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The USI College Republicans is proud to tear up
the liberal argument, one idea at a time. You can quote us on that. On
this page, you will find quotes from our Founding Fathers, preeminent
conservatives, historical Americans, Presidents, et al.
"The preservation of the sacred fire
of liberty, and the destiny of the republican model of government, are
justly considered as deeply, perhaps as finally staked, on the experiment
entrusted to the hands of the American people."
- George Washington
First Inaugural Address, April 30, 1789
"Arbitrary power is most easily established
on the ruins of liberty abused to licentiousness."
- George Washington
Circular to the States, May 9, 1753
"Every post is honorable in which a man
can serve his country."
- George Washington
Letter to Benedict Arnold, September 14,
1775
"While we are zealously performing the
duties of good citizens and soldiers, we certainly ought not to be inattentive
to the higher duties of religion. To the distinguished character of Patriot,
it should be our highest glory to add the more distinguished character
of Christian."
- George Washington
General Orders, May 2, 1778
Published in Writings of George Washington (1932), Vol.XI, pp. 342-343
"Example, whether it be good or bad,
has a powerful influence."
- George Washington
Letter to Lord Stirling, March 5, 1780
"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
Address to officers of the Army, March 15,
1783
"The General hopes and trusts that every
officer and man will endeavor to live and act as becomes a Christian soldier
defending the dearest rights and liberties of his country."
- George Washington
General Order, (9 July 1776)
George Washington Papers at the Library of
Congress, 1741-1799: Series 3g Varick Transcripts
"Hence, likewise, they will avoid the
necessity of those overgrown military establishments, which, under any
form of government, are inauspicious to liberty, and which are to be regarded
as particularly hostile to Republican Liberty. In this sense it is, that
your Union ought to be considered as a main prop of your liberty, and
that the love of the one ought to endear to you the preservation of the
other."
- George Washington
Farewell Address, September 17, 1796
"Interwoven as is the love of liberty
with every ligament of your hearts, no recommendation of mine is necessary
to fortify or confirm the attachment. The unity of Government, which constitutes
you one people, is also now dear to you. It is justly so; for it is a
main pillar in the edifice of your real independence, the support of your
tranquillity at home, your peace abroad; of your safety; of your prosperity;
of that very Liberty, which you so highly prize."
- George Washington
Farewell Address, September 17, 1796
"Let us therefore animate and encourage
each other, and show the whole world that a Freeman, contending for liberty
on his own ground, is superior to any slavish mercenary on earth."
- George Washington
General Orders, Headquarters, New York, July
2, 1776
"The basis of our political systems is
the right of the people to make and to alter their Constitutions of Government.
But the Constitution which at any time exists, till changed by an explicit
and authentic act of the whole people, is sacredly obligatory upon all.
The very idea of the power and the right of the people to establish Government
presupposes the duty of every individual to obey the established Government."
- George Washington
Farewell Address, September 17, 1796
"Of all the dispositions and habits,
which lead to political prosperity, Religion and Morality are indispensable
supports. In vain would that man claim the tribute of Patriotism, who
should labor to subvert these great pillars of human happiness, these
firmest props of the duties of Men and Citizens. The mere Politician,
equally with the pious man, ought to respect and to cherish them. A volume
could not trace all their connexions with private and public felicity."
- George Washington
Farewell Address, September 17, 1796
"To be prepared for war is one of the most effectual means of preserving
peace."
- George Washington
First Annual Address to both Houses of Congress,
January 8, 1790
"'Tis our true policy to steer clear of permanent alliances with
any portion of the foreign world; so far, I mean, as we are now at liberty
to do it; for let me not be understood as capable of patronizing infidelity
to existing engagements. I hold the maxim no less applicable to public
than to private affairs, that honesty is always the best policy. I repeat
it, therefore, let those engagements be observed in their genuine sense.
But, in my opinion, it is unnecessary and would be unwise to extend them."
- George Washington
Farewell Address, September 17, 1796
"A standing military force, with an overgrown
Executive will not long be safe companions to liberty."
- James Madison
Speech at the Constitutional Convention,
June 29, 1787
"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; but, on a candid examination of history,
we shall find that turbulence, violence, and abuse of power, by the majority
trampling on the rights of the minority, have produced factions and commotions,
which, in republics, have, more frequently than any other cause, produced
despotism. If we go over the whole history of ancient and modern republics,
we shall find their destruction to have generally resulted from those
causes."
- James Madison
Speech at the Virginia Convention to ratify
the Federal Constitution, June 6, 1788
"Wherever the real power in a Government
lies, there is the danger of oppression."
- James Madison
Letter to Thomas Jefferson, October 17, 1788
"I cannot undertake to lay my finger
on that article of the Constitution which granted a right to Congress
of expending, on objects of benevolence, the money of their constituents."
- James Madison
Annals of Congress, House of Representatives,
3rd Congress, 1st Session, page 170, January 10, 1794
"The government of the United States
is a definite government, confined to specified objects. It is not like
the state governments, whose powers are more general. Charity is no part
of the legislative duty of the government."
- James Madison
Speech on the Floor of the House of Representatives,
January 10, 1794
"Of all the enemies to public liberty
war is, perhaps, the most to be dreaded, because it comprises and develops
the germ of every other. War is the parent of armies; from these proceed
debts and taxes; and armies, and debts, and taxes are the known instruments
for bringing the many under the domination of the few. In war, too, the
discretionary power of the Executive is extended; its influence in dealing
out offices, honors, and emoluments is multiplied; and all the means of
seducing the minds, are added to those of subduing the force, of the people.
The same malignant aspect in republicanism may be traced in the inequality
of fortunes, and the opportunities of fraud, growing out of a state of
war, and in the degeneracy of manners and of morals engendered by both.
No nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare."
- James Madison
"Political Observations", April 20, 1795
"Perhaps it is a universal truth that
the loss of liberty at home is to be charged against provisions against
danger, real or pretended from abroad."
