"Give Me Liberty Or Give Me Death"
- Patrick Henry
The Words of Liberty
I don’t necessarily consider myself a man of great spirituality but I am a man of great faith. As I’ve struggled to find my faith and make meaning of life, it has been the quotations of Jesus, not the tales of deeds and action and not the words of the sermonizers. I have taken those words found in the Bible and applied them to my life in hopes of being a better person.
I have applied this same practice to my understanding of what America really should stand for. Just as I try to take any preacher of the Gospel with a grain of salt, I take what politicians preach with a large dose of skepticism. The Constitution has been described as a living document, a document greater than any other to establish a nation and way of life. I see it as a piece of paper with words on it for without conviction it means nothing. The ideals it fosters, the rights and freedoms of man it seeks to protect, that is what should be treated with reverence.
It is with that in mind that I have listed selected quotes from our founding fathers. The Constitution is a guiding force but without practicing the ideals that gave birth to it, it is but another empty promise. Read these quotes and discover for yourself what was supposed to be and determine in your own mind whether we have accomplished that dream, the American Dream.
These quotes reflect a common theme among the founding fathers. They mistrusted governments, organized religion, mob rule, and financial institutions. They saw all of these entities as potential thieves of liberty. They speak of the empowerment of the individual and of free thinkers that should accept personal responsibilities.
Thomas Jefferson
A democracy is nothing more than mob rule, where fifty-one percent of the people may take away the rights of the other forty-nine.
When we get piled upon one another in large cities, as in Europe, we shall become as corrupt as Europe.
A wise and frugal government, which shall leave men free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor and bread it has earned - this is the sum of good government.
Cultivators of the earth are the most valuable citizens. They are the most vigorous, the most independent, the most virtuous, and they are tied to their country and wedded to its liberty and interests by the most lasting bands.
All tyranny needs to gain a foothold is for people of good conscience to remain silent.
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.
As our enemies have found we can reason like men, so now let us show them we can fight like men also.
Banking establishments are more dangerous than standing armies.
Commerce with all nations, alliance with none, should be our motto.
Determine never to be idle. No person will have occasion to complain of the want of time who never loses any. It is wonderful how much may be done if we are always doing.
Do you want to know who you are? Don't ask. Act! Action will delineate and define you.
Educate and inform the whole mass of the people... They are the only sure reliance for the preservation of our liberty.
Enlighten the people generally, and tyranny and oppressions of body and mind will vanish like evil spirits at the dawn of day.
Errors of opinion may be tolerated where reason is left free to combat it.
Every citizen should be a soldier. This was the case with the Greeks and Romans, and must be that of every free state.
Every generation needs a new revolution.
Every government degenerates when trusted to the rulers of the people alone. The people themselves are its only safe depositories.
For a people who are free, and who mean to remain so, a well-organized and armed militia is their best security.
Force is the vital principle and immediate parent of despotism.
Friendship is but another name for an alliance with the follies and the misfortunes of others. Our own share of miseries is sufficient: why enter then as volunteers into those of another?
He who knows best knows how little he knows.
He who knows nothing is closer to the truth than he whose mind is filled with falsehoods and errors.
History, in general, only informs us of what bad government is.
Honesty is the first chapter in the book of wisdom.
I am mortified to be told that, in the United States of America, the sale of a book can become a subject of inquiry, and of criminal inquiry too.
I believe that every human mind feels pleasure in doing good to another.
I do not find in orthodox Christianity one redeeming feature.
I have no fear that the result of our experiment will be that men may be trusted to govern themselves without a master.
I have recently been examining all the known superstitions of the world, and do not find in our particular superstition (Christianity) one redeeming feature. They are all alike founded on fables and mythology.
I have sworn upon the altar of God, eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man.
I hope our wisdom will grow with our power, and teach us, that the less we use our power the greater it will be.
I hope we shall crush in its birth the aristocracy of our monied corporations which dare already to challenge our government to a trial by strength, and bid defiance to the laws of our country.
I know of 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.
I own that I am not a friend to a very energetic government. It is always oppressive.
I predict future happiness for Americans if they can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them.
I sincerely believe that banking establishments are more dangerous than standing armies, and that the principle of spending money to be paid by posterity, under the name of funding, is but swindling futurity on a large scale.
I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too much liberty than those attending too small a degree of it.
I'm a great believer in luck and I find the harder I work, the more I have of it.
Information is the currency of democracy.
It is in our lives and not our words that our religion must be read.
It is incumbent on every generation to pay its own debts as it goes. A principle which if acted on would save one-half the wars of the world.
My reading of history convinces me that most bad government results from too much government.
One man with courage is a majority.
Our country is now taking so steady a course as to show by what road it will pass to destruction, to wit: by consolidation of power first, and then corruption, its necessary consequence.
Our greatest happiness does not depend on the condition of life in which chance has placed us, but is always the result of a good conscience, good health, occupation, and freedom in all just pursuits.
