"Liberty must at all hazards be supported. We have a right to it, derived from our Maker. But if we had not, our fathers have earned and bought it for us, at the expense of their ease, their estates, their pleasure, and their blood."
John Adams

"Let us contemplate our forefathers, and posterity, and resolve to maintain the rights bequeathed to us from the former, for the sake of the latter.  The necessity of the times, more than ever, calls for our utmost circumspection, deliberation, fortitude and perseverance."
Samuel Adams

"To take from one, because it is thought his own industry and that of his fathers has acquired too much, in order to spare to others, who, or whose fathers, have not exercised equal industry and skill, is to violate arbitrarily the first principle of association, the guarantee to everyone the free exercise of his industry and the fruits acquired by it."
Thomas Jefferson

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

"No freeman shall be debarred the use of arms."
Thomas Jefferson

"Timid men prefer the calm of despotism to the tempestuous sea of liberty."
Thomas Jefferson

"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

"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."
Thomas Jefferson

'What we obtain too cheaply we esteem too lightly. It is dearness only that gives everything its value.'
Thomas Paine

'Heaven knows how to put a proper price upon its goods, and it would be strange indeed if so celestial an article as freedom should not be highly rated.'
Thomas Paine

"The hour is fast approaching, on which the Honor and Success of this army, and the safety of our bleeding Country depend. Remember officers and Soldiers, that you are Freemen, fighting for the blessings of Liberty -- that slavery will be your portion, and that of your posterity, if you do not acquit yourselves like men."
George Washington

"...[W]e shall most sincerely rejoice with you in the happy hour when the establishment of American Liberty, upon the most firm and solid foundations shall enable us to return to our Private Stations in the bosom of a free, peacefully and happy Country."
George Washington

"Now what liberty can there be where property is taken without consent?"
Samuel Adams

"It should be your care, therefore, and mine, to elevate the minds of our children and exalt their courage; to accelerate and animate their industry and activity; to excite in them an habitual contempt of meanness, abhorrence of injustice and inhumanity, and an ambition to excel in every capacity, faculty, and virtue. If we suffer their minds to grovel and creep in infancy, they will grovel all their lives."
John Adams

"The God which gave us life gave us at the same time liberty. The hands of force may destroy but can never divide these."
Thomas Jefferson

"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be."
Thomas Jefferson

"The government created by this compact [i.e., the Constitution] was not made the exclusive or final judge of the extent of the powers delegated to itself, since that would have made its discretion, and not the Constitution, the measure of its powers; but that as in all other cases of compact among parties having no common judge, each party has an equal right to judge for itself, as well of infractions as of the mode and measure of redress."
Thomas Jefferson

"[T]he flames kindled on the 4 of July 1776, have spread over too much of the globe to be extinguished by the feeble engines of despotism; on the contrary, they will consume these engines and all who work them."
Thomas Jefferson

"Democracies have ever been spectacles of turbulence and contention, have ever been found incompatible with personal security or the rights of property, and have in general been as short in the lives as they have been violent in their deaths."
James Madison

"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

"For no people will tamely surrender their Liberties, nor can any be easily subdued, when Knowledge is diffus'd and Virtue is preserv'd. On the contrary, when People are universally ignorant, and debauch'd in their Manners, they will sink under their own weight without the Aid of foreign Invaders."
Samuel Adams

"...No people ever yet groaned under the heavy yoke of slavery, but when they deserv'd it. ...The truth is, all might be free if they valued freedom, and defended it as they ought. ...If therefore a people will not be free; if they have not virtue enough to maintain their liberty against a presumptuous invader, they deserve no pity, and are to be treated with contempt and ignominy."
Samuel Adams

"If you love wealth better than liberty, the tranquility of servitude better than the animating contest of freedom, go home from us in peace. We ask not your counsels or arms. Crouch down and lick the hands which feed you. May your chains set lightly upon you and may posterity forget that ye were our countrymen."
Samuel Adams