- James Madison
Letter to Thomas Jefferson, May 13, 1798
"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 reserved
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, have
not, in my opinion, been delegated to the United States, by the Constitution...
They are not among the powers specially enumerated..."
- Thomas Jefferson
Opinion on creating a National Bank, 1791
Quoted in The Writings of Thomas Jefferson "Memorial Edition" (20 Vols.,
1903-04) edited by Andrew A. Lipscomb and Albert Ellery Bergh, Vol. 3,
p. 146
"The republican is the only form
of government which is not eternally at open or secret war with the rights
of mankind."
- Thomas Jefferson
Letter to William Hunter, March 11, 1790
"I think myself that we have more machinery of government than is
necessary, too many parasites living on the labor of the industrious."
- Thomas Jefferson
Letter to William Ludlow, September 6, 1824
"Delay is preferable to error."
- Thomas Jefferson
Letter to George Washington, May 16, 1792
"Nothing can now be believed which is
seen in a newspaper. Truth itself becomes suspicious by being put into
that polluted vehicle."
- Thomas Jefferson
Letter to John Norvell, June 11, 1807
"The care of human life and happiness,
and not their destruction, is the first and only legitimate object of
good government."
- Thomas Jefferson
"To the Republican Citizens of Washington
County, Maryland", March 31, 1809
"It was
by the sober sense of our citizens that we were safely and steadily conducted
from monarchy to republicanism, and it is by the same agency alone we
can be kept from falling back."
- Thomas Jefferson
Letter to Arthur Campbell, 1797
"It has always been denied by the republican
party in this country, that the Constitution had given the power of incorporation
to Congress. On the establishment of the Bank of the United States, this
was the great ground on which that establishment was combated; and the
party prevailing supported it only on the argument of its being an incident
to the power given them for raising money."
- Thomas Jefferson
Letter to Dr. Maese, 1809
ME 12:231 : The Writings of Thomas Jefferson "Memorial Edition" (20 Vols.,
1903-04) edited by Andrew A. Lipscomb and Albert Ellery Bergh, Vol. 12,
p. 231; also quoted at "Thomas Jefferson on Politics & Government : Money
& Banking" at University of Virginia.
"I, however, place economy among the
first and most important republican virtues, and public debt as the greatest
of the dangers to be feared."
- Thomas Jefferson
Letter to William Plumer, July 21, 1816
"We may say with truth and meaning that
governments are more or less republican, as they have more or less of
the element of popular election and control in their composition; and
believing, as I do, that the mass of the citizens is the safest depository
of their own rights, and especially, that the evils flowing from the duperies
of the people are less injurious than those from the egoism of their agents,
I am a friend to that composition of government which has in it the most
of this ingredient. And I sincerely believe, with you, that banking establishments
are more dangerous than standing armies; and 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
Letter to John Taylor, May 28, 1816
"Still one thing more, fellow citizens
— a wise and frugal government, which shall restrain men from injuring
one another, which shall leave them otherwise 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,
and this is necessary to close the circle of our felicities."
- Thomas Jefferson
First Inaugural Address, March 4, 1801
"Equal and exact justice to all men,
of whatever state or persuasion, religious or political; peace, commerce,
and honest friendship with all nations, entangling alliances with none...Freedom
of religion; freedom of the press, and freedom of person under the protection
of the habeus corpus, and trial by juries impartially selected. These
principles form the bright constellation which has gone before us, and
guided our steps through an age of revolution and reformation. The wisdom
of our sages and the blood of our heroes have been devoted to their attainment.
They should be the creed of our political faith, the text of civil instruction,
the touchstone by which we try the services of those we trust; and should
we wander from them in moments of error or alarm, let us hasten to retrace
our steps and to regain the road which alone leads to peace, liberty,
and safety."
- Thomas Jefferson
First Inaugural Address, March 4, 1801
"You seem to consider the federal judges
as the ultimate arbiters of all constitutional questions, a very dangerous
doctrine, indeed, and one which would place us under the despotism of
an oligarchy. Our judges are as honest as other men, and not more so.
They have with others the same passions for the party, for power and the
privilege of the corps. Their power is the more dangerous, as they are
in office for life and not responsible, as the other functionaries are,
to the elective control. The Constitution has erected no such single tribunal,
knowing that to whatever hands confided, with the corruptions of time
and party, its members would become despots. It has more wisely made all
departments co-equal and co-sovereign within themselves."
- Thomas Jefferson
Letter to William C. Jarvis, 1820
"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
Letter to John Taylor, May 15, 1814
"Our obligations to our country never
cease but with our lives."
- John Adams
Letter to Benjamin Rush, April 18, 1808
"We have no government armed with power
capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion.
Avarice, ambition, revenge, or gallantry, would break the strongest cords
of our Constitution as a whale goes through a net. Our Constitution was
made only for a religious and moral people. It is wholly inadequate for
the government of any other."
- John Adams
Letter to the Officers of the First Brigade
of the Third Division of the Militia of Massachusetts, October 11, 1798
"I am well aware of the Toil and Blood
and Treasure, that it will cost Us to maintain this Declaration, and support
and defend these States. Yet through all the Gloom I can see the Rays
of ravishing Light and Glory. I can see that the End is more than worth
all the Means. And that Posterity will triumph in that Days Transaction,
even although We should rue it, which I trust in God We shall not."
- John Adams
Letter to Abigail Adams, July 3, 1776
"Liberty cannot be preserved without
a general knowledge among the people, who have a right, from the frame
of their nature, to knowledge, as their great Creator, who does nothing
in vain, has given them understandings, and a desire to know; but besides
this, they have a right, an indisputable, unalienable, indefeasible, divine
right to that most dreaded and envied kind of knowledge, I mean, of the
characters and conduct of their rulers."
