and will promote the General Welfare, the Government is no longer a limited one, possessing enumerated powers, but an indefinite one, subject to particular exceptions."

--James Madison, letter to Edmund Pendleton, 1792

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John Adams

"Laws for the liberal education of the youth, especially of the lower class of the people, are so extremely wise and useful, that, to a humane and generous mind, no expense for this purpose would be thought extravagant."

--John Adams, Thoughts on Government, 1776

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Thomas Jefferson

"This was the object of the Declaration of Independence. Not to find out new principles, or new arguments, never before thought of, not merely to say things which had never been said before; but to place before mankind the common sense of the subject, in terms so plain and firm as to command their assent, and to justify ourselves in the independent stand we are compelled to take. Neither aiming at originality of principle or sentiment, nor yet copied from any particular and previous writing, it was intended to be an expression of the American mind, and to give to that expression the proper tone and spirit called for by the occasion."

--Thomas Jefferson, letter to Henry Lee, 1825

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Joseph Story

"Let the American youth never forget, that they possess a noble inheritance, bought by the toils, and sufferings, and blood of their ancestors; and capacity, if wisely improved, and faithfully guarded, of transmitting to their latest posterity all the substantial blessings of life, the peaceful enjoyment of liberty, property, religion, and independence."

--Joseph Story, Commentaries on the Constitution, 1833

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Zacharia Johnson

"[T]he people are not to be disarmed of their weapons. They are left in full possession of them."

--Zacharia Johnson, speech in the Virginia Ratifying Convention, 1788

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Zacharia Johnson

"[T]he people are not to be disarmed of their weapons. They are left in full possession of them."

--Zacharia Johnson, speech in the Virginia Ratifying Convention, 1788

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Samuel Adams

"Let each citizen remember at the moment he is offering his vote that he is not making a present or a compliment to please an individual - or at least that he ought not so to do; but that he is executing one of the most solemn trusts in human society for which he is accountable to God and his country."

--Samuel Adams, in the Boston Gazette, 1781

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Thomas Jefferson

"On every question of construction carry ourselves back to the time when the Constitution was adopted, recollect the spirit manifested in the debates and instead of trying what meaning may be squeezed out of the text or invented against it, conform to the probable one in which it was passed."

--Thomas Jefferson, letter to William Johnson, 1823

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George Washington

"The consciousness of having discharged that duty which we owe to our country is superior to all other considerations."

--George Washington, letter to James Madison, 1788

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James Madison

"The legislative department is everywhere extending the sphere of its activity and drawing all power into its impetuous vortex."

--James Madison, Federalist No. 48, 1788

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Nathan Hale

"I am not influenced by the expectation of promotion or pecuniary reward. I wish to be useful, and every kind of service necessary for the public good, become honorable by being necessary."

--Nathan Hale, remark to Captain William Hull, who had attempted to dissuade him from volunteering for a spy mission for General Washington, 1776

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Viktor Frankl

"A man who becomes conscience of the responsibility he bears towards a human being who affectionately waits for him, or to an unfinished work, will never be able to throw away his life. He knows the 'why' for his existence and will be able to bear almost any 'how'."

--Viktor Frankl,
"Man's Search for Meaning"


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James Madison

"There is no maxim, in my opinion, which is more liable to be misapplied, and which, therefore, more needs elucidation, than the current, that the interest of the majority is the political standard of right and wrong."

--James Madison, letter to James Monroe, 1786

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James Madison

"What spectacle can be more edifying or more seasonable, than that of Liberty and Learning, each leaning on the other for their mutual & surest support?"

--James Madison, letter to W.T. Barry, 1822

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Baruch Spinoza

"Emotion, which is suffering, ceases to be suffering as soon as we form a clear and precise picture of it."

--Baruch Spinoza from "Ethics"
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James Madison

"Every man who loves peace, every man who loves his country, every man who loves liberty ought to have it ever before his eyes that he may cherish in his heart a due attachment to the Union of America and be able to set a due value on the means of preserving it."

--James Madison, Federalist No. 41

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Existentialism

"To live is to suffer. To survive is to find meaning in the suffering."

Toni Morrison

"Me and you, we got yesterday than anybody. We need some kind of tomorrow."

--Paul D.
in Toni Morrison's "Beloved"
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Alexander Hamilton

"There is no part of the administration of government that requires extensive information and a thorough knowledge of the principles of political economy, so much as the business of taxation. The man who understands those principles best will be least likely to resort to oppressive expedients, or sacrifice any particular class of citizens to the procurement of revenue. It might be demonstrated that the most productive system of finance will always be the least burdensome."

--Alexander Hamilton: Federalist No. 35

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Thomas Jefferson

"Sometimes it is said that man can not be trusted with government of himself. Can he, then, be trusted with the government of others? Or have we found angels in the forms of kings to govern him? Let history answer this question."

