The opinions of philosophers, physicians, and poets are to be alleged and received in causes

“Whom the gods would destroy they first make mad” is spoken byPrometheus, in the poem “The Masque of Pandora” (1875), by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow: http://infogalactic.com/info/Whom_the_gods_would_destroy_(disambiguation)

“When an honest man, honestly mistaken, comes face-to-face with undeniable and irrefutable truth, he is faced with one of two choices, he must either cease being mistaken or cease being honest.” – Amicus Solo  

A half truth is the worst of all lies, because it can be defended in partiality. —Solon (c.638 BC-558 BC) Athenian statesman, lawmaker, Lyric poet, renowned as a founding father of the Athenian polis, one of the Seven Sages of Greece 550 B.C.

“Good Government is not intrusive, the people are hardly aware of it; the next best is felt yet loved; then comes that which is known and feared; the worst government is hated.” — Lao-Tzu [Li Erh] (570-490 BC) ‘Old Sage’, Father of Taoism: Source: Tao Te Ching http://quotes.liberty-tree.ca/quote_blog/Lao-Tzu.Quote.73D7

“Try to make people moral, and you lay the groundwork for vice.” — Lao-Tzu[Li Erh] (570-490 BC) ‘Old Sage’, Father of Taoism: Source: Tao Te Chinghttp://quotes.liberty-tree.ca/quote_blog/Lao-Tzu.Quote.1954

“The people suffer from famine because of the multitude of taxes consumed by their superiors. It is through this that they suffer famine.” — Lao-Tzu [Li Erh] (570-490 BC) ‘Old Sage’, Father of Taoism: Source: Tao Te Chinghttp://quotes.liberty-tree.ca/quote_blog/Lao-Tzu.Quote.1937

“By nature men are pretty much alike; it is learning and practice that set them apart.” — Confucius [Kung Fu-tse] (551-479 B.C.);

“When the leader is morally weak and his discipline not strict, when his instructions and guidance are not enlightened, when there are no consistent rules, neighboring rulers will take advantage of this.” — Sun Tzu (c.500-320 B.C.) name used by the unknown Chinese authors of the sophisticated treatise on philosophy, logistics, espionage, strategy and tactics known as ‘The Art of War’ http://quotes.liberty-tree.ca/quote_blog/Sun.Tzu.Quote.7167

“Beware lest in your anxiety to avoid war you obtain a master.” —Demosthenes (384-322 BC)

“Freedom is the greatest fruit of self-sufficiency.” — Epicurus (341-270 BCE) Greek philosopher

“The welfare of the people in particular has always been the alibi of tyrants.” — Albert Camus

We hang the petty thieves and appoint the great ones to public office. ~Aesop, Greek slave & fable author

“Democracy passes into despotism.” ~ Plato

“Your silence gives consent.” — Plato (429-347 BC)

“Bodily exercise, when compulsory, does no harm to the body; but knowledge which is acquired under compulsion obtains no hold on the mind.” — Plato(429-347); BC)

The price good men pay for indifference to public affairs is to be ruled by evil men.–Plato

This and no other is the root from which a tyrant springs; when he first appears he is a protector –Plato

Those who are too smart to engage in politics are punished by being governed by those who are dumber. ~Plato, ancient Greek Philosopher

“A nation can survive its fools, and even the ambitious. But it cannot survive treason from within. An enemy at the gates is less formidable, for he is known and carries his banner openly. But the traitor moves amongst those within the gate freely, his sly whispers rustling through all the alleys, heard in the very halls of government itself. For the traitor appears not a traitor; he speaks in accents familiar to his victims, and he wears their face and their arguments, he appeals to the baseness that lies deep in the hearts of all men. He rots the soul of a nation, he works secretly and unknown in the night to undermine the pillars of the city, he infects the body politic so that it can no longer resist. A murderer is less to fear. The traitor is the plague.” —-Cicero, 55 BC http://quotes.liberty-tree.ca/quotes.nsf/ByName?SearchView

“The budget should be balanced, the Treasury should be refilled, public debt should be reduced, the arrogance of officialdom should be tempered and controlled, and the assistance to foreign lands should be curtailed lest Rome become bankrupt. People must again learn to work, instead of living on public assistance.” —-Cicero, 55 BC http http://quotes.liberty-tree.ca/quotes.nsf/ByName?SearchView

“A bureaucrat is the most despicable of men, though he is needed as vultures are needed, but one hardly admires vultures whom bureaucrats so strangely resemble. I have yet to meet a bureaucrat who was not petty, dull, almost witless, crafty or stupid, an oppressor or a thief, a holder of little authority in which he delights, as a boy delights in possessing a vicious dog. Who can trust such creatures?” —-Cicero, 55 BC http http://quotes.liberty-tree.ca/quotes.nsf/ByName?SearchView

“The men who administer public affairs must first of all see that everyone holds onto what is his, and that private men are never deprived of their goods by public men.” —-Cicero, 55 BC http http://quotes.liberty-tree.ca/quotes.nsf/ByName?SearchView

Argument.

