Founders’ Quotes

To model our political system upon speculations of lasting tranquility, is to calculate on the weaker springs of the human character.

Nothing is more essential to the establishment of manners in a State than that all persons employed in places of power and trust must be men of unexceptionable characters.

Truth can stand by itself. Subject opinion to coercion: whom will you make your inquisitors?

Republics are created by the virtue, public spirit, and intelligence of the citizens. They fall, when the wise are banished from the public councils, because they dare to be honest, and the profligate are rewarded, because they flatter the people, in order to betray them.

A general dissolution of principles and manners will more surely overthrow the liberties of America than the whole force of the common enemy.

It is the madness of folly, to expect mercy from those who have refused to do justice; and even mercy, where conquest is the object, is only a trick of war; the cunning of the fox is as murderous as the violence of the wolf.

Foreign influence is truly the Grecian horse to a republic. We cannot be too careful to exclude its influence.

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

Facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclination, or the dictates of our passions, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence.

Against the insidious wiles of foreign influence, (I conjure you to believe me fellow citizens) the jealousy of a free people ought to be constantly awake; since history and experience prove that foreign influence is one of the most baneful foes of Republican Government.

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

If Congress can do whatever in their discretion can be done by money, and will promote the General Welfare, the Government is no longer a limited one, possessing enumerated powers, but an indefinite one, subject to particular exceptions.

The government of the United States is a definite government, confined to specified objects. It is not like the state governments, whose powers are more general.

The rights of neutrality will only be respected when they are defended by an adequate power. A nation, despicable by its weakness, forfeits even the privilege of being neutral.

I want an American character, that the powers of Europe may be convinced we act for ourselves and not for others; this, in my judgment, is the only way to be respected abroad and happy at home.

[M]an is not made to be trusted for life, if secured against all liability to account.

In disquisitions of every kind there are certain primary truths, or first principles, upon which all subsequent reasoning must depend.

During the course of administration, and in order to disturb it, the artillery of the press has been levelled against us, charged with whatsoever its licentiousness could devise or dare. These abuses of an institution so important to freedom and science are deeply to be regretted, inasmuch as they tend to lessen its usefulness and to sap its safety.