submitted by jwithrow.
For your reading pleasure, here is a compilation of pertinent quotes from the first four American Presidents in honor of Presidents’ Day.
George Washington:
- “If the freedom of speech is taken away then dumb and silent we may be led, like sheep to the slaughter.”
- “Government is not reason; it is not eloquent; it is force. Like fire, it is a dangerous servant and a fearful master.”
- “The very atmosphere of firearms anywhere and everywhere restrains evil interference – they deserve a place of honor with all that’s good.”
- “The marvel of all history is the patience with which men and women submit to burdens unnecessarily laid upon them by their governments.”
- “Happiness and moral duty are inseparably connected.”
- “It will be found an unjust and unwise jealousy to deprive a man of his natural liberty upon the supposition he may abuse it.”
- “Truth will ultimately prevail where there is pains to bring it to light.”
- “Labor to keep alive in your breast that little spark of celestial fire, called conscience.”
- “Over grown military establishments are under any form of government inauspicious to liberty, and are to be regarded as particularly hostile to republican liberty.”
- “Observe good faith and justice toward all nations. Cultivate peace and harmony with all.”
John Adams:
- “Facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, or the dictates of our passions, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence.”
- “All the perplexities, confusions, and distress in America arise, not from defects in their constitution or confederation, not from want of honor or virtue, so much as from the downright ignorance of the nature of coin, credit, and circulation.”
- “Democracy… while it lasts is more bloody than either aristocracy or monarchy. Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There is never a democracy that did not commit suicide.”
- “Power always thinks… that it is doing God’s service when it is violating all his laws.”
- “Liberty cannot be preserved without general knowledge among the people.”
- “Abuse of words has been the great instrument of sophistry and chicanery, of party, faction, and division of society.”
- “Fear is the foundation of most governments.”
- “Liberty, according to my metaphysics is a self-determining power in an intellectual agent. It implies thought and choice and power.”
Thomas Jefferson:
- “If we can but prevent the government from wasting the labours of the people, under the pretence of taking care of them, they must become happy.”
- “I never considered a difference of opinion in politics, in religion, in philosophy, as cause for withdrawing from a friend.”
- “Honesty is the first chapter in the book of wisdom.”
- “Nothing can stop the man with the right mental attitude from achieving his goal; nothing on earth can help the man with the wrong mental attitude.”
- “The glow of one warm thought is to me worth more than money.”
- “I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies.”
- “Experience hath shewn, that even under the best forms of government those entrusted with power have, in time, and by slow operations, perverted it into tyranny.”
- “Our greatest happiness does not depend on the condition of life in which chance has placed us, but is always the result of a good conscience, good health, occupation, and freedom in all just pursuits.”
- “To compel a man to furnish funds for the propagation of ideas he disbelieves and abhors is sinful and tyrannical.”
- “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.”
- “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.”
James Madison:
- “If Tyranny and Oppression come to this land, it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy.”
- “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.”
- “Americans have the right and advantage of being armed – unlike the citizens of other countries whose governments are afraid to trust the people with arms.”
- “I believe there are more instances of the abridgement of freedom of the people by gradual and silent encroachments by those in power than by violent and sudden usurpations.”
- “No nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare.”
- “The means of defense against foreign danger historically have become the instruments of tyranny at home.”
- “Where an excess of power prevails, property of no sort is duly respected. No man is safe in his opinions, his person, his faculties, or his possessions.”
- “In Republics, the great danger is, that the majority may not sufficiently respect the rights of the minority.”