Practice. Cicero defines it as probable reason proposed in order to induce belief. Ratio probabilis et idonea ad faciendam fidem. The logicians define it more scientifically to be a means, which by its connection between two extremes, establishes a relation between them. This subject belongs rather to rhetoric and logic than to law.

“To be ignorant of what occurred before you were born is to remain always a child. For what is the worth of human life, unless it is woven into the life of our ancestors by the records of history?” ~ Marcus Tullius Cicero

“A gang is a group of men under the command of a leader, bound by a compact of association, in which the plunder is divided according to an agreed convention. If this villainy wins so many recruits from the ranks of the demoralized that it acquires territory, establishes a base, captures cities and subdues peoples, it then openly arrogates to itself the title of kingdom, which is conferred on it in the eyes of the world, not by the renunciation of aggression, but by the attainment of impunity” St. Augustine: http://cafr1.com/

“Who will stand guard to the guards themselves?” — Juvenal [Decimus Junius Juvenalis] (c.55-c.128 AD) Roman satirical poet http://quotes.liberty-tree.ca/quote_blog/Juvenal.Quote.2634

“One can have no smaller or greater mastery than mastery of oneself.” — Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519)

“One who deceives will always find those who allow themselves to be deceived.” — Niccolo Machiavelli
(1469-1527) Italian Statesman and Political Philosopher Source: The Prince (1513) http://quotes.liberty-tree.ca/quote_blog/Niccolo.Machiavelli.Quote.4A7B

“Hypocrisy is a fashionable vice, and all fashionable vices pass for virtue.” — Molière [Jean-Baptiste Poquelin] (1622-1673)

“Nations grow corrupt, love bondage more than liberty; bondage with ease than strenuous liberty.” — John Milton
(1608-1674) Poet

“It is better to risk saving a guilty man than to condemn an innocent one.” — Voltaire [François Marie Arouet] (1694-1778) Source: Zadig, 1747 http://quotes.liberty-tree.ca/quote_blog/Voltaire.Quote.3128

“To learn who rules over you, simply find who you are not allowed to critize.” — Voltaire (21 November 1694 – 30 May 1778)

“It is the characteristic of the most stringent censorships, that they give credibility to the opinions they attack.”
— Voltaire

“We are all full of weakness and errors, let us mutually pardon each other our follies. It is the first law of nature.” — Voltaire

John Locke (1632-1704) English philosopher and political theorist. Considered the ideological progenitor of the American Revolution and who, by far, was the most often non-biblical writer quoted by the Founding Fathers of the USA. Source: Second Treatise of Civil Government [1690] http://www.gutenberg.org/files/7370/7370-h/7370-h.htm

“[W]henever the legislators endeavour to take away, and destroy the property of the people, or to reduce them to slavery under arbitrary power, they put themselves into a state of war with the people, who are thereupon absolved from any farther obedience, and are left to the common refuge, which God hath provided for all men, against force and violence. Whensoever therefore the legislative shall transgress this fundamental rule of society; and either by ambition, fear, folly or corruption, endeavour to grasp themselves, or put into the hands of any other, an absolute power over the lives, liberties, and estates of the people; by this breach of trust they forfeit the power the people had put into their hands for quite contrary ends, and it devolves to the people, who have a right to resume their original liberty …” John Locke (1690): http://quotes.liberty-tree.ca/quote/john_locke_quote_abc5

A covenant not to defend myself from force by force is always void. For … no man can transfer or lay down his Right to save himself. For the right men have by Nature to protect themselves, when none else can protect them, can by no Covenant be relinquished. … [The right] to defend ourselves [is the] summe of the Right of Nature. — Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679) English philosopher, political theorist Source: Leviathan 88, 95 (reprint 1964) (1651) http://quotes.liberty-tree.ca/quote_blog/Thomas.Hobbes.Quote.DCB5

