Founder's Quote Database | The Patriot Post

Founders' Quote Database

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Author

Thomas Jefferson

Notes on the State of Virginia, Query 18 — 1781
Category: God

And can the liberties of a nation be thought secure when we have removed their only firm basis, a conviction in the minds of the people that these liberties are the gift of God? That they are not to be violated but with his wrath? Indeed I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just: that his justice cannot sleep for ever.

James Madison

A Memorial and Remonstrance — 1785
Category: God

It is the duty of every man to render to the Creator such homage, and such only, as he believes to be acceptable to him. This duty is precedent both in order of time and degree of obligation, to the claims of Civil Society. Before any man can be considered as a member of Civil Society, he must be considered as a subject of the Governor of the Universe.

Benjamin Franklin

Motion for Prayers in the Constitutional Convention — 1787
Category: God

I have lived, Sir, a long time; and the longer I live, the more convincing proofs I see of this Truth, that God governs in the Affairs of Men. And if a Sparrow cannot fall to the Ground without his Notice, is it probable that an Empire can rise without his Aid?

James Madison

letter to Frederick Beasley — 1825
Category: God

The belief in a God All Powerful wise and good, is so essential to the moral order of the world and to the happiness of man, that arguments which enforce it cannot be drawn from too many sources nor adapted with too much solicitude to the different characters and capacities impressed with it.

James Wilson

Chisholm v. Georgia — 1793
Category: God

A State, I cheerfully admit, is the noblest work of Man: But Man, himself, free and honest, is, I speak as to this world, the noblest work of God....

Thomas Jefferson

letter to Joseph Milligan — 1816
Category: Taxation

For example. If the system be established on basis of Income, and his just proportion on that scale has been already drawn from every one, to step into the field of Consumption, and tax special articles in that, as broadcloth or homespun, wine or whiskey, a coach or a wagon, is doubly taxing the same article. For that portion of Income with which these articles are purchased, having already paid its tax as Income, to pay another tax on the thing it purchased, is paying twice for the same thing; it is an aggrievance on the citizens who use these articles in exoneration of those who do not, contrary to the most sacred of the duties of a government, to do equal and impartial justice to all its citizens.

John Adams

letter to Abigail Adams — 1775
Category: Liberty

But a Constitution of Government once changed from Freedom, can never be restored. Liberty, once lost, is lost forever.

John Adams

An Essay on Man's Lust for Power — 1763
Category: Democracy

[D]emocracy will soon degenerate into an anarchy, such an anarchy that every man will do what is right in his own eyes and no man's life or property or reputation or liberty will be secure, and every one of these will soon mould itself into a system of subordination of all the moral virtues and intellectual abilities, all the powers of wealth, beauty, wit and science, to the wanton pleasures, the capricious will, and the execrable cruelty of one or a very few.

John Adams

letter to John Taylor — 1814
Category: Democracy

Remember democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide.

Alexander Hamilton

Tully, No. 3 — 1794
Category: Government

The instrument by which it [government] must act are either the AUTHORITY of the laws or FORCE. If the first be destroyed, the last must be substituted; and where this becomes the ordinary instrument of government there is an end to liberty!

George Washington

letter to Marquis de Lafayette — 1785
Category: The People

Democratical States must always feel before they can see: it is this that makes their Governments slow, but the people will be right at last.

Thomas Jefferson

letter to William Ludlow — 1824
Category: Bureaucracy

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

Thomas Paine

Common Sense — 1776
Category: Government

Society in every state is a blessing, but government, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil; in its worst state an intolerable one; for when we suffer or are exposed to the same miseries by a government, which we might expect in a country without government, our calamity is heightened by reflecting that we furnish the means by which we suffer.

James Madison

letter to Thomas Jefferson — 1787
Category: Government

The great desideratum in Government is, so to modify the sovereignty as that it may be sufficiently neutral between different parts of the Society to controul one part from invading the rights of another, and at the same time sufficiently controuled itself, from setting up an interest adverse to that of the entire Society.

Benjamin Franklin

from his writings — 1758
Category: Budget

He that goes a borrowing goes a sorrowing.

George Washington

letter to James Madison — 1786
Category: Constitutional Convention

No morn ever dawned more favorable than ours did; and no day was every more clouded than the present! Wisdom, and good examples are necessary at this time to rescue the political machine from the impending storm.

George Washington

letter to James Warren — 1785
Category: Constitutional Convention

Jealousy, and local policy mix too much in all our public councils for the good government of the Union. In a words, the confederation appears to me to be little more than a shadow without the substance....

Thomas Jefferson

letter to E. Carrington — 1788
Category: Government

The natural progress of things is for liberty to yield and government to gain ground.

James Madison

Federalist No. 51 — 1788
Category: Government

If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary. In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: you must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place, oblige it to control itself.

Thomas Jefferson

First Inaugural Address — 1801
Category: Government

[A] wise and frugal government...shall restrain men from injuring one another, shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned. This is the sum of good government.

James Madison

to an unidentified correspondent — 1833
Category: Government

It has been said that all Government is an evil. It would be more proper to say that the necessity of any Government is a misfortune. This necessity however exists; and the problem to be solved is, not what form of Government is perfect, but which of the forms is least imperfect.

Thomas Jefferson

letter to Abigail Adams — 1787
Category: Government

The spirit of resistance to government is so valuable on certain occasions, that I wish it to be always kept alive. It will often be exercised when wrong, but better so than not to be exercised at all. I like a little rebellion now and then. It is like a storm in the atmosphere.

Alexander Hamilton

Federalist No. 65 — 1788
Category: Government

If mankind were to resolve to agree in no institution of government, until every part of it had been adjusted to the most exact standard of perfection, society would soon become a general scene of anarchy, and the world a desert.

Thomas Jefferson

letter to The Republican Citizens of Washington County, Maryland — 1809
Category: Government

The care of human life and happiness, and not their destruction, is the first and only legitimate object of good government.

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