Quotes by Americas founding fathers, presidents, and patriots

FEATURED

RONALD REAGAN

THOMAS SOWELL

THEADORE ROOSEVELT

BENJAMIN FRANKLIN

JOHN ADAMS

THOMAS JEFFERSON

RONALD REAGAN

Ronald Reagan was the 40th President of the United States.

He served two terms as commander and chief, from 1981-1989. Before becoming president, he was a Hollywood movie actor, union leader and the governor of California from 1967-1975. His favorite book was the bible and his favorite verse John 3:16. Mr. Reagan possessed the rare gift of a photographic memory and was by far the most popular republican politician since Lincoln. Learn more about President Reagan at the Ronald Reagan presidential library and museum website here

“Live simply, love generously, care deeply, speak kindly, leave the rest to God.”

“If we ever forget that we are One Nation Under God, then we will be a nation gone under.”

“The most terrifying words in the English language are: I’m from the government and I’m here to help.”

“Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn’t pass it to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same.”

“Freedom prospers when religion is vibrant and the rule of law under God is acknowledged.”

“As government expands, liberty contracts.”

“Christmas can be celebrated in the schoolroom with pine trees, tinsel, and reindeer’s, but there must be no mention of the man whose birthday is being celebrated. One wonders how a teacher would answer if a student asked why it was called Christmas.”

“How do you tell a Communist? Well, it’s someone who reads Marx and Lenin. And how do you tell an anti-Communist? It’s someone who understands Marx and Lenin.”

“It’s hard, when you’re up to your armpits in alligators, to remember you came here to drain the swamp.”

“There is no limit to the amount of good you can do if you don’t care who gets the credit.”

“Either you will control your government, or (the) government will control you.”

“Government is not a solution to our problem, (the) government is the problem. … Government does not solve problems; it subsidizes them. (The) government’s view of the economy could be summed up in a few short phrases: If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. If it stops moving, subsidize it. … The problem is not that people are taxed too little, the problem is that government spends too much.”

“Sometimes when I’m faced with an atheist, I am tempted to invite him to the greatest gourmet dinner that one could ever serve, and when we have finished eating that magnificent dinner, to ask him if he believes there’s a cook.”

“Within the covers of the Bible are the answers for all the problems men face.”

THOMAS SOWELL

A senior fellow at the Hoover Institute, Thomas Sowell is an economist and social theorist. Considered one of the great minds of his time, Mr. Sowell relies on data and evidence and only shares his view after extensive research and study. He has authored many books and tackles the difficult issues and false narratives forced on us by the left.

“It is bad enough that so many people believe things without any evidence. What is worse is that some people have no conception of evidence and regard facts as just someone else’s opinion.”

“Racism is not dead, but it is on life support — kept alive by politicians, race hustlers, and people who get a sense of superiority by denouncing others as ‘racists’.”

“One of the most important reasons for studying history is that virtually every stupid idea that is in vogue today has been tried before and proved disastrous before, time and again.”

“Blacks were not enslaved because they were black but because they were available. Slavery has existed in the world for thousands of years. Whites enslaved other whites in Europe for centuries before the first black was brought to the Western hemisphere. Asians enslaved Europeans. Asians enslaved other Asians. Africans enslaved other Africans, and indeed even today in North Africa, blacks continue to enslave blacks.”

“If you believe in equal rights, then what do “women’s rights,” “gay rights,” etc., mean? Either they are redundant or they are violations of the principle of equal rights for all.”

“When people get used to preferential treatment, equal treatment seems like discrimination.”

“Not since the days of the Hitler Youth have young people been subjected to more propaganda on more politically correct issues. At one time, educators boasted that their role was not to teach students what to think but how to think. Today, their role is far too often to teach students what to think on everything from immigration to global warming to the new sacred trinity of ‘race, class, and gender.”

“Why is history important? Without history, many people have no idea how many of today’s half-baked ideas have been tried, again and again – and have repeatedly led to disaster. Most of these ideas are not new. They are just being recycled with re-treaded rhetoric.”

“There are few things more dishonorable than misleading the young.”

“One of the painful signs of years of dumbed-down education is how many people are unable to make a coherent argument. They can vent their emotions, question other people’s motives, make bold assertions repeat slogans- anything except reason.”