“I can calculate the motions of heavenly bodies, but not the madness of people.” — Issac Newton (1642-1727) English physicist, mathematician, astronomer, natural philosopher, alchemist and theologian Source: 1721, after having lost huge amounts of money in the South Sea Bubble. http://quotes.liberty-tree.ca/quote_blog/Issac.Newton.Quote.A0B7

“So long as the people do not care to exercise their freedom, those who wish to tyrannize will do so; for tyrants are active and ardent, and will devote themselves in the name of any number of gods, religious and otherwise, to put shackles upon sleeping men.” — Voltaire 1694 – 1778; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voltaire

“The greater the power, the more dangerous the abuse.” – Edmond Burke 1729 – 1797

“We are apt to shut our eyes against a painful truth… For my part, I am willing to know the whole truth; to know the worst; and to provide for it.” — Patrick Henry (1736-1799) US Founding Father

“Have we the means of resisting disciplined armies, when our only defence, the militia, is put in the hands of Congress?”
— Patrick Henry (1736-1799) US Founding Father http://quotes.liberty-tree.ca/quote_blog/Patrick.Henry.Quote.B164

Suffer not yourselves to be betrayed with a kiss. – Patrick Henry, March 23, 1775

“The liberties of a people never were, nor ever will be, secure, when the transactions of their rulers may be concealed from them.” Patrick Henry

“Jurors should acquit, even against the judge’s instruction…if exercising their judgement with discretion and honesty they have a clear conviction that the charge of the court is wrong.” — Alexander Hamilton, 1804

“In this distribution of powers the wisdom of our constitution is manifested. It is the province and duty of the Executive to preserve to the Nation the blessings of peace. The Legislature alone can interrupt those blessings, by placing the Nation in a state of War.” — Alexander Hamilton (1757-1804) Source: Pacificus #1, June 29, 1793.

“The President is to be commander-in-chief of the army and navy of the United States. In this respect his authority would be nominally the same with that of the king of Great Britain, but in substance much inferior to it. It would amount to nothing more than the supreme command and direction of the land and naval forces, as first general and admiral … while that of the British king extends to the declaring of war and to the raising and regulating of fleets and armies—all which, by the Constitution under consideration, would appertain to the legislature.” — Alexander Hamilton (1757-1804) Source: The Federalist #69

The fundamental source of all your errors, sophisms, and false reasonings, is a total ignorance of the natural rights of mankind. Were you once to become acquainted with these, you could never entertain a thought, that all men are not, by nature, entitled to a parity of privileges. You would be convinced, that natural liberty is a gift of the beneficent Creator, to the whole human race; and that civil liberty is founded in that; and cannot be wrested from any people, without the most manifest violation of justice. Civil liberty is only natural liberty, modified and secured by the sanctions of civil society. It is not a thing, in its own nature, precarious and dependent on human will and caprice; but it is conformable to the constitution of man, as well as necessary to the well-being of society. — Alexander Hamilton (1757-1804) Source: The Farmer Refuted, 1775 http://quotes.liberty-tree.ca/quote_blog/Alexander.Hamilton.Quote.D460

Safety from external danger is the most powerful director of national conduct. — Alexander Hamilton (1757-1804)
Source: The Federalist

Carden quoted Alexander Hamilton who said in the Continentalist #6, Whenever a discretionary power is lodged in any set of men over the property of their neighbors, they will abuse it; their passions, prejudices, partialities, dislikes will have the principal lead in measuring the abilities of those over whom the power extends; and assessors will ever be a set of petty tyrants.

“Nature never deceives us; it is always we who deceive ourselves.” — Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778) Political philosopher, educationist and essayist

“Necessity is the plea of every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves.” — William Pitt, Speech on the India Bill, Nov. 18, 1783.

