Sourced and curated.

Indeed I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just.

Notes on the State of Virginia · 1785

★ 7.8

A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

Bill of Rights · 1789

★ 7.6

Ambition must be made to counteract ambition.

Federalist 51 · 1788

★ 7.6

Enlightened statesmen will not always be at the helm.

Federalist 10 · 1787

★ 7.5

The boisterous sea of liberty indeed is never without a wave.

1820

★ 7.3

All that we see or seem Is but a dream within a dream.

1849

★ 7.2

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

Bill of Rights · 1789

★ 7.2

Let me now take a more comprehensive view, and warn you in the most solemn manner against the baneful effects of the Spirit of Party, generally.

1796

★ 7.1

The due administration of justice is the firmest pillar of good government.

1789

★ 7.1

The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure.

1787

★ 7.1

Liberty is to faction what air is to fire, an aliment without which it instantly expires. But it could not be less folly to abolish liberty, which is essential to political life, because it nourishes faction, than it would be to wish the annihilation of air, which is essential to animal life, because it imparts to fire its destructive agency.

Federalist 10 · 1787

★ 7.0

It may be a reflection on human nature, that such devices should be necessary to control the abuses of government. But what is government itself, but the greatest of all reflections on human nature? If men were angels, no government would be necessary.

Federalist 51 · 1788

★ 7.0

Justice is the end of government. It is the end of civil society. It ever has been and ever will be pursued until it be obtained, or until liberty be lost in the pursuit.

Federalist 51 · 1788

★ 7.0

The accumulation of all powers, legislative, executive, and judiciary, in the same hands, whether of one, a few, or many, and whether hereditary, selfappointed, or elective, may justly be pronounced the very definition of tyranny.

Federalist 47 · 1788

★ 7.0

The American continents... Are henceforth not to be considered as subjects for future colonization by any European powers.

First in war, first in peace, and first in the hearts of his countrymen.

1823 State of the Union · 1823

★ 7.0

Speech · Funeral oration

Henry Lee III

1799

★ 6.9

Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary, Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore,— While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping, As of some one gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door.

New York Evening Mirror · 1845

★ 6.9

We are not to expect to be translated from despotism to liberty in a feather-bed.

1790

★ 6.3

What a stupendous, what an incomprehensible machine is man! Who can endure toil, famine, stripes, imprisonment, & death itself in vindication of his own liberty, and the next moment... Inflict on his fellow men a bondage, one hour of which is fraught with more misery than ages of that which he rose in rebellion to oppose.

1786

★ 6.2

He who receives an idea from me, receives instruction himself without lessening mine; as he who lights his taper at mine, receives light without darkening me.

1813

★ 6.2

Some men look at constitutions with sanctimonious reverence, and deem them like the ark of the covenant, too sacred to be touched... Laws and institutions must go hand in hand with the progress of the human mind... We might as well require a man to wear still the coat which fitted him when a boy, as civilized society to remain ever under the regimen of their barbarous ancestors.

1816

★ 6.2

It does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods, or no God. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg.

Notes on the State of Virginia · 1787

★ 5.5

I can with truth assure you, I heard Bulletts whistle and believe me there was something charming in the sound.

1754

★ 5.5

I have sworn upon the altar of god, eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man.

Truth is great and will prevail if left to herself; that she is the proper and sufficient antagonist to error, and has nothing to fear from the conflict unless by human interposition disarmed of her natural weapons, free argument and debate; errors ceasing to be dangerous when it is permitted freely to contradict them.

1800

★ 5.5

The only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun.

1779

★ 5.4

Press conference

Wayne LaPierre

2012

★ 5.3

That these united colonies are, and of right ought to be, free and independent states; that they are absolved from all allegiance to the British crown; and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain is, and ought to be, totally dissolved.

Richard Henry Lee

Lee Resolution · 1776

★ 5.1

Supreme Court opinion · Legal opinion · Legal writing

Under the First Amendment there is no such thing as a false idea. However pernicious an opinion may seem, we depend for its correction not on the conscience of judges and juries but on the competition of other ideas.

