Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
God grants liberty only to those who love it, and are always ready to guard and defend it.
How little do they see what really is, who frame their hasty judgment upon that which seems.
Whatever government is not a government of laws, is a despotism, let it be called what it may.
The people's government, made for the people, made by the people, and answerable to the people.
The materials of wealth are in the earth, in the seas, and in their natural and unaided productions.
The most important thought that ever occupied my mind is that of my individual responsibility to God.
When tillage begins, other arts follow. The farmers, therefore, are the founders of human civilization.
We have been taught to regard a representative of the people as a sentinel on the watch-tower of liberty.
If the Union was formed by accession of States then the Union may be dissolved by the secession of States.
When the spotless ermine of the judicial robe fell on John Jay, it touched nothing less spotless than itself.
On the diffusion of education among the people rest the preservation and perpetuation of our free institutions.
The right of an inventor to his invention is no monopoly - in any other sense than a man's house is a monopoly.
A solemn and religious regard to spiritual and eternal things is an indispensable element of all true greatness.
Mind is the great lever of all things; human thought is the process by which human ends are ultimately answered.
The proper function of a government is to make it easy for the people to do good, and difficult for them to do evil.
Converse, converse, CONVERSE, with living men, face to face, mind to mind-that is one of the best sources of knowledge.
Let it be borne on the flag under which we rally in every exigency, that we have one country, one constitution, one destiny.
Those who do not look upon themselves as a link, connecting the past with the future, do not perform their duty to the world.
Liberty exists in proportion to wholesome restraint; the more restraint on others to keep off from us, the more liberty we have.
It is my living sentiment, and by the blessing of God it shall be my dying sentiment, independence now and independence forever.
The world is governed more by appearance than realities so that it is fully as necessary to seem to know something as to know it.
Labor in this country is independent and proud. It has not to ask the patronage of capital, but capital solicits the aid of labor.
Justice, sir, is the great interest of man on earth. It is the ligament which holds civilized beings and civilized nations together.
The Bible is a book of faith, and a book of doctrine, and a book of morals, and a book of religion, of especial revelation from God.
There are men in all ages who mean to govern well, but they mean to govern. They promise to be good masters, but they mean to be masters
No man can suffer too much, and no man can fall too soon, if he suffer or if he fall in defense of the liberties and Constitution of his country.
Of all the contrivances for cheating the laboring classes of mankind, none has been more effective than that which deludes them with paper money.
Now is the time when men work quietly in the fields and women weep softly in the kitchen; the legislature is in session and no man's property is safe.
The Sermon on the Mount cannot be a merely human production. This belief enters into the very depth of my conscience. The whole history of man proves it.
A representative form of government rests nor more on political contributions than on those laws which regulate the descent and transmission of property.
If all my possessions were taken from me with one exception, I would choose to keep the power of communication, for by it I would soon regain all the rest
Venerable men! you have come down to us from a former generation. Heaven has bounteously lengthened out your lives, that you might behold this joyous day.
On the light of Liberty you saw arise the light of Peace, like "another morn," "Risen on mid-noon;" and the sky on which you closed your eye was cloudless.
Man is a special being, and if left to himself, in an isolated condition, would be one of the weakest creatures; but associated with his kind, he works wonders.
Our destruction, should it come at all, will be from...the inattention of the people to the concerns of their government, from their carelessness and negligence.
Nothing will ruin the country if the people themselves will' undertake its safety, and nothing can save it, if they leave that safety in any hands but their own.
Human beings will generally exercise power when they can get it, and they will exercise it most undoubtedly in popular governments under pretense of public safety.
Philosophical argument has sometimes shaken my reason for the faith that was in me but my heart has always assured me that the Gospel of Jesus Christ must be reality.
Mr. President, I wish to speak today, not as a Massachusetts man, nor as a Northern man, but as an American. I speak for the preservation of the Union. Hear me for my cause.
A free government with an uncontrolled power of military conscription is the most ridiculous and abominable contradiction and nonsense that ever entered into the heads of men.
Our profession is good, if practiced in the spirit of it; it is damnable fraud and iniquity when its true spirit is supplied by a spirit of mischief-making and money catching.
There is something about men more capable of shaking despotic power than lightening, whirlwind, or earthquake, that is, the threatened indignation of the whole civilized world.
America has furnished to the world the character of Washington. And if our American institutions had done nothing else, that alone would have entitled them to the respect of mankind.
If the States were not left to leave the Union when their rights were interfered with, the government would have been National, but the Convention refused to baptize it by that name.
I thank God, that if I am gifted with little of the spirit which is able to raise mortals to the skies, I have yet none, as I trust, of that other spirit which would drag angels down.
The inherent right in the people to reform their government, I do not deny; and they have another right, and that is to resist unconstitutional laws without overturning the government.
Corruption of morals is rapid enough in any country without a bounty from government. And...the Chief Magistrate of the United States should be the last man to accelerate its progress.
No power but Congress can declare war, but what is the value of this constitutional provision, if the President of his own authority may make such military movements as must bring on war?
There is no happiness, there is no liberty, there is no enjoyment of life, unless a man can say, when he rises in the morning, I shall be subject to the decision of no unwise judge today.
Let us not forget that the cultivation of the earth is the most important labor of man. When tillage begins, other arts will follow. The farmers, therefore, are the founders of civilization.