Right is right, even if everyone is against it, and wrong is wrong, even if everyone is for it.–William Penn

“They call me a rebel and welcome for I would suffer the misery of devils were I to make a whore of my soul.” — Thomas Paine

“Those who expect to reap the blessings of freedom must, like men, undergo the fatigue of supporting it.” — Thomas Paine (1737-1809) Source: Common Sense, February 14, 1776

It is the duty of the patriot to protect his country from its government. — Thomas Paine

“Society in every state is a blessing, but Government in its best state, is but a necessary evil; in its worst state an intolerable one.” – Thomas Paine

“Men who look upon themselves born to reign, and others to obey, soon grow insolent; selected from the rest of mankind their minds are early poisoned by importance; and the world they act in differs so materially from the world at large, that they have but little opportunity of knowing its true interests, and when they succeed to the government are frequently the most ignorant and unfit of any throughout the dominions.” — Thomas Paine(1737-1809) US Founding father, pamphleteer, author
Source: Common Sense, February 14, 1776 http://quotes.liberty-tree.ca/quote_blog/Thomas.Paine.Quote.CD08

“To disarm the people is the best and most effectual way to enslave them.” — George Mason, (1725-1792), drafted the Virginia Declaration of Rights http://quotes.liberty-tree.ca/quote_blog/George.Mason.Quote.26E7

“No free government, or the blessings of liberty, can be preserved to any people, but by a firm adherence to justice, moderation, temperance, frugality and virtue, and by frequent recurrence to fundamental principles.” ~ George Mason, (1725-1792), drafted the Virginia Declaration of Rights

“I ask, sir, what is the militia? It is the whole people, except for a few public officials.” George Mason, in Debates in Virginia Convention on Ratification of the Constitution, Elliot, Vol. 3, June 16, 1788: http://www.newswithviews.com/Devvy/kidd255.htm

“When the same man, or set of men, holds the sword and the purse, there is an end of liberty.” — George Mason
(1725-1792), drafted the Virgina Declaration of Rights, ally of James Madison and George Washington http://quotes.liberty-tree.ca/quote_blog/George.Mason.Quote.E107

“The Executive should be able to repel and not to commence war.” — Roger Sherman (1721-1793) US Founding father, first mayor of New Haven, Connecticut, served on the Committee of Five that drafted the Declaration of Independence, representative and senator in the new republic, was the only person to sign all four great state papers of the U.S.: the Articles of Association, the Declaration of Independence, the Articles of Confederation and the Constitution.

“If ever a time should come, when vain and aspiring men shall possess the highest seats in Government, our country will stand in need of its experienced patriots to prevent its ruin.” — Samuel Adams (1722-1803), was known as the “Father of the American Revolution.” 1780

“It does not require a majority to prevail, but rather an irate, tireless minority keen to set brush fires in people’s minds.” ~ Samuel Adams, (1722-1803), known as the “Father of the American Revolution.”

Those who are combined to destroy people’s liberties, practice every art to poison their morals. – Samuel Adams

Among the natural rights of the colonists are these: first, a right to life; secondly, to liberty; thirdly to property; together with the right to support and defend them in the best manner they can. –Samuel Adams

The said constitution shall never be construed to authorize Congress to prevent the people of the United States who are peaceable citizens from keeping their own arms. –Samuel Adams

“

Man will ultimately be governed by God or by tyrants.” – Benjamin Franklin

“Only a virtuous people are capable of freedom. As nations become corrupt and vicious, they have more need of masters.” – Benjamin Franklin

“A nation of well-informed men who have been taught to know and prize the rights which God has given them cannot be enslaved. It is in the region of ignorance that tyranny begins.” – Benjamin Franklin

They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety. Benjamin Franklin

Never trust a government that doesn’t trust its own citizens with guns. — Benjamin Franklin

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, 1759

“Little strokes fell great oaks.” — Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790) US Founding Father

“In my youth I travelled much, and I observed in different countries, that the more public provisions were made for the poor, the less they provided for themselves, and of course became poorer. And, on the contrary, the less was done for them, the more they did for themselves, and became richer. There is no country in the world where so many provisions are established for them; so many hospitals to receive them when they are sick or lame, founded and maintained by voluntary charities; so many alms-houses for the aged of both sexes, together with a solemn general law made by the rich to subject their estates to a heavy tax for the support of the poor. Under all these obligations, are our poor modest, humble, and thankful; and do they use their best endeavours to maintain themselves, and lighten our shoulders of this burthen? — On the contrary, I affirm that there is no country in the world in which the poor are more idle, dissolute, drunken, and insolent. The day you passed that act, you took away from before their eyes the greatest of all inducements to industry, frugality, and sobriety, by giving them a dependance on somewhat else than a careful accumulation during youth and health, for support in age or sickness. In short, you offered a premium for the encouragement of idleness, and you should not now wonder that it has had its effect in the increase of poverty.” — Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790) US Founding Father Source: On the Price of Corn, and Management of the Poor, London Chronicle, November 29, 1766 http://quotes.liberty-tree.ca/quote_blog/Benjamin.Franklin.Quote.2933

