Samuel Adams Quotes

If ever a time should come, when vain and aspiring men shall possess the highest seats in Government, our country will stand in need of its experienced patriots to prevent its ruin.

It does not take a majority to prevail... but rather an irate, tireless minority, keen on setting brushfires of freedom in the minds of men.

It is in the interest of tyrants to reduce the people to ignorance and vice. For they cannot live in any country where virtue and knowledge prevail.

Among the natural rights of the colonists are these: First a right to life, secondly to liberty, and thirdly to property; together with the right to defend them in the best manner they can.

The country shall be independent, and we will be satisfied with nothing short of it.

A true patriot would keep the attention of his fellow citizens awake to their grievances, and not allow them to rest till the causes of their just complaints are removed.

Our union is now complete; our constitution composed, established, and approved. You are now the guardians of your own liberties.

Mankind are governed more by their feelings than by reason.

Nil desperandum, -- Never Despair. That is a motto for you and me. All are not dead; and where there is a spark of patriotic fire, we will rekindle it.

A general dissolution of principles and manners will more surely overthrow the liberties of America than the whole force of the common enemy.

Liberty will not long survive the total extinction of morals.

Let each citizen remember at the moment he is offering his vote...that he is executing one of the most solemn trusts in human society for which he is accountable to God and his country.

How strangely will the Tools of a Tyrant pervert the plain Meaning of Words!

It is no dishonor to be in a minority in the cause of liberty and virtue

All might be free if they valued freedom, and defended it as they should.

If we suffer tamely a lawless attack upon our liberty, we encourage it, and involve others in our doom.

The liberties of our country, the freedom of our civil constitution, are worth defending against all hazards: And it is our duty to defend them against all attacks.

If taxes are laid upon us without our having a legal representation where they are laid, we are reduced from the character of free subjects to the state of tributary slaves.

The public cannot be too curious concerning the characters of public men.

The natural liberty of man is to be free from any superior power on Earth, and not to be under the will or legislative authority of man, but only to have the law of nature for his rule.

Religion and good morals are the only solid foundation of public liberty and happiness.

If the public are bound to yield obedience to laws to which they cannot give their approbation, they are slaves to those who make such laws and enforce them.

Our contest is not only whether we ourselves shall be free, but whether there shall be left to mankind an asylum on earth for civil and religious liberty.

What has commonly been called rebellion has more often been nothing but a manly and glorious struggle in opposition to the lawless power of rebellious kings and princes.

Neither the wisest constitution nor the wisest laws will secure the liberty and happiness of a people whose manners are universally corrupt.

If virtue & knowledge are diffused among the people, they will never be enslav'd. This will be their great security.

Principally, and first of all, I resign my soul to the Almighty Being who gave it, and my body I commit to the dust, relying on the merits of Jesus Christ for the pardon of my sins.

The necessity of the times, more than ever, calls for our utmost circumspection, deliberation, fortitude, and perseverance.

He who made all men hath made the truths necessary to human happiness obvious to all. Our forefathers opened the Bible to all.

I thank God that I have lived to see my country independent and free. She may long enjoy her independence and freedom if she will. It depends on her virtue.

We may look up to Armies for Defence, but Virtue is our best Security. It is not possible that any state should long remain free, where Virtue is not supremely honord.

Driven from every other corner of the earth, freedom of thought and the right of private judgment in matters of conscience direct their course to this happy country as their last asylum.

Nothing is more essential to the establishment of manners in a State than that all persons employed in places of power and trust must be men of unexceptionable characters.

A standing army, however necessary it may be at some times, is always dangerous to the liberties of the people. Such power should be watched with a jealous eye.

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!

What a man has honestly acquired is absolutely his own, which he may freely give, but cannot be taken from him without his consent.

Rebellion against a king may be pardoned, or lightly punished, but the man who dares to rebel against the laws of a republic ought to suffer death.

The right to freedom being the gift of God, it is not in the power of man to alienate this gift and voluntarily become a slave.

In regard to religion, mutual toleration in the different professions thereof is what all good and candid minds in all ages have ever practiced, and both by precept and example inculcated on mankind.

Shame on the men who can court exemption from present trouble and expense at the price of their own posterity's liberty!

We have this day restored the Sovereign to Whom all men ought to be obedient. He reigns in heaven and from the rising to the setting of the sun, let His kingdom come.

We cannot make events. Our business is wisely to improve them. Mankind are governed more by their feeling than by reason. Events which excite those feelings will produce wonderful effects.

Let no man thirst for good beer.

But there are some persons who wouldpersuade the people never to make use of their constitutional rights.

We cannot make events. Our business is wisely to improve them.

Let us contemplate our forefathers, and posterity, and resolve to maintain the rights bequeathed to us from the former, for the sake of the latter.

I ... [rely] upon the merits of Jesus Christ for a pardon of all my sins.

A nation of shopkeepers are very seldom so disinterested.

If our Trade be taxed, why not our Lands, or Produce in short, everything we possess? They tax us without having legal representation.

I firmly believe that the benevolent Creator designed the republican Form of Government for Man.