A Worthy Quote

[nChrist]

Founder's Quote Daily

"If we can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people, under the pretence of taking care of them, they must become happy." --Thomas Jefferson, letter to Thomas Cooper, 1802

[nChrist]

Founder's Quote Daily

"If the public are bound to yield obedience to laws to which they cannot give their approbation, they are slaves to those who make such laws and enforce them." --Candidus, in the Boston Gazette, 1772

[nChrist]

Founder's Quote Daily

"Wisdom and knowledge, as well as virtue, diffused generally among the body of the people, being necessary for the preservation of their rights and liberties, and as these depend on spreading the opportunities and advantages of education in the various parts of the country, and among the different orders of people, it shall be the duty of legislators and magistrates ... to cherish the interest of literature and the sciences, and all seminaries of them." --John Adams, Thoughts on Government, 1776

[nChrist]

Founder's Quote Daily

"The whole of that Bill [of Rights] is a declaration of the right of the people at large or considered as individuals... It establishes some rights of the individual as unalienable and which consequently, no majority has a right to deprive them of." --Albert Gallatin, letter to Alexander Addison, 1789

[nChrist]

Founder's Quote Daily

"There is a time for all things, a time to preach and a time to pray, but those times have passed away. There is a time to fight, and that time has now come." --Peter Muhlenberg, from a Lutheran sermon read at Woodstock, Virginia, 1776

[nChrist]

Founder's Quote Daily

"I have no notion of being hanged for half treason. When a subject draws his sword against his prince, he must cut his way through, if he means afterward to sit down in safety." --Colonel Joseph Reed, to Mr. Pettit, 1775

[nChrist]

Founder's Quote Daily

"As our president bears no resemblance to a king so we shall see the Senate has no similitude to nobles. First, not being hereditary, their collective knowledge, wisdom, and virtue are not precarious. For by these qualities alone are they to obtain their offices, and they will have none of the peculiar qualities and vices of those men who possess power merely because their father held it before them." --Tench Coxe, An American Citizen, No. 2, 1787

[nChrist]

Founder's Quote Daily

"Laws that forbid the carrying of arms ... disarm only those who are neither inclined nor determined to commit crimes... Such laws make things worse for the assaulted and better for the assailants; they serve rather to encourage than to prevent homicides, for an unarmed man may be attacked with greater confidence than an armed man." --Cesare Beccaria, On Crimes and Punishment, quoted by Thomas Jefferson in Commonplace Book

[nChrist]

Founder's Quote Daily

"Nothing so strongly impels a man to regard the interest of his constituents, as the certainty of returning to the general mass of the people, from whence he was taken, where he must participate in their burdens." --George Mason, speech in the Virginia Ratifying Convention, 1788

[nChrist]

Founder's Quote Daily

"Excessive taxation ... will carry reason and reflection to every man's door, and particularly in the hour of election." --Thomas Jefferson, letter to John Taylor, 1798

[nChrist]

Founder's Quote Daily

"Children should be educated and instructed in the principles of freedom." --John Adams, Defense of the Constitutions, 1787

[nChrist]

Founder's Quote Daily

"You give me a credit to which I have no claim in calling me 'the writer of the Constitution of the United States.' This was not, like the fabled Goddess of Wisdom, the offspring of a single brain. It ought to be regarded as the work of many heads and many hands." --James Madison, letter to William Cogswell, 1834

[nChrist]

Founder's Quote Daily

"The deliberate union of so great and various a people in such a place, is without all partiality or prejudice, if not the greatest exertion of human understanding, the greatest single effort of national deliberation that the world has ever seen." --John Adams, quoted in a letter from Rufus King to Theophilus Parsons, 1788

[nChrist]

Founder's Quote Daily

"The steady character of our countrymen is a rock to which we may safely moor; and notwithstanding the efforts of the papers to disseminate early discontents, I expect that a just, dispassionate and steady conduct, will at length rally to a proper system the great body of our country. Unequivocal in principle, reasonable in manner, we shall be able I hope to do a great deal of good to the cause of freedom & harmony." --Thomas Jefferson, letter to Elbridge Gerry, 1801

[nChrist]

Founder's Quote Daily

"The true test is, whether the object be of a local character, and local use; or, whether it be of general benefit to the states. If it be purely local, congress cannot constitutionally appropriate money for the object. But, if the benefit be general, it matters not, whether in point of locality it be in one state, or several; whether it be of large, or of small extent." --Joseph Story, Commentaries on the Constitution, 1833