“The jury has the right to judge both the law as well as the fact in controversy.” — John Jay (1745-1829) first Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, First President of the United States – preceding George Washington, one of three men most responsible for the US Constitution Source: Georgia v. Brailsford, 1794 http://quotes.liberty-tree.ca/quote_blog/John.Jay.Quote.71B4

“I hope I shall possess firmness and virtue enough to maintain what I consider the most enviable of all titles, the character of an honest man.” — George Washington (1732-1799) Founding Father, 1st US President, ‘Father of the Country’ http://quotes.liberty-tree.ca/quote_blog/George.Washington.Quote.24B9

Government is not reason, it is not eloquence, it is force; like fire, a troublesome servant and a fearful master. Never for a moment should it be left to irresponsible action. –George Washington

“Should, hereafter, those incited by the lust of power and prompted by the supineness or venality of their constituents, overleap the known barriers of this Constitution and violate the unalienable rights of humanity: it will only serve to show, that no compact among men (however provident in its construction and sacred in its ratification) can be pronounced everlasting and inviolable, and if I may so express myself, that no Wall of words, that no mound of parchment can be so formed as to stand against the sweeping torrent of boundless ambition on the side, aided by the sapping current of corrupted morals on the other.” — George Washington (1732-1799) Founding Father, 1st US President, ‘Father of the Country’

Thomas Jefferson:

“The Earth Belongs in Usufruct to the Living” The Papers of Thomas Jefferson, Volume 15: 27 March 1789 to 30 November 1789 (Princeton University Press, 1958, p. 384-91): https://jeffersonpapers.princeton.edu/selected-documents/earth-belongs-usufruct-living … https://img.sauf.ca/pictures/2015-11-28/28d4ba1de9a4ef58fddb7da21c2bc433.pdf … “that the earth belongs in usufruct to the living: that the dead have neither powers nor … The Virginia Quarterly Review, 1976 http://search.proquest.com/openview/9e2666002b6e0d67ef6d705d00e73920/1?pq-origsite=gscholar&cbl=1816442

“

The earth belongs to the living. No man can, by natural right, oblige the lands he occupied or the persons who succeed him in that occupation, to the payment of debts contracted by him. For if he could, he might, during his own life, eat up the use of the lands for several generations to come, and then the lands would belong to the dead, and not to the living. No generation can contract debts greater than may be paid during the course of its own existence.” http://www.azquotes.com/quote/962084

“Then I say the earth belongs to each . . . generation during its course, fully and in its own right, no generation can contract debts greater than may be paid during the course of its own existence.” — Thomas Jefferson, Letter to James Madison, September 6, 1789 http://etext.virginia.edu/jefferson/quotations/jeff1340.htm

“If the American people ever allow the banks to control the issuance of their currency, first by inflation, and then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around them will deprive the people of all property, until their children wake up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered. The issuing power of money should be taken from banks and restored to Congress and the people to whom it belongs. I sincerely believe the banking institutions having the issuing power of money, are more dangerous to liberty than standing armies.” —Thomas Jefferson

“The judiciary of the United States is the subtle corps of sappers and miners constantly working under ground to undermine the foundations of our confederated fabric. They are construing our constitution from a coordination of a general and special government to a general and supreme one alone.” http://www.independentamerican.org/2009/08/14/kahre-convicted-on-all-counts/

“Those who hammer their guns into plows will plow for those who do not.” Thomas Jefferson, (1743-1826) US Founding Father, drafted the Declaration of Independence, 3rd US President: Source: Note in Tracy’s “Political Economy,” 1816 http://quotes.liberty-tree.ca/quote_blog/Thomas.Jefferson.Quote.85CF

“No free man shall ever be debarred the use of arms.” — Thomas Jefferson

“The strongest reason for the people to retain the right to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in government.” — Thomas Jefferson

“The constitutions of most of our States assert that all power is inherent in the people; that… it is their right and duty to be at all times armed.” —Thomas Jefferson to John Cartwright, 1824.

“One loves to possess arms, though they hope never to have occasion for them.” —Thomas Jefferson to George Washington, 1796. ME 9:341

“A strong body makes the mind strong. As to the species of exercises, I advise the gun. While this gives a moderate exercise to the Body, it gives boldness, enterprise, and independence to the mind . . . Let your gun therefore be the constant companion of your walks.” —Thomas Jefferson, Letter to his nephew Peter Carr, August 19, 1785.