- John Adams
A Dissertation on the Canon and Feudal Law,
1765
"Whenever the standard of freedom and
independence has been or shall be unfurled, there will her [America's]
heart, her benedictions and her prayers be. But she goes not abroad in
search of monsters to destroy. She is the well-wisher to the freedom and
independence of all. She is the champion and vindicator only of her own."
- John Quincy Adams
Fourth of July Celebration Speech, July,
1821
"Posterity -- you will never know how much
it has cost my generation to preserve your freedom. I hope you will make
good use of it."
- John Quincy Adams
"A militia when properly formed are in
fact the people themselves... and include all men capable of bearing arms."
- Richard Henry Lee
Letters From The Federal Farmer, 1788
"No free government was ever founded,
or ever preserved its liberty, without uniting the characters of the citizen
and soldier in those destined for the defense of the state...such area
well-regulated militia, composed of the freeholders, citizen and husbandman,
who take up arms to preserve their property, as individuals, and their
rights as freemen."
- Richard Henry Lee
State Gazette (Charleston), September 8,
1788
"To preserve liberty, it is essential
that the whole body of people always possess arms, and be taught alike,
especially when young, how to use them..."
- Richard Henry Lee
Letters From The Federal Farmer, 1788
"They who can give up essential liberty
to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety."
- Benjamin Franklin
Notes for a proposition at the Pennsylvania
Assembly, February 17, 1775
"In these sentiments, Sir, I agree to
this Constitution, with all its faults, — if they are such; because I
think a general Government necessary for us, and there is no form of government
but what may be a blessing to the people, if well administered; and I
believe, farther, that this is likely to be well administered for a course
of years, and can only end in despotism, as other forms have done before
it, when the people shall become so corrupted as to need despotic government,
being incapable of any other."
- Benjamin Franklin
Speech to the Constitutional Convention,
June 28, 1787
"Our new Constitution is now established,
and has an appearance that promises permanency; but in this world nothing
can be said to be certain, except death and taxes."
- Benjamin Franklin
Letter to Jean-Baptiste Leroy, November 13,
1789
"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."
- Benjamin Franklin
On the Price of Corn and Management of the
Poor, November 29, 1766
"I've lived, Sir, a long time, and the
longer I live, the more convincing Proofs I see of this Truth — That God
governs in the Affairs of Men. And if a sparrow cannot fall to the ground
without his Notice, is it probable that an Empire can rise without his
Aid? We have been assured, Sir, in the Sacred Writings, that except the
Lord build the House they labor in vain who build it. I firmly believe
this, — and I also believe that without his concurring Aid, we shall succeed
in this political Building no better than the Builders of Babel: We shall
be divided by our little partial local interests; our Projects will be
confounded, and we ourselves shall become a Reproach and Bye word down
to future Ages."
- Benjamin Franklin
Speech to the Constitutional Convention,
June 28, 1787
“Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is
the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves.”
- William Pitt
Speech in the House of Commons, November
18, 1783
"To provision of the Constitution giving
the war making power to Congress was dictated, as I understand it, by
the following reasons: Kings had always been involving and impoverishing
their people in wars, pretending generally, if not always, that the good
of the people was the object. This our convention understood to be the
most oppressive of all kingly oppressions, and they resolved to so frame
the Constitution that no one man should hold the power of bringing this
oppression upon us. But your view destroys the whole matter, and places
our President where kings have always stood."
-Abraham Lincoln
Letter, while US Congressman, to his friend
and law-partner William H. Herndon, opposing the Mexican-American War,
February 15, 1848
"Intelligence, patriotism, Christianity,
and a firm reliance on Him, who has never yet forsaken this favored land,
are still competent to adjust, in the best way, all our present difficulty."
- Abraham Lincoln
First Inaugural Address, March 4, 1861
"The better part of one's life consists
of his friendships."
- Abraham Lincoln
Letter to Joseph Gillespie, July 13, 1849
"Allow the President to invade a neighboring
nation whenever he shall deem it necessary to repel an invasion, and you
allow him to do so whenever he may choose to say he deems it necessary
for such purpose, and you allow him to make war at pleasure."
- Abraham Lincoln
Letter, while US Congressman, to his friend
and law-partner William H. Herndon, opposing the Mexican-American War,
February 15, 1848
"In the great journal of things happening
under the sun, we, the American People, find our account running, under
date of the nineteenth century of the Christian era. — We find ourselves
in the peaceful possession, of the fairest portion of the earth, as regards
extent of territory, fertility of soil, and salubrity of climate. We find
ourselves under the government of a system of political institutions,
conducing more essentially to the ends of civil and religious liberty,
than any of which the history of former times tells us. We, when mounting
the stage of existence, found ourselves the legal inheritors of these
fundamental blessings."
- Abraham Lincoln
The Lyceum Address, 1838
"A house divided against itself cannot stand."
I believe this government cannot endure, permanently half slave and half
free. I do not expect the Union to be dissolved — I do not expect the
house to fall — but I do expect it will cease to be divided. It will become
all one thing or all the other."
- Abraham Lincoln
The House Divided speech (1858)
"What I do say is that no man is good
enough to govern another man without that other's consent. I say this
is the leading principle, the sheet-anchor of American republicanism.
Our Declaration of Independence says: "We hold these truths to be self-evident:
That all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator
with certain inalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty and
the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights, governments are
instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the
governed."
- Abraham Lincoln
Speech at Peoria, Illinois, 1854
"They [liberals] are men and women who
tend to believe that the human being is perfectible and social progress
predictable, and that the instrument for effecting the two is reason;
that truths are transitory and empirically determined; that equality is
desirable and attainable through the action of state power; that social
and individual differences, if they are not rational, are objectionable,
and should be scientifically eliminated; that all people and societies
strive to organize themselves upon a rationalist and scientific paradigm."
- William F. Bulkley, Jr.
