Quotes

Important and inspirational quotes by our Founding Fathers and others.

Quotes by Topics

Quotes by Author

Quotes By Topic

Citizen Leaders

“We hang the petty thieves and appoint the great ones to public office” – Aesop

“Unless the people, through unified action, arise and take charge of their government, they will find that their government has taken charge of them. Independence and liberty will be gone, and the general public will find itself in a condition of servitude to an aggregation of organized and selfish interest.” – Calvin Coolidge

“The key to overcoming our significant challenges is you and me and our neighbor next door.” – Glenn Beck

“If we are to survive, we must have ideas, vision, and courage. These things are rarely produced by committees. Everything that matters in our intellectual and moral life begins with an individual confronting his own mind and conscience in a room by himself.” – Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr.

“In the beginning of a change, the Patriot is a scarce man and brave, hated and scorned. When his cause succeeds however, the timid join him, for then it costs nothing to be a Patriot.” – Mark Twain

“A society of sheep must in time beget a government of wolves.” – Bertrand de Jouvenel, French philosopher (1903-1987)

Commerce Clause

“It took about 150 years, starting with a Bill of Rights that reserved to the states and the people all powers not explicitly delegated to the federal government, to produce a Supreme Court willing to rule that growing corn to feed to your own hogs is interstate commerce and can therefore be regulated by Congress.” – David Friedman, The Machinery of Freedom

Conservatism

“Before a standing army can rule, the people must be disarmed; as they are in almost every kingdom of Europe. The supreme power in America cannot enforce unjust laws by the sword; because the whole body of the people are armed, and constitute a force superior to any band of regular troops that can be, on any pretence, raised in the United States.” – Noah Webster, An Examination into the Leading Principles of the Federal Constitution, 1787

“‘What is conservatism? Is it not the adherence to the old and tired against the new and untried?’ I would say this, if Abraham Lincoln was standing here today: Liberal progressivism … has been tried. It has repeatedly failed, all over the world. So why would we think it can be successful here, in our United States of America?” – Alan West

“I sooner live in a society governed by the first two thousand names in the Boston telephone directory than in a society governed by the two thousand faculty members of Harvard University.” – William F. Buckley

“The family has always been the cornerstone of American society. Our families nurture, preserve and pass on to each succeeding generation the values we share and cherish, values that are the foundation for our freedoms.” – Ronald Reagan, in a proclamation during National Family Week, November, 12, 1982

“There is all the difference in the world between treating people equally and attempting to make them equal.” – F.A. Hayek

“We should stop electing politicians, and start demanding statesmen.” – Unknown

Constitutional Republic

“The best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter.” – Winston Churchill

“Republican institutions in the hands of a virtuous and God-fearing nation are the very best in the world, but in the hands of a corrupt and irreligious people they are the very worst, and the most effective weapons of destruction.” - Phillip Schaff

Entitlements

“I am for doing good to the poor, but I differ in opinion of the means. I think the best way of doing good to the poor, is not making them easy in poverty, but leading or driving them out of it. In my youth I traveled much, and I observed in different countries, that the more public provisions were made for the poor, the less they provided for themselves, and of course became poorer. And, on the contrary, the less was done for them, the more they did for themselves, and became richer.” – Benjamin Franklin, On the Price of Corn and Management of the Poor, November 1766

“This gave me occasion to observe, that when Men are employ’d they are best contented. For on the Days they work’d they were good-natur’d and chearful; and with the consciousness of having done a good Days work they spent the Evenings jollily; but on the idle Days they were mutinous and quarrelsome, finding fault with their Pork, the Bread, etc. and in continual ill-humour.” – Benjamin Franklin, Autobiography, 1771

“You cannot strengthen the weak by weakening the strong. You cannot help the wage earner by pulling down the wage payer. You cannot help the poor by destroying the rich. You cannot help men permanently by doing for them what they could and should do for themselves.” – John Henry Boetker