“No freeman shall be debarred the use of arms (within his own lands or tenements).” —Thomas Jefferson: Draft Virginia Constitution with (his note added), 1776. Papers, 1:353

“Laws that forbid the carrying of arms . . . disarm only those who are neither inclined nor determined to commit crimes . . . Such laws make things worse for the assaulted and better for the assailants; they serve rather to encourage than to prevent homicides, for an unarmed man may be attacked with greater confidence than an armed man.” —Thomas Jefferson, quoting Cesare Beccaria in On Crimes and Punishment (1764).

“The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.” — Thomas Jefferson

“If people let government decide what foods they eat and what medicines they take, their bodies will soon be in as sorry a state as are the souls of those who live under tyranny.” – Thomas Jefferson

“If we are to guard against ignorance and remain free, it is the responsibility of every American to be informed.” — Thomas Jefferson;

“When we get piled upon one another in large cities, as in Europe, we shall become as corrupt as Europe.” — Thomas Jefferson

“Laws provide against injury from others, but not from ourselves.” — Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826), US Founding Father, drafted the Declaration of Independence, 3rd US President Source: Notes on Religion http://quotes.liberty-tree.ca/quote_blog/Thomas.Jefferson.Quote.4094

“The democracy will cease to exist when you take away from those who are willing to work and give to those who would not.” — Thomas Jefferson

“It is incumbent on every generation to pay its own debts as it goes. A principle which if acted on would save one-half the wars of the world.” — Thomas Jefferson

“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.” — Thomas Jefferson

“My reading of history convinces me that most bad government results from too much government.” — Thomas Jefferson

“To compel a man to subsidize with his taxes the propagation of ideas which he disbelieves and abhors is sinful and tyrannical.” — Thomas Jefferson

“The system of banking [is] a blot left in all our Constitutions, which, if not covered, will end in their destruction… I sincerely believe that banking institutions are more dangerous than standing armies; and that the principle of spending money to be paid by posterity… is but swindling futurity on a large scale.” — Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826)

“By a declaration of rights, I mean one which shall stipulate freedom of religion, freedom of the press, freedom of commerce against monopolies, trial by juries in all cases, no suspensions of the habeas corpus, no standing armies. These are fetters against doing evil which no honest government should decline.” — Thomas Jefferson(1743-1826)

“I consider the foundation of the Constitution as laid on this ground that ‘all powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are preserved to the states or to the people.’ … To take a single step beyond the boundaries thus specially drawn around the powers of Congress is to take possession of a boundless field of power, no longer susceptible of any definition. The incorporation of a bank, and the powers assumed by this bill (chartering the first Bank of the United States), have not, been delegated to the United States by the Constitution.” — Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826),

“A government big enough to give you everything you want, is strong enough to take everything you have.” Thomas Jefferson,

“The system of banking we have both equally and ever reprobated. I contemplate it as a blot left in all our constitutions, which, if not covered, will end in their destruction, which is already hit by the gamblers in corruption, and is sweeping away in its progress the fortunes and morals of our citizens. Funding I consider as limited, rightfully, to a redemption of the debt within the lives of a majority of the generation contracting it; every generation coming equally, by the laws of the Creator of the world, to the free possession of the earth he made for their subsistence, unincumbered by their predecessors, who, like them, were but tenants for life.” ~ Thomas Jefferson, (1743-1826), drafted the Declaration of Independence, 3rd U.S. President, referring to the First Bank of the United States whose charter was not renewed in 1811.

“God who gave us life gave us liberty. And can the liberties of a nation be thought secure if we have removed their only firm basis: a conviction in the minds of men that these liberties are the gift of God? That they are not to be violated but with His wrath? Indeed, I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just; that His justice cannot sleep forever.”
— Thomas Jefferson

“It is as useless to argue with those who have renounced the use and authority of reason as to administer medication to the dead.” — Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826);

“To take from one because it is thought that his own industry and that of his father’s has acquired too much, in order to spare to others, who, or whose fathers have not exercised equal industry and skill, is to violate arbitrarily the first principle of association — the guarantee to every one of a free exercise of his industry and the fruits acquired by it.”– Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826), US Founding Father, drafted the Declaration of Independence, 3rd US President: Source: Note in Tracy’s “Political Economy,” 1816 http://quotes.liberty-tree.ca/quote_blog/Thomas.Jefferson.Quote.85CF