Lewis F. Powell, Jr.

Gertz v. Robert Welch, Inc. · 1974

★ 5.0

He who knows most, knows best how little he knows.

1812

★ 4.7

Speeches measured by the hour, die with the hour.

1824

★ 4.7

I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too much liberty than those attending too small a degree of it.

1791

★ 4.6

If there be any among us who would wish to dissolve this Union or to change its republican form, let them stand undisturbed as monuments of the safety with which error of opinion may be tolerated where reason is left free to combat it.

Some degree of abuse is inseparable from the proper use of every thing; and in no instance is this more true, than in that of the press. It has accordingly been decided by the practice of the States, that it is better to leave a few of its noxious branches to their luxuriant growth, than by pruning them away, to injure the vigor of those yielding the proper fruits.

First Inaugural Address of Thomas Jefferson · 1801

★ 4.6

1800

★ 4.5

The right of trial by jury shall be preserved.

Bill of Rights · 1789

★ 4.0

Had every Athenian citizen been a Socrates, every Athenian assembly would still have been a mob.

Federalist 55 · 1788

★ 3.9

If we cannot secure all our rights, let us secure what we can.

1789

★ 3.9

Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted.

Bill of Rights · 1789

★ 3.9

The earth belongs to the living, not to the dead.

1813

★ 3.9

Take thy beak from out my heart, and take thy form from off my door! Quoth the Raven, "Nevermore."

New York Evening Mirror · 1845

★ 3.9

Character, not circumstances, makes the man.

1896

★ 3.9

Discipline is the soul of an army. It makes small numbers formidable; procures success to the weak, and esteem to all.

Letters of George Washington · 1757

★ 3.8

The legitimate powers of government extend to such acts only as are injurious to others. But it does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods, or no God. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg.

Notes on the State of Virginia · 1785

★ 3.8

Is uniformity attainable? Millions of innocent men, women, and children, since the introduction of Christianity, have been burnt, tortured, fined, imprisoned; yet we have not advanced one inch towards uniformity. What has been the effet of coercion? To make one half the world fools, and the other half hypocrites.

Notes on the State of Virginia · 1785

★ 3.8

Experience is the oracle of truth; and where its responses are unequivocal, they ought to be conclusive and sacred.

Federalist 20 · 1787

★ 3.8

It will not be denied, that power is of an encroaching nature, and that it ought to be effectually restrained from passing the limits assigned to it.

Federalist 48 · 1788

★ 3.8

No society can make a perpetual constitution, or even a perpetual law. The earth belongs always to the living generation.

Letter to James Madison, 1789 · 1789

★ 3.8

Nor shall any person be subject for the same offence to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law.

Bill of Rights · 1789

★ 3.8

The right of the people to be secure...against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause.

Bill of Rights · 1789

★ 3.8

In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed.

To be prepared for war is one of the most effectual means of preserving peace.

Bill of Rights · 1789

★ 3.8

No nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare.

1790

★ 3.8

Pamphlet · Political literature

1795

★ 3.8

Tis our true policy to steer clear of permanent alliances, with any portion of the foreign world.

1796

★ 3.8

Sometimes it is said that man can not be trusted with the government of himself. Can he, then, be trusted with the government of others? Or have we found angels in the forms of kings to govern him? Let history answer this question.

First Inaugural Address of Thomas Jefferson · 1801

★ 3.8

I agree with you that there is a natural aristocracy among men. The grounds of this are virtue and talents.

1813

★ 3.8

If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be.

1816

★ 3.8

Nothing gives one person so great advantage over another, as to remain always cool and unruffled under all circumstances.

1816

★ 3.8

We are not afraid to follow truth wherever it may lead, nor to tolerate any error so long as reason is left free to combat it.

1820

★ 3.8

We have the wolf by the ear, and we can neither hold him, nor safely let him go. Justice is in one scale, and self-preservation in the other.