“The word ‘racism’ is like ketchup. It can be put on practically anything-and demanding evidence makes you a ‘racist.”

THEADORE ROOSEVELT

Served as the 26th President of the United States from 1901-1909. As a soldier, he led the Rough Riders in the Spanish American War. Before becoming President, Roosevelt served as the governor of New York. He also secured the route and began the construction of the Panama Canal. Roosevelt was also responsible for pushing Congress to create the Forest Service and protect the country’s natural resources and environment. President Roosevelt mediated an end to the Russo-Japanese War and was awarded the Nobel Prize for Peace. If you want to know more about Theodore Roosevelt, you can visit the Britannica website Theodore Roosevelt Biography

“There is no room in this country for hyphenated Americanism. The one absolutely certain way of bringing this nation to ruin, of preventing all possibility of its continuing to be a nation at all, would be to permit it to become a tangle of squabbling nationalities.”

“Any man who tries to excite class hatred, sectional hate, hate of creeds, any kind of hatred in our community, though he may affect to do it in the interest of the class he is addressing, is in the long run with absolute certainty that class’s own worst enemy.”

“The things that will destroy America are prosperity-at-any-price, peace-at-any-price, safety-first instead of duty-first, the love of soft living, and the get-rich-quick theory of life.”

“Nothing in the world is worth having or worth doing unless it means effort, pain, difficulty… I have never in my life envied a human being who led an easy life. On the other hand, I have envied a great many people who led difficult lives and led them well.”

“With a great moral issue involved, neutrality does not serve righteousness; for to be neutral between right and wrong is to serve wrong.”

“Certain rich men, whose lives are evil and corrupt, are the representatives of predatory wealth accumulated by all forms of inequity, from the oppression of wage workers to unfair methods of crushing out the competition.”

“It is necessary for the welfare of the nation that men’s lives be based on the principles of the Bible. No man, educated or uneducated, can afford to be ignorant of the Bible.”

“Behind the ostensible government sits enthroned an invisible government owing no allegiance and acknowledging no responsibility to the people. To destroy this invisible government, to befoul the unholy alliance between corrupt business and corrupt politics is the first task of the statesmanship of today.”

“Every child has inside him an aching void for excitement and if we don’t fill it with something which is exciting and interesting and good for him, he will fill it with something which is exciting and interesting and which isn’t good for him.”

“All contributions by corporations to any political committee or for any political purpose should be forbidden by law.”

“To educate a man in mind and not in morals is to educate a menace to society.”

” A thorough knowledge of the Bible is worth more than a college education.”

“In the first place we should insist that if the immigrant who comes here in good faith becomes an American and assimilates himself to us, he shall be treated on an exact equality with everyone else, for it is an outrage to discriminate against any such man because of creed, or birthplace, or origin. But this is predicated upon the man’s becoming in very fact an American and nothing but an American.”

BENJAMIN FRANKLIN

1706-1790

FIRST US POSTMASTER, WRITER, INVENTOR, SCIENTIST,
PRINTER, AND STATESMAN.

Benjamin Franklin was the first postmaster of the United States and a signer of the Declaration of Independence. He was an avid reader from childhood and learned the printing trade from his older brother. Franklin wrote songs and books and is well known for his good sense. He became editor and proprietor of the “Pennsylvania Gazette” in 1729. Franklin was a spirited figure who created a debating society and wrote almanacs of useful information full of wisdom and wit. “Poor Richards Almanac” became popular around the world. He founded the Philadelphia Library, which eventually became the University of Pennsylvania.

Benjamin Franklin was also an inventor. He invented the open stove and later, using a kite discovered that lightning produced electricity. He became the clerk for the Assembly of Pennsylvania and, a year later, the Postmaster.

He was also elected as a delegate to the 2nd continental congress upon his return from England, where he had been sent to serve as an agent for Philadelphia.Benjamin Franklin also created our country’s first fire department and even served as a firefighter himself.

So, in addition, the next time you sit in a rocking chair, you can thank Mr. Benjamin for that clever invention as well. Franklin proposed the first scheme to unite the colonies under one centralized government while keeping their local independence. It was later known as the Albany Plan. His plan was rejected by the colonies and displeased England, yet it speaks to Franklin’s vision and incredible mind.

For an extensive and detailed history of Benjamin Franklin, visit Benjaminfranklin.org.

“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.”