“We have the greatest opportunity the world has ever seen, as long as we remain honest — which will be as long as we can keep the attention of our people alive. If they once become inattentive to public affairs, you and I, and Congress and Assemblies, judges and governors would all become wolves.” ~ Thomas Jefferson, (1743-1826), drafted the Declaration of Independence, 3rd U.S. President

“I think our governments will remain virtuous for many centuries as long as they are chiefly agricultural; and this will be as long as there shall be vacant lands in any part of America. When they get piled upon one another in large cities as in Europe, they will become corrupt as in Europe.” — Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826), US Founding Father, drafted the Declaration of Independence, 3rd US President Source: letter to James Madison, 1787. Papers 12:442

“

The strongest reason for the people to retain the right to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against the tyranny in government.” —Thomas Jefferson

“It is as useless to argue with those who have renounced the use and authority of reason as to administer medication to the dead.” — Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826),

A wise and frugal government, which shall leave men free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned – this is the sum of good government. –Thomas Jefferson

We have the greatest opportunity the world has ever seen, as long as we remain honest — which will be as long as we can keep the attention of our people alive. If they once become inattentive to public affairs, you and I, and Congress and Assemblies, judges and governors would all become wolves. –Thomas Jefferson

An informed citizenry is the bulwark of a democracy. –Thomas Jefferson

All tyranny needs to gain a foothold is for people of good conscience to remain silent. –Thomas Jefferson

The price of freedom is eternal vigilance. –Thomas Jefferson

A democracy is nothing more than mob rule, where fifty-one percent of the people may take away the rights of the other forty-nine. — Thomas Jefferson

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

“I know no safe depository of the ultimate powers of the society but the people themselves; and if we think them not enlightened enough to exercise their control with a wholesome discretion, the remedy is not to take it from them, but to inform their discretion by education. This is the true corrective of abuses of constitutional power.” —Thomas Jefferson, letter to William Charles Jarvis, 1820

“I have sworn upon the altar of God, eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man.” — Thomas Jefferson

“For a people who are free and who mean to remain so, a well-organized and armed militia is their best security. It is, therefore, incumbent on us at every meeting [of Congress] to revise the condition of the militia and to ask ourselves if it is prepared to repel a powerful enemy at every point of our territories exposed to invasion… Congress alone have power to produce a uniform state of preparation in this great organ of defense. The interests which they so deeply feel in their own and their country’s security will present this as among the most important objects of their deliberation.” —Thomas Jefferson: 8th Annual Message, 1808. ME 3:482

“None but an armed nation can dispense with a standing army. To keep ours armed and disciplined is therefore at all times important.” –Thomas Jefferson, 1803. “It is more a subject of joy [than of regret] that we have so few of the desperate characters which compose modern regular armies. But it proves more forcibly the necessity of obliging every citizen to be a soldier; this was the case with the Greeks and Romans and must be that of every free State. Where there is no oppression there can be no pauper hirelings.” —Thomas Jefferson to James Monroe, 1813.

“A well-disciplined militia, our best reliance in peace and for the first moments of war till regulars may relieve them, I deem [one of] the essential principles of our Government, and consequently [one of] those which ought to shape its administration.” —Thomas Jefferson: 1st Inaugural, 1801.

“[The] governor [is] constitutionally the commander of the militia of the State, that is to say, of every man in it able to bear arms.” —Thomas Jefferson to A. L. C. Destutt de Tracy, 1811.

“Uncertain as we must ever be of the particular point in our circumference where an enemy may choose to invade us, the only force which can be ready at every point and competent to oppose them, is the body of neighboring citizens as formed into a militia. On these, collected from the parts most convenient, in numbers proportioned to the invading foe, it is best to rely, not only to meet the first attack, but if it threatens to be permanent, to maintain the defence until regulars may be engaged to relieve them.” —Thomas Jefferson: 1st Annual Message, 1801. ME 3:334

“We must train and classify the whole of our male citizens, and make military instruction a regular part of collegiate education. We can never be safe till this is done.” —Thomas Jefferson to James Monroe, 1813.