"Courage, then, my countrymen, our contest is not only whether we ourselves shall be free, but whether there shall be left to mankind an asylum on earth for civil and religious liberty."
Samuel Adams

"Rebellion to tyrants is obedience to God."
Motto suggested to be included in the original Seal of the United States

"It is not only his right, but his duty ... to find the verdict according to his own best understanding, judgment and conscience, though in direct opposition to the direction of the court."
John Adams

"Observe good faith and justice towards all Nations; cultivate peace and harmony with all. Religion and Morality enjoin this conduct; and can it be, that good policy does not equally enjoin it? It will be worthy of a free, enlightened, and, at no distant period, a great Nation, to give to mankind the magnanimous and too novel example of a people always guided by an exalted justice and benevolence."
George Washington

"Government is not reason; it is not eloquent; it is force.... Like fire, it is a dangerous servant and a fearful master."
George Washington

"Congress has not unlimited powers to provide for the general welfare but only those specifically enumerated."
Thomas Jefferson

"Freedom had been hunted round the globe; reason was considered as rebellion; and the slavery of fear had made men afraid to think. But such is the irresistible nature of truth, that all it asks, and all it wants, is the liberty of appearing."
Thomas Paine

"A nation of well informed men, who have been taught to know and prize the rights that God has given them, cannot be enslaved. It is in the region of ignorance that tyranny begins!"
Benjamin Franklin

"It behooves every man who values liberty of conscience for himself, to resist invasions of it in the case of others: or their case may, by change of circumstances, become his own."
Thomas Jefferson

"A thing moderately good is not so good as it ought to be. Moderation in temper is always a virtue; but moderation in principle is always a vice."
Thomas Paine

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

"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

"A popular Government, without popular information, or the means of acquiring it, is but a Prologue to a Farce or a Tragedy; or, perhaps both."
James Madison

"A pure democracy can admit no cure for the mischief's of faction. A common passion or interest will be felt by a majority, and there is nothing to check the inducements to sacrifice the weaker party.  Hence it is, that democracies have ever been found incompatible with personal security or the rights of property; and have, in general, been as short in their lives as they have been violent in their deaths."
James Madison

"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, 1798, specifically warning against relying on the good intentions of politicians to enforce the Constitution

" . . . the poorest man may in his cottage bid defiance to all the forces of the Crown. It may be frail - it's roof may shake - the wind may blow through it - the storms may enter - but the king of England cannot enter - all his force dares not cross the threshold of the ruined tenement."
William Pitt

"Those who expect to reap the blessings of freedom, must, like men, undergo the fatigues of supporting it."
Thomas Paine

"The people of this country, if ever they lose their liberties, will do it by sacrificing some great principle of government to temporary passion. There are certain great principles, which if they are not held inviolable, at all seasons, our liberty is gone. If we give them up, it is perfectly immaterial what is the character of our sovereign; whether he be King or President, elective or hereditary - it is perfectly immaterial what is his character - we shall be slaves - it is not an elective government which will preserve us."
John Randolph, Southern Conservative, Roanoke, VA, 1813.

"A wise and frugal government, which shall restrain men from injuring one another, which 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, First Inaugural Address

"...liberty...the people's zeal to preserve it has ever been called ingratitude by such as had designs against it..."
Cato

"Let people alone, and they will take care of themselves, and do it best; and if they do not, a sufficient punishment will follow their neglect, without the magistrate's interposition and penalties..."
Cato

"When a government has ceased to protect the lives, liberty, and property of the people...and...becomes an instrument in the hands of evil rulers for their oppression...it is a...sacred obligation to their posterity to abolish such government, and create another in its stead."
Sam Houston

"In matters of principle, stand like a rock."
Thomas Jefferson

"That the sole object and only legitimate end of government is to protect the citizen in the enjoyment of life, liberty, and property, and when the government assumes other functions it is usurpation and oppression."
Section 35, Alabama Constitution of 1901.

