Sunday, November 15, 2009
Quotes that Define America.
"A pure democracy is a society consisting of a small number of citizens, who assemble and administer the government in person."
-James Madison
"Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide."
-John Adams
"A well regulated militia, composed of the body of the people, trained in arms, is the best most natural defense of a free country."(But you can only use them to kill deer.)
-James Madison
"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."
-James Madison
"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."
-James Madison
"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."
-James Madison
"The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted."
-James Madison
"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 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
"The happiness of society is the end of government."
-John Adams
"Let not him who is houseless pull down the house of another, but let him work diligently and build one for himself, thus by example assuring that his own shall be safe from violence when built."
-Abraham Lincoln
"Every citizen should be a soldier. This was the case with the Greeks and Romans, and must be that of every free state."
-Thomas Jefferson
"That government is best which governs the least, because its people discipline themselves."
-Thomas Jefferson
"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
"The republican is the only form of government which is not eternally at open or secret war with the rights of mankind."
-Thomas Jefferson
"The spirit of resistance to government is so valuable on certain occasions that I wish it to be always kept alive." (Unless it is Obama)
-Thomas Jefferson
"When the people fear their government, there is tyranny; when the government fears the people, there is liberty."
-Thomas Jefferson
"I sincerely believe... that the principle of spending money to be paid by posterity under the name of funding is but swindling futurity on a large scale."
-Thomas Jefferson
"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."
-Thomas Jefferson
"Government big enough to supply everything you need is big enough to take everything you have ... The course of history shows that as a government grows, liberty decreases." (With the passing of the health care bill the federal government will have seized nearly HALF of our private economy.)
-Thomas Jefferson
"Was the government to prescribe to us our medicine and diet, our bodies would be in such keeping as our souls are now."
-Thomas Jefferson
"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
"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."(If this isn't a perfect description of our current government I don't know what is.)
-Thomas Jefferson
"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
"The Constitution is not an instrument for the government to restrain the people, it is an instrument for the people to restrain the government - lest it come to dominate our lives and interests."
-Patrick Henry
"This country, with its institutions, belongs to the people who inhabit it. Whenever they shall grow weary of the existing government they can exercise their constitutional right of amending it or their revolutionary right to dismember or overthrow it."
-Abraham Lincoln
"Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other."
-John Adams
These principles are the exact OPPOSITE of what our current politicians in power believe. In 1776, you would have been considered a patriot for showing resistance to the government. Today you are a racist "teabagger" "anti-government person" as Obama so eloquently put it. Everything Obama and this Democratic government does and says is in direct opposition to the original intent of the Founding Fathers to keep government out of our lives. Their whole basis of belief is counter to that of the Constitution. On one side we have contempt, mistrust, and borderline hatred towards the institution of government. On the other we have two parties (mainly the Dumbocrats) totally infatuated with it like a child with a fascinating red balloon, determined for it to expand and thinking it will make everyone happy. Blah. I don't think 2010 can get here soon enough!
I have never read a more brilliant and relevant collection of quotes at one time in my life. BRAVO.
ReplyDeleteAlso! Thanks for the positive feedback at The Lonely Conservative, RE: my recent Diversity Lane cartoon. Feel free to explore some more at my blog, www.diversitylane.wordpress.com and also at my website, www.diversitylane.com . I'll do the same here...
Hack!
ReplyDeleteI admit it: I am envious that you did this particular blog topic.
Great stuff, great research, and very, very usable and relevant quotes.
You rock, Hack!
Thanks to the both of you! Beat you to it, eh? With the abundance of quotes and writings by our great Founding Fathers that contradict everything the current administration believes in, I'm sure there are hundreds more out there!
ReplyDelete"The Constitution is not an instrument for the government to restrain the people, it is an instrument for the people to restrain the government - lest it come to dominate our lives and interests."
ReplyDelete-Patrick Henry
This one says it all, no others are necessary!
"This country, with its institutions, belongs to the people who inhabit it. Whenever they shall grow weary of the existing government they can exercise their constitutional right of amending it or their revolutionary right to dismember or overthrow it."
ReplyDelete-Abraham Lincoln
I have a great deal of respect for Lincoln, though he was NOT the saint some try to portray him as being. This quote, however, seems particularly hypocritical coming from his lips.