Quotes on Founding

A people... who are possessed of the spirit of commerce, who see and who will pursue their advantages may achieve almost anything.

Religious bondage shackles and debilitates the mind and unfits it for every noble enterprise, every expanded prospect.

The best we can hope for concerning the people at large is that they be properly armed.

The doctrines of Jesus are simple, and tend to all the happiness of man.

If Tyranny and Oppression come to this land, it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy.

To take from one because it is thought that his own industry and that of his father's has acquired too much, in order to spare to others, who, or whose fathers have not exercised equal industry and skill, is to violate arbitrarily the first principle of association-the guarantee to every one of a free exercise of his industry and the fruits acquired by it.

In view of the tide of religiosity engulfing a once secular republic it is refreshing to be reminded by Freethinkers that free thought and skepticism are robustly in the American tradition. After all the Founding Fathers began by omitting God from the American Constitution.

Arms, like laws, discourage and keep the invader and plunderer in awe and preserve order.

To disarm the people... was the best and most effectual way to enslave them.

If ye love wealth better than liberty, the tranquility of servitude than the animated contest of freedom - go home 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 you were our countrymen!

Lighthouses are more helpful than churches.

The Founding Fathers in their wisdom decided that children were an unnatural strain on parents. So they provided jails called schools, equipped with tortures called an education.

Government is not reason, it is not eloquence, it is force...Never for a moment should it be left to irresponsible action.

We grew up founding our dreams on the infinite promise of American advertising. I still believe that one can learn to play the piano by mail and that mud will give you a perfect complexion.

Black women have been saving this republic since its founding. That was especially so during the Trump era when their turnout helped elect Democrats in unlikely places such as Alabama and Georgia.

Every country has a founding mythology. For Americans, it starts with our first president's youthful encounter with a cherry tree and refusal to tell a lie. Mr. Trump would do well to find inspiration in that story, which goes to the heart of what makes America different - and our foreign policy effective - around the world.

All power is inherent in the people.

The presidents and the founding fathers and all of the people we sort of raise up as false idols, we don't wrestle with the fact that many of these were brilliant men, but they were also men with deep prejudices against people of color, against indigenous people, against women.

Great companies don't just have one founding moment. They have many founding moments.

When our founding fathers drafted the Constitution and Bill of Rights, black people weren't even considered human.

I think right now we need to look back at the founding values of our country. Rise above partisanship, be less bitter when it comes to important matters that have to be solved.