"All experience hath shown, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed."
Thomas Jefferson

"Live free or die; death is not the worst of evils"
Revolutionary hero Gen. Stark

"Energy and persistence conquer all things."
Benjamin Franklin

"Beware the greedy hand of government, thrusting itself into every corner and crevice of industry."
Thomas Paine

"Most bad government results from too much government."
Thomas Jefferson

"The war is actually begun! The next gale that sweeps from the north will bring to our ears the clash of resounding arms...Let it come. I repeat, Sir, Let it come...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

"I am not well versed in history, but I will submit to your recollection whether liberty has been destroyed most often by the licentiousness of the people or by the tyranny of rulers? I imagine, Sir, you will find the balance on the side of tyranny."
Patrick Henry

"But now, Sir, the American spirit, assisted by the ropes and chains of consolidation, is about to convert this country to a powerful and mighty empire."
Patrick Henry

"Fear is the passion of slaves"
Patrick Henry

"With respect to the two words 'general welfare,' I have always regarded them as qualified by the detail of powers connected with them. To take them in a literal and unlimited sense would be a metamorphosis of the Constitution into a character which there is a host of proofs was not contemplated by its creators."
James Madison

"The great object is that every man be armed.  Everyone who is able may have a gun."
Patrick Henry, "Gun Nut"

" 'Tis the business of little minds to shrink; but he whose heart is firm, and whose conscience approves his conduct, will pursue his principles unto death."
Thomas Paine

"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

"The Eyes of all our Countrymen are now upon us, and we shall have their blessings, and praises, if happily we are the instruments of saving them from the Tyranny mediated against them."
George Washington

"A Union of the States containing such an ingredient seemed to provide for its own destruction. The use of force against a State would look more like a declaration of war than an infliction of punishment and would probably be considered by the party attacked as a dissolution of all previous compacts by which it might be bound."
James Madison, on rejecting a clause in the Constitution prohibiting a state's right to secede

"Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves."
William Pitt

"Difference of opinion leads to enquiry, and enquiry to truth."
Thomas Jefferson

"A people ... who are possessed of the spirit of commerce, who see and who will pursue their advantages may achieve almost anything."
George Washington

"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...."
James Madison

"To compel a man to furnish contributions of money for the propagation of opinions which he disbelieves and abhors is sinful and tyrannical. ... A wise and frugal government ... shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned. ... Congress has not unlimited powers to provide for the general welfare but only those specifically enumerated. ... 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

"The apportionment of taxes on the various descriptions of property is an act which seems to require the most exact impartiality; yet there is, perhaps, no legislative act in which greater opportunity and temptation are given to a predominant party to trample on the rules of justice. Every shilling which they overburden the inferior number is a shilling saved to their own pockets. ... A just security to property is not afforded by that government, under which unequal taxes oppress one species of property and reward another species. ... Government is instituted to protect property of every sort; as well that which lies in the various rights of individuals, as that which the term particularly expresses. This being the end of government, that alone is a just government which impartially secures to every man whatever is his own."
James Madison

"The moment the idea is admitted into society that property is not as sacred as the laws of God, and that there is not a force of law and public justice to protect it, anarchy and tyranny commence. If 'Thou shalt not covet' and 'Thou shalt not steal' were not commandments of Heaven, they must be made inviolable precepts in every society before it can be civilized or made free."
John Adams

"Our unalterable resolution would be to be free. They have attempted to subdue us by force, but God be praised! in vain. Their arts may be more dangerous then their arms. Let us then ... under God trust our cause to our swords."
Samuel Adams

"The powers delegated by the proposed Constitution to the federal government are few and defined."
James Madison, Federalist No. 45

"He who permits himself to tell a lie once, finds it much easier to do it a second and third time, till at length it becomes habitual.... This falsehood of the tongue leads to that of the heart."
Thomas Jefferson, letter to Peter Carr, August 19, 1785

"When governments fear the people there is liberty. When the people fear the government there is tyranny."
Thomas Jefferson

BACK TO QUOTES PAGE

BACK TO LP BREVARD HOME