“Common sense without education is better than education without common sense.”

“Half the truth is often a great lie.”

“Where liberty dwells there is my country.”

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

“Man will ultimately be governed by God or by tyrants.”

“I have 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 they labor in vain that 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.”

“The doors of wisdom are never shut.”

“Early to bed and early to rise, makes a man healthy wealthy and wise.”

“Beware of little expenses; a small leak will sink a great ship. “Plough deep while sluggards sleep.”

“We must indeed all hang together or, most assuredly we shall all hang separately.”

“To be humble to superiors is duty, to equals courtesy, to inferiors nobleness.”

“Life`s tragedy is that we get old too soon and wise too late. “Diligence is the mother of good luck.”

“Wink at small faults, remember thou hast great ones.”

“When you get into a tight place, and everything goes against you, till it seems as though you could not hold on a minute longer, never give up then, for that is just the place and time that the tide will turn. When you’re down to nothing, God is up to something. The faithful see the invisible, believe the incredible, and then receive the impossible.”

“Whoever would overthrow the liberty of a nation must begin by subduing the freeness of speech.”

“The way to secure peace is to be prepared for war. They that are on their guard, and appear ready to receive their adversaries, are in much less danger of being attacked, than the supine, secure, and negligent.”

“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.”

“Here is my Creed.

I believe in one God, the creator of the Universe. That he governs it by his Providence. That He ought to be worshiped. That the most acceptable service we render Him is doing good to his other children. That the soul of man is immortal and will be treated with justice in another life respecting its conduct in this.”

“Having been poor is no shame, but being ashamed of it is.”

“Necessity never made a good bargain.”

“We are all born ignorant, but one must work hard to remain stupid.”

“They that won`t be counseled, can`t be helped.”

“Fear to do ill, and you need fear nought else.”

“You will find the key to success under the alarm clock.”

“He does not posess wealth that allows it to posess him.”

JOHN ADAMS

1735 – 1826

Founding Father and Served as our nations first Vice President under Washington. After two terms under Washington, became the second president of the United States when Washington retired.

John Adams served on the first continental congress and helped in the drafting of the Declaration of Independence. He was the first American president to actually live in the White House, even though it was unfinished. His son John Quincy Adams would later become the nation’s sixth president. Educated at Harvard, he became a leading lawyer and advocated for Independence. In his writings, he supported the separation of powers to avoid absolute government. As a result, he had a big influence on the early formation of our country.

Adams’s presidency came during the French and British War, which caused a great deal of debate and partisanship among the parties. John Adams seemed to be more suited as a political Philosopher than President, but his overall contribution to forming our nation is without question. He was a direct descendant of Puritan colonists and even agreed to represent the British soldiers on trial for what would later be known as the “Boston Massacre.

For more information on John Adams, visit the Biography website or The White House website.

“We should be unfaithful to ourselves if we should ever lose sight of the danger to our Liberties if anything partial or extraneous should infect the purity of our free, fair, virtuous, and independent elections. If an election is to be determined by a majority of a single vote, and that can be procured by a party through artifice or corruption, the Government may be the choice of a party for its own ends, not of the nation or the national good.”

“Always stand on principle even if you stand alone.”

“Children should be educated and instructed in the principles of freedom.”

“The destiny of America is to carry the gospel of Jesus Christ to all men everywhere.”

“When legislature is corrupted, the people are undone.”

“Arms in the hands of citizens may be used at individual discretion… in private self-defense.”

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

“But a Constitution of Government once changed from Freedom, can never be restored. Liberty, once lost, is lost forever. When the People once surrendered their share in the Legislature, and their Right of defending the Limitations upon the Government, and of resisting every Encroachment upon them, they can never regain it.”

“The general principles on which the fathers achieved independence were the general principles of Christianity. I will avow that I then believed, and now believe, that those general principles
of Christianity are as eternal and immutable as the existence and attributes of God.”

“The balance of power in a society accompanies the balance of property in land.”

“I have examined all religions, and the result is that the Bible is the best book in the world.”

“It is religion and morality alone which can establish the principles upon which freedom can securely stand. The only foundation of a free constitution is pure virtue.”

“The Declaration of Independence laid the cornerstone of human government upon the first precepts of Christianity.”