“Government is the great fiction through which everybody endeavors to live at the expense of everybody else.” – Frederic Bastiat

“The American Republic will endure, until politicians realize they can bribe the people with their own money.” – Alexis de Tocqueville

“The best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter.” – Winston Churchill

“For even when we were with you, we gave you this rule: ‘If a man will not work, he shall not eat.’” – 2 Thessalonians 3:10

Freedom

“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!” – Patrick Henry

“Sir, we have done everything that could be done to avert the storm which is now coming on. We have petitioned; we have remonstrated; we have supplicated; we have prostrated ourselves before the throne, and have implored its interposition to arrest the tyrannical hands of the ministry and Parliament. Our petitions have been slighted; our remonstrances have produced additional violence and insult; our supplications have been disregarded; and we have been spurned, with contempt, from the foot of the throne! In vain, after these things, may we indulge the fond hope of peace and reconciliation. There is no longer any room for hope. If we wish to be free–if we mean to preserve inviolate those inestimable privileges for which we have been so long contending–if we mean not basely to abandon the noble struggle in which we have been so long engaged, and which we have pledged ourselves never to abandon until the glorious object of our contest shall be obtained–we must fight! I repeat it, sir, we must fight! An appeal to arms and to the God of hosts is all that is left us! They tell us, sir, that we are weak; unable to cope with so formidable an adversary. But when shall we be stronger? Will it be the next week, or the next year? Will it be when we are totally disarmed, and when a British guard shall be stationed in every house? Shall we gather strength but irresolution and inaction? Shall we acquire the means of effectual resistance by lying supinely on our backs and hugging the delusive phantom of hope, until our enemies shall have bound us hand and foot? Sir, we are not weak if we make a proper use of those means which the God of nature hath placed in our power. The millions of people, armed in the holy cause of liberty, and in such a country as that which we possess, are invincible by any force which our enemy can send against us. Besides, sir, we shall not fight our battles alone. There is a just God who presides over the destinies of nations, and who will raise up friends to fight our battles for us. The battle, sir, is not to the strong alone; it is to the vigilant, the active, the brave.” – Patrick Henry, Speech in Virginia Convention, March 23, 1775 (Stamp Act Speech)

“A veteran is someone who, at one point in his life, wrote a blank check made payable to ‘The United States of America.’ For an amount of ‘up to and including my life.’ That is Honor, and there are way too many people in this country who no longer understand it.” – Unknown

“Men fight for liberty and win it with hard knocks. Their children, brought up easy, let it slip away again, poor fools. And their grand-children are once more slaves.” – D. H. Lawrence (1885-1938), 1915

“Liberty lies in the hearts of men and women; when it dies there, no constitution, no law, no court can save it; no constitution, no law, no court can even do much to help it. “ – Judge Learned Hand

“The best slaves in the world are those who think they are ‘Free’.” – Goethe

“The worst form of inequality is to try to make unequal things equal.” – Aristotle

“Silence in the face of evil is evil itself: God will not hold us guiltless. Not to speak is to speak. Not to act is to act.” – Dietrich Bonhoeffer

“There is no ‘slippery slope’ toward loss of liberty, only a long staircase where each step down must first be tolerated by the American people and their leaders.” – Alan K. Simpson, U.S. Senator, New York Times, (9-26-1982)

“God who gave us life gave us liberty. Can the liberties of a nation be secure when we have removed a conviction that these liberties are the gift of God?” – 2 Corinthians 3:17

“Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.” - 2 Corinthians 3:17

Freedom of Speech

“If there be time to expose through discussion the falsehood and fallacies, to avert the evil by the process of education, the remedy to be applied is more speech, not enforced silence.” – Justice Louis Brandeis, concurring opinion, Whitney v. California (1927). [The history of Brandeis’ concurrence is a fascinating story, as scholars Ronald Collins and David Skover relate in their 2005 article, “Curious Concurrence: Justice Brandeis’ Vote in Whitney v. California.” Brandeis’ statement forms the essence of the counter-speech doctrine - that the best way to oppose bad speech is with good speech.]

