politics Quotes

We are not to expect to be translated from despotism to liberty in a featherbed.

If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be.

Our country is now taking so steady a course as to show by what road it will pass to destruction, to wit: by consolidation of power first, and then corruption, its necessary consequence.

I own that I am not a friend to a very energetic government. It is always oppressive.

When we get piled upon one another in large cities, as in Europe, we shall become as corrupt as Europe.

If the present Congress errs in too much talking, how can it be otherwise in a body to which the people send one hundred and fifty lawyers, whose trade it is to question everything, yield nothing, and talk by the hour?

Every government degenerates when trusted to the rulers of the people alone. The people themselves are its only safe depositories.

None but an armed nation can dispense with a standing army. To keep ours armed and disciplined is therefore at all times important.

Force is the vital principle and immediate parent of despotism.

The best government is a benevolent tyranny tempered by an occasional assassination.