Founders’ Quotes

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.

Where there is no law, there is no liberty; and nothing deserves the name of law but that which is certain and universal in its operation upon all the members of the community.

A government ought to contain in itself every power requisite to the full accomplishment of the objects committed to its care, and to the complete execution of the trusts for which it is responsible, free from every other control but a regard to the public good and to the sense of the people.

No compact among men … can be pronounced everlasting and inviolable, and if I may so express myself, that no Wall of words, that no mound of parchment can be so formed as to stand against the sweeping torrent of boundless ambition on the one side, aided by the sapping current of corrupted morals on the other.

They define a republic to be a government of laws, and not of men.

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

Energy in the executive is a leading character in the definition of good government.

Nothing is more certain than that a general profligacy and corruption of manners make a people ripe for destruction.

The legislative department is everywhere extending the sphere of its activity and drawing all power into its impetuous vortex.

It behooves you, therefore, to think and act for yourself and your people. The great principles of right and wrong are legible to every reader; to pursue them requires not the aid of many counselors. The whole art of government consists in the art of being honest. Only aim to do your duty, and mankind will give you credit where you fail.

The eyes of the world being thus on our Country, it is put the more on its good behavior, and under the greater obligation also, to do justice to the Tree of Liberty by an exhibition of the fine fruits we gather from it.

It should be your care, therefore, and mine, to elevate the minds of our children and exalt their courage. ... If we suffer their minds to grovel and creep in infancy, they will grovel all their lives.

It should be the highest ambition of every American to extend his views beyond himself, and to bear in mind that his conduct will not only affect himself, his country, and his immediate posterity; but that its influence may be co-extensive with the world, and stamp political happiness or misery on ages yet unborn.

A general dissolution of principles and manners will more surely overthrow the liberties of America than the whole force of the common enemy. While the people are virtuous they cannot be subdued; but when once they lose their virtue then will be ready to surrender their liberties to the first external or internal invader.

Dependence begets subservience and venality, suffocates the germ of virtue, and prepares fit tools for the designs of ambition.

Without law, liberty ... loses its nature and its name, and becomes licentiousness.

Observe good faith and justice towards all Nations. Cultivate peace and harmony with all.

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