1820

★ 3.8

We have the wolf by the ears; and we can neither hold him, nor safely let him go. Justice is in one scale, and self-preservation in the other.

1820

★ 3.8

We loved with a love that was more than love.

The best way to lift one's self up is to help someone else.

New-York Daily Tribune · 1849

★ 3.8

Autobiography and memoir

No race can prosper till it learns that there is as much dignity in tilling a field as in writing a poem.

1900

★ 3.8

Autobiography and memoir

Few things can help an individual more than to place responsibility upon him, and to let him know that you trust him.

Up from Slavery · 1900

★ 3.8

Autobiography and memoir

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.

Up From Slavery · 1901

★ 3.8

1776

★ 3.7

By a faction, I understand a number of citizens, whether amounting to a majority or a minority of the whole, who are united and actuated by some common impulse of passion, or of interest, adversed to the rights of other citizens, or to the permanent and aggregate interests of the community.

1787

★ 3.7

Is it not the glory of the people of America, that, whilst they have paid a decent regard to the opinions of former times and other nations, they have not suffered a blind veneration for antiquity, for custom, or for names, to overrule the suggestions of their own good sense, the knowledge of their own situation, and the lessons of their own experience?

Federalist 14 · 1787

★ 3.7

So strong is this propensity of mankind to fall into mutual animosities, that where no substantial occasion presents itself, the most frivolous and fanciful distinctions have been sufficient to kindle their unfriendly passions and excite their most violent conflicts.

Federalist 10 · 1787

★ 3.7

The influence of factious leaders may kindle a flame within their particular States, but will be unable to spread a general conflagration through the other States.

Federalist 10 · 1787

★ 3.7

Democracies have ever been spectacles of turbulence and contention; have ever been found incompatible with personal security or the rights of property; and have in general been as short in their lives as they have been violent in their deaths.

Federalist 10 · 1787

★ 3.7

Were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter.

1787

★ 3.7

State a moral case to a ploughman and a professor. The former will decide it as well, and often better than the latter, because he has not been led astray by artificial rules.

1787

★ 3.7

I think our governments will remain virtuous for many centuries; as long as they are chiefly agricultural; and this will be as long as there shall be vacant lands in any part of America. When they get piled upon one another in large cities, as in Europe, they will become corrupt as in Europe.

Is there no virtue among us? If there be not, we are in a wretched situation.

1787

★ 3.7

1788

★ 3.7

The defect must be supplied, by so contriving the interior structure of the government as that its several constituent parts may, by their mutual relations, be the means of keeping each other in their proper places.

Federalist 51 · 1788

★ 3.7

An elective despotism was not the government we fought for; but one which should not only be founded on free principles, but in which the powers of government should be so divided and balanced among several bodies of magistracy, as that no one could transcend their legal limits, without being effectually checked and restrained by the others.

Federalist 48 · 1788

★ 3.7

The powers delegated by the proposed Constitution to the federal government are few and defined. Those which are to remain in the State governments are numerous and indefinite.

Federalist 45 · 1788

★ 3.7

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.

Federalist 51 · 1788

★ 3.7

It is ESSENTIAL to such a government that it be derived from the great body of the society, not from an inconsiderable proportion, or a favored class of it; otherwise a handful of tyrannical nobles, exercising their oppressions by a delegation of their powers, might aspire to the rank of republicans, and claim for their government the honorable title of republic.

Federalist 39 · 1788

★ 3.7

We may define a republic to be, or at least may bestow that name on, a government which derives all its powers directly or indirectly from the great body of the people, and is administered by persons holding their offices during pleasure, for a limited period, or during good behavior.

Federalist 39 · 1788

★ 3.7

A good government implies two things: first, fidelity to the object of government, which is the happiness of the people; secondly, a knowledge of the means by which that object can be best attained.

Federalist 62 · 1788

★ 3.7

In a society under the forms of which the stronger faction can readily unite and oppress the weaker, anarchy may as truly be said to reign as in a state of nature.