"An American original: appreciating
Bill Buckley", 2003
I will not cede more power to the state. I
will not willingly cede more power to anyone, not to the state, not to
General Motors, not to the CIO. I will hoard my power like a miser, resisting
every effort to drain it away from me. I will then use my power, as I
see fit. I mean to live my life an obedient man, but obedient to God,
subservient to the wisdom of my ancestors; never to the authority of political
truths arrived at yesterday at the voting booth. That is a program of
sorts, is it not? It is certainly program enough to keep conservatives
busy, and liberals at bay. And the nation free.
- William F. Bulkley, Jr.
Up from Liberalism, 1959
"The best defense against usurpatory
government is an assertive citizenry."
- William F. Bulkley, Jr.
Windfall: The End of the Affair, 1992
"Government can't do anything for you
except in proportion as it can do something to you."
- William F. Bulkley, Jr.
"Broken Government: Where the right went
wrong," CNN, November 3, 2006
"Those who seek absolute power, even
though they seek it to do what they regard as good, are simply demanding
the right to enforce their own version of heaven on earth. And let me
remind you, they are the very ones who always create the most hellish
tyrannies. Absolute power does corrupt, and those who seek it must be
suspect and must be opposed."
- Barry Goldwater
Republican Party Nomination Acceptance Speech,
1964
"I would remind you that extremism in
the defense of liberty is no vice! And let me remind you also that moderation
in the pursuit of justice is no virtue!"
- Barry Goldwater
Republican Party Nomination Acceptance Speech,
1964
"Government is not the solution to our
problem. Government is the problem."
- Ronald Reagan
First
Inaugural address, January 20, 1981
"Welfare's purpose should be to eliminate,
as far as possible, the need for its own existence."
- Ronald Reagan
Interview with Los Angeles Times, January
7, 1970
"If we lose freedom here, there is no
place to escape to. This is the last stand on Earth. And this idea that
government is beholden to the people, that it has no other source of power
except to sovereign people, is still the newest and most unique idea in
all the long history of man's relation to man. This is the issue of this
election. Whether we believe in our capacity for self-government or whether
we abandon the American revolution and confess that a little intellectual
elite in a far-distant capital can plan our lives for us better than we
can plan them ourselves."
- Ronald Reagan
A Time for Choosing, 1964
"The trouble with our liberal friends
is not that they are ignorant, but that they know so much that isn't so."
- Ronald Reagan
A Time for Choosing, 1964
"The defense policy of the United States
is based on a simple premise: The United States does not start fights.
We will never be an aggressor. We maintain our strength in order to deter
and defend against aggression — to preserve freedom and peace."
- Ronald Reagan
"Star Wars" Speech, March 23, 1983
"A troubled and afflicted mankind looks
to us, pleading for us to keep our rendezvous with destiny; that we will
uphold the principles of self-reliance, self-discipline, morality, and,
above all, responsible liberty for every individual that we will become
that shining city on a hill."
- Ronald Reagan
Candicacy for U.S. President Announcement,
November 13, 1979
"History teaches that wars begin when
governments believe the price of aggression is cheap."
- Ronald Reagan
White House Address to the Nation, January 16, 1984
"Make no mistake, abortion-on-demand
is not a right granted by the Constitution. No serious scholar, including
one disposed to agree with the Court's result, has argued that the framers
of the Constitution intended to create such a right."
- Ronald Reagan
Abortion and the Conscience of the Nation,
1983
"The ten most dangerous words in the
English language are 'Hi, I'm from the government, and I'm here to help.'"
- Ronald Reagan
Remarks to Future Farmers of America, July
28, 1988
"I hope we once again have reminded people
that man is not free unless government is limited. There's a clear cause
and effect here that is as neat and predictable as a law of physics: As
government expands, liberty contracts."
- Ronald Reagan
Farewell Address, January 11, 1989
"'We the people' tell the government
what to do, it doesn't tell us...Our Constitution is a document in which
'We the people' tell the government what it is allowed to do."
- Ronald Reagan
Farewell Address, January 11, 1989
"I am in favor of cutting taxes under
any circumstances and for any excuse, for any reason, whenever it's possible."
- Milton Friedman
Interview by John Hawkins, September 16,
2003
"A society that puts equality before
freedom will get neither. A society that puts freedom before equality
will get a high degree of both."
- Milton Friedman
Free to Choose (television series), 1990
"On the level of political principle,
the imposition of taxes and the expenditure of tax proceeds are governmental
functions. We have established elaborate constitutional, parliamentary
and judicial provisions to control these functions, to assure that taxes
are imposed so far as possible in accordance with the preferences and
desires of the public — after all, "taxation without representation" was
one of the battle cries of the American Revolution. We have a system of
checks and balances to separate the legislative function of imposing taxes
and enacting expenditures from the executive function of collecting taxes
and administering expenditure programs and from the judicial function
of mediating disputes and interpreting the law."
- Milton Friedman
"The Social Responsibility of Business is
to Increase its Profits" in The New York Times Magazine, September 13,
1970
"One of the great mistakes is to judge
policies and programs by their intentions rather than their results."
- Milton Friedman
Interview with Richard Heffner on The Open
Mind, December 7, 1975
"There is no place for government to
prohibit consumers from buying products the effect of which will be to
harm themselves."
- Milton Friedman
Free to Choose (television series), 1980
"No government proposal more complicated
than "This note is legal tender for all debts, public and private" ever
works."
- P. J. O'Rourke
Roast of Robert Novak at the Conservative
Political Action Committee, February 11, 1994
"I'm a registered Republican and
consider socialism a violation of the American principle that you shouldn't
stick your nose in other people's business except to make a buck."
- P. J. O'Rourke
Republican Party Reptile, 1987
"The Democrats are the party that says
government will make you smarter, taller, richer, and remove the crabgrass
on your lawn. Republicans are the party that says government doesn't work,
and then they get elected and prove it."
- P. J. O'Rourke
Parliament of Whores, 1991
"What the welfare system and other kinds
of governmental programs are doing is paying people to fail. In so far
as they fail, they receive the money; in so far as they succeed, even
to a moderate extent, the money is taken away."
