Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
The laws of man may bind him in chains or may put him to death, but they never can make him wise, virtuous, or happy.
The will of the people is the source and the happiness of the people the end of all legitimate government upon earth.
Occasional war is one of the rigorous instruments in the hands of Providence to give tone to the character of nations.
The law is an artificial human construct, quite arbitrary, and of absolutely no use anywhere else but in a court of law!
My stern chase after time is, to borrow a simile from Tom Paine, like the race of a man with a wooden leg after a horse.
Those who take oaths to politically powerful secret societies cannot be depended on for loyalty to a democratic republic.
The best guarantee against the abuse of power consists in the freedom, the purity, and the frequency of popular elections.
The great object of the institution of civil government is the improvement of those who are parties to the social compact.
The Bible contains the revelation of the will of God. It contains the history of the creation of the world, and of mankind.
America... goes not abroad, in search of monsters to destroy. She is the well-wisher to the freedom and independence of all.
All men profess honesty as long as they can. To believe all men honest would be folly. To believe none so is something worse.
Always vote for principle, though you may vote alone, and you may cherish the sweetest reflection that your vote is never lost.
Is it not that, in the chain of human events, the birthday of the nation is indissolubly linked with the birthday of the Saviour?
A gentleman of one of the first fortunes upon the continent...sacrificing his ease, and hazarding all in the cause of his country.
Whether to the nation or to the state, no service can be or ever will be rendered by a more able or a more faithful public servant.
According to the Stoics, all vice was resolvable into folly: according to the Christian principle, it is all the effect of weakness.
I would much rather be found guilty of making a serious mistake in judgment, than to be accused of being even a little bit insincere.
The manners of women are the surest criterion by which to determine whether a republican government is practicable in a nation or not.
The experience of all former ages had shown that of all human governments, democracy was the most unstable, fluctuating and short-lived.
The declaration that our People are hostile to a government made by themselves, for themselves, and conducted by themselves, is an insult.
Civil liberty can be established on no foundation of human reason which will not at the same time demonstrate the right of religious freedom.
The public history of all countries, and all ages, is but a sort of mask, richly colored. The interior working of the machinery must be foul.
Wherever the standard of freedom and independence has been or shall be unfurled, there will be America's heart, her benedictions and her prayers.
Not stones, nor wood, nor the art of artisans make a state; but where men are who know how to take care of themselves, these are cities and walls.
The extremes of opulence and of want are more remarkable, and more constantly obvious, in [Great Britain] than in any other place that I ever saw.
I have to study politics and war so that my sons can study mathematics, commerce and agriculture, so their sons can study poetry, painting and music.
Our Constitution professedly rests upon the good sense and attachment of the people. This basis, weak as it may appear, has not yet been found to fail.
It is by a thorough knowledge of the whole subject that [people] are enabled to judge correctly of the past and to give a proper direction to the future.
I told him that I thought it was law logic - an artificial system of reasoning, exclusively used in Courts of justice, but good for nothing anywhere else.
This idea of the transcendent power of the Supreme Being is essentially connected with that by which the whole duty of man is summed up: obedience to His will.
I say women exhibit the most exalted virtue when they depart from the domestic circle and enter on the concerns of their country, of humanity, and of their G-d!
Gratitude, warm, sincere, intense, when it takes possession of the bosom, fills the soul to overflowing and scarce leaves room for any other sentiment or thought.
I inhabit a weak, frail, decayed tenement; battered by the winds and broken in on by the storms, and, from all I can learn, the landlord does not intend to repair.
The highest glory of the American Revolution was this: it connected in one indissoluble bond the principles of civil government with the principles of Christianity.
Heaven has given to every human being the power of controlling his passions, and if he neglects or loses it, the fault is his own, and he must be answerable for it.
All the public business in Congress now connects itself with intrigues, and there is great danger that the whole government will degenerate into a struggle of cabals.
To furnish the means of acquiring knowledge is the greatest benefit that can be conferred upon mankind. It prolongs life itself, and enlarges the sphere of existence.
The Sermon on the Mount commands me to lay up for myself treasures, not upon earth, but in Heaven. My hopes of a future life are all founded upon the Gospel of Christ.
This mode of electioneering suited neither my taste nor my principles. I thought it equally unsuitable to my personal character and to the station in which I am placed.
In charity to all mankind, bearing no malice or ill will to any human being, and even compassionating those who hold in bondage their fellow men, not knowing what they do.
I have no predilection for unpopularity as such, but I hold it much preferable to the popularity of a day, which perishes with the transient topic upon which it is grounded.
In what light soever we regard the Bible, whether with reference to revelation, to history, or to morality, it is an invaluable and inexhaustible mine of knowledge and virtue.
In order to preserve the dominion of our own passions, it behooves us to be constantly and strictly on our guard against the influence and infection of the passions of others.
This hand, to tyrants ever sworn the foe, For Freedom only deals the deadly blow; Then sheathes in calm repose the vengeful blade, For gentle peace in Freedom's hallowed shade.
We know the redemption must come. The time and the manner of its coming we know not: It may come in peace, or it may come in blood; but whether in peace or in blood, LET IT COME.
Let us not be unmindful that liberty is power, that the nation blessed with the largest portion of liberty must in proportion to its numbers be the most powerful nation upon earth.
The Bible carries with it the history of the creation, the fall and redemption of man, and discloses to him, in the infant born at Bethlehem, the Legislator and Savior of the world.
The conflict between the principle of liberty and the fact of slavery is coming gradually to an issue. Slavery has now the power, and falls into convulsions at the approach of freedom.
But America is a great, unwieldy Body. Its Progress must be slow... Like a Coach and six - the swiftest Horses must be slackened and the slowest quickened, that all may keep an even Pace.
America, with the same voice which spoke herself into existence as a nation, proclaimed to mankind the inextinguishable rights of human nature, and the only lawful foundations of government.