Federalist 51 · 1788

★ 3.7

The operations of the federal government will be most extensive and important in times of war and danger; those of the State governments, in times of peace and security.

It rests now with ourselves alone to enjoy in peace and concord the blessings of self-government, so long denied to mankind: to shew by example the sufficiency of human reason for the care of human affairs and that the will of the majority, the Natural law of every society, is the only sure guardian of the rights of man.

Federalist 45 · 1788

★ 3.7

1790

★ 3.7

Observe good faith and justice toward all Nations. Cultivate peace and harmony with all... The Nation, which indulges towards another an habitual hatred or an habitual fondness, is in some degree a slave. It is a slave to its animosity or to its affection, either of which is sufficient to lead it astray from its duty and its interest.

Washington's Farewell Address · 1796

★ 3.7

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.

Washington's Farewell Address · 1796

★ 3.7

The Nation, which indulges towards another an habitual hatred or an habitual fondness, is in some degree a slave. It is a slave to its animosity or to its affection, either of which is sufficient to lead it astray from its duty and its interest.

1796

★ 3.7

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.

Washington's Farewell Address · 1796

★ 3.7

While in Europe, I often amused myself with contemplating the characters of the then reigning sovereigns of Europe. Lous XVI was a fool, of my own knowledge, and in despite of the answers made at his trial. The King of Spain was a fool, and of Naples the same. They passed their lives in hunting, and despatched two courtiers a week, one thousand miles, to let each other know what game they had killed the preceding days. The King of Sardinia was a fool. All these were Bourbons. The Queen of Portugal, a Braganza, was an idiot by nature. And so was the King of Denmark. Their sons, as regents, exercised the powers of government. The King of Prussia, successor to the great Frederick, was a mere hog in body as well as in mind. Gustavus of Sweden, and Joseph of Austria, were really crazy, and George of England you know was in a straight waistcoat.

1810

★ 3.7

A strict observance of the written laws is doubtless one of the highest duties of a good citizen: but it is not the highest. The laws of necessity, of self-preservation, of saving our country when in danger, are of higher obligation.

1810

★ 3.7

Dictionaries are but the depositories of words already legitimated by usage. Society is the work-shop in which new ones are elaborated. When an individual uses a new word, if illformed it is rejected in society, if well-informed, adopted, and, after due time, laid up in the depository of dictionaries.

1820

★ 3.7

The happiest day, the happiest hour My seared and blighted heart hath known, The highest hope of pride and power, I feel hath flown.

1822

★ 3.7

Poem

Tamerlane and Other Poems · 1827

★ 3.7

I was a child and she was a child, In this kingdom by the sea, But we loved with a love that was more than love, I and my Annabel Lee; With a love that the winged seraphs of heaven Coveted her and me.

From childhood's hour I have not been As others were; I have not seen As others saw.

New-York Daily Tribune · 1849

★ 3.7

Poem · Magazine

A liberal is a conservative who has been arrested.

Scribner's Monthly · 1849

★ 3.7

Novel

Tom Wolfe

The Bonfire of the Vanities · 1984

★ 3.7

I have but one lamp by which my feet are guided, and that is the lamp of experience. I know no way of judging of the future but by the past.

Patrick Henry

Speech at the Second Virginia Convention · 1775

★ 3.6

I believe there are more instances of the abridgement of freedom of the people by gradual and silent encroachments of those in power than by violent and sudden usurpations.

In every political society, parties are unavoidable. A difference of interests, real or supposed is the most natural and fruitful source of them...the great art of politicians lies in making them checks and balances to each other.

1788

★ 3.6

Essay · Newspaper · Political literature

Parties · 1792

★ 3.6

We owe it, therefore, to candor, and to the amicable relations existing between the United States and those powers to declare that we should consider any attempt on their part to extend their system to any portion of this hemisphere as dangerous to our peace and safety.