--Thomas Jefferson, First Inaugural Address, 1801

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Thomas Jefferson

"All eyes are opened, or opening, to the rights of man. The general spread of the light of science has already laid open to every view the palpable truth, that the mass of mankind has not been born with saddles on their backs, nor a favored few booted and spurred, ready to ride legitimately, by the grace of God."

--Thomas Jefferson, letter to Roger C. Weightman, 1826

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Thomas Jefferson

"During the course of administration, and in order to disturb it, the artillery of the press has been levelled against us, charged with whatsoever its licentiousness could devise or dare. These abuses of an institution so important to freedom and science are deeply to be regretted, inasmuch as they tend to lessen its usefulness and to sap its safety."

--Thomas Jefferson, Second Inaugural Address, 1805

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James Wilson

"Government, in my humble opinion, should be formed to secure and to enlarge the exercise of the natural rights of its members; and every government, which has not this in view, as its principal object, is not a government of the legitimate kind."

--James Wilson, Lectures on Law, 1791

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George Washington

"There exists in the economy and course of nature, an indissoluble union between virtue and happiness; between duty and advantage; between the genuine maxims of an honest and magnanimous policy, and the solid rewards of public prosperity and felicity; since we ought to be no less persuaded that the propitious smiles of Heaven can never be expected on a nation that disregards the eternal rules of order and right, which Heaven itself has ordained."

--George Washington, First Inaugural Address, 1789

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James Madison

"The advantage of being armed, which the Americans possess over the people of almost every other nation ... forms a barrier against the enterprises of ambition, more insurmountable than any which a simple government of any form can admit of."

-- James Madison (1788)

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Joseph Story

"In a general sense, all contributions imposed by the government upon individuals for the service of the state, are called taxes, by whatever name they may be known, whether by the name of tribute, tythe, tallage, impost, duty, gabel, custom, subsidy, aid, supply, excise, or other name."

--Joseph Story, Commentaries on the Constitution, 1833

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Benjamin Franklin

"Human felicity is produced not so much by great pieces of good fortune that seldom happen, as by little advantages that occur every day."

--Benjamin Franklin, Autobiography, 1771

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James Madison

"A just security to property is not afforded by that government, under which unequal taxes oppress one species of property and reward another species."

--James Madison, Essay on Property, 1792

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James Madison

"There are more instances of the abridgment of the freedom of the people by gradual and silent encroachments of those in power than by violent and sudden usurpations."

--James Madison, speech to the Virginia Ratifying Convention, 1788

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James Madison

"If we resort for a criterion to the different principles on which different forms of government are established, we may define a republic to be, or at least may bestow that name on, a government which derives all its powers directly or indirectly from the great body of the people, and is administered by persons holding their offices during pleasure for a limited period, or during good behavior."

--James Madison, Federalist No. 39

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William Graham Summer

"As soon as A observes something which seems to him wrong, from which X is suffering, A talks it over with B, and A and B then propose to get a law passed to remedy the evil and help X. Their law always proposes to determine what C shall do for X, or, in better case, what A, B, and C shall do for X... What I want to do is to look up C... I call him the forgotten man... He is the man who never is thought of. He is the victim of the reformer, the social speculator, and philanthropist, and I hope to show you before I get through that he deserves your notice both for his character and for the many burdens which are laid upon him."

--William Graham Summer (1840-1910), p.466 of The Forgotten Man and Other Essays
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John Sullivan, former editor of the National Review

"Any person or organization that is not actively conservative will become liberal."

John Sullivan
former editor of the
National Review
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James Madison

"It is sufficiently obvious, that persons and property are the two great subjects on which Governments are to act; and that the rights of persons, and the rights of property, are the objects, for the protection of which Government was instituted. These rights cannot well be separated."

--James Madison, Speech at the Virginia Convention, 1829

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Alexander Hamilton

"The sacred rights of mankind are not to be rummaged for, among old parchments, or musty records. They are written, as with a sun beam, in the whole volume of human nature, by the hand of the divinity itself; and can never be erased or obscured by mortal power."

--Alexander Hamilton, The Farmer Refuted, 1775

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Thomas Jefferson

"All, too, will bear in mind this sacred principle, that though the will of the majority is in all cases to prevail, that will to be rightful must be reasonable; that the minority possess their equal rights, which equal law must protect, and to violate would be oppression."

--Thomas Jefferson, First Inaugural Address, 1801

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Alexander Hamilton

"In disquisitions of every kind there are certain primary truths, or first principles, upon which all subsequent reasoning must depend."