“When economic power became concentrated in a few hands, then political power flowed to those possessors and away from the citizens, ultimately resulting in an oligarchy or tyranny.”

“I pray Heaven to bestow the best of blessings on this [White House] and all that shall hereafter inhabit it. May none but honest and wise men ever rule under this roof.”

“Let us tenderly and kindly cherish, therefore, the means of knowledge. Let us dare to read, think, speak and write.”

“But what do we mean by the American Revolution? Do we mean the American war? The Revolution was affected before the war commenced. The Revolution was in the minds and hearts of the people.”

“I always consider the settlement of America with reverence and wonder, as the opening of a grand scene and design in providence, for the illumination of the ignorant and the emancipation of the slavish part of mankind all over the earth.”

“Thanks to God that he gave me stubbornness when I know I am right.”

“My country has in its wisdom contrived for me the most insignificant office that ever the invention of man contrived or his imagination conceived.” [on his vice presidency]”

“People and nations are forged in the fires of adversity.”

THOMAS JEFFERSON

1743-1836
FOUNDING FATHER
PRESIDENT, VICE PRESIDENT,
SECRETARY OF STATE, DIPLOMATIC
MINISTER, CONGRESSMAN

Among his greatest accomplishments was the establishment of the University of Virginia. Read more about Jefferson at Monticello.org or at whitehouse.gov.

Thomas Jefferson served as the Secretary of State in George Washington’s cabinet, Minister to France, and was the principal writer of the Declaration of Independence which did originally request for the abolition of the slave trade. So when he wrote “all men”, he meant all men. Allowing the Marxist educators in this country to change history and truth and pass it off as accurate to our children, is unacceptable. More of a writer than a speaker, Jefferson wrote the bill for religious freedom which was enacted in 1786. Jefferson did not want a strong centralized government and instead pushed for states’ rights. In 1803 he purchased the Louisiana Territory from Napoleon increasing the size of our country.

“Who will govern the governors? There is only one force in the nation that can be depended upon to keep the government pure and the governors honest, and that is the people themselves. They alone, if well informed, are capable of preventing the corruption of power, and of restoring the nation to its rightful course if it should go astray. They alone are the safest depository of the ultimate powers of government.”

“Does the government fear us? Or do we fear the government? When the people fear the government, tyranny has found victory. The federal government is our servant, not our master!”

“The press is impotent when it abandons itself to falsehood.”

“The worst day in a man’s life is when he sits down and begins thinking about how he can get something for nothing.”

“When tyranny becomes law, rebellion becomes duty.”

“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.”

“Equal rights for all, special privileges for none.”

“The reason that Christianity is the best friend of government is because Christianity is the only religion that changes the heart.”

“He who permits himself to tell a lie once finds it much easier to do it a second and third time, till at length it becomes habitual; he tells lies without attending to it, and truths without the world’s believing him. This falsehood of the tongue leads to that of the heart, and in time depraves all its good dispositions.”

“A well informed citizenry is the best defense against tyranny.”

“I prefer dangerous freedom over peaceful slavery.

“The man who reads nothing at all is better educated than the man who reads nothing but newspapers.”

“The purpose of government is to enable the people of a nation to live in safety and happiness. Government exists for the interests of the governed, not for the governors.”

Evil triumphs when good men do nothing.”

“Our liberty depends on the freedom of the press, and that cannot be limited without being lost.”

“We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness.”

“Unless the mass retains sufficient control over those entrusted with the powers of their government, these will be perverted to their own oppression, and to the perpetuation of wealth and power in the individuals and their families selected
for the trust.”

“Can the liberties of a nation be thought secure when we have removed their only firm basis, a conviction in the minds of the people 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.”

“When the people are afraid of the government, that’s tyranny. But when the government is afraid of the people, that’s liberty.”

“The God who gave us life gave us liberty at the same time.”

“When once a Republic is corrupted, there is no possibility of remedying any of the growing evils but by removing the corruption and restoring its lost principles; every other correction is either useless or a new evil.”

“The course of history shows that as a government grows, liberty decreases. 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.”

“I think myself that we have more machinery of government than is necessary, too many parasites living on the labor of the industrious. A government big enough to supply everything you need is big enough to take everything you have”

“There is no justification for taking away individuals’ freedom in the guise of public safety.”

“When you abandon freedom to achieve security, you lose both and deserve neither.”

“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.”