1823 State of the Union · 1823

★ 3.6

It was the remark of a Roman consul in an early period of that celebrated Republic that a most striking contrast was observable in the conduct of candidates for offices of power and trust before and after obtaining them, they seldom carrying out in the latter case the pledges and promises made in the former.

Inaugural Address of William Henry Harrison · 1841

★ 3.6

As long as the love of power is a dominant passion of the human bosom, and as long as the understandings of men can be warped and their affections changed by operations upon their passions and prejudices, so long will the liberties of a people depend on their own constant attention to its preservation.

Slave narrative · Autobiography and memoir

Inaugural Address of William Henry Harrison · 1841

★ 3.6

I entered the world a slave-in the midst of a country whose most honoured writings declare that all men have a right to liberty.

Henry Box Brown

1849

★ 3.6

I have fought against the people of the North because I believed they were seeking to wrest from the South its dearest rights. But I have never cherished toward them bitter or vindictive feelings, and I have never seen the day when I did not pray for them.

Robert E. Lee

1865

★ 3.6

Essay

Radical Chic, after all, is only radical in style; in its heart it is part of Society and its traditions.

Tom Wolfe

Radical Chic & Mau-Mauing the Flak Catchers · 1970

★ 3.6

Interview · Magazine

Darkness is good. Dick Cheney. Darth Vader. Satan. That's power.

Steve Bannon

2016

★ 3.6

Interview

The media's the opposition party.

Steve Bannon

2017

★ 3.6

The freedom of the press is one of the greatest bulwarks of liberty, and can never be restrained but by despotic governments.

George Mason

Virginia Bill of Rights · 1776

★ 3.5

The North is determined to preserve this Union. They are not a fiery, impulsive people as you are, for they live in colder climates. But when they begin to move in a given direction... They move with the steady momentum and perseverance of a mighty avalanche.

Samuel Houston

1861

★ 3.5

No idea is so antiquated that it was not once modern. No idea is so modern that it will not someday be antiquated.

Ellen Glasgow

1936

★ 3.5

Government is, or ought to be instituted for the common benefit, protection, and security of the people, nation, or community; of all the various modes and forms of government, that is best which is capable of producing the greatest degree of happiness and safety, and is most effectually secured against the danger of maladministration.

George Mason

Virginia Bill of Rights · 1776

★ 3.5

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

A Summary View of the Rights of British America · 1774

★ 2.2

Ignorance is preferable to error, and he is less remote from the truth who believes nothing, than he who believes what is wrong.

Notes on the State of Virginia · 1785

★ 2.2

I cannot live without books.

Letter to John Adams, 1815 · 1815

★ 2.2

Those who labor in the earth are the chosen people of God, if ever He had a chosen people, whose breasts He has made His peculiar deposit for substantial and genuine virtue.

Notes on the State of Virginia · 1785

★ 2.1

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

1786

★ 2.1

The most common and durable source of factions has been the various and unequal distribution of property.

Federalist 10 · 1787

★ 2.1

In republican government, the legislative authority necessarily predominates.

Federalist 51 · 1788

★ 2.1

No People can be bound to acknowledge and adore the invisible hand, which conducts the Affairs of men more than the People of the United States. Every step, by which they have advanced to the character of an independent nation, seems to have been distinguished by some token of providential agency.

First Inaugural Address of George Washington · 1789

★ 2.1

All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall...abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

1789

★ 2.1

Never fear the want of business. A man who qualifies himself well for his calling, never fails of employment.

1792

★ 2.1

The basis of our political systems is the right of the people to make and to alter their Constitutions of Government.

Washington's Farewell Address · 1796

★ 2.1

With experience enough in subordinate offices to have seen the difficulties of this the greatest of all, I have learnt to expect that it will rarely fall to the lot of imperfect man to retire from this station with the reputation and the favor which bring him into it.

First Inaugural Address of Thomas Jefferson · 1801

★ 2.1

Freedom of religion; freedom of the press, and freedom of person under the protection of the habeas 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.

