Founders’ Quotes

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

Justice is the end of government. It is the end of civil society. It ever has been and ever will be pursued until it be obtained, or until liberty be lost in the pursuit.

Laws are made for men of ordinary understanding and should, therefore, be construed by the ordinary rules of common sense.

War is not the best engine for us to resort to; nature has given us one in our commerce, which if properly managed, will be a better instrument for obliging the interested nations of Europe to treat us with justice.

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

It is the duty of parents to maintain their children decently, and according to their circumstances; to protect them according to the dictates of prudence; and to educate them according to the suggestions of a judicious and zealous regard for their usefulness, their respectability and happiness.

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.

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.

Harmony, liberal intercourse with all Nations, are recommended by policy, humanity and interest. But even our Commercial policy should hold an equal and impartial hand: neither seeking nor granting exclusive favours or preferences; consulting the natural course of things; diffusing and diversifying by gentle means the streams of Commerce, but forcing nothing; establishing with Powers so disposed; in order to give trade a stable course.

Religion and good morals are the only solid foundation of public liberty and happiness.

We must not let our rulers load us with perpetual debt.

Be in general virtuous, and you will be happy.

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.

There is a natural aristocracy among men. The grounds of this are virtue and talents.

Arbitrary power is most easily established on the ruins of liberty abused to licentiousness.

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

Newspapers ... serve as chimnies to carry off noxious vapors and smoke.