--Alexander Hamilton, Federalist No. 31, 1788

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Benjamin Franklin

"If by the liberty of the press were understood merely the liberty of discussing the propriety of public measures and political opinions, let us have as much of it as you please: But if it means the liberty of affronting, calumniating and defaming one another, I, for my part, own myself willing to part with my share of it, whenever our legislators shall please so to alter the law and shall chearfully consent to exchange my liberty of abusing others for the privilege of not being abused myself."

--Benjamin Franklin, 1789

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James Madison

"As a man is said to have a right to his property, he may be equally said to have a property in his rights. Where an excess of power prevails, property of no sort is duly respected. No man is safe in his opinions, his person, his faculties, or his possessions."

--James Madison, National Gazette Essay, 1792

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Thomas Jefferson

"If, then, the control of the people over the organs of their government be the measure of its republicanism, and I confess I know no other measure, it must be agreed that our governments have much less of republicanism than ought to have been expected; in other words, that the people have less regular control over their agents, than their rights and their interests require."

--Thomas Jefferson, letter to John Taylor, 1816

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Samuel Adams

"If virtue & knowledge are diffused among the people, they will never be enslav'd. This will be their great security."

--Samuel Adams, letter to James Warren, 1779

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Thomas Jefferson

"Would it not be better to simplify the system of taxation rather than to spread it over such a variety of subjects and pass through so many new hands."

--Thomas Jefferson, letter to James Madison, 1784

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Mark Twain

"Habit is habit, and not to be flung out the window by any man, but coaxed downstairs a step at a time."

--Mark Twain, Pudd'nhead Wilson

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Thomas Jefferson

"No government ought to be without censors & where the press is free, no one ever will."

--Thomas Jefferson, letter to George Washington, 1792

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John Adams

"It already appears, that there must be in every society of men superiors and inferiors, because God has laid in the constitution and course of nature the foundations of the distinction."

--John Adams, Thoughts on Government, 1776

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Alexander Hamilton

"It is a singular advantage of taxes on articles of consumption that they contain in their own nature a security against excess. They prescribe their own limit, which cannot be exceeded without defeating the end purposed -- that is, an extension of the revenue."

--Alexander Hamilton, Federalist No. 21

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Rabindranath Tagore

"I slept and dreamt
That life was joy.
I awoke and saw
That life was duty.
I acted and behold
Duty was joy."

--Rabindranath Tagore.

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Thomas Jefferson

"Give up money, give up fame, give up science, give the earth itself and all it contains rather than do an immoral act. And never suppose that in any possible situation, or under any circumstances, it is best for you to do a dishonorable thing, however slightly so it may appear to you... From the practice of the purest virtue, you may be assured you will derive the most sublime comforts in every moment of life, and in the moment of death."

--Thomas Jefferson, letter to Peter Carr, 1785

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Thomas Jefferson

"Give up money, give up fame, give up science, give the earth itself and all it contains rather than do an immoral act. And never suppose that in any possible situation, or under any circumstances, it is best for you to do a dishonorable thing, however slightly so it may appear to you... From the practice of the purest virtue, you may be assured you will derive the most sublime comforts in every moment of life, and in the moment of death."

--Thomas Jefferson, letter to Peter Carr, 1785

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Alexander Hamilton

"The instruments, by which [government] must act, are either the AUTHORITY of the Laws or FORCE. If the first be destroyed, the last must be substituted; ... and where this becomes the ordinary instrument of government, there is an end to LIBERTY."

--Alexander Hamilton

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Benjamin Rush

"[W]here there is no law, there is no liberty; and nothing deserves the name of law but that which is certain and universal in its operation upon all the members of the community."

--Benjamin Rush, letter to David Ramsay, 1788

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John Adams

"Men must be ready, they must pride themselves and be happy to sacrifice their private pleasures, passions and interests, nay, their private friendships and dearest connections, when they stand in competition with the rights of society."

--John Adams, letter to Mercy Warren, 1776

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George Washington

"The preservation of the sacred fire of liberty, and the destiny of the republican model of government, are justly considered deeply, perhaps as finally, staked on the experiment entrusted to the hands of the American people."

--George Washington, First Inaugural Address, 1789

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Thomas Jefferson

"The God who gave us life gave us liberty at the same time; the hand of force may destroy, but cannot disjoin them."

--Thomas Jefferson, Rights of British America, 1774

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Benjamin Franklin

"Our new Constitution is now established, and has an appearance that promises permanency; but in this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes."

--Benjamin Franklin, letter to Jean-Baptiste Leroy, 1789

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Thomas Jefferson

"I had always hoped that the younger generation receiving their early impressions after the flame of liberty had been kindled in every breast ... would have sympathized with oppression wherever found, and proved their love of liberty beyond their own share of it."

