Quotes by Founding Fathers - Page 4

To find out a girl's faults, praise her to her girlfriends.
Benjamin Franklin
The Constitution only guarantees the American people the right to pursue happiness. You have to catch it yourself.
Benjamin Franklin
He that lives upon hope will die farting.
Benjamin Franklin
Beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy.[misquote of a letter about wine, see quotes/831031]
Benjamin Franklin
In 1736 I lost one of my sons, a fine boy of four years old, by the small-pox, taken in the common way. I long regretted bitterly, and still regret that I had not given it to him by inoculation. This I mention for the sake of parents who omit that operation, on the supposition that they should never forgive themselves if a child died under it; my example showing that the regret may be the same either way, and that, therefore, the safer should be chosen.
Benjamin Franklin
No nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare.
James Madison
The nation which indulges toward another a habitual hatred or a habitual fondness is in some degree a slave. It is a slave to it animosity or two its affection, either of which is sufficient to lead it astray from its duty and it's interest.
George Washington
The alternate domination of one faction over another, sharpened by the spirit of revenge, natural to party dissension, which in different ages and countries has perpetrated the most horrid enormities, is itself a frightful despotism. But this leads at length to a more formal and permanent despotism.
George Washington
A man who would sacrifice freedom for security deserves neither.
Benjamin Franklin
Do not anticipate trouble, or worry about what may never happen. Keep in the sunlight.
Benjamin Franklin
O vitae Philosophia dux! O virtutum indagatrix expultrixque vitiorum! Unus dies, bene et ex praeceptis tuis actus, peccanti immortalitati est anteponendus.translation (non-literal):O philosophy, life’s guide! O searcher of virtues and expeller of vices! Just a single day lived well and according to your lessons is to be preferred to an eternity of errors.— Cicero, As quoted in Ben Franklin’s Autobiography
Benjamin Franklin
I think all the heretics I have known have been virtuous men. They have the virtue of fortitude, or they would not venture to own their heresy; and they cannot afford to be deficient in any of the other virtues, as they would give advantage to their many enemies; and they have not, like orthodox sinners, such a number of friends to excuse or justify them.
Benjamin Franklin
I have observed that gentlemen suppose that the general legislature will do every thing mischievous they possibly can, and that they will omit to do every thing good which they are authorized to do. If this were a reasonable supposition, their objections would be good. I consider it reasonable to conclude that they will as readily do their duty as deviate from it; nor do I go on the grounds mentioned by gentlemen on the other side — that we are to place unlimited confidence in them, and expect nothing but the most exalted integrity and sublime virtue. But I go on this great republican principle, that the people will have virtue and intelligence to select men of virtue and wisdom. Is there no virtue among us? If there be not, we are in a wretched situation. No theoretical checks, no form of government, can render us secure. To suppose that any form of government will secure liberty or happiness without any virtue in the people, is a chimerical idea. If there be sufficient virtue and intelligence in the community, it will be exercised in the selection of these men; so that we do not depend on their virtue, or put confidence in our rulers, but in the people who are to choose them.” James Madison (speech at the Virginia Ratifying Convention, 20 June 1788)
James Madison
To be proud of virtue, is to poison yourself with the Antidote.
Benjamin Franklin
Few men have virtue to withstand the highest bidder.
George Washington
Let no pleasure tempt thee, no profit allure thee, no ambition corrupt thee, to do anything which thou knowest to be evil; so shalt thou always live jollily; for a good conscience is a continual Christmas.
Benjamin Franklin
Slavery is such an atrocious debasement of human nature, that its very extirpation, if not performed with solicitous care, may sometimes open a source of serious evils. The unhappy man who has been treated as a brute animal, too frequently sinks beneath the common standard of the human species. The galling chains, that bind his body, do also fetter his intellectual faculties, and impair the social affections of his heart… To instruct, to advise, to qualify those, who have been restored to freedom, for the exercise and enjoyment of civil liberty… and to procure for their children an education calculated for their future situation in life; these are the great outlines of the annexed plan, which we have ad
Benjamin Franklin
1. TEMPERANCE. Eat not to dullness; drink not to elevation. 2. SILENCE. Speak not but what may benefit others or yourself; avoid trifling conversation. 3. ORDER. Let all your things have their places; let each part of your business have its time. 4. RESOLUTION. Resolve to perform what you ought; perform without fail what you resolve. 5. FRUGALITY. Make no expense but to do good to others or yourself; i.e., waste nothing. 6. INDUSTRY. Lose no time; be always employ'd in something useful; cut off all unnecessary actions. 7. SINCERITY. Use no hurtful deceit; think innocently and justly, and, if you...
