Quotes from America's Founding Fathers, Great Leaders, Great Thinkers, and Others:
George Washington
"The time is now near at hand which must determine whether Americans are to be freemen or slaves.” (1776)
"The Adoption of the Constitution will demonstrate as visibly the finger of Providence as any possible event in the course of human affairs can ever designate it."
"The foundation of our national policy will be laid in the pure and immutable principles of private morality; ...the propitious smiles of Heaven can never be expected on a nation that disregards the eternal rules of order and rights which Heaven itself has ordained..." (April 30, 1789)
"If I could have entertained the slightest apprehension that the Constitution framed by the Convention . . . might possibly endanger the religious rights of any ecclesiastical society, certainly I would never have placed my signature to it."
"Government is not reason; it is not eloquence. It is force. And force, like fire, is a dangerous servant and a fearful master."
"No people can be bound to acknowledge and adore the Invisible Hand . . . more than those of the United States."
Benjamin Franklin
"Man will ultimately be governed by God or by tyrants."
"Only a virtuous people are capable of freedom. As nations become corrupt and vicious, they have more need of masters."
"Make yourself sheep, and the wolves will eat you."
Thomas Paine
"Those people who will not be governed by God will be ruled by tyrants."
"Those who expect to reap the blessings of freedom, must, like men, undergo the fatigues of supporting it."
Samuel Adams
"If taxes are laid upon us without our having a legal representation where they are laid, we are reduced from the character of free subjects to the state of tributary slaves."
"The Constitution shall never be construed to prevent the people of the United States, who are peaceable citizens from keeping their own arms . . ."
"We have explored the temple of Royalty and found that the idol that we have bowed down to has Eyes which see not, Ears that hear not our Prayers, and a heart like the nether millstone. We have this day restored the Sovereign to Whom alone all men ought to be obedient; He reigns in Heaven, and with a propitious Eye beholds His subjects assuming that freedom of thought, and dignity of self direction, which He bestowed upon them. From the rising to the setting Sun, may His Kingdom come." (August 1, 1776, A day before signing the Declaration of Independence.)
Patrick Henry
"The Constitution is not an instrument for the government to restrain the people, it is an instrument for the people to restrain the government."
"It cannot be emphasized too strongly or too often that this great nation was founded, not by religionists, but by Christians; not on religions, but on the gospel of Jesus Christ. For this very reason peoples of other faiths have been afforded asylum, prosperity, and freedom of worship here."
Daniel Webster
"God grants liberty only to those who love it, and are always ready to guard and defend it."
John Adams
"Our Constitution was made for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other."
"The only foundation of a free constitution is pure virtue; and if this cannot be inspired into our people in a greater measure than they have it now, they may change their rulers and the forms of government, but they will not obtain a lasting liberty. They will only exchange tyrants and tyrannies."
"The happiness of man as well as his dignity consists in virtue."
Thomas Jefferson
"All tyranny needs to gain a foothold is for people of good conscience to remain silent."
"To preserve our independence, we must not let our rulers load us with personal debt... I am for government rigorously frugal and simple."
"Resistance to tyrants is obedience to God."
"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?
"No power over the freedom of religion is delegated to the United States by the Constitution. I predict future happiness for Americans if they can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them.
When all government, domestic and foreign, in little as in great things, shall be drawn to Washington as the center of all power, it will render powerless the checks provided of one government on another. (letter to Charles Hammond, 1821)
James Madison
"There is not a shadow of right in the general government to intermeddle in religion. Its least interference with it would be a most flagrant usurpation."
"We have staked the whole future of American civilization, not upon the power of government, far from it. We have staked the future of all our political institutions upon the capacity of mankind for self-government; upon the capacity of each and all of us to govern ourselves, to control ourselves, to sustain ourselves according to the Ten Commandments of God."
"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."
The powers delegated by the proposed Constitution to the federal government are few and defined.
Those which are to remain in the State governments are numerous and indefinite. (Federalist No. 45)
John Quincy Adams
"The first and almost the only Book deserving of universal attention is the Bible. Our Constitution was made for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate for the government of any other."
Charles Carroll
"Without morals a republic cannot subsist any length of time."
Elbridge Gerry
"Whenever governments mean to invade the rights and liberties of the people, they always attempt to destroy the militia, in order to raise an army upon their ruins."
John Witherspoon
"Nothing is more certain than that a general profligacy and corruption of manners make a people ripe for destruction. A good form of government may hold the rotten materials together for some time, but beyond a certain pitch, even the best constitution will be ineffectual, and slavery must ensue."
Thomas Sowell
The culture of this nation is being dismantled, brick by brick, but so gradually that many will not notice until the walls start to sag -- just before they cave in.
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."
"I am a real Christian, that is to say, a disciple of the doctrines of Jesus. I have little doubt that our whole country will soon be rallied to the unity of our Creator."
"Whereas, it is the duty of nations, as well as of men, to owe their dependence upon the overruling power of God, to confess their sins and transgressions, in humble sorrow, yet with assured hope that genuine repentance will lead to mercy and pardon."
"To sin by silence when they should protest makes cowards of men."
Charles Finney
"God will bless or curse this nation according to the course Christians take in politics."
Winston Churchill"You leave out God, and you substitute the devil."
Albert Einstein
"The world is a dangerous place to live not because of the people who are evil, but because of the people who don't do anything about it."
French Algerian author Albert Camus
"The welfare of the people in particular has always been the alibi of tyrants, and it provides the further advantage of giving the servants of tyranny a good conscience."
President Dwight D. Eisenhower, 1953
"A people that values its privileges above its principles soon loses both."
John F. Kennedy
"The rights of man come not from the generosity of the state but from the hand of God." To each of us is entrusted the heavy responsibility of guiding the affairs of a democratic nation founded on Christian ideals.
The guiding principle of this Nation has been, is now, and ever shall be IN GOD WE TRUST."
Martin Luther King Jr.
"In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends".
"He who accepts evil without protesting against it is really cooperating with it. "
"A man who won't die for something is not fit to live."
"Faith is taking the first step even when you don't see the whole staircase "
"One may well ask: How can you advocate breaking some laws and obeying others? The answer lies in the fact that there are two types of laws: just and unjust. I would be the first to advocate obeying just laws. One has not only a legal but a moral responsibility to obey just laws. Conversely, one has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws. I would agree with St. Augustine that, 'An unjust law is no law at all.' Now what is the difference between the two? . . . A just law is a man made code that squares with the moral law or the law of God. An unjust law is a code that is out of harmony with the moral law."
Ronald Reagan
"The Founding Fathers knew a government can't control the economy without controlling people. And they knew when a government sets out to do that, it must use force and coercion to achieve its purpose. So we have come to a time for choosing."
"Freedom is never more than a generation away from extinction."
"We must never forget that we are 'one nation under God' or we will be one nation gone under."
"We stand together as we did two centuries ago, one people under God determined that our future shall be worthy of our past."
"In this present crisis, government is not the solution to our problem, government is the problem."
President Gerald Ford
"A government big enough to give you everything you want is big enough to take away everything you have."
U.S. Senate Chaplain Peter Marshall
"The choice before us is plain: Christ or chaos, conviction or compromise, discipline or disintegration. I am rather tired of hearing about our rights...The time is come...to hear about responsibilities..."
Dr. Jim Boren
"Public apathy is more powerful than public opinion. There's more of it."
