Samuel Adams

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

"Among the natural rights of the colonists are these: First, a right to life; Secondly to liberty; Thirdly to property."

"It does not take a majority to make a rebellion; it takes only a few determined citizens."

"A free people ought not only to be armed and disciplined, but they should have sufficient arms and ammunition to maintain a status of independence from any who might attempt to abuse them."

"Patience will achieve more with a man ruled by the law than any violence or compulsion."

"The said Constitution shall never be construed to warrant a standing army in the time of peace."

"Let each citizen remember at the moment he is offered a choice for public office, that the probability that he will be a bad president is several times higher than that he will be a good one."

"When the people fear the government, there is tyranny. When the government fears the people, there is liberty."

"Truth is like a lion; you don't have to defend it. Let it loose; it will defend itself."

"The Constitution shall never be construed to prevent the people of the United States who are peaceable citizens from keeping their own arms."

"A free people ought not only to be armed and disciplined, but they should have sufficient arms and ammunition to maintain a status of independence."

"I repeat it, sir, we must fight! An appeal to arms and to the God of hosts is all that is left us!"

"He would be a hard man to please, if the prospect of $10,000 a year is not enough."

"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."

"How strangely will the tools of a tyrant pervert the plain meaning of words!"

"The liberties of our country, the freedom of our civil constitution, are worth defending at all hazards."

"What a glorious morning for America!"

"Is it in this, that we see the genius of the Revolution, and the character of the American people?"

"Legislation is the art of combining human selfishness for the public good."

"Mankind are governed by names; therefore the names of things should be carefully ascertained."

"The man who is tempted and falls, is not so culpable as he who yields to the temptation and then rises to commit further sins."

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

"Vigilance is the price of liberty."

"Our Union is the foundation of our respective prosperity and a principal source of our common glory."

"Happy will be the day when the people shall consent to be free."

"It is not unworthy of consideration, that mankind, in general, have never adopted one well-regulated system of morals."

"The attainment of the summum bonum requires us to practise virtue."

"It is enough that the people know there was an election. The people who cast the votes decide nothing. The people who count the votes decide everything."

"There is nothing so fretting and vexatious, nothing so justly terrible to tyrants, as a people determined to be free."

"Let it be impressed upon your minds that God is omniscient, eternally just, and infinitely merciful."