Founding Fathers Quotes: Our Favorite Quotes from America's Courageous Revolutionaries

“Our unalterable resolution should be to be free.” -Sam Adams, to James Warren, 1776

“Wear none of thine own chains; but keep free, whilst thou art free.” -William Penn, "Some Fruits of Solitude", 1693

“You will never know how much it has cost my generation to preserve YOUR freedom. I hope you will make a good use of it.” -John Adams

“The spirit of resistance to government is so valuable on certain occasions, that I wish it to be always kept alive.” -Thomas Jefferson, to Abigail Smith Adams, February 22, 1787

“Man is born free, and everywhere he is in chains.” -Jean Jacques Rousseau, The Social Contract, 1762

“Those that can give up essential liberty to gain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.” -Benjamin Franklin

Contemplate the mangled bodies of your countrymen, and then say, 'What should be the reward of such sacrifices?' Bid us and our posterity bow the knee, supplicate the friendship, and plough, and sow, and reap, to glut the avarice of the men who have let loose on us the dogs of war to riot in our blood and hunt us from the face of the earth? If ye love wealth better than liberty, the tranquility of servitude than the animating contest of freedom, go from us in peace. We ask not your counsels or arms. Crouch down and lick the hands which feed you. May your chains sit lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that ye were our countrymen!

--Samuel Adams

"And what country can preserve its liberties, if its rulers are not warned from time to time, that this people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms...The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time, with the blood of patriots and tyrants."
Letter to William S. Smith 13 Nov 1787 (Jefferson, On Democracy p. 20, 1939; Padover, editor)

"I am not well versed in history, but I will submit to your recollection, whether liberty has been destroyed most often by the licentiousness of the people, or by the tyranny of rulers. I imagine, sir, you will find the balance on the side of tyranny." - Patrick Henry

"As civil rulers, not having their duty to the people duly before them, may attempt to tyrannize, and as the military forces which must be occasionally raised to defend our country, might pervert their power to the injury of their fellow-citizens, the people are confirmed by the next article in their right to keep and bear their private arms." - Tenche Coxe (introduction to his discussion, and support, of the 2nd Amend) "Remarks on the First Part of the Amendments to the Federal Constitution" Philadelphia Federal Gazette, 18 June 1789, pg.2

"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 may have a gun." - Patrick Henry, spoken during Virginia's ratification convention, June 14, 1788

"Still, if you will not fight for the right when you can easily win without bloodshed; if you will not fight when your victory will be sure and not too costly; you may come to the moment when you will have to fight with all the odds against you and only a precarious chance of survival. There may be a worse case. You may have to fight when there is no hope of victory, because it is better to perish than to live as slaves."- Winston Churchill

"After five and a half years of National Socialism it was evident to the few Germans who opposed Hitler that only the Army possessed the physical strength to overthrow him. The workers, the middle and upper classes, even if they had wanted to, had no means of doing it. They had no organization outside of the Nazi party groups, and they were, of course, unarmed.” - William R. Shirer, The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich (Ch.12 "The Road to Munich;" Section 4, "Birth of a Conspiracy Against Hitler.")

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