First Inaugural Address of Thomas Jefferson · 1801

★ 2.1

A wise and frugal Government, which shall restrain men from injuring one another, 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.

First Inaugural Address of Thomas Jefferson · 1801

★ 2.1

All, too, will bear in mind this sacred principle, that though the will of the majority is in all cases to prevail, that will to be rightful must be reasonable; that the minority possess their equal rights, which equal law must protect, and to violate would be oppression.

First Inaugural Address of Thomas Jefferson · 1801

★ 2.1

Let us restore to social intercourse that harmony and affection without which liberty and even life itself are but dreary things. And let us reflect that, having banished from our land that religious intolerance under which mankind so long bled and suffered, we have yet gained little if we countenance a political intolerance as despotic, as wicked, and capable of as bitter and bloody persecutions.

First Inaugural Address of Thomas Jefferson · 1801

★ 2.1

The press, confined to truth, needs no other legal restraint; the public judgment will correct false reasonings and opinions, on a full hearing of all parties; and no other definite line can be drawn between the inestimable liberty of the press and its demoralizing licentiousness.

Second Inaugural Address of Thomas Jefferson · 1805

★ 2.1

Nothing can now be believed which is seen in a newspaper. Truth itself becomes suspicious by being put into that polluted vehicle.

The care of human life and happiness, and not their destruction, is the first and only legitimate object of good government.

1807

★ 2.1

Open letter · Letter

1809

★ 2.1

In our whole system, national and State, we have shunned all the defects which unceasingly preyed on the vitals and destroyed the ancient Republics.

It is well that war is so terrible, or we should grow too fond of it.

Second Inaugural Address of James Monroe · 1821

★ 2.1

Robert E. Lee

1862

★ 2.1

Speech · Military speech

The time is now near at hand which must probably determine whether Americans are to be freemen or slaves; whether they are to have any property they can call their own... The fate of unborn millions will now depend, under God, on the courage and conduct of this army. Our cruel and unrelenting Enemy leaves us no choice but a brave resistance, or the most abject submission; this is all we can expect-We have, therefore, to resolve to conquer or die.

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 & silent we may be led, like sheep, to the Slaughter.

1776

★ 2.0

Speech · Military speech

1783

★ 2.0

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.

1785

★ 2.0

A pure democracy, by which I mean a society consisting of a small number of citizens, who assemble and administer the government in person, can admit of no cure for the mischiefs of faction.

1787

★ 2.0

The latent causes of faction are thus sown in the nature of man; and we see them everywhere brought into different degrees of activity, according to the different circumstances of civil society.

Federalist 10 · 1787

★ 2.0

A landed interest, a manufacturing interest, a mercantile interest, a moneyed interest, with many lesser interests, grow up of necessity in civilized nations, and divide them into different classes, actuated by different sentiments and views. The regulation of these various and interfering interests forms the principal task of modern legislation, and involves the spirit of party and faction in the necessary and ordinary operations of the government.

Federalist 10 · 1787

★ 2.0

In a democracy, the people meet and exercise the government in person; in a republic, they assemble and administer it by their representatives and agents. A democracy, consequently, will be confined to a small spot. A republic may be extended over a large region.

Federalist 14 · 1787

★ 2.0

The two great points of difference between a democracy and a republic are: first, the delegation of the government, in the latter, to a small number of citizens elected by the rest; secondly, the greater number of citizens, and greater sphere of country, over which the latter may be extended.

Federalist 10 · 1787

★ 2.0

Experience declares that man is the only animal which devours his own kind, for I can apply no milder term to the governments of Europe, and to the general prey of the rich on the poor.

1787

★ 2.0

It is of great importance in a republic not only to guard the society against the oppression of its rulers, but to guard one part of the society against the injustice of the other part.

1788

★ 2.0

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.

Federalist 62 · 1788

★ 2.0

Different interests necessarily exist in different classes of citizens. If a majority be united by a common interest, the rights of the minority will be insecure.