- Thomas Sowell
During a discussion in Milton Friedman's
"Free to Choose" television series, 1980
"One undeniable accomplishment of Bill
Clinton's presidency was that it kept Jimmy Carter from being the worst
U.S. president in history."
- Thomas Sowell
Random Thoughts, August 15, 2002
"Before the Iraq war I was quite disturbed
by some of the neoconservatives, who were saying things like, "What is
the point of being a superpower if you can't do such-and-such, take on
these responsibilities?" The point of being a superpower is that people
will leave you alone."
- Thomas Sowell
"Live" with Thomas Sowell, The American Enterprise,
September 2004
"Republicans won big, running as Republicans,
in 2004. But once they took control of Congress, they started acting like
Democrats and lost big. There is a lesson in that somewhere but whether
Republicans will learn it is another story entirely."
- Thomas Sowell
Random Thoughts, August 26, 2008
"'Global warming' is just the latest in a
long line of hysterical crusades to which we seem to be increasingly susceptible."
- Thomas Sowell
National Review, March 15, 2007
"The tolerant liberal suddenly becomes
very intolerant when their official religion is challenged."
- Ann Coulter
Online promotional material, June 6, 2006
"We'll drive off the side of that bridge when
we come to it, Senator Kennedy."
- Ann Coulter
How to Talk to a Liberal, 2004
"The only standard journalists respect
is: Will this story promote the left-wing agenda?"
- Ann Coulter
How to Talk to a Liberal, 2004
"Our book is Genesis. Their book is Rachel
Carson’s Silent Spring, the original environmental hoax."
- Ann Coulter
Godless: The Church of Liberalism, 2006
"While government economic planning may sound
attractive, it is fundamental that in order for a government social program
to work we all must be fitted into it. Those who will not fit voluntarily
are coerced. That's why they must build walls around socialist countries
to keep people in to enjoy the benefits."
- Bob McEwen
"When government controls the tools, government
controls the man. You are then at the mercy of the government. There's
nothing you can do about it. You've lost your freedom; you've lost your
independence."
- Bob McEwen
"We
have depended on government for so much for so long that we as people
have become less vigilant of our liberties. As long as the government
provides largesse for the majority, the special interest lobbyists will
succeed in continuing the redistribution of welfare programs that occupies
most of Congress's legislative time."
- Ron Paul
Speech in the House of Representatives, September
17, 1997
"In the free society envisioned by the founders, schools are held
accountable to parents, not federal bureaucrats."
- Ron Paul
Statement on the Congressional Education
Plan, May 23, 2001
"It is great comedy to hear the secular,
pro-gay left, so hostile to states’ rights in virtually every instance,
suddenly discover the tyranny of centralized government. The newly minted
protectors of local rule find themselves demanding: “Why should Washington
dictate marriage standards for Massachusetts and California? Let the people
of those states decide for themselves.” This is precisely the argument
conservatives and libertarians have been making for decades! Why should
Washington dictate education, abortion, environment, and labor rules to
the states? The American people hold widely diverse views on virtually
all political matters, and the Founders wanted the various state governments
to most accurately reflect those views. This is the significance of the
10th Amendment, which the left in particular has abused for decades."
- Ron Paul
Eliminate Federal Court Jurisdiction, March
2, 2004
"America
was founded by men who understood that the threat of domestic tyranny
is as great as any threat from abroad. If we want to be worthy of their
legacy, we must resist the rush toward ever-increasing state control of
our society. Otherwise, our own government will become a greater threat
to our freedoms than any foreign terrorist."
- Ron Paul
Speech in the House of Representatives, September
17, 1997
"In the free society envisioned by the founders, schools are held
accountable to parents, not federal bureaucrats."
- Ron Paul
Freedom vs. Security: A False Choice, May
31, 2004
"This essential principle of our Constitutional
Republic is being ridden roughshod over by imperial Washington, which
bullies local governments into accepting its illegal and unconstitutional
policies."
- Ron Paul
Interview by Joseph Murtagh, June 28, 2007
"I
don't even like big government in Washington, let alone having super government
over our federal government, such as a North American Union, or the United
Nations, or any of these organizations. It just means more government
and more attack on individual sovereignty, which is the real issue."
- Ron Paul
TV Special for Iowa, December 2007
"Truth is treason in the empire of lies."
- Ron Paul
The Revolution: A Manifesto, 2008
"When one person can initiate war, by
its definition, a republic no longer exists."
- Ron Paul
War power authority should be returned to
Congress, March. 9, 1999
"A
nation without secure borders is no nation at all. It makes no sense to
fight terrorists abroad when our own front door is left unlocked."
- Ron Paul
RonPaul2008.com, May 2007
"It’s time to rethink the whole system of HMOs and managed care.
This entire unnecessary level of corporatism rakes off profits and worsens
the quality of care. But HMOs did not arise in the free market; they are
creatures of government interference in health care dating to the 1970s.
These non-market institutions have gained control over medical care through
collusion between organized medicine, politicians, and drug companies,
in an effort to move America toward “free” universal health care."
- Ron Paul
Diagnosing our Health Care Woes, September
25, 2006
"When the federal government spends more
each year than it collects in tax revenues, it has three choices: It can
raise taxes, print money, or borrow money. While these actions may benefit
politicians, all three options are bad for average Americans. Deficits
mean future tax increases, pure and simple. Deficit spending should be
viewed as a tax on future generations, and politicians who create deficits
should be exposed as tax hikers."
- Ron Paul
Deficits Make You Poorer, March 15, 2005
"If we are willing to return to (the
time-tested principles of American conservatism)...the United States of
America will be the better for it."
- John N. Hostettler
Preamble to "Nothing for the Nation",
Published May 15, 2008
"When it comes to relations between rival nations - and rival national
leaders - America's founders were wise to give us a republic and not a
monarchy."
