Samuel Adams

"Ambition is the resource of the idle, and the plague of the industrious."

"Do you set up the heads of the departments as gods for us to worship?"

"The religion and public liberty of a people are intimately connected; their interests are interwoven, they cannot subsist separately."

"I desire the company of a man who could sympathize with me, whose eyes would point out to me the defects of my person and my mind."

"A free people are not just, nor can they long endure, unless they possess high moral and intellectual endowments."

"In the midst of this war, the most alarming circumstance is that the public funds are not adequate to supply the armies."

"These are the times that try men's souls."

"It is not the office of a good magistrate to take sides in religious controversies."

"Mankind are governed more by their feelings than by reason."

"This shall be the test of a free man,—that he may speak his opinion freely."

"I detest the corruption, but I love the man who is less guilty than others."

"The right to freedom being the gift of God Almighty, it is not in the power of any man to alienate this gift."

"Without the presumption of the natural rights of mankind, the foundation of justice cannot be laid."

"The strength of a nation derives from the integrity of the home."

"Character is destiny."

"All the perplexities, confusion and distress in America arise, not from defects in their Constitution or Confederation, they are occasions in the human heart."

"Let me tell you that the present system of government is pregnant with the seeds of its own dissolution."

"The public liberty will not long survive the destruction of private liberty."

"Public virtue is the only foundation of Republics."

"The dissolution of the union is inevitable."

"He is a traitor to his country who, in the hour of danger, deserts the cause of his country."

"Reason and free enquiry are the only effectual agents against error."

"The press shall be free as long as the presses run."

"It is good to be up after midnight, in a cool, clear, and cloudless night, when not a breath of air is stirring."

"Knowledge is the foundation of freedom."

"I thank God that I have given offence to no man."

"It is scarcely to be imagined how much the state of a man's own breast influences the whole subject of his inquiry."

"Mankind are universally actuated by the desire of distinction."

"The public safety is paramount to all other considerations."

"Nip the shoots of arbitrary power in the bud, is the only maxim which can ever preserve the liberties of any people."