“Everybody is in favor of free speech. Hardly a day passes without its being extolled, but some people’s idea of it is that they are free to say what they like, but if anyone says anything back, that is an outrage.” – Sir Winston Churchill (1874-1965)

General Welfare Clause

“They are not to do anything they please to provide for the general welfare, but only to lay taxes for that purpose. To consider the latter phrase not as describing the purpose of the first, but as giving a distinct and independent power to do any act they please which might be for the good of the Union, would render all the preceding and subsequent enumerations of power completely useless.” – Thomas Jefferson

“Aided by a little sophistry on the words ‘general welfare,’ [the federal branch claim] a right to do not only the acts to effect that which are specifically enumerated and permitted, but whatsoever they shall think or pretend will be for the general welfare.” – Thomas Jefferson to William Branch Giles, 1825. ME 16:147

“With respect to the words general welfare, I have always regarded them as qualified by the detail of powers connected with them. To take them in a literal and unlimited sense would be a metamorphosis of the Constitution into a character which there is a host of proofs was not contemplated by its creators.” – James Madison (1751-1836),

“[The Constitution is] of no more consequence than the paper on which it is written, unless it be stamped with the approbation of those to whom it is addressed . . . the people themselves.” – James Madison

“If Congress can do whatever in their discretion can be done by money, and will promote the general welfare, the Government is no longer a limited one possessing enumerated powers, but an indefinite one subject to particular exceptions.” – James Madison

“If Congress can employ money indefinitely to the general welfare, and are the sole and supreme judges of the general welfare, they may take the care of religion into their own hands; they may appoint teachers in every State, county and parish and pay them out of their public treasury; they may take into their own hands the education of children, establishing in like manner schools throughout the Union; they may assume the provision of the poor; they may undertake the regulation of all roads other than post-roads; in short, every thing, from the highest object of state legislation down to the most minute object of police, would be thrown under the power of Congress…. Were the power of Congress to be established in the latitude contended for, it would subvert the very foundations, and transmute the very nature of the limited Government established by the people of America.” – James Madison

“’[T]o lay taxes to provide for the general welfare of the U.S.’ that is to say to ‘lay taxes for the purpose of providing for the general welfare.’ For the laying of taxes is the power and the general welfare the purpose for which the power is to be exercised. They are not to lay taxes ad libitum (at one’s pleasure) for any purpose they please but only to pay the debts or provide for the welfare of the Union. In like manner they are not to do anything they please to provide for the general welfare, but only to lay taxes for that purpose. To consider the latter phrase, not as describing the purpose of the ﬁrst, but as giving a distinct & independent power to do any act they please, which might be for the good of the Union, would render all the preceding & subsequent enumerations of power completely useless. It would reduce the whole instrument to a single phrase, that of instituting a Congress with power to do whatever would be for the good of the U.S. and as they would be the sole judges of the good or evil, it would be also a power to do whatever evil they pleased.” – Thomas Jefferson

Government Accountability

“I knew that I could never again raise my voice against the violence of the oppressed in the ghettos without having first spoken clearly against the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today – my own government.” – Martin Luther King Jr.

“It is hard to imagine a more stupid or more dangerous way of making decisions than by putting those decisions in the hands of people who pay no price for being wrong.” – Thomas Sowell

“In order to become the master, the politician poses as the servant.” – Charles de Gaulle

“He that goes a borrowing goes a sorrowing.” – Benjamin Franklin, from his writings, 1758

Immigration

“One of the penalties for refusing to participate in politics is that you end up being governed by your inferiors.” – Plato

“It’s just obvious you can’t have free immigration and a welfare state” – Milton Friedman

“Immigrants used to come to America seeking freedom of speech, freedom of religion, and freedom from government. Now they come looking for free health care, free education, and a free lunch.” – Harry Browne

Limited Government

“I consider the foundation of the Constitution as laid on this ground: That ‘all powers not delegated to the United States, by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States or to the people.’ [10th Amendment] To take a single step beyond the boundaries thus specifically drawn around the powers of Congress is to take possession of a boundless field of power, no longer susceptible of any definition.” – Thomas Jefferson, National Bank Opinion, 1791.