--Thomas Jefferson, letter to Edward Coles, 1814

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Joseph Story

"Republics are created by the virtue, public spirit, and intelligence of the citizens. They fall, when the wise are banished from the public councils, because they dare to be honest, and the profligate are rewarded, because they flatter the people, in order to betray them."

--Joseph Story, Commentaries on the Constitution, 1833

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Alexander Hamilton

"To cherish and stimulate the activity of the human mind, by multiplying the objects of enterprise, is not among the least considerable of the expedients, by which the wealth of a nation may be promoted."

--Alexander Hamilton, Report on Manufactures, 1791

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George Washington

"The executive branch of this government never has, nor will suffer, while I preside, any improper conduct of its officers to escape with impunity."

--George Washington, letter to Gouverneur Morris, 1795

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George Washington

"The executive branch of this government never has, nor will suffer, while I preside, any improper conduct of its officers to escape with impunity."

--George Washington, letter to Gouverneur Morris, 1795

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James Madison

"What is to be the consequence, in case the Congress shall misconstrue this part [the necessary and proper clause] of the Constitution and exercise powers not warranted by its true meaning, I answer the same as if they should misconstrue or enlarge any other power vested in them ... the success of the usurpation will depend on the executive and judiciary departments, which are to expound and give effect to the legislative acts; and in a last resort a remedy must be obtained from the people, who can by the elections of more faithful representatives, annul the acts of the usurpers.

--James Madison, Federalist No. 44, 1788

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Thomas Jefferson

"We are firmly convinced, and we act on that conviction, that with nations as with individuals our interests soundly calculated will ever be found inseparable from our moral duties, and history bears witness to the fact that a just nation is trusted on its word when recourse is had to armaments and wars to bridle others."

--Thomas Jefferson, Second Inaugural Address, 1805

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George Washington

"We have therefore to resolve to conquer or die: Our won country's honor, all call upon us for vigorous and manly exertion, and if we now shamefully fail, we shall become infamous to the whole world. Let us therefore rely upon the goodness of the cause, and the aid of the supreme being, in whose hands victory is, to animate and encourage us to great and noble actions."

--George Washington, 1776

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Thomas Jefferson

"My confidence is that there will for a long time be virtue and good sense enough in our countrymen to correct abuses."

--Thomas Jefferson, letter to Edward Rutledge, 1788

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Thomas Jefferson

"My confidence is that there will for a long time be virtue and good sense enough in our countrymen to correct abuses."

--Thomas Jefferson, letter to Edward Rutledge, 1788

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Samuel Adams

“If ye love wealth better than liberty, the tranquillity of servitude than the animating contest of freedom, — go from us in peace. We ask not your counsels or arms. Crouch down and lick the hands which feed you. May your chains sit lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that ye were our countrymen!”

John Adams

"The nature of the encroachment upon American constitution is such, as to grow every day more and more encroaching. Like a cancer; it eats faster and faster every hour. The revenue creates pensioners, and the pensioners urge for more revenue. The people grow less steady, spirited and virtuous, the seekers more numerous and more corrupt, and every day increases the circles of their dependents and expectants, until virtue, integrity, public spirit, simplicity and frugality become the objects of ridicule and scorn, and vanity, luxury, foppery, selfishness, meanness, and downright venality swallow up the whole of society."

George Washington

"Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports. In vain would that man claim the tribute of patriotism who should labor to subvert these great pillars of human happiness."

--George Washington

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George Washington

"Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports. In vain would that man claim the tribute of patriotism who should labor to subvert these great pillars of human happiness."

--George Washington

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G. K. Chesterton (29 May 1874 - 14 June 1936). From his essay, "Orthodoxy," 1908.

"Courage is almost a contradiction in terms. It means a strong desire to live taking the form of a readiness to die. 'He that will lose his life, the same shall save it,' is not a piece of mysticism for saints and heroes. It is a piece of everyday advice for sailors or mountaineers. It might be printed in an Alpine guide or a drill book. The paradox is the whole principle of courage, even of quite earthly or quite brutal courage. A man cut off by the sea may save his life if he will risk it on the precipice. He can only get away from death by continually stepping within an inch of it. A soldier surrounded by enemies, if he is to cut his way out, needs to combine a strong desire for living with a strange carelessness about dying. He must not merely cling to life, for then he will be a coward, and will not escape. He must not merely wait for death, for then he will be a suicide, and will not escape. He must seek his life in a spirit of furious indifference to it; he must desire life like water and yet drink death like wine. No philosopher, I fancy, has ever expressed this romantic riddle with adequate lucidity and I certainly have not done so, but Christianity has done more. It has marked the limits of it in the awful graves of the suicide and the hero, showing the distance between him who dies for the sake of living, and him who dies for the sake of dying, and it has held up ever since, above the European lances, the banner of the mystery of chivalry, the Christian courage, which is a disdain of death."

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