Founder's Quote Database | The Patriot Post

Founders' Quote Database

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Author

James Madison

National Gazette Essay — 1792
Category: Liberty

In Europe, charters of liberty have been granted by power. America has set the example . . . of charters of power granted by liberty. This revolution in the practice of the world, may, with an honest praise, be pronounced the most triumphant epoch of its history, and the most consoling presage of its happiness.

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.

Inscription on the Liberty Bell, from Leviticus 25:10
Category: Liberty

Proclaim liberty throughout all the land unto all the inhabitants thereof - Lev. XXV, v. X

John Adams

A Dissertation on the Canon and Feudal Law — 1765
Category: Liberty

Liberty must at all hazards be supported. We have a right to it, derived from our Maker. But if we had not, our fathers have earned and bought it for us, at the expense of their ease, their estates, their pleasure, and their blood.

Oliver Ellsworth

A Landholder, No. III — 1787
Category: Liberty

Liberty is a word which, according as it is used, comprehends the most good and the most evil of any in the world. Justly understood it is sacred next to those which we appropriate in divine adoration; but in the mouths of some it means anything, which enervate a necessary government; excite a jealousy of the rulers who are our own choice, and keep society in confusion for want of a power sufficiently concentered to promote good.

Thomas Jefferson

letter to John Adams — 1821
Category: Liberty

I will not believe our labors are lost. I shall not die without a hope that light and liberty are on a steady advance.

Fisher Ames

Essay on Equality — 1801
Category: Liberty

Liberty is not to be enjoyed, indeed it cannot exist, without the habits of just subordination; it consists, not so much in removing all restraint from the orderly, as in imposing it on the violent.

Thomas Jefferson

Declaration of the Causes and Necessities of Taking up Arms — 1775
Category: Liberty

Honor, justice, and humanity, forbid us tamely to surrender that freedom which we received from our gallant ancestors, and which our innocent posterity have a right to receive from us. We cannot endure the infamy and guilt of resigning succeeding generations to that wretchedness which inevitably awaits them if we basely entail hereditary bondage on them.

Alexander Hamilton

A Full Vindication of the Measures of the Congress, &c. — 1774
Category: Liberty

No man in his senses can hesitate in choosing to be free, rather than a slave.

Benjamin Franklin

letter to Samuel Cooper — 1777
Category: Liberty

[I]t is a common observation here that our cause is the cause of all mankind, and that we are fighting for their liberty in defending our own.

George Washington

letter to James Madison — 1788
Category: Liberty

Liberty, when it begins to take root, is a plant of rapid growth.

Thomas Jefferson

Summary View of the Rights of British America — 1774
Category: Liberty

The God who gave us life, gave us liberty at the same time; the hand of force may destroy, but cannot disjoin them.

Thomas Jefferson

letter to William Stephens Smith — 1787
Category: Liberty

The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure.

George Washington

letter to the Reformed German Congregation of New York City — 1783
Category: Liberty

The establishment of Civil and Religious Liberty was the Motive which induced me to the Field -- the object is attained -- and it now remains to be my earnest wish & prayer, that the Citizens of the United States could make a wise and virtuous use of the blessings placed before them.

George Washington

letter to the people of South Carolina — 1790
Category: Liberty

The value of liberty was thus enhanced in our estimation by the difficulty of its attainment, and the worth of characters appreciated by the trial of adversity.

Alexander Hamilton

Report on a National Bank — 1790
Category: Liberty

[H]owever weak our country may be, I hope we shall never sacrifice our liberties.

Benjamin Franklin

Historical Review of Pennsylvania — 1759
Category: Liberty

They that can give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.

Patrick Henry

Speech to the Virginia Convention — 1775
Category: Liberty

Is life so dear or peace so sweet as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God. I know not what course others may take, but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!

James Wilson

Category: Liberty

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

John Adams

letter to Count Sarsfield — 1786
Category: Liberty

It has ever been my hobby-horse to see rising in America an empire of liberty, and a prospect of two or three hundred millions of freemen, without one noble or one king among them. You say it is impossible. If I should agree with you in this, I would still say, let us try the experiment, and preserve our equality as long as we can. A better system of education for the common people might preserve them long from such artificial inequalities as are prejudicial to society, by confounding the natural distinctions of right and wrong, virtue and vice.

John Adams

Inaugural Address — 1797
Category: Liberty

In the midst of these pleasing ideas 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.

Thomas Jefferson

letter to Richard Rush — 1820
Category: Liberty

The boisterous sea of liberty is never without a wave.

Thomas Jefferson

letter to William Stephens Smith — 1787
Category: Liberty

What signify a few lives lost in a century or two? The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure.

Patrick Henry

Speech to the Virginia Convention — 1788
Category: Liberty

Is the relinquishment of the trial by jury and the liberty of the press necessary for your liberty? Will the abandonment of your most sacred rights tend to the security of your liberty? Liberty, the greatest of all earthly blessings - give us that precious jewel, and you may take every things else! Guard with jealous attention the public liberty. Suspect every one who approaches that jewel.

Thomas Jefferson

letter to Archibald Stewart — 1791
Category: Liberty

I would rather be exposed to the inconveniencies attending too much liberty than those attending too small a degree of it.

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