“It is not by the consolidation, or concentration of powers, but by their distribution, that good government is effected.” – Thomas Jefferson, Autobiography, 1821. ME 1:122

“Whenever the Federal Government assumes undelegated powers, its acts are unaithoritative, void, and of no force.” Thomas Jefferson

“The powers of the legislature are defined and limited; and that those limits may not be mistaken, or forgotten, the Constitution is written.” – Marbury v. Madison, 1803.

“The Constitution is not an instrument for the government to restrain the people, it is an instrument for the people to restrain the government.” – Patrick Henry

“The government was set to protect man from criminals – and the Constitution was written to protect man from the government.” – Ayn Rand

“The Bill of Rights was not directed against private citizens, but against the government – as an explicit declaration that individual rights supersede any public or social power.” – Ayn Rand

“The powers of the legislature are defined and limited; and that those limits may not be mistaken, or forgotten, the Constitution is written.” – Marbury v. Madison (1803)

“I want a government small enough to fit inside the Constitution.” – Harry Browne

“The bureaucracy is expanding to meet the needs of an expanding bureaucracy.” – Unknown

“Many people today think that the government’s job is to take care of us. But I agree with the Declaration of Independence, which says that the government’s job is to secure our rights (our inalienable rights, among which are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness).” – Tom Parker

“Concentrated power is not rendered harmless by the good intentions of those who create it.” – Milton Friedman

“Emergency does not increase granted power or remove or diminish the restrictions imposed upon power granted or reserved. The Constitution was adopted in a period of grave emergency. Its grants of power to the federal government and its limitations of the power of the States were determined in the light of emergency, and they are not altered by emergency.” – Charles Evans Hughes (1862-1948), Chief Justice, U.S. Supreme Court, Home Building & Loan Assn v. Blairsdell, 1934

“Contrary to popular opinion, the Constitution was not – and is not – a grant of rights to the citizenry. Instead, the Constitution is a ‘barbed-wire entanglement’ designed to interfere with, restrict, and impede government officials in the exercise of political power.” – Jacob Hornberger, 11/01

“The Constitution is not neutral. It was designed to take the government off the backs of people.” – Justice William O. Douglas

“The Constitution was made to guard the people against the dangers of good intentions.” – Daniel Webster (1782-1852), American statesman and senator

“When the government’s boot is on your throat, whether it is a left boot or a right boot is of no consequence.” – Gary Lloyd

“One of the greatest delusions in the world is the hope that the evils in this world are to be cured by legislation.” – Thomas B. Reed (1886)

“The government solution to a problem is usually as bad as the problem.” – Milton Friedman

“Letting lawyers make laws is like letting doctors make diseases.” – Anonymous

“Public Schools too often fail because they are shielded from the very force that improves performance and sparks innovation in nearly every other human enterprise – competition.” – Robert Lutz/Clark Durant

“There is nothing so bad that politics cannot make it worse.” – Thomas Sowell

“In 1950, the average family of four paid 2% of its earnings to federal taxes. Today it pays 24%.” – William R. Mattox, Jr. (sometime before 1996)

“Ask not what you can do for your country; ask what your government is doing to you.” – Joseph Sobran (1990)

“Work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion.” – C. Northcote Parkinson, Parkinson’s Law, p. 2 [Adapt the above quote: Government expands so as to consume the money that it can take from taxpayers and borrow from China]

Original Intent

“Laws are made for men of ordinary understanding and should, therefore, be construed by the ordinary rules of common sense. Their meaning is not to be sought for in metaphysical subtleties which may make anything mean everything or nothing at pleasure.” – Thomas Jefferson

“The Constitution is a written instrument. As such, its meaning does not alter. That which it meant when it was adopted, it means now.” – South Carolina v. United States, 199 U.S. 437, 448, 1905.

