Founding Fathers Quotes…

On Debt:

“A private central bank issuing the public currency is a greater menace to the liberties of the people than a standing army.  We must not let our rulers load us with perpetual debt.” ~ Thomas Jefferson

“I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies. If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their currency, first by inflation, then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around will deprive the people of all property until their children wake-up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered. The issuing power should be taken from the banks and restored to the people, to whom it properly belongs.” ~ Thomas Jefferson

“No pecuniary consideration is more urgent than the regular redemption and discharge of the public debt.” ~ George Washington

”A departure from principle becomes a precedent for a second; that second for a third; and so on, till the bulk of society is reduced to mere automatons of misery, to have no sensibilities left but for sinning and suffering… And the fore horse of this frightful team is public debt. Taxation follows that, and in its train wretchedness and oppression.” ~ Thomas Jefferson

On Government:

“When all government, domestic and foreign, in little as in great things, shall be drawn to Washington as the center of all power, it will render powerless the checks provided of one government on another, and will become as venal and oppressive as the government from which we separated.” ~ Thomas Jefferson

“You seem … to consider the 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… The Constitution has erected no such single tribunal.” ~ Thomas Jefferson

“Congress has not unlimited powers to provide for the general welfare but only those specifically enumerated.” ~ Thomas Jefferson

“Government is not reason, it is not eloquence, it is force. Like fire it is a dangerous servant and a fearsome master.” ~ George Washington

“If, from the more wretched parts of the old world, we look at those which are in an advanced stage of improvement, we still find the greedy hand of government thrusting itself into every corner and crevice of industry, and grasping the spoil of the multitude. Invention is continually exercised, to furnish new pretenses for revenues and taxation. It watches prosperity as its prey and permits none to escape without tribute.” ~ Thomas Paine

“Arbitrary power is most easily established on the ruins of liberty abused to licentiousness.” ~ George Washington

“If we can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them, they must become happy.” ~ Thomas Jefferson

“Society in every state is a blessing, but government, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil; in its worst state an intolerable one; for when we suffer or are exposed to the same miseries by a government, which we might expect in a country without government, our calamity is heightened by reflecting that we furnish the means by which we suffer.” ~ Thomas Paine

“The preservation of a free Government requires not merely, that the metes and bounds which separate each department of power be invariably maintained; but more especially that neither of them be suffered to overleap the great Barrier which defends the rights of the people. The Rulers who are guilty of such an encroachment, exceed the commission from which they derive their authority, and are Tyrants. The People who submit to it are governed by laws made neither by themselves nor by an authority derived from them, and are slaves.” ~ Thomas Paine

“A free people [claim] their rights as derived from the laws of nature, and not as the gift of their chief magistrate.” ~ Thomas Jefferson

“A nation under a well regulated government, should permit none to remain uninstructed. It is monarchical and aristocratical government only that requires ignorance for its support.” ~ Thomas Paine

On Free Markets:

“Harmony, liberal intercourse with all Nations, are recommended by policy, humanity and interest. But even our Commercial policy should hold an equal and impartial hand: neither seeking nor granting exclusive favours or preferences; consulting the natural course of things; diffusing and diversifying by gentle means the streams of Commerce, but forcing nothing; establishing with Powers so disposed; in order to give trade a stable course.” ~ George Washington

On Political Correctness:

“He who dares not offend cannot be honest.” ~ Thomas Paine

 

On Education:

“Educate and inform the whole mass of the people. Enable them to see that it is their interest to preserve peace and order, and they will preserve them.” ~ Thomas Jefferson

“All the States but our own are sensible that knowledge is power.” ~ Thomas Jefferson

On Foreign Policy:

“But if we are to be told by a foreign Power … what we shall do, and what we shall not do, we have Independence yet to seek, and have contended hitherto for very little.” ~ George Washington

“`Tis folly in one Nation to look for disinterested favors from another; that it must pay with a portion of its Independence for whatever it may accept under that character; that by such acceptance, it may place itself in the condition of having given equivalents for nominal favours and yet of being reproached with ingratitude for not giving more. There can be no greater error than to expect, or calculate upon real favours from Nation to Nation. `Tis an illusion which experience must cure, which a just pride ought to discard.” ~ George Washington

“To be prepared for war is one of the most effectual means of preserving peace.” ~ George Washington

“`Tis our true policy to steer clear of permanent Alliances, with any portion of the foreign world.” ~ George Washington

“If we desire to insult, we must be able to repel it; if we desire to secure peace, one of the most powerful instruments of our rising prosperity, it must be known, that we are at all times ready for War.” ~ George Washington

“Against the insidious wiles of foreign influence, (I conjure you to believe me fellow citizens) the jealousy of a free people ought to be constantly awake; since history and experience prove that foreign influence is one of the most baneful foes of Republican Government.” ~ George Washington

“He that would make his own liberty secure, must guard even his enemy from oppression; for if he violates this duty, he establishes a precedent that will reach to himself.” ~ Thomas Paine

On Right to Bear Firearms:

“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 prevent homicides from an unarmed man, may be attacked with greater confidence than an armed man.” ~ Thomas Paine

On History:

“A morsel of genuine history is a thing so rare as to be always valuable.” ~ Thomas Jefferson

On Freedom:

“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.” ~ Thomas Jefferson