Founder's Quote Daily at The Patriot Post

Founder's Quote Daily

Wed, 22 Feb 2012 12:00:00 EST

"It has long, however, been my opinion, and I have never shrunk from its expression ... that the germ of dissolution of our federal government is in the constitution of the federal Judiciary; an irresponsible body, (for impeachment is scarcely a scare-crow) working like gravity by night and by day, gaining a little today and a little tomorrow, and advancing its noiseless step like a thief, over the field of jurisdiction, until all shall be usurped from the States, and the government of all be consolidated into one."

–Thomas Jefferson, letter to Charles Hammond, 1821

Founder's Quote Daily

Tue, 21 Feb 2012 12:00:00 EST

"No pecuniary consideration is more urgent, than the regular redemption and discharge of the public debt: on none can delay be more injurious, or an economy of time more valuable."

–George Washington, Message to the House of Representatives, 1793

Founder's Quote Daily

Mon, 20 Feb 2012 12:00:00 EST

"The bosom of America is open to receive not only the opulent and respectable stranger, but the oppressed and persecuted of all nations and religions; whom we shall welcome to a participation of all our rights and privileges, if by decency and propriety of conduct they appear to merit the enjoyment."

–George Washington, Address to the Members of the Volunteer Association of Ireland, 1783

Founder's Quote Daily

Fri, 17 Feb 2012 12:00:00 EST

"Strangers are welcome because there is room enough for them all, and therefore the old inhabitants are not jealous of them; the laws protect them sufficiently so that they have no need of the patronage of great men; and every one will enjoy securely the profits of his industry. But if he does not bring a fortune with him, he must work and be industrious to live."

–Benjamin Franklin, Those Who Would Remove to America, 1784

Founder's Quote Daily

Thu, 16 Feb 2012 12:00:00 EST

"Born in other countries, yet believing you could be happy in this, our laws acknowledge, as they should do, your right to join us in society, conforming, as I doubt not you will do, to our established rules. That these rules shall be as equal as prudential considerations will admit, will certainly be the aim of our legislatures, general and particular."

–Thomas Jefferson, letter to Hugh White, 1801

Founder's Quote Daily

Wed, 15 Feb 2012 12:00:00 EST

"In a society under the forms of which the stronger faction can readily unite and oppress the weaker, anarchy may as truly be said to reign as in a state of nature."

–James Madison, Federalist No. 52, 1788

Founder's Quote Daily

Tue, 14 Feb 2012 12:00:00 EST

"As there is a degree of depravity in mankind which requires a certain degree of circumspection and distrust: So there are other qualities in human nature, which justify a certain portion of esteem and confidence. Republican government presupposes the existence of these qualities in a higher degree than any other form. Were the pictures which have been drawn by the political jealousy of some among us, faithful likenesses of the human character, the inference would be that there is not sufficient virtue among men for self-government; and that nothing less than the chains of despotism can restrain them from destroying and devouring one another."

–James Madison, Federalist No. 55, 1788

Founder's Quote Daily

Mon, 13 Feb 2012 12:00:00 EST

"As riches increase and accumulate in few hands, as luxury prevails in society, virtue will be in a greater degree considered as only a graceful appendage of wealth, and the tendency of things will be to depart from the republican standard. This is the real disposition of human nature; it is what neither the honorable member nor myself can correct. It is a common misfortunate that awaits our State constitution, as well as all others."

–Alexander Hamilton, speech to the New York Ratifying Convention, 1788

Founder's Quote Daily

Fri, 10 Feb 2012 12:00:00 EST

"And you will, by the dignity of your conduct, afford occasion for posterity to say, when speaking of the glorious example you have exhibited to mankind, had this day been wanting, the world had never seen the last stage of perfection to which human nature is capable of attaining."