“We, the people are the rightful masters of both Congress and the courts not to overthrow the Constitution, but to overthrow men who pervert the Constitution.” – Abraham Lincoln

“The living Constitution is genuinely corrosive of the fundamental values of our democratic society.” – William Rehnquist

“[Progressives] saw in constitutional interpretation the opportunity to rewrite a Constitution that showed at every turn the influence of John Locke and James Madison into a different Constitution, which reflected the wisdom of the leading intellectual reformers of their own time. They consciously used their intellectual powers to rewrite, not understand, key provisions of the Constitution.” – Richard Epstein, University Law School professor

“Let there be no change [in the Constitution] by usurpation. For though this, in one instance may be the instrument of good, it is the customary weapon by which free governments are destroyed.” – George Washington

“A Bill of Rights that means what the majority wants it to mean is worthless.” – Justice Atonin Scalia

“If you can cut the people off from their history, then they can be easily persuaded.” – Karl Marx

Regulation

“Taxation, regulation and litigation together form the axis of unemployment.” – Rick Scott

“If I am of the opinion that it is inexpedient to assign to the government the task of operating railroads, hotels, or mines, I am not an ‘enemy of the state’ any more than I can be called an enemy of sulphuric acid because I am of the opinion that, useful though it may be for many purposes, it is not suitable either for drinking or for washing one’s hands.” – Ludwig von Mises, Liberalism, p. 18

Religion

“In God We Trust” – National Motto

“’Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly ‘His integrity was most pure, his justice the most inflexible I have ever known, no motives of interest or consanguinity, of friendship or hatred, being able to bias his decision. He was indeed, in every sense of the words, a wise, a good, and a great man.’ – Thomas Jefferson on George Washington inadequate to the government of any other.” – John Adams

“Can the liberties of a nation be sure when we remove their only firm basis, a conviction in the minds of the people, that these liberties are a gift from God? – Thomas Jefferson

“The God who gave us life gave us liberty at the same time.” – Thomas Jefferson

“In the United States the sovereign authority is religious… there is no country in the world where the Christian religion retains a greater influence over the souls of men than in America, and there can be no greater proof of its utility and of its conformity to human nature than that its influence is powerfully felt over the most enlightened and free nation of the earth.” – Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America

“It is better to trust the LORD than to put confidence in man” – Psalm 118:8

“The foundation of our society and our government rests so much on the teaching of the Bible that it would be difficult to support them if faith in these teachings would cease to be practically universal in our country.” -Calvin Coolidge

“If I were an agnostic, I would want to throw my lot with those who love peace and hate evil.” – Michael Youssef

“The laws of nature are the laws of God, whose authority can be superseded by no power on earth.” – George Mason

“First they came for the Jews, but I did nothing because I’m not a Jew. Then they came for the socialists, but I did nothing because I’m not a socialist. Then they came for the Catholics, but I did nothing because I’m not a Catholic. Finally, they came for me, but by then there was no one left to help me.” – Father Niemoller (1946) German Lutheran pastor arrested by the Gestapo in 1937

“The destruction of religion would be the destruction of morality and the ruin of the state. Civil liberty requires for its support religious liberty, and cannot prosper without it. Religious liberty is not an empty Sound, but an orderly exercise of religious duties and enjoyment of all its privileges. It is freedom in religion, not freedom from religion; as true civil liberty is freedom in law, and not freedom from law.” – Phillip Schaff

Right to Life

“The real question today is not when human life begins, but, ‘What is the value of human life?’ The abortionist who reassembles the arms and legs of a tiny baby to make sure all its parts have been torn from its mother’s body can hardly doubt whether it is a human being.” – Ronald Reagan (1983)

“Will our nation’s leaders have an awakening before society is completely plunged into bloodshed and grief? May it be so!” – Micheal Youssef

