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.

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

Federalist 10 · 1787

★ 7.5

Letter · Political writing

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

1820

★ 7.3

Poem · Newspaper

Edgar Allan Poe

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.

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.

Bill of Rights · 1789

★ 7.2

Speech

George Washington

1796

★ 7.1

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

George Washington

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.

James Monroe

1823 State of the Union · 1823

★ 7.0

Speech · Funeral oration

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

Henry Lee III

1799

★ 6.9

Poem · Newspaper

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.

Edgar Allan Poe

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.

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.

1813

★ 6.2

Letter · Political writing

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.

George Washington

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.

Speeches measured by the hour, die with the hour.

1812

★ 4.7

Letter · Political writing

1824

★ 4.7

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

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.

1791

★ 4.6

Speech · Political speech

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.