- John N. Hostettler
Promotional for Nothing for the Nation
"Therefore, it is incumbent upon conservatives
to acknowledge...the longstanding principles of the foreign policy of
our constitutional republic."
- John N. Hostettler
Preamble to "Nothing for the Nation",
Published May 15, 2008
"True law is right reason in agreement
with nature; it is of universal application, unchanging and everlasting;
it summons to duty by its commands, and averts from wrongdoing by its
prohibitions."
- Cicero
De Re Publica, Book 3, Chapter 22
"A war is never undertaken by the ideal
State, except in defense of its honor or its safety."
- Cicero
De Re Publica, Book 3, Chapter 23
"That, Senators, is what a favour from
gangsters amounts to. They refrain from murdering someone; then they boast
that they have spared him!"
- Cicero
Second Philippic Against Antony
"Endless money forms the sinews of war."
- Cicero
Philippics
"The more numerous the laws, the more
corrupt the government."
- Tacitus
Book III, 27
"So true is it that all transactions
of preeminent importance are wrapt in doubt and obscurity; while some
hold for certain facts the most precarious hearsays, others turn facts
into falsehood; and both are exaggerated by posterity."
- Tacitus
Book III
"What is today supported by precedents
will hereafter become a precedent."
- Tacitus
Book XI, 24
"...[T]o preserve the republican form and principles of our Constitution
and cleave to the salutary distribution of powers which that [the Constitution]
has established...are the two sheet anchors of our Union. If driven from
either, we shall be in danger of foundering." --Thomas Jefferson
"To take from one, because it is thought his own industry and that of
his fathers 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 everyone
the free exercise of his industry and the fruits acquired by it." --Thomas
Jefferson
"If we were directed from Washington when to sow and when to reap, we
should soon want bread." - Thomas Jefferson
"Whatever enables us to go to war,
secures our peace." --Thomas Jefferson
"[T]he States can best govern our home concerns and the general government
our foreign ones. I wish, therefore...never to see all offices transferred
to Washington, where, further withdrawn from the eyes of the people, they
may more secretly be bought and sold at market." --Thomas Jefferson
"A morsel of genuine history is a thing so rare as to be always valuable."
--Thomas Jefferson
"A nation, as a society, forms a moral person, and every member of it
is personally responsible for his society." --Thomas Jefferson
"An honest man can feel no pleasure in the exercise of power over his
fellow citizens." --Thomas Jefferson
"No free man shall ever be de-barred the use of arms. The strongest reason
for the people to retain their right to keep and bear arms is as a last
resort to protect themselves against tyranny in government." - Thomas
Jefferson
"It is a misnomer to call a government republican in which a branch of
the supreme power [the judiciary] is independent of the nation." --Thomas
Jefferson
"Nothing in the Constitution has given them [the federal judges]
a right to decide for the Executive, more than to the Executive to decide
for them...But the opinion which gives to the judges the right to decide
what laws are constitutional, and what not, not only for themselves in
their own sphere of action, but for the legislature and executive also,
in their spheres, would make the judiciary a despotic branch" - Thomas
Jefferson
"I think all the world would gain by setting commerce at perfect liberty."
--Thomas Jefferson
"It is error alone which needs the support of government. Truth can stand
by itself." --Thomas Jefferson
"The whole art of government consists in the art of being honest." --Thomas
Jefferson
"I believe that justice is instinct and innate, that the moral sense is
as much a part of our constitution as that of feeling, seeing, or hearing."
--Thomas Jefferson
"My reading of history convinces me that most bad government results from
too much government." --Thomas Jefferson
"The Constitution of most of our states (and of the United States) assert
that all power is inherent in the people; that they may exercise it by
themselves; that it is their right and duty to be at all times armed."
--Thomas Jefferson
"On every question of construction (of the Constitution) let us carry
ourselves back to the time when the Constitution was adopted, recollect
the spirit manifested in the debates, and instead of trying what meaning
may be squeezed out of the text, or invented against it, conform to the
probable one in which it was passed." --Thomas Jefferson
"One man with courage is a majority." - Thomas Jefferson
"When a man assumes a public trust, he should consider himself as public
property." - Thomas Jefferson
"I have sworn upon the altar of God, eternal hostility against every form
of tyranny over the mind of man." - Thomas Jefferson
"The sheep are happier of themselves than under the care of the wolves."
- Thomas Jefferson
"I think we have more machinery of government than is necessary, too many
parasites living on the labor of the industrious." - Thomas Jefferson
"All men profess honesty as long as they can. To believe all men
honest would be folly. To believe none so is something worse." --
John Quincy Adams
"Always vote for principle, though you may vote alone, and you may
cherish the sweetest reflection that your vote is never lost." --
John Quincy Adams
"To live without having a Cicero and a Tacitus at hand seems to me
as if it was aprivation of one of my limbs." -- John Quincy Adams
"The highest glory of the American Revolution was this; it connected
in one indissoluble bond the principles of civil government whith the
principles of Christianity. From the day of the Declaration...they (the
American people) were bound by the laws of God, which they all, and by
the laws of The Gospel, which they nearly all, acknowledge as the rules
of their conduct." -- John Quincy Adams
"Courage and perseverance have a magical talisman, before which difficulties
disappear and obstacles vanish into air." -- John Quincy Adams
"So great is my veneration for the Bible that the earlier my children
begin to read it the more confident will be my hope that they will prove
useful citizens of their country and respectable members of society."
-- John Quincy Adams
"I have for many years made it a practice to read through the Bible once
every year." -- John Quincy Adams
"The Declaration of Independence first organized the social compact
on the foundation of the Redeemer's mission upon earth [and] laid the
cornerstone of human government upon the first precepts of Christianity."
