Top 123 Quotes & Sayings by Samuel Adams

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

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 against all hazards: And it is our duty to defend them against all attacks.

It is not infrequent to hear men declaim loudly upon liberty, who, if we may judge by the whole tenor of their actions, mean nothing else by it but their own liberty - to oppress without control, or the restraint of laws, all who are poorer and weaker than themselves.

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.

It behooves every American to encourage home manufactures, that our oppressors may feel through their pockets the effects of their blind folly.

The love of power, like the love of money, increases with the possession of it; and we know in what ruin these baneful passions have involved human societies in all ages when they have been let loose and suffered to rage uncontrolled - There is no restraint like the pervading eye of the virtuous citizens.

The marriage state was designed to complete the sum of human happiness in this life. It sometimes proves otherwise, but this is owing to the parties themselves, who either rush into it without due consideration or fail in point of discretion in their conduct towards each other afterwards.

If we despond, public confidence is destroyed, the people will no longer yield their support to a hopeless contest, and American liberty is no more. Through the darkness which shrouds our prospects, the ark of safety is visible. Despondency becomes not the dignity of our cause, nor the character of those who are its supporters.

We have proclaimed to the world our determination 'to die freemen, rather than to live slaves.' We have appealed to Heaven for the justice of our cause, and in Heaven we have placed our trust.

'But,' say the puling, pusillanimous cowards, 'we shall be subject to a long and bloody war if we declare independence.' On the contrary, I affirm it the only step that can bring the contest to a speedy and happy issue.

Mankind are governed more by their feelings than by reason.

For my own part, I have been wont to converse with poverty; and however disagreeable a companion she may be thought to be by the affluent and luxurious, who were never acquainted with her, I can live happily with her the remainder of my life if I can thereby contribute to the redemption of my country.

Numerous have been the manifestations of God's providence in sustaining us. In the gloomy period of adversity, we have had 'our cloud by day and pillar of fire by night.' We have been reduced to distress, and the arm of Omnipotence has raised us up.

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

I do not regret the part I have taken in a cause so just and interesting to mankind.

He who is void of virtuous attachments in private life is, or very soon will be, void of all regard for his country. There is seldom an instance of a man guilty of betraying his country, who had not before lost the feeling of moral obligations in his private connections.

If taxes are laid upon us in any shape without our having a legal representation where they are laid, are we not reduced from the character of free subjects to the miserable state of tributary slaves? We claim British rights not by charter only! We are born to them.

While I am in this world, I am resolved that no vexation shall put me out of temper if I can possibly command myself. Even old age, which is making strides towards me, shall not prevail to make me peevish.

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.

There is a solid satisfaction in one's having and being conscious that he merits the good opinion of men of true discernment and real worth. But to have a name among the weak and the wicked is shame and reproach.

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 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.

Power is, in its nature, encroaching; and such is the human make that men who are vested with a share of it are generally inclined to take more than it was intended they should have.

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.

Let no man thirst for good beer.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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

In a state of tranquility, wealth, and luxury, our descendants would forget the arts of war and the noble activity and zeal which made their ancestors invincible. Every art of corruption would be employed to loosen the bond of union which renders our resistance formidable. When the spirit of liberty which now animates our hearts and gives success to our arms is extinct, our numbers will accelerate our ruin and render us easier victims to tyranny.

In the midst of these pleasing ideas we should be unfaithful to ourselves if we should ever lose sight of the danger to our liberties if anything partial or extraneous should infect the purity of our free, fair, virtuous, and independent elections.

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

Liberty will not long survive the total extinction of morals.

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. The religion and public liberty of a people are intimately connected; their interests are interwoven, they cannot subsist separately; and therefore they rise and fall together. For this reason, it is always observable, that those who are combin'd to destroy the people's liberties, practice every art to poison their morals.

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.

It is not unfrequent to hear men declaim loudly upon liberty, who, if we may judge by the whole tenor of their actions, mean nothing else by it but their own liberty, to oppress without control or the restraint of laws all who are poorer or weaker than themselves.

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

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.

The right to freedom is the gift of God Almighty....The rights of the Colonists as Christians may be best understood by reading, and carefully studying the institutes of the great Lawgiver and head of the Christian Church: which are to be found clearly written and promuligated in the New Testament.

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.

A general dissolution of principles and manners will more surely overthrow the liberties of America than the whole force of the common enemy. While the people are virtuous they cannot be subdued; but when once they lose their virtue then will be ready to surrender their liberties to the first external or internal invader.

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

If men, through fear, fraud, or mistake, should in terms renounce or give up any natural right, the eternal law of reason and the grand end of society would absolutely vacate such renunciation. The right to freedom being the gift of Almighty God, it is not in the power of man to alienate this gift and voluntarily become a slave.

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

The liberties of our country, the freedoms of our civil Constitution are worth defending at all hazards; it is our duty to defend them against all attacks. We have received them as a fair inheritance from our worthy ancestors. They purchased them for us with toil and danger and expense of treasure and blood. It will bring a mark of everlasting infamy on the present generation – enlightened as it is – if we should suffer them to be wrested from us by violence without a struggle, or to be cheated out of them by the artifices of designing men.

For no People will tamely surrender their Liberties, nor can they easily be subdued, where Knowledge is diffusd and Virtue preservd . On the Contrary, when People are universally ignorant and debauched in their Manners, they will sink under their own Weight, without the Aid of foreign Invaders.

The Constitution be never construed to authorize Congress to infringe the just liberty of the press, or the rights of conscience; or to prevent the people of the United States, who are peaceable citizens, from keeping their own arms.

Before the formation of this Constitution it had been affirmed as a self evident truth, in the Declaration of Independence, very deliberately made by the Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled that 'all men are created equal, and are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights' This declaration of Independence was received and ratified by all the States in the Union & has never been disannuled. May we not from hence conclude, that the doctrine