“You shall not murder.” – Exodus 20:13

“When you spread out your hands in prayer, I will hide my eyes from you; even if you offer many prayers, I will not listen. Your hands are full of blood- wash and make yourselves clean. Take your evil deeds out of my sight! Stop doing wrong.” – Isaiah 1:15

Upholding the Constitution

“No man can well doubt the propriety of placing a president of the United States under the most solemn obligations to preserve, protect, and defend the constitution.” – Joseph Story

“The strength of the Constitution lies in the will of the people to defend it.” – Thomas Edison

“Liberty is always unfinished business.” – Anonymous

“Just because you do not take an interest in politics doesn’t mean politics won’t take an interest in you.” – Pericles (430 BC)

“It is sobering to reflect that one of the best ways to get yourself a reputation as a dangerous citizen these days is to go about repeating the very phrases which our founding fathers used in the struggle for independence.” – Charles A. Beard

“We may be tossed upon an ocean where we can see no land – nor, perhaps, the sun or stars. But there is a chart and a compass for us to study, to consult, and to obey. That chart is the Constitution.” – Daniel Webster

“The greatest bulwark against tyranny in America has always been the Constitution, which instantiates our exquisitely designed system of private property, God-given individual liberties and free enterprise.” – Unknown

“Letting lawyers make laws is like letting doctors make diseases.” – Anonymous

“When a legislature undertakes to proscribe the exercise of a citizen’s constitutional rights it acts lawlessly and the citizen can take matters into his own hands and proceed on the basis that such a law is no law at all.” – Justice William O. Douglas

“The further Left this country ventures the more brilliant our Founders and Forefathers become.” – Unknown

Wealth Redistribution

“The Utopian schemes of leveling [redistribution of wealth] and the community goods [state ownership of property] are as visionary and impractical as those which vest all property in the Crown. [These ideas] are arbitrary, despotic, and, in our government, unconstitutional. Now, what property can the colonists be conceived to have, if their money may be granted away to others, without their consent?” – Samuel Adams

“If we can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people, under the pretense of taking care of them, they must become happy.” – Thomas Jefferson

“Americans are so enamored of equality they would rather be equal in slavery than unequal in freedom.” – Alexis de Tocqueville

“A society that puts equality…. ahead of freedom will end up with neither equality nor freedom.” – Milton Friedman

“There is all the difference in the world between treating people equally and attempting to make them equal.” – F.A. Hayek

“Liberals believe government should take people’s earnings to give to poor people. Conservatives disagree. They think government should confiscate people’s earnings and give them to farmers and insolvent banks. The compelling issue to both conservatives and liberals is not whether it is legitimate for government to confiscate one’s property to give to another, the debate is over the disposition of the pillage.” – Walter Williams

“We do not need to slow down on ‘The Road To Serfdom’, we need a ‘U’ turn.” – Jatinder Singh Mann M.D.

“Six Miracles of Socialism:
There is no unemployment, but no one works.
No one works, but everyone gets paid.
Everyone gets paid, but there is nothing to buy with the money.
No one can buy anything, but everyone owns everything.
Everyone owns everything, but no one is satisfied.
No one is satisfied, but 99 percent of the people vote for the system.
As the growing emphasis on feelings crowds out reason, facts will play a smaller role in public discourse.” – Paul Craig Roberts