Benjamin Franklin
A man being sometimes more generous when he has but a little money than when he has plenty, perhaps thro' fear of being thought to have but little.
Benjamin Franklin
In reality, there is, perhaps, no one of our natural passions so hard to subdue as pride. Disguise it, struggle with it, beat it down, stifle it, mortify it as much as one pleases, it is still alive, and will every now and then peep out and show itself; you will see it, perhaps, often in this history; for, even if I could conceive that I had compleatly overcome it, I should probably be proud of my humility.
Benjamin Franklin
If you wish information and improvement from the knowledge of others, and yet at the same time express yourself as firmly fix'd in your present opinions, modest, sensible men, who do not love disputation, will probably leave you undisturbed in the possession of your error.
Benjamin Franklin
So convenient a thing to be a reasonable creature, since it enables one to find or make a reason for every thing one has a mind to do.
Benjamin Franklin
...do not spare any reasonable expense to come at early and true information; always recollecting, and bearing in mind, that vague and uncertain accounts of things [are]... more disturbing and dangerous than receiving none at all.
George Washington
The people heard it, and approved the doctrine, and immediately practiced the contrary.
Benjamin Franklin
Three may keep a secret, if two of them are dead.
Benjamin Franklin
My mother was the most beautiful woman I ever saw. All I am I owe to my mother. I attribute my success in life to the moral, intellectual and physical education I received from her.
George Washington
... I think this Law, by which I am punished, is both unreasonable in itself, and particularly severe... Polly Baker
Benjamin Franklin
All obstructions to the execution of the laws, all combinations and associations, under whatever plausible character, with the real design to direct, control, counteract, or awe the regular deliberation and action of the constituted authorities, are destructive of this fundamental principle, and of fatal tendency.
George Washington
How much more than necessary do we spend in sleep, forgetting that the sleeping fox catches no poultry, and that there will be sleeping enough in the grave, as Poor Richard says.
Benjamin Franklin
He who can have patience can have what he will.
Benjamin Franklin
Harmony, liberal intercourse with all nations, are recommended by policy, humanity, and interest.
George Washington
Those who have committed no faults want no pardon. We are only defending what we deem our indisputable rights.
George Washington
The bosom of America is open to receive not only the Opulent and respectable Stranger, but the oppressed and persecuted of all Nations And Religions; whom we shall wellcome to a participation of all our rights and previleges, if by decency and propriety of conduct they appear to merit the enjoyment.
George Washington
LIBERTY, when it begins to take root, is a plant of rapid growth.
George Washington
In no instance have the churches been guardians of the liberties of the people.
James Madison
We must, indeed, all hang together, or assuredly we shall all hang separately.
Benjamin Franklin
In Europe, charters of liberty have been granted by power. America has set the example and France has followed it, of charters of power granted by liberty. This revolution in the practice of the world may, with an honest praise, be pronounced the most triumphant epoch of its history and the most consoling presage of its happiness.
James Madison
Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.
Benjamin Franklin
The internal effects of a mutable policy are still more calamitous. It poisons the blessing of liberty itself. It will be of little avail to the people, that the laws are made by men of their own choice, if the laws be so voluminous that they cannot be read, or so incoherent that they cannot be understood; if they be repealed or revised before they are promulgated, or undergo such incessant changes that no man, who knows what the law is to-day, can guess what it will be to-morrow. Law is defined to be a rule of action; but how can that be a rule, which is little known, and less fixed?