-- John Quincy Adams
"I speak as a man of the world to men of the world and I say to you, search
the scriptures, the Bible is the book of all others to be read at all
ages and in all conditions of human life; not to be read once or twice
or thrice through and then laid aside, but to be read in small portions
of one or two chapters every day and never to be intermitted unless by
some overruling necessity." -- John Quincy Adams
"The pretence of an absolute, irresistible, despotic power, existing
in every government somewhere, is incompatible with the first principle
of natural right. Take for example the right to life. The moment an infant
is born, it has a right to the life which it has received from the Creator
. . . no human being, no combination of human beings, has the power, I
say not the physical, but the moral power, to take a life not so forfeited
[by commission of a crime], unless in self-defense or by the laws of war."
--John Quincy Adams
"Duty is ours; results are God's. The first and almost the only Book
deserving of universal attention is the Bible. In what light soever we
regard the Bible, whether with reference to revelation, to history, or
to morality, it is an invaluable and inexhaustible mine of knowledge and
virtue." --John Quincy Adams
Ronald Reagan
"Any government powerful enough to give you everything you want,
is powerful enough to take from you everything you have." - Ronald
Reagan
"Government is not the solution to our problems, Government is the problem."
- Ronald Reagan
"You can never underestimate the ability of the Democrats to wet their
finger and hold it to the wind." - Ronald Reagan
"We will always remember. We will always be proud. We will always be prepared,
so we may always be free." - Ronald Reagan
"[N]o arsenal or no weapon in the arsenals of the world is so formidable
as the will and moral courage of free men and women." - Ronald Reagan
"Freedom is not something to be secured in any one moment in time. We
must struggle to preserve it every day. And freedom is never more than
one generation away from extinction." - Ronald Reagan
"America must remain freedom's staunchest friend, for freedom is our best
ally." - Ronald Reagan
"[T]here are no limits to growth and human progress when men and women
are free to follow their dreams." - Ronald Reagan
"Man is not free unless government is limited ... as government expands,
liberty contracts." - Ronald Reagan
"Welfare's purpose should be to eliminate, as far as possible, the need
for its own existence." - Ronald Reagan
Miscellaneous
"Republicans have never mastered the knack, as Democrats seem to have,
of winking while knifing an opponent's jugular." - James W. Naughton
"Clinton is most comfortable when thinking about little things - school
uniforms, the minimum wage and, above all, himself." - George Will
"The Democratic party is like a man riding backward in a carriage. It
never sees a thing until it has gone by." - Benjamin F. Butler
"If liberals can't beat you, if they're losing on the issues, they do
one of two things. They either call you a bigot or a racist. Or they sue
you." - J.C. Watts
"Democrats believe kids shouldn't pray in school, especially not during
moments of silence because silence can lead to thinking and thinking causes
people to become Republicans." - P.J. O'Rourke
"Standing in the middle of the road is very dangerous; you get knocked
down by the traffic from both sides." - Margaret Thatcher
"To avoid criticism, do nothing, say nothing, be nothing." - Elbert Hubbard
"There's nothing in the middle of the road but dead armadillos and some
yellow lines." - Former Texas Senator, John Hightower
"Tell the American people never to lose their guns. As long as they keep
their guns in their hands, what's happened here will never happen there."
- A dying Chinese Citizen shot in Beijing
"Think for yourselves and let others enjoy the privilege to do so, too."
- Voltaire
"Restriction of free thought and free speech is the most dangerous of
all subversions. It is the one un-American act that could most easily
defeat us." - William O. Douglas
"For those who fought for it, life has a flavor the protected will never
know." - Veteran of Khe Sanh, Vietnam
"The greatest dangers to liberty lurk in insidious encroachment by men
of zeal, well-meaning but without understanding." - Louis Brandeis
"True Liberalism is found not in striving to spread bureaucracy but in
striving to set bounds to it." - Herbert Hoover
"Civilization declines in relation to the increase in Bureaucracy." -
Victor Yannacone
"The ... most cogent reason for restricting the interference of government
is the great evil of adding unnecessarily to its power." - John Stuart
Mill
"Giving money and power to government is like giving whiskey and car keys
to teenage boys." - P.J. O'Rourke
"Government should only do for you what you can't do for yourself." -
Jesse Ventura
"While it is true that a lack of law gives way to anarchy, it is equally
true that an excess of law is a sure path to revolution." - Unknown
"The more corrupt the state, the more numerous the laws." - Tacitus
"When a government becomes powerful, it is destructive, extravagant and
violent; it is an usurper which takes bread from innocent mouths and deprives
honorable men of their substance for votes with which to perpetuate itself."
- Cicero
"When government takes responsibility for people, then people no longer
take responsibility for themselves." - George Pataki
"Liberals need not bother with logical persusasion as long as they can
prey on people's sense of weakness" --Ann Coulter
"It is important for liberals to demean the people they oppose to reinforce
their sense of class superiority" --Ann Coulter
"The media will tolerate any disreputable behavior in order to win. Principle
is nothing to liberals. Winning is everything." --Anonymous
John Adams
"National defense is one of the cardinal duties of a statesman." --John
Adams
"Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people,
it is wholly inadequate for the governing of any other." --John Adams
James Madison
"A universal peace, it is to be feared, is in the catalogue of events,
which will never exist but in the imaginations of visionary philosophers,
or in the breasts of benevolent enthusiasts." --James Madison
"It is too early for politicians to presume on our forgetting that the
public good, the real welfare of the great body of the people, is the
supreme object to be pursued; and that no form of government whatever
has any other value than as it may be fitted for the attainment of this
object." --James Madison
"America united with a handful of troops, or without a single soldier,
exhibits a more forbidding posture to foreign ambition than America disunited,
with a hundred thousand veterans ready for combat." --James Madison
"What a perversion of the normal order of things! ... to make power the
primary and central object of the social system, and Liberty but its satellite."