“I think the truth must now be obvious that our people are too happy at home to enter into regular service, and that we cannot be defended but by making every citizen a soldier, as the Greeks and Romans who had no standing armies; and that in doing this all must be marshaled, classed by their ages, and every service ascribed to its competent class.” —Thomas Jefferson to John Wayles Eppes, 1814. On Civil Rights

“Government is instituted to protect property of every sort; as well that which lies in the various rights of individuals, as that which the term particularly expresses. This being the end of government, that alone is a just government which impartially secures to every man whatever is his own.” — James Madison, Essay on Property, 1792

“A pure democracy … can admit no cure for the mischiefs of faction. A common passion or interest will, in almost every case, be felt by a majority, and there is nothing to check the inducements to sacrifice the weaker party… Hence it is that democracies have ever been found incompatible with personal security or the rights of property; and have, in general, been as short in their lives as they have been violent in their deaths.” — James Madison(1751-1836), Father of the Constitution for the USA, 4th US President Source: James Madison, Federalist No. 10 http://quotes.liberty-tree.ca/quote_blog/James.Madison.Quote.5A47

“A popular government without popular information, or the means of acquiring it, is but a prologue to a Farce or a Tragedy, or perhaps both.” — James Madison (1751-1836),

“The means of defense against foreign danger historically have become the instruments of tyranny at home.” — James Madison (1751-1836), Father of the Constitution for the USA, 4th US President

“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 (1751-1836), Father of the Constitution for the USA, 4th US President Source: letter to Thomas Jefferson (Oct. 17, 1788), THE PAPERS OF THOMAS JEFFERSON 19 (Julian P. Boyd ed., 1958). http://quotes.liberty-tree.ca/quote_blog/James.Madison.Quote.7C69

“The Constitution supposes, what the history of all governments demonstrates, that the executive is the branch of government most interested in war, and most prone to it. It has accordingly with studied care, vested the question of war
in the legislature.” — James Madison (1751-1836), Father of the Constitution for the USA, 4th US President Source: in an April 2, 1798 letter to Thomas Jefferson.

“There is no maxim, in my opinion, which is more liable to be misapplied, and which, therefore, more needs elucidation, than the current, that the interest of the majority is the political standard of right and wrong.” —James Madison (1751-1836), Father of the Constitution for the USA, 4th US President

“It is very certain that [the commerce clause] grew out of the abuse of the power by the importing States in taxing the non-importing, and was intended as a negative and preventive provision against injustice among the States themselves, rather than as a power to be used for the positive purposes of the General Government.” — James Madison (1751-1836), Father of the Constitution for the USA, 4th US President Source: letter dated February 13, 1829

Since the general civilization of mankind, I believe there are more instances of the abridgment of the freedom of the people, by gradual and silent encroachments of those in power, than by violent and sudden usurpations. –James Madison

Oppressors can tyrannize only when they achieve a standing army, an enslaved press, and a disarmed populace. — James Madison

All men having power ought to be distrusted to a certain degree. — James Madison

“Fear is the foundation of most governments; but it is so sordid and brutal a passion, and renders men in whose breasts it predominates so stupid and miserable, that Americans will not be likely to approve of any political institution which is founded on it.” John Adams (1735-1826) Founding Father, 2nd US President Source:Thoughts on Government, 1776 http://quotes.liberty-tree.ca/quote_blog/John.Adams.Quote.80AE

“There are two ways to enslave a country … One is by the sword. The other is by debt.” — John Adams

“Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.” — John Adams

“Liberty cannot be preserved without a general knowledge among the people, who have… a right, an indisputable, unalienable, indefeasible, divine right to that most dreaded and envied kind of knowledge, I mean the characters and conduct of their rulers.” — John Adams (1735-1826) Founding Father, 2nd US President

In my many years I have come to a conclusion that one useless man is a shame, two is a law firm and three or more is a congress.– John Adams

But what do we mean by the American Revolution? Do we mean the American war? The Revolution was effected before the war commenced. The Revolution was in the minds and hearts of the people; a change in their religious sentiments, of their duties and obligations…This radical change in the principles, opinions, sentiments, and affections of the people was the real American Revolution. –John Adams

Facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, or the dictates of our passion, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence. –John Adams

“The Revolution was effected before the War commenced. The Revolution was in the minds and hearts of the people … This radical change in the principles, opinions, sentiments, and affections of the people, was the real American Revolution.” ~ John Adams (1735-1826) 2nd U.S. President

“He who works with his hands is a laborer. He who works with his hands and his head is a craftsman. He who works with his hands and his head and his heart is an artist.” — Louis Nizer