Quotes of the USA's Founding Forefathers

[AngieM2]

I'm restarting this for the quotes that were of the USA Founding Forefathers.

My start:

James Madison

(Architect of the U.S. Constitution & Co-Author of the Federalist Papers)

"History records that the money changers have used every form of abuse, intrigue, deceit, and violent means possible to maintain their control over governments by controlling the money and its issuance."

[AngieM2]

"And I sincerely believe, with you, that banking establishments are more dangerous than standing armies; and that the principle of spending money to be paid by posterity, under the name of funding, is but swindling futurity on a large scale."
Thomas Jefferson to John Taylor, Monticello, 28 May 1816. Ford 11:533

[TNHermit]

[TNHermit]

Property is the fruit of labor... Property is desirable...is a positive good in the world. That some should be rich shows that others may become rich, and hence is just encouragement to industry and enterprise. Let not him who is houseless pull down the house of another; but let him labor diligently and build one for himself, thus by example assuring that his own shall be safe from violence when built.

– Abraham Lincoln, reply to New York Workingmen's Democratic Republican Association, March 21, 1864
— with Fred Alekel and Adam Ramati.

[TNHermit]

[TNHermit]

[TNHermit]

[TNHermit]

[TNHermit]

[TNHermit]

[AngieM2]

Originally Posted by TNHermit

Amen!

[joseph97297]

The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much; it is whether we provide enough for those who have too little.
Franklin D. Roosevelt



If a free society cannot help the many who are poor, it cannot save the few who are rich.
John F. Kennedy


“To waste, to destroy our natural resources, to skin and exhaust the land instead of using it so as to increase its usefulness, will result in undermining in the days of our children the very prosperity which we ought by right to hand down to them amplified and developed.”
Theodore Roosevelt

[TNHermit]

By Liberty I understand the Power which every Man has over his own Actions, and his Right to enjoy the Fruits of his Labour, Art, and Industry, as far as by it he hurts not the Society, or any Members of it, by taking from any Member, or by hindering him from enjoying what he himself enjoys. The Fruits of a Man's honest Industry are the just Rewards of it, ascertained to him by natural and eternal Equity, as is his Title to use them in the Manner which he thinks fit: And thus, with the above Limitations, every Man is sole Lord and Arbitrer of his own private Actions and Property.

[TNHermit]

The only freedom deserving the name, is that of pursuing our own good in our own way, so long as we do not attempt to deprive others of theirs, or impede their efforts to obtain it. Each is the proper guardian of his own health, whether bodily, or mental and spiritual. Mankind are greater gainers by suffering each other to live as seems good to themselves, than by compelling each to live as seems good to the rest.

John Stuart Mill, On Liberty (1859)

[TNHermit]

Thomas Paine - "Thoughts on Defensive War" in Pennsylvania Magazine (July 1775)
Monday, May 30, 2011



"Arms discourage and keep the invader and plunderer in awe, and preserve order in the world as well as property... Horrid mischief would ensue were the law-abiding deprived of the use of them."

[TNHermit]

The multiplication of public offices, increase of expense beyond income, growth and entailment of a public debt, are indications soliciting the employment of the pruning knife; and I doubt not it will be employed; good principles being as yet prevalent enough for that.

– Thomas Jefferson, letter to Judge Spencer Roane, March 9, 1821; Bergh 15:325

[TNHermit]

It has been computed by some political arithmetician, that if every man and woman would work for four hours every day on something useful, that labour would produce sufficient to procure all the necessaries of life, want and misery would be banished out of the world, and the rest of the twentyfour hours might be leisure and pleasure.

What occasions, then, so much want and misery? It is the employment of men and women in works that produce neither the necessaries nor conveniences of life; who, with those who do nothing, consume necessaries raised by the laborious. To explain this.

The first elements of wealth are obtained by labour, from the earth and waters. I have land and raise corn. With this, if I feed a family that does nothing, my corn will be consumed, and at the end of the year I shall be no richer than I was at the beginning. But if, while I feed them, I employ them, some in spinning, others in making bricks, &c, for building, the value of my corn will be arrested and remain with me, and at the end of the year we may all be better clothed and better lodged. And if, instead of employing a man I feed in making bricks, I employ him in fiddling for me, the corn he eats is gone, and no part of his manufacture remains to augment the wealth and convenience of the family; I shall, therefore, be the poorer for this fiddling man, unless the rest of my family work more or eat less, to make up the deficiency he occasions.

Benjamin Franklin, Essay on Luxury, Idleness, and Industry
From a letter to to Mr. Benjamin Vaughan, dated at Passy, July 26th, 1784

[unregistered41671]

"Give me liberty or give me death."
Patrick Henry

[emdeengee]

A very interesting subject to research. Lots of quotes about freedom and government and democracy and education. But the most interesting (and surprising) are the quotes on religion- especially Christianity. No wonder they were so determined to separate church and state.
Just a few:

"The United States in is no sense founded upon the Christian religion." George Washington

"Revealed religion has no weight with me." Benjamin Franklin

"I do not find in Christianity one redeeming feature." Thomas Jefferson

"This could be the best of all possible worlds if there were no religion in it." John Adams

"I disbelieve all holy men and holy books." Thomas Paine

"Religions are all alike, founded upon fables and myths." Thomas Jefferson

"In no instance have churches been the guardians of the liberties of the people." James Madison

"The Christian god is cruel, vindictive, capricious, and unjust." Thomas Jefferson

"What has been Christianity's fruits? Superstition, bigotry, and persecution." James Madison

Whenever we read the obscene stories, the voluptuous debaucheries, the cruel and tortuous executions, the unrelenting vindictiveness with which more than half the Bibleis filled, it would be more consistent that we call it the word of a demon than the word of God. It is a history of wickedness that has served to corrupt and brutalize
mankind." Thomas Paine

[TNHermit]