--James Madison
"We have staked the future of all of our political institutions upon the
capacity of mankind for self-government; upon the capacity of each and
all of us to govern ourselves, to control ourselves, to sustain ourselves
according to the Ten Commandments of God." --James Madison
"Religion, or the duty we owe our Creator, and manner of discharging
it, can be directed only by reason and conviction, not by force or violence;
and, therefore, that all men should enjoy the fullest toleration in the
exercise of religion according to the dictates of conscience, unpunished
and unrestrained by the magistrate, unless under color of religion any
man disturb the peace, the happiness, or safety of society, and that it
is the mutual duty of all to practice Christian forebearance, love and
charity toward each other." --James Madison
"(The Constitution preserves) the advantage of being armed which Americans
possess over the people of almost every other nation... (where) the governments
are afraid to trust the people with arms." --James Madison
Alexander Hamilton
"The best we can hope for concerning the people at large is that they
be properly armed." --Alexander Hamilton
"Foreign influence is truly the Grecian horse to a republic. We cannot
be too careful to exclude its influence" --Alexander Hamilton
George Mason
"Nothing so strongly impels a man to regard the interest of his constituents,
as the certainty of returning to the general mass of the people, from
whence he was taken, where he must participate in their burdens." --George
Mason
"As nations cannot be rewarded or punished in the next world, they must
be in this. By an inevitable chain of causes and effects, Providence punishes
national sins, by national calamities." --George Mason
"The laws of nature are the laws of God, whose authority can be superseded
by no power on earth." --George Mason
"To disarm the people (is) the best and most effectual way to enslave
them..." -- George Mason
"I ask, sir, what is the militia? It is the whole people, except for a
few public officials." --George Mason
Thomas Paine
"A little matter will move a party, but it must be something great that
moves a nation." --Thomas Paine
"Those who expect to reap the blessings of freedom, must, like men, undergo
the fatigues of supporting it." --Thomas Paine
"If there must be trouble let it be in my day, that my child may have
peace." --Thomas Paine
"Tis the business of little minds to shrink, but he whose heart is firm,
and whose conscience approves his conduct, will pursue his principles
unto death." --Thomas Paine
"But such is the irresistible nature of truth, that all it asks, and all
it wants, is the liberty of appearing." --Thomas Paine
"Is the power who is jealous of our prosperity, a proper power to govern
us?" - Thomas Paine
Patrick Henry
"To erect and concentrate and perpetuate a large monied interest ... must
in the course of human events produce one or other of two evils, the prostration
of agriculture at the feet of commerce, or a change in the present form
of federal government, fatal to the existence of American liberty." --Patrick
Henry
"Is life so sweet, or peace so dear, as to be purchased at the price of
chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God!" --Patrick Henry
It cannot be emphasized too strongly or too often that this great nation
was founded, not by religionists, but by Christians; not on religions,
but on the Gospel of Jesus Christ. For this very reason peoples of other
faiths have been afforded asylum, prosperity, and freedom of worship here."
--Patrick Henry
"This that brought on the war which finally separated the two countries,
gave independence to ours. Whether this will prove a blessing or a curse,
will depend upon the use our people make of the blessings, which a gracious
God hath bestowed on us. If they are wise, they will be great and happy.
If they are of a contrary character, they will be miserable. Righteousness
alone can exalt them as a nation. Reader! Whoever thou art, remember this,
and in thy sphere practice virtue thyself, and encourage it in others."
--Patrick Henry
"The Bible is worth all books which have ever been printed."
--Patrick Henry
"Guard with jealous attention the public liberty. Suspect everyone who
approaches that jewel. Unfortunately, nothing will preserve it but downright
force. Whenever you give up that force, you are ruined...The great object
is that every man be armed. Everyone who is able might have a gun. --Patrick
Henry
"I know not what course others may take, but as for me, give me liberty
or give me death!" - Patrick Henry
Samuel Adams
"The public cannot be too curious concerning the characters of public
men." --Samuel Adams
"If men of wisdom and knowledge, of moderation and temperance, of patience,
fortitude and perseverance, of sobriety and true republican simplicity
of manners, of zeal for the honour of the Supreme Being and the welfare
of the commonwealth; if men possessed of these other excellent qualities
are chosen to fill the seats of government, we may expect that our affairs
will rest on a solid and permanent foundation." --Samuel Adams
"If Virtue and Knowledge are diffused among the People, they will never
be enslaved. This will be their great security." --Samuel Adams
"Religion in a Family is at once its brightest Ornament & its best Security."
--Samuel Adams
"The truth is, all might be free if they valued freedom, and defended
it as they ought." --Samuel Adams
"Go on, then, in your generous enterprise with gratitude to Heaven for
past success, and confidence of it in the future. For my own part, I ask
no greater blessing than to share with you the common danger and common
glory ... that these American States may never cease to be free and independent."
--Samuel Adams
"It does not take a majority to prevail ... but rather an irate, tireless
minority, keen on setting brushfires of freedom in the minds of men."
--Samuel Adams
"In the supposed state of nature, all men are equally bound by the laws
of nature, or to speak more properly, the laws of the Creator." --Samuel
Adams
"A general dissolution of principles and manners will more surely overthrow
the liberties of America than the whole force of the common enemy. While
the people are virtuous they cannot be subdued; but when once they lose
their virtue then will be ready to surrender their liberties to the first
external or internal invader." --Samuel Adams
"The liberties of our country, the freedom of our civil constitution,
are worth defending against all hazards: And it is our duty to defend
them against all attacks." --Samuel Adams
"Our contest is not only whether we ourselves shall be free, but whether
there shall be left to mankind an asylum on earth for civil and religious
liberty." --Samuel Adams
"Truth loves an appeal to the common sense of mankind." --Samuel Adams
"The 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
John Witherspoon
"A Republic must either preserve its virtue or lose its liberty...." --John
Witherspoon
"There is not a single instance in history in which civil liberty was
lost, and religious liberty preserved entire. If therefore we yield up
our temporal property, we at the same time deliver the conscience into
bondage." --John Witherspoon
Daniel Webster
"The contest, for ages, has been to rescue liberty from the grasp of executive
power." --Daniel Webster
"Whatever makes men good Christians, makes them good citizens." --Daniel
Webster
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