James Madison
There might, Gentlemen, be an impropriety in my taking notice, in this Address to you, of an anonymous production, but the manner in which that performance has been introduced to the army, the effect it was intended to have, together with some other circumstances, will amply justify my observations on the tendency of that Writing. With respect to the advice given by the Author, to suspect the Man, who shall recommend moderate measures and longer forbearance, I spurn it, as every Man, who regards liberty, and reveres that justice for which we contend, undoubtedly must; for if Men are to be precluded from offering their Sentiments on a matter, which may involve the most serious and alarming consequences, that can invite the consideration of Mankind, reason is of no use to us; the freedom of Speech may be taken away, and dumb and silent we may be led, like sheep, to the Slaughter.
George Washington
Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch. Liberty is a well-armed lamb contesting the vote!
Benjamin Franklin
Liberty may be endangered by the abuses of liberty as well as by the abuses of power.
James Madison
Unless we put medical freedom into the Constitution the time will come when medicine will organize itself into an undercover dictatorship. To restrict the art of healing to doctors and deny equal privileges to others will constitute the Bastille of medical science. All such laws are un-American and despotic.
Benjamin Rush
The means of defence against foreign danger have been always the instruments of tyranny at home. Among the Romans it was a standing maxim to excite a war, whenever a revolt was apprehended. Throughout all Europe, the armies kept up under the pretext of defending, have enslaved the people.
James Madison
If you will not hear reason, she'll rap your knuckles.
Benjamin Franklin
Great beauty, great strength, and great riches are really and truly of no great use; a right heart exceeds all
Benjamin Franklin
There is nothing so likely to produce peace as to be well prepared to meet the enemy
George Washington
He that drinks his cider alone, let him catch his horse alone.
Benjamin Franklin
I didn't fail the test. I just found 100 different ways to do it wrong.
Benjamin Franklin
After crosses and losses men grow humbler and wiser.
Benjamin Franklin
Imitate Jesus and Socrates
Benjamin Franklin
Be not sick too late, nor well too soon
Benjamin Franklin
The strictest law sometimes becomes the severest injustice.
Benjamin Franklin
Justice will not be served until those who are unaffected are as outraged as those who are.
Benjamin Franklin
It is of infinite moment, that you should properly estimate the immense value of your national Union to your collective and individual happiness; that you should cherish a cordial, habitual, and immovable attachment to it; accustoming yourselves to think and speak of it as of the Palladium of your political safety and prosperity; watching for its preservation with jealous anxiety; discountenancing whatever may suggest even a suspicion, that it can in any event be abandoned; and indignantly frowning upon the first dawning of every attempt to alienate any portion of our country from the rest, or to enfeeble the sacred ties which now link together the various parts.
George Washington
Religious bondage shackles and debilitates the mind, and unfits it for every noble enterprise, every expanded pro
James Madison
It is too true, however disgraceful it may be to human nature, that nations in general will make war whenever they have a prospect of getting anything by it.
John Jay
We stand at the crossroads, each minute, each hour, each day, making choices. We choose the thoughts we allow ourselves to think, the passions we allow ourselves to feel, and the actions we allow ourselves to perform. Each choice is made in the context of whatever value system we have selected to govern our lives. In selecting that value system, we are, in a very real way, making the most important choice we will ever make.Those who believe there is one God who made all things and who governs the world by this providence will make many choices different from those who do not. Those who hold in reverence that being who gave them life and worship Him through adoration, prayer, and thanksgiving will make choices different from those who do not. Those who believe that mankind are all of a family and that the most acceptable service of God is doing good to man will make many choices different from those who do not. Those who believe in a future state in which all that is wrong here will be made right will make many choices different from those who do not. Those who subscribe to the morals of Jesus will make many choices different from those who do not.Since the foundation of all happiness is thinking rightly, and since correct action is dependent on correct opinion, we cannot be too careful in choosing the value system we allow to govern our thoughts and actions.And to know that God governs in the affairs of men, that He hears and answers prayers, and that He is a rewarder of them that diligently seek Him, is, indeed, a powerful regulator of human conduct.
Benjamin Franklin
Wherever the real power in a Government lies, there is the danger of oppression. In our Governments the real power lies in the majority of the Community, and the invasion of private rights is chiefly to be apprehended, not from acts of Government contrary to the sense of its constituents, but from acts in which the Government is the mere instrument of the major number of the constituents.
James Madison
If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary. In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: you must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself.
James Madison