Peace and abstinence from European interferences are our objects, and so will continue while the present order of things in America remain uninterrupted.
The advertisement is the most truthful part of a newspaper.
The democracy will cease to exist when you take away from those who are willing to work and give to those who would not.
The man who reads nothing at all is better educated than the man who reads nothing but newspapers.
The natural progress of things is for liberty to yield and government to gain ground.
The strongest reason for the people to retain the right to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in government.
The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.
Timid men prefer the calm of despotism to the tempestuous sea of liberty.
To compel a man to furnish funds for the propagation of ideas he disbelieves and abhors is sinful and tyrannical.
To compel a man to subsidize with his taxes the propagation of ideas which he disbelieves and abhors is sinful and tyrannical.
When a man assumes a public trust he should consider himself a public property.
When angry count to ten before you speak. If very angry, count to one hundred.
When the people fear their government, there is tyranny; when the government fears the people, there is liberty.
When you reach the end of your rope, tie a knot in it and hang on.
Benjamin Franklin
Any fool can criticize, condemn and complain and most fools do.
Beer is living proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy.
Certainty? In this world nothing is certain but death and taxes.
I wake up every morning at nine and grab for the morning paper. Then I look at the obituary page. If my name is not on it, I get up.
If all printers were determined not to print anything till they were sure it would offend nobody, there would be very little printed.
In this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes.
It is the working man who is the happy man. It is the idle man who is the miserable man.
Rebellion against tyrants is obedience to God.
Tell me and I forget. Teach me and I remember. Involve me and I learn.
The U. S. Constitution doesn't guarantee happiness, only the pursuit of it. You have to catch up with it yourself.
The strictest law sometimes becomes the severest injustice.
There are two ways of being happy: We must either diminish our wants or augment our means - either may do - the result is the same and it is for each man to decide for himself and to do that which happens to be easier.
We must, indeed, all hang together or, most assuredly, we shall all hang separately.
John Adams
All the perplexities, confusion and distress in America arise, not from defects in their Constitution or Confederation, not from want of honor or virtue, so much as from the downright ignorance of the nature of coin, credit and circulation.
Because power corrupts, society's demands for moral authority and character increase as the importance of the position increases.
Democracy... while it lasts is more bloody than either aristocracy or monarchy. Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There is never a democracy that did not commit suicide.
Facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, or the dictates of our passions, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence.
Fear is the foundation of most governments.
If we do not lay out ourselves in the service of mankind whom should we serve?
In politics the middle way is none at all.
Let us tenderly and kindly cherish, therefore, the means of knowledge. Let us dare to read, think, speak, and write.
Liberty cannot be preserved without a general knowledge among the people.
Old minds are like old horses; you must exercise them if you wish to keep them in working order.
Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.
Property is surely a right of mankind as real as liberty.
There is danger from all men. The only maxim of a free government ought to be to trust no man living with power to endanger the public liberty.
Thomas Paine
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.
All national institutions of churches, whether Jewish, Christian or Turkish, appear to me no other than human inventions, set up to terrify and enslave mankind, and monopolize power and profit.
An army of principles can penetrate where an army of soldiers cannot.
Government, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil; in its worst state, an intolerable one.
He that rebels against reason is a real rebel, but he that in defence of reason rebels against tyranny has a better title to Defender of the Faith, than George the Third.
If there must be trouble, let it be in my day, that my child may have peace.
It is error only, and not truth, that shrinks from inquiry.
It is necessary to the happiness of man that he be mentally faithful to himself. Infidelity does not consist in believing, or in disbelieving, it consists in professing to believe what he does not believe.
Lead, follow, or get out of the way.
Moderation in temper is always a virtue; but moderation in principle is always a vice.
My country is the world, and my religion is to do good.
My mind is my own church.
Of all the tyrannies that affect mankind, tyranny in religion is the worst.
One good schoolmaster is of more use than a hundred priests.
Persecution is not an original feature in any religion; but it is always the strongly marked feature of all religions established by law.
Reputation is what men and women think of us; character is what God and angels know of us.
That government is best which governs least.
That which we obtain too easily, we esteem too lightly.
The instant formal government is abolished, society begins to act. A general association takes place, and common interest produces common security.
The most formidable weapon against errors of every kind is reason.
The real man smiles in trouble, gathers strength from distress, and grows brave by reflection.
The strength and power of despotism consists wholly in the fear of resistance.
Those who expect to reap the blessings of freedom must, like men, undergo the fatigue of supporting it.
Time makes more converts than reason.
'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.
To say that any people are not fit for freedom, is to make poverty their choice, and to say they had rather be loaded with taxes than not.
We have it in our power to begin the world over again.
What we obtain too cheap, we esteem to lightly.
When men yield up the privilege of thinking, the last shadow of liberty quits the horizon.
When we are planning for posterity, we ought to remember that virtue is not hereditary.
