saddled_admin's Quotes

There is no nation on earth powerful enough to accomplish our overthrow. ... Our destruction, should it come at all, will be from another quarter. From the inattention of the people to the concerns of their government, from their carelessness and negligence, I must confess that I do apprehend some danger. I fear that they may place too implicit a confidence in their public servants, and fail properly to scrutinize their conduct; that in this way they may be made the dupes of designing men, and become the instruments of their own undoing.

There is scarcely a king in a hundred who would not, if he could, follow the example of Pharaoh, get first all the people's money, then all their lands and then make them and their children servants forever.

The two enemies of the people are criminals and government, so let us tie the second down with the chains of the Constitution so the second will not become the legalized version of the first.

There is danger from all men. The only maxim of a free government ought to be to trust no man living with power to endanger the public liberty.

The issue today is the same as it has been throughout all history, whether man shall be allowed to govern himself or be ruled by a small elite.

The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. ... God forbid we should ever be twenty years without such a rebellion; what country can preserve its liberties if their rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms.

If a nation expects to be ignorant and free ... it expects what never was and never will be.

Liberty cannot be preserved without a general knowledge among the people.

The battle, sir, is not to the strong alone; it is to the vigilant, the active, the brave.

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 their country; but he that stands by it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph. What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly: it is dearness only that gives every thing its value. Heaven knows how to put a proper price upon its goods; and it would be strange indeed if so celestial an article as freedom should not be highly rated.