A Worthy Quote

[nChrist]

The Patriot Post
Founders' Quote Daily

"Don't fire unless fired upon. But if they want a war let it
begin here."

-- Captain John Parker (commander of the militiamen at Lexington,
Massachusetts, on siting British Troops (attributed), 19 April
1775)

Reference: The Spirit of 'Seventy-Six, Commanger and Morris (70)

[nChrist]

The Patriot Post
Founders' Quote Daily

"Besides the advantage of being armed, which the Americans possess
over the people of almost every other nation, the existence of
subordinate governments, to which the people are attached and by
which the militia officers are appointed, forms a barrier against
the enterprises of ambition, more insurmountable than any which
a simple government of any form can admit of."

-- James Madison (Federalist No. 46, 1 February 1788 )

Reference: Madison, Federalist No. 46.

[nChrist]

The Patriot Post
Founders' Quote Daily

"These are the times that try men's souls.  The summer soldier
and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the
service of his country; but he that stands it now, deserves the
love and thanks of man and woman."

-- Thomas Paine (The American Crisis, No. 1, 19 December 1776)

Reference: Thomas Paine: Collected Writings , Foner ed., Library
of America (91)

[nChrist]

The Patriot Post
Founders' Quote Daily

"The best service that can be rendered to a Country, next to that
of giving it liberty, is in diffusing the mental improvement
equally essential to the preservation, and the enjoyment of
the blessing."

-- James Madison (letter to Littleton Dennis Teackle, 29 March
1826)

Reference: Advice to My Country, Mattern ed. (42); original
Madison Papers in the Library of Congress

[nChrist]

The Patriot Post
Founders' Quote Daily

"First in war, first in peace, and first in the hearts of his
countrymen, he was second to none in humble and enduring scenes
of private life.  Pious, just humane, temperate, and sincere;
uniform dignified, and commanding; his example was as edifying
to all around him as were the effects of that example lasting;
correct throughout, vice shuddered in his presence and virtue
always felt his fostering hand.  The purity of his private charter
gave effulgence to his public virtues;.  Such was the man for
whom our nation morns"

-- John Marshall (official eulogy of George Washington, delivered
by Richard Henry Lee, 26 December 1799)

Reference: Patriot Sage, Spalding

[nChrist]

The Patriot Post
Founders' Quote Daily

"Reading, reflection and time have convinced me that the interests
of society require the observation of those moral precepts...in
which all religions agree."

-- Thomas Jefferson (Westmoreland County Petition, 2 November 1785)

Reference: Religion and the Founding of the American Republic,
Hutson, (84); original Westmoreland County, petition, November 2,
1785, to V

[nChrist]

The Patriot Post
Founders' Quote Daily

"My confidence is that there will for a long time be virtue and
good sense enough in our countrymen to correct abuses."

-- Thomas Jefferson (letter to Edward Rutledge, 1788 )

Reference: The Writings of Thomas Jefferson (Memorial Edition),
Lipscomb and Bergh, eds., 7:81.

[nChrist]

The Patriot Post
Founders' Quote Daily

"We have heard of the impious doctrine in the old world, that
the people were made for kings, not kings for the people. Is
the same doctrine to be revived in the new, in another shape -
that the solid happiness of the people is to be sacrificed to
the views of political institutions of a different form? It is
too early for politicians to presume on our forgetting that the
public good, the real welfare of the great body of the people, is
the supreme object to be pursued; and that no form of government
whatever has any other value than as it may be fitted for the
attainment of this object."

-- James Madison (Federalist No. 45)

Reference: Federalist No. 45.

[Soldier4Christ]

Suppose you were an idiot. And suppose you were a member of Congress. But I repeat myself.
- Mark Twain, a Biography

 

All Congresses and Parliaments have a kindly feeling for idiots, and a compassion for them, on account of personal experience and heredity.
- Mark Twain's Autobiography; also in Mark Twain in Eruption

It could probably be shown by facts and figures that there is no distinctly native American criminal class except Congress.
- Pudd'nhead Wilson's New Calendar

[nChrist]

Suppose you were an idiot. And suppose you were a member of Congress. But I repeat myself.
- Mark Twain, a Biography

       ROFL!   Mark Twain did have a way with words!

[nChrist]

The Patriot Post
Founders' Quote Daily

"Where liberty dwells, there is my country."

-- Benjamin Franklin (letter to Benjamin Vaughn, 14 March 1783)

Reference: Respectfully Quoted, p. 201

[nChrist]

The Patriot Post
Founders' Quote Daily

"The name of American, which belongs to you, in your national
capacity, must always exalt the just pride of Patriotism, more
than any appellation derived from local discriminations."

-- George Washington (Farewell Address, 1796)

Reference: Inaugural Addresses of the Presidents of the United
States.

[nChrist]

The Patriot Post
Founders' Quote Daily

"So that the executive and legislative branches of the national
government depend upon, and emanate from the states. Every
where the state sovereignties are represented; and the national
sovereignty, as such, has no representation."

-- Joseph Story (Commentaries on the Constitution, 1833)

Reference: Story, Commentaries on the Constitution, 191.

[nChrist]

The Patriot Post
Founders' Quote Daily

"A free people [claim] their rights as derived from the laws of
nature, and not as the gift of their chief magistrate."

-- Thomas Jefferson (Rights of British America, 1774)

Reference: The Writings of Thomas Jefferson, Lipscomb and Bergh,
eds., 1:209.

[nChrist]

The Patriot Post
Founders' Quote Daily

"The first transactions of a nation, like those of an individual
upon his first entrance into life make the deepest impression,
and are to form the leading traits in its character."

-- George Washington ( letter to John Armstrong, 25 April 1788 )

Reference: A Sacred Union of Citizens, Spalding and Garrity (10);
original The Writings of George Washington from the Original
Manuscript