Quotes by Founding Fathers - Page 3

It is only the fear of God that can deliver us from the fear of men.
John Witherspoon
I hope I shall always possess firmness and virtue enough to maintain what I consider the most enviable of all titles the character of an "Honest Man."
George Washington
God heals and the doctor takes the fee.
Ben Franklin
There never was a good war or a bad peace.
Benjamin Franklin
Take time for all things.
Benjamin Franklin
Love your Enemies, for they tell you your Faults.
Benjamin Franklin
You may delay, but time will not.
Benjamin Franklin
Success has ruined many a man.
Benjamin Franklin
If you would not be forgotten, as soon as you are dead and rotten, either write things worth reading, or do things worth writing.
Benjamin Franklin
Few men have virtue to withstand the highest bidder.
George Washington
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 the 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
Be slow in choosing a friend slower in changing.
Benjamin Franklin
Keep your eyes wide open before marriage, half shut afterwards.
Benjamin Franklin
One today is worth two tomorrows.
Benjamin Franklin
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
Associate with men of good quality if you esteem your own reputation for it is better to be alone than in bad company.
George Washington
I am for doing good to the poor, but...I think the best way of doing good to the poor, is not making them easy in poverty, but leading or driving them out of it. I observed...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.
Benjamin Franklin
Were I a Roman Catholic, perhaps I should on this occasion vow to build a chapel to some saint, but as I am not, if I were to vow at all, it should be to build a light-house.[Letter to his wife, 17 July 1757, after narrowly avoiding a shipwreck; often misquoted as "Lighthouses are more helpful than churches."]
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. They serve to organize faction, to give it an artificial and extraordinary force; to put, in the place of the delegated will of the nation the will of a party, often a small but artful and enterprising minority of the community; and, according to the alternate triumphs of different parties, to make the public administration the mirror of the ill-concerted and incongruous projects of faction, rather than the organ of consistent and wholesome plans digested by common counsels and modified by mutual interests.
George Washington
Who is rich? He that rejoices in his portion.
Benjamin Franklin
I hold the maxim no less applicable to public than to private affairs, that honesty is always the best policy.
George Washington
It has often given my pleasure to observe, that independent America was not composed of detached and distant territories, but that one connected fertile, wide-spreading country was the portion of our western sons of liberty. Providence has in a particular manner blessed it with a variety of soils and productions, and watered it with innumerable streams, for the delight and accommodation of its inhabitants. A succession of navigable waters form a kind of chain round its borders, as if to bind them together; while the most noble rivers in the world, running at convenient distances, present them with highways for the easy communication of friendly aids, and the mutual transportation of their various ties. With equal pleasure I have as often taken notice, that Providence has been pleased to give us this one connected country to one united people -a people descended from the same ancestors, speaking the same language, professing the same religion, attached to the same principles of government, very similar in their manners and customs, and who, by they their joint counsels, arms, and efforts, fighting side by side throughout a long and bloody war, have nobly established general liberty and independence.
John Jay
The proud hate pride - in others.
Benjamin Franklin
LIBERTY, when it begins to take root, is a plant of rapid growth.
George Washington
Tell me and I forget, teach me and I may remember, involve me and I learn.
Benjamin Franklin
Three may keep a secret, if two of them are dead.
Benjamin Franklin
Experience teaches us that it is much easier to prevent an enemy from posting themselves than it is to dislodge them after they have got possession.
George Washington
...as I am not fond of giving advice,having seldom seen it taken
Benjamin Franklin
Promote, then, as an object of primary importance, institutions for the general diffusion of knowledge. In proportion as the structure of a government gives force to public opinion, it is essential that public opinion should be enlightened.
George Washington
The purpose of separation of church and state is to keep forever from these shores the ceaseless strife that has soaked the soil of Europe in blood for cent
James Madison
Resistance to tyrants is obedience to God.
Benjamin Franklin
He who can have patience can have what he will.
Benjamin Franklin
My movements to the chair of government will be accompanied by feelings not unlike those of a culprit who is going to the place of his execution.
George Washington
The government of the United States is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion.
George Washington
To be thrown upon one's own resources is to be cast into the very lap of fortune for our faculties then undergo a development and display an energy of which they were previously unsusceptible.
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
If principle is good for anything it is worth living up to.
Benjamin Franklin
Liberty may be endangered by the abuses of liberty as well as by the abuses of power.
James Madison
The U.S. Constitution doesn't guarantee happiness only the pursuit of it. You have to catch up with it yourself.
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
Being ignorant is not so much a shame, as being unwilling to learn.
Benjamin Franklin
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
Thirteen virtues necessary for true success: temperance silence order resolution frugality industry sincerity justice moderation cleanliness tranquility chastity and humility.
Benjamin Franklin
The great rule of conduct for us, in regard to foreign nations, is, in extending our commercial relations, to have with them as little political connection as possible.
George Washington
You can bear your own faults and why not a fault in your wife?
Benjamin Franklin
Genius is nothing but a greater aptitude for patience.
Benjamin Franklin
Imitate Jesus and Socrates
Benjamin Franklin
An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.
Benjamin Franklin
Freedom is not a gift bestowed upon us by other men, but a right that belongs to us by the laws of God and nature.
Benjamin Franklin
Those things that hurt instruct.
Benjamin Franklin
I conceive a knowledge of books is the basis upon which other knowledge is to be built.
George Washington
Great beauty, great strength, and great riches are really and truly of no great use; a right heart exceeds all
Benjamin Franklin
If you want a thing done go - if not send.
Benjamin Franklin
A primary object should be the education of our youth in the science of government. In a republic, what species of knowledge can be equally important? And what duty more pressing than communicating it to those who are to be the future guardians of the liberties of the country?
George Washington
We must all hang together or assuredly we shall hang separately.
Benjamin Franklin
You may delay but time will not.
Benjamin Franklin
In politics as in philosophy, my tenets are few and simple. The leading one of which, and indeed that which embraces most others, is to be honest and just ourselves and to exact it from others, meddling as little as possible in their affairs where our own are not involved. If this maxim was generally adopted, wars would cease and our swords would soon be converted into reap hooks and our harvests be more peaceful, abundant, and happy.
George Washington
We must all hang together else we shalFall hang separately.
Benjamin Franklin
In no instance have the churches been guardians of the liberties of the people.
James Madison
Do not squander time for that is the stuff life is made of.
Benjamin Franklin