–George Washington, The Newburgh Address, 1783

Founder's Quote Daily

Thu, 9 Feb 2012 12:00:00 EST

"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

Founder's Quote Daily

Wed, 8 Feb 2012 12:00:00 EST

"Ambition must be made to counteract ambition. The interest of the man must be connected with the constitutional rights of the place. It may be a reflection on human nature that such devices should be necessary to control the abuses of government. What is government itself but the greatest of all reflections on human nature?"

–James Madison, Federalist No. 51, 1788

Founder's Quote Daily

Tue, 7 Feb 2012 12:00:00 EST

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

–Alexander Hamilton, The Farmer Refuted, 1775

Founder's Quote Daily

Mon, 6 Feb 2012 12:00:00 EST

"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

Founder's Quote Daily

Fri, 3 Feb 2012 12:00:00 EST

"Such will be the relation between the House of Representatives and their constituents. Duty gratitude, interest, ambition itself, are the cords by which they will be bound to fidelity and sympathy with the great mass of the people."

–James Madison, Federalist No. 57, 1788

Founder's Quote Daily

Thu, 2 Feb 2012 12:00:00 EST

"The house of representatives ... can make no law which will not have its full operation on themselves and their friends, as well as the great mass of society. This has always been deemed one of the strongest bonds by which human policy can connect the rulers and the people together. It creates between them that communion of interest, and sympathy of sentiments, of which few governments have furnished examples; but without which every government degenerates into tyranny."

–James Madison, Federalist No. 57, 1788

Founder's Quote Daily

Wed, 1 Feb 2012 12:00:00 EST

"If it be asked what is to restrain the House of Representatives from making legal discriminations in favor of themselves and a particular class of the society? I answer, the genius of the whole system, the nature of just and constitutional laws, and above all the vigilant and manly spirit which actuates the people of America, a spirit which nourishes freedom, and in return is nourished by it."

–James Madison, Federalist No. 57, 1788

Founder's Quote Daily

Tue, 31 Jan 2012 12:00:00 EST

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

–Thomas Jefferson, letter to John Adams, 1817

Founder's Quote Daily

Mon, 30 Jan 2012 12:00:00 EST

"History affords us many instances of the ruin of states, by the prosecution of measures ill suited to the temper and genius of their people. 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... These measures never fail to create great and violent jealousies and animosities between the people favored and the people oppressed; whence a total separation of affections, interests, political obligations, and all manner of connections, by which the whole state is weakened."

–Benjamin Franklin, Emblematical Representations

Founder's Quote Daily

Fri, 27 Jan 2012 12:00:00 EST

"History will also give occasion to expatiate on the advantage of civil orders and constitutions, how men and their properties are protected by joining in societies and establishing government; their Industry encouraged and rewarded, arts invented, and life made more comfortable: The advantages of liberty, mischiefs of licentiousness, benefits arising from good Laws and a due execution of justice. Thus may the first principles of sound politics be fixed in the minds of youth."

–Benjamin Franklin, Proposals Relating to the Education of Youth in Pennsylvania, 1749

Founder's Quote Daily

Thu, 26 Jan 2012 12:00:00 EST

"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, letter to the young men of the Philadelphia, 1798

Founder's Quote Daily

Wed, 25 Jan 2012 12:00:00 EST

"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

Founder's Quote Daily

Tue, 24 Jan 2012 12:00:00 EST

"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

Founder's Quote Daily

Mon, 23 Jan 2012 12:00:00 EST

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

–James Madison, speech in the Virginia constitutional convention, 1829

Founder's Quote Daily

Fri, 20 Jan 2012 12:00:00 EST

"[I]t is the reason alone, of the public, that ought to control and regulate the government."

–James Madison, Federalist No. 49, 1788

Founder's Quote Daily

Thu, 19 Jan 2012 12:00:00 EST

"The diversity in the faculties of men from which the rights of property originate, is not less an insuperable obstacle to a uniformity of interests. The protection of these faculties is the first object of government."

–James Madison, Federalist No. 10, 1787