"If you love wealth more than liberty, the tranquility of servitude better than the animating contest of freedom, depart from us in peace. We ask not your counsel nor your arms. Crouch down and lick the hand that feeds you. May your chains rest lightly upon you and may posterity forget that you were our countrymen."- Samuel Adams
"I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies. Already they have raised up a monied aristocracy that has set the government at defiance. The issuing power (of money) should be taken away from the banks and restored to the people to whom it properly belongs."
- Thomas Jefferson
History, in general, only informs us what bad government is.
- Thomas Jefferson
"Our properties within our own territories [should not] be taxed or regulated by any power on earth but our own."
-Thomas Jefferson
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
The democracy will cease to exist when you take away from those who are willing to work and give to those who would not. - Thomas Jefferson [What would Jefferson say today?]
They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.
- Benjamin Franklin
Timid men prefer the calm of despotism to the tempestuous sea of Liberty.
- Thomas Jefferson
The question before the human race is, whether the God of nature shall govern the world by his own laws, or whether priests and kings shall rule it by fictitious miracles.
-John Adams
"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
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 their country; but he that stands it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph. What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly: it is dearness only that gives every thing its value. 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
I place economy among the first and most important virtues, and public debt as the greatest of dangers to be feared. To preserve our independence, we must not let our rulers load us with perpetual debt. If we run into such debts, we must be taxed in our meat and drink, in our necessities and in our comforts, in our labor and in our amusements. If we can prevent the government from wasting the labor of the people, under the pretense of caring for them, they will be happy.
- Thomas Jefferson [What would Jefferson say today?]
"I hope a tax will be preferred [to a loan which threatens to saddle us with a perpetual debt], because it will awaken the attention of the people and make reformation and economy the principle of the next election. The frequent recurrence of this chastening operation can alone restrain the propensity of governments to enlarge expense beyond income."
-Thomas Jefferson to Albert Gallatin, 1820. [What would Jefferson say today?]
To compel a man to furnish funds for the propagation of ideas he disbelieves and abhors is sinful and tyrannical.
-Thomas Jefferson [What would Jefferson say today?]
I think we have more machinery of government than is necessary, too many parasites living on the labor of the industrious.
-Thomas Jefferson [What would Jefferson say today? What would the Democrats say of such a statement today?]
With respect to the 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 principle of spending money to be paid by posterity, under the name of funding, is but swindling futurity on a large scale."
-Thomas Jefferson
"Before a standing army can rule, the people must be disarmed; as they are in almost every kingdom of Europe. The supreme power in America cannot enforce unjust laws by the sword; because the whole body of the people are armed, and constitute a force superior to any band of regular troops that can be, on any pretence, raised in the United States."
-Noah Webster
"A nation of well informed men who have been taught to know and prize the rights which God has given them cannot be enslaved. It is in the region of ignorance that tyranny begins."
- Benjamin Franklin
"The Tenth Amendment is the foundation of the Constitution."
- Thomas Jefferson
"It is impossible for the man of pious reflection not to perceive in [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, Father of the Constitution.
"The belief in a God All Powerful wise and good, is so essential to the moral order of the world and to the happiness of man, that arguments which enforce it cannot be drawn from too many sources nor adapted with too much solicitude to the different characters and capacities impressed with it."
--James Madison
"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
If Congress can employ money indefinitely to the general welfare... they may appoint teachers in every state... The powers of Congress would subvert the very foundation, the very nature of the limited government established by the people of America.
- James Madison
Are we at last brought to such humiliating and debasing degradation, that we cannot be trusted with arms for our defense?
Patrick Henry
Fear is the passion of slaves.
Patrick Henry
For my part, whatever anguish of spirit it may cost, I am willing to know the whole truth; to know the worst and provide for it.
Patrick Henry
Give me liberty or give me death.
Patrick Henry
Guard with jealous attention the public liberty. Suspect everyone who approaches that jewel. Unfortunately, nothing will preserve it but downright force. Whenever you give up that force, you are inevitably ruined.
Patrick Henry
I have but one lamp by which my feet are guided, and that is the lamp of experience.
Patrick Henry
I have but one lamp by which my feet are guided; and that is the lamp of experience. I know of no way of judging the future but by the past.
Patrick Henry
I have now disposed of all my property to my family. There is one thing more I wish I could give them, and that is the Christian religion.
Patrick Henry
I know no way of judging the future but by the past.
Patrick Henry
I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty, or give me death.
Patrick Henry
I know not what others may choose but, as for me, give me liberty or give me death.
Patrick Henry
I know of no way of judging the future but by the past.
Patrick Henry
I like dreams of the future better than the history of the past.
Patrick Henry
If this be treason, make the most of it!
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
Perfect freedom is as necessary to the health and vigor of commerce as it is to the health and vigor of citizenship.
Patrick Henry
Religion I have disposed of all my property to my family. There is one thing more I wish I could give to them, and that is the Christian religion. If they had that and I had not given them one cent, they would be rich. If they have not that, and I had given them the world, they would be poor.
Patrick Henry
The Bible is worth all the other books which have ever been printed.
Patrick Henry
The great object is that every man be armed.
Patrick Henry
The liberties of a people never were, nor ever will be, secure, when the transactions of their rulers may be concealed from them.
Patrick Henry
This is all the inheritance I give to my dear family. The religion of Christ will give them one which will make them rich indeed.
Patrick Henry
We are not weak if we make a proper use of those means which the God of Nature has placed in our power... the battle, sir, is not to the strong alone it is to the vigilant, the active, the brave.
Patrick Henry
When the American spirit was in its youth, the language of America was different: Liberty, sir, was the primary object.
Patrick Henry