“The last capitalist we hang shall be the one who sold us the rope.” – Karl Marx

Quotes By Author

John Adams

“’Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.” – John Adams

Samuel Adams

Patrick Henry

“Sir, we have done everything that could be done to avert the storm which is now coming on. We have petitioned; we have remonstrated; we have supplicated;(me – we have elected over and over again) we have prostrated ourselves before the throne, and have implored its interposition to arrest the tyrannical hands of the ministry and Parliament. Our petitions have been slighted; our remonstrances have produced additional violence and insult; our supplications have been disregarded; and we have been spurned, with contempt, from the foot of the throne! In vain, after these things, may we indulge the fond hope of peace and reconciliation. There is no longer any room for hope. If we wish to be free–if we mean to preserve inviolate those inestimable privileges for which we have been so long contending–if we mean not basely to abandon the noble struggle in which we have been so long engaged, and which we have pledged ourselves never to abandon until the glorious object of our contest shall be obtained–we must fight! I repeat it, sir, we must fight! An appeal to arms and to the God of hosts is all that is left us! They tell us, sir, that we are weak; unable to cope with so formidable an adversary. But when shall we be stronger? Will it be the next week, or the next year? Will it be when we are totally disarmed, and when a British guard shall be stationed in every house? Shall we gather strength but irresolution and inaction? Shall we acquire the means of effectual resistance by lying supinely on our backs and hugging the delusive phantom of hope, until our enemies shall have bound us hand and foot? Sir, we are not weak if we make a proper use of those means which the God of nature hath placed in our power. The millions of people, armed in the holy cause of liberty, and in such a country as that which we possess, are invincible by any force which our enemy can send against us. Besides, sir, we shall not fight our battles alone. There is a just God who presides over the destinies of nations, and who will raise up friends to fight our battles for us. The battle, sir, is not to the strong alone; it is to the vigilant, the active, the brave.” – Patrick Henry, Speech in Virginia Convention, March 23, 1775 (Stamp Act Speech)

“The Constitution is not an instrument for the government to restrain the people, it is an instrument for the people to restrain the government.” – Patrick Henry

Thomas Jefferson

“It is not by the consolidation, or concentration of powers, but by their distribution, that good government is effected.” – Thomas Jefferson, Autobiography, 1821. ME 1:122

“Whenever the Federal Government assumes undelegated powers, its acts are unaithoritative, void, and of no force.” Thomas Jefferson

“In questions of power, then, let no more be heard of confidence in man, but bind him down from mischief by the chains of the Constitution.” -Thomas Jefferson

“His integrity was most pure, his justice the most inflexible I have ever known, no motives of interest or consanguinity, of friendship or hatred, being able to bias his decision. He was indeed, in every sense of the words, a wise, a good, and a great man.” – Thomas Jefferson on George Washington

“Can the liberties of a nation be sure when we remove their only firm basis, a conviction in the minds of the people, that these liberties are a gift from God? – Thomas Jefferson

“The God who gave us life gave us liberty at the same time.” – Thomas Jefferson

“If we can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people, under the pretense of taking care of them, they must become happy.” – Thomas Jefferson

Abraham Lincoln

“We, the people are the rightful masters of both Congress and the courts not to overthrow the Constitution, but to overthrow men who pervert the Constitution.” – Abraham Lincoln

“We have been the recipients of the choicest bounties of heaven; we have been preserved these many years in peace and prosperity; we have grown in numbers, wealth and power as no other nation has ever grown.” – Abraham Lincoln

“But we have forgotten God. We have forgotten the gracious hand which preserved us in peace and multiplied and enriched and strengthened us, and we have vainly imagined, in the deceitfulness of our hearts, that all these blessings were produced by some superior wisdom and virtue of our own. Intoxicated with unbroken success, we have become too self-sufficient to feel the necessity of redeeming and preserving grace, too proud to pray to the God that made us. ” – Abraham Lincoln

“It has seemed to me fit and proper that God should be solemnly, reverently and gratefully acknowledged, as with one heart and one voice, by the whole American people. ” – Abraham Lincoln

Quotes

Quotes By Topic

Citizen Leaders

Commerce Clause

Conservatism

Constitutional Republic

Entitlements

Freedom

Freedom of Speech

General Welfare Clause

Government Accountability

Immigration

Limited Government

Original Intent

Regulation

Religion

Right to Life

Upholding the Constitution

Wealth Redistribution

Quotes By Author

John Adams

Samuel Adams

Patrick Henry

Thomas Jefferson

Abraham Lincoln

James Madison

George Washington

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