The Founding Fathers Speak

• “Keep your eyes wide open before marriage, half shut afterwards.” Benjamin Franklin.

 

• “To argue with a person who has renounced the use of reason is like administering medicine to the dead.” Thomas Paine.

 

• “When you reach the end of your rope, tie a knot and hang on.” Thomas Jefferson.

 

• “Among the many objects to which a wise and free people find it necessary to direct their attention, that of providing for their safety seems to be first.” John Jay.

 

• “It is far better to be alone than to be in bad company.” George Washington.

 

* ”Give me liberty or give me death.” Patrick Henry.

 

• “The best form of government is that which is most likely to prevent the greatest sum of evil.” James Madison.

 

• “Guests, like fish, begin to smell after three days.” Benjamin Franklin.

 

• “It is true, however disgraceful it may be to human nature, that nations in general will make war whenever they have a prospect of getting anything by it.” John Jay.

 

• “We must support our rights or lose our character, and with it, perhaps, our liberties.” James Monroe.

 

• “You cannot undermine police authority and then complain about rising crime.” Thomas Paine.

 

• “I have concluded that one useless man is a disgrace, that two become a law firm, and that three or more become a congress.” John Adams.

 

• “If the freedom of speech is taken away, then dumb and silent one may be led, like sheep to the slaughter.” George Washington.

 

• “I think the first duty of society is justice.” Alexander Hamilton.

 

• “Believe none of what you hear and half of what you see.” Benjamin Franklin.

 

• “The essence of government is power, and power, lodged as it must be in human hands, will ever be liable to abuse.” James Madison.

 

• “The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted.” James Madison.

 

• “Why has government been instituted at all? Because the passions of men will not conform to the dictates of reason and justice, without constraint.” Alexander Hamilton.

 

• “Some people die at 25 and aren't buried until 75.” Benjamin Franklin.

 

• “Oppressors can tyrannize only when they achieve a standing army, an enslaved press, and a disarmed populace.” James Madison.

 

• “I hold the maxim no less applicable to public than to private affairs, that honesty is the best policy.” George Washington.

 

• “Tell me and I forget. Teach me and I remember. Involve me and I learn.” Benjamin Franklin.