A Worthy Quote

[nChrist]

Founder's Quote Daily

"It is of great importance to set a resolution, not to be shaken, never to tell an untruth. There is no vice so mean, so pitiful, so contemptible; and he who permits himself to tell a lie once, finds it much easier to do it a second and a third time, till at length it becomes habitual; he tells lies without attending to it, and truths without the world's believing him. This falsehood of the tongue leads to that of the heart, and in time depraves all its good disposition."

--Thomas Jefferson, letter to Peter Carr, 1785

[nChrist]

Founder's Quote Daily

"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 United States; and as they would be the sole judges of the good or evil, it would be also a power to do whatever evil they please. ... Certainly no such universal power was meant to be given them. It [the Constitution] was intended to lace them up straightly within the enumerated powers and those without which, as means, these powers could not be carried into effect."

--Thomas Jefferson, Opinion on a National Bank, 1791

[nChrist]

Founder's Quote Daily

"Illustrious examples are displayed to our view, that we may imitate as well as admire. Before we can be distinguished by the same honors, we must be distinguished by the same virtues. What are those virtues? They are chiefly the same virtues, which we have already seen to be descriptive of the American character -- the love of liberty, and the love of law. But law and liberty cannot rationally become the objects of our love, unless they first become the objects of our knowledge."

--James Wilson, Of the Study of the Law in the United States

[nChrist]

Founder's Quote Daily

"Happily for America, happily, we trust, for the whole human race, they pursued a new and more noble course. They accomplished a revolution which has no parallel in the annals of human society. They reared the fabrics of governments which have no model on the face of the globe."

--James Madison, Federalist No. 14, 1787

[nChrist]

Founder's Quote Daily

"Freedom had been hunted round the globe; reason was considered as rebellion; and the slavery of fear had made men afraid to think. But such is the irresistible nature of truth, that all it asks, and all it wants, is the liberty of appearing."

--Thomas Paine, Rights of Man, 1791

[nChrist]

Founder's Quote Daily

"The germ of dissolution of our federal government is in the constitution of the federal judiciary; an irresponsible body, (for impeachment is scarcely a scare-crow) working like gravity by night and by day, gaining a little today and a little tomorrow, and advancing its noiseless step like a thief, over the field of jurisdiction, until all shall be usurped from the States, and the government of all be consolidated into one."

--Thomas Jefferson, Letter to Charles Hammond, 1821

[nChrist]

Founder's Quote Daily

"No longer could we reflect, with generous pride, on the heroic actions of our American forefathers ... if we, but for a moment entertain the thought of giving up our liberty."

--Joseph Warren, Boston Massacre Oration, 1775

[nChrist]

Founder's Quote Daily

"There is but one straight course, and that is to seek truth and pursue it steadily."

--George Washington, letter to Edmund Randolph, 1795

[nChrist]

Founder's Quote Daily

"Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph."

--Thomas Paine, American Crisis, No. 1, 1776

[nChrist]

Founder's Quote Daily

"In selecting men for office, let principle be your guide. Regard not the particular sect or denomination of the candidate -- look to his character."

--Noah Webster, Letters to a Young Gentleman Commencing His Education, 1789

[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

"The propriety of a law, in a constitutional light, must always be deteremined by the nature of the powers upon which it is founded."

--Alexander Hamilton, Federalist No. 33, 1788

[nChrist]

Founder's Quote Daily

"Justice is the end of government. It is the end of civil society. It ever has been and ever will be pursued until it be obtained, or until liberty be lost in the pursuit."

--James Madison, Federalist No. 51, 1788

[nChrist]

Founder's Quote Daily

"No experiment can be more interesting than that we are now trying, and which we trust will end in establishing the fact, that man may be governed by reason and truth. Our first object should therefore be, to leave open to him all the avenues to truth. The most effectual hitherto found, is the freedom of the press. It is, therefore, the first shut up by those who fear the investigation of their actions."

--Thomas Jefferson, Letter to John Tyler, 1804

[nChrist]

Founder's Quote Daily

"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."

--Thomas Jefferson, Declaration of the Causes and Necessities of Taking up Arms, 1775