Federalist 51 · 1788

★ 2.0

I go on the principle that a public debt is a public curse, and in a Republican Government a greater than in any other.

The class of citizens who provide at once their own food and their own raiment, may be viewed as the most truly independent and happy.

1790

★ 2.0

Essay · Newspaper

1792

★ 2.0

Never did a government commence under auspices so favorable, nor ever was success so complete. If we look to the history of other nations, ancient or modern, we find no example of a growth so rapid, so gigantic, of a people so prosperous and happy.

First Inaugural Address of James Monroe · 1817

★ 2.0

It is only when the people become ignorant and corrupt, when they degenerate into a populace, that they are incapable of exercising the sovereignty. Usurpation is then an easy attainment, and an usurper soon found. The people themselves become the willing instruments of their own debasement and ruin. Let us, then, look to the great cause, and endeavor to preserve it in full force. Let us by all wise and constitutional measures promote intelligence among the people as the best means of preserving our liberties.

First Inaugural Address of James Monroe · 1817

★ 2.0

I know no safe depository of the ultimate powers of the society but the people themselves; and if we think them not enlightened enough to exercise their control with a wholesome discretion, the remedy is not to take it from them, but to inform their discretion.

1820

★ 2.0

And even should the cloud of barbarism and despotism again obscure the science and liberties of Europe, this country remains to preserve and restore light and liberty to them. In short, the flames kindled on the fourth of July, 1776, have spread over too much of the globe to be extinguished by the feeble engines of despotism; on the contrary, they will consume these engines and all who work them.

Letter to John Adams, 1821 · 1821

★ 2.0

There is every reason to believe that our system will soon attain the highest degree of perfection of which human institutions are capable, and that the movement in all its branches will exhibit such a degree of order and harmony as to command the admiration and respect of the civilized world.

Second Inaugural Address of James Monroe · 1821

★ 2.0

The advancement & diffusion of Knowledge, which is the only Guardian of true liberty.

1825

★ 2.0

The boundaries which divide Life from Death are at best shadowy and vague. Who shall say where the one ends, and where the other begins?

The Philadelphia Dollar Newspaper · 1844

★ 2.0

In the wars of the European powers in matters relating to themselves we have never taken any part, nor does it comport with our policy so to do.

1823

★ 1.9

If parties in a republic are necessary to secure a degree of vigilance sufficient to keep the public functionaries within the bounds of law and duty, at that point their usefulness ends. Beyond that they become destructive of public virtue, the parent of a spirit antagonist to that of liberty, and eventually its inevitable conqueror.

Inaugural Address of William Henry Harrison · 1841

★ 1.9

We admit of no government by divine right, believing that so far as power is concerned the Beneficent Creator has made no distinction amongst men; that all are upon an equality, and that the only legitimate right to govern is an express grant of power from the governed.

Inaugural Address of William Henry Harrison · 1841

★ 1.9

Always the friend of my countrymen, never their flatterer, it becomes my duty to say to them from this high place to which their partiality has exalted me that there exists in the land a spirit hostile to their best interests—hostile to liberty itself. It is a spirit contracted in its views, selfish in its objects.

Inaugural Address of William Henry Harrison · 1841

★ 1.9

Those who are called upon to administer it must recognize as its leading principle the duty of shaping their measures so as to produce the greatest good to the greatest number.

Inaugural Address of William Henry Harrison · 1841

★ 1.9

I consider the veto power, therefore given by the Constitution to the Executive of the United States solely as a conservative power, to be used only first, to protect the Constitution from violation; secondly, the people from the effects of hasty legislation where their will has been probably disregarded or not well understood, and, thirdly, to prevent the effects of combinations violative of the rights of minorities.

The skies they were ashen and sober; The leaves they were crisped and sere, The leaves they were withering and sere; It was night in the lonesome October Of my most immemorial year.

Inaugural Address of William Henry Harrison · 1841

★ 1.9

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