Founder's Quote Database | The Patriot Post

Founders' Quote Database

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Author

John Adams

letter to Abigail Adams — 1776
Category: Declaration of Independence

It ought to be commemorated, as the Day of Deliverance by solemn Acts of Devotion to God Almighty. It ought to be solemnized with Pomp and Parade, with Shews, Games, Sports, guns, Bells, Bonfires and Illuminations from one End of this Continent to the other from this Time forward forever more. You will think me transported with Enthusiasm but I am not. I am well aware of the Toil and Blood and Treasure, that it will cost Us to maintain this Declaration, and support and defend these States. Yet through all the Gloom I can see the Rays of ravishing Light and Glory. I can see that the End is more than worth all the Means. And that Posterity will tryumph in that Days Transaction, even altho We should rue it, which I trust in God We shall not.

Thomas Jefferson

letter to Henry Lee — 1825
Category: Declaration of Independence

This was the object of the Declaration of Independence. Not to find out new principles, or new arguments, never before thought of, not merely to say things which had never been said before; but to place before mankind the common sense of the subject, in terms so plain and firm as to command their assent, and to justify ourselves in the independent stand we are compelled to take. Neither aiming at originality of principle or sentiment, nor yet copied from any particular and previous writing, it was intended to be an expression of the American mind, and to give to that expression the proper tone and spirit called for by the occasion.

Thomas Jefferson

letter to Joseph Cabell — 1820
Category: Education

The truth is that the want of common education with us is not from our poverty, but from the want of an orderly system. More money is now paid for the education of a part than would be paid for that of the whole if systematically arranged.

Thomas Jefferson

letter to Colonel Charles Yancey — 1816

If a nation expects to be ignorant - and free - in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be.

Thomas Jefferson

on George Washington in a letter to Dr. Walter Jones — 1814
Category: Founders on Founders

His person, you know, was fine, his stature exactly what one would wish, his deportment easy, erect and noble.

Benjamin Rush

On the Mode of Education Proper in a Republic — 1806
Category: Religion and Morality

[T]he only foundation for a useful education in a republic is to be laid in religion. Without this there can be no virtue, and without virtue there can be no liberty, and liberty is the object and life of all republican governments.

Benjamin Rush

letter to John Armstrong — 1783
Category: Religion and Morality

Without religion, I believe that learning does real mischief to the morals and principles of mankind.

John Adams

Defense of the Constitutions — 1787
Category: Education

Children should be educated and instructed in the principles of freedom.

George Washington

First Annual Message — 1790
Category: Education

Knowledge is, in every country, the surest basis of public happiness.

James Wilson

Of the Study of the Law in the United States — 1790
Category: Education

Law and liberty cannot rationally become the objects of our love, unless they first become the objects of our knowledge.

John Adams

Dissertation on the Canon and Feudal Law — 1756
Category: Education

It should be your care, therefore, and mine, to elevate the minds of our children and exalt their courage; to accelerate and animate their industry and activity; to excite in them an habitual contempt of meanness, abhorrence of injustice and inhumanity, and an ambition to excel in every capacity, faculty, and virtue. If we suffer their minds to grovel and creep in infancy, they will grovel all their lives.

Noah Webster

On Education of Youth in America — 1790
Category: Education

It is an object of vast magnitude that systems of education should be adopted and pursued which may not only diffuse a knowledge of the sciences but may implant in the minds of the American youth the principles of virtue and of liberty and inspire them with just and liberal ideas of government and with an inviolable attachment to their own country.

James Madison

letter to Littleton Dennis Teackle — 1826
Category: Education

The best service that can be rendered to a Country, next to that of giving it liberty, is in diffusing the mental improvement equally essential to the preservation, and the enjoyment of the blessing.

James Madison

letter to W.T. Barry — 1822
Category: Education

A popular Government, without popular information, or the means of acquiring it, is but a Prologue to a Farce or a Tragedy; or, perhaps both. Knowledge will forever govern ignorance: And a people who mean to be their own Governors, must arm themselves with the power which knowledge gives.

James Madison

letter to W.T. Barry — 1822
Category: Education

What spectacle can be more edifying or more seasonable, than that of Liberty and Learning, each leaning on the other for their mutual & surest support?

Alexander Hamilton

Federalist No. 78 — 1788
Category: Judiciary

... [The Judicial Branch] may truly be said to have neither FORCE nor WILL, but merely judgment; and must ultimately depend upon the aid of the executive arm even for the efficacy of its judgments.

John Adams

letter to Patrick Henry — 1776
Category: Equality

The dons, the bashaws, the grandees, the patricians, the sachems, the nabobs, call them by what names you please, sigh and groan and fret, and sometimes stamp and foam and curse, but all in vain. The decree is gone forth, and it cannot be recalled, that a more equal liberty than has prevailed in other parts of the earth must be established in America.

Thomas Jefferson

letter to George Washington — 1784
Category: Equality

The foundation on which all [constitutions] are built is the natural equality of man, the denial of every preeminence but that annexed to legal office, and particularly the denial of a preeminence by birth.

George Washington

letter to the Marquis de la Rourie — 1786
Category: Marriage

More permanent and genuine happiness is to be found in the sequestered walks of connubial life than in the giddy rounds of promiscuous pleasure.

James Wilson

Of the Natural Rights of Individuals — 1792
Category: Family

The most important consequence of marriage is, that the husband and the wife become in law only one person... Upon this principle of union, almost all the other legal consequences of marriage depend. This principle, sublime and refined, deserves to be viewed and examined on every side.

Samuel Williams

The Natural and Civil History of Vermont — 1794
Category: Marriage

It is not necessary to enumerate the many advantages, that arise from this custom of early marriages. They comprehend all the society can receive from this source; from the preservation, and increase of the human race. Every thing useful and beneficial to man, seems to be connected with obedience to the laws of his nature, the inclinations, the duties, and the happiness of individuals, resolve themselves into customs and habits, favourable, in the highest degree, to society. In no case is this more apparent, than in the customs of nations respecting marriage.

Benjamin Franklin

Reply to a Piece of Advice
Category: Family

And as to the Cares, they are chiefly what attend the bringing up of Children; and I would ask any Man who has experienced it, if they are not the most delightful Cares in the World; and if from that Particular alone, he does not find the Bliss of a double State much greater, instead of being less than he expected.

John Adams

Diary — 1778
Category: Family

The foundation of national morality must be laid in private families. . . . How is it possible that Children can have any just Sense of the sacred Obligations of Morality or Religion if, from their earliest Infancy, they learn their Mothers live in habitual Infidelity to their fathers, and their fathers in as constant Infidelity to their Mothers?

Samuel Adams

letter to Thomas Wells — 1780
Category: Family

Religion in a Family is at once its brightest Ornament & its best Security.

Abigail Adams

letter to John Quincy Adams — 1783
Category: Family

What is it that affectionate parents require of their Children; for all their care, anxiety, and toil on their accounts? Only that they would be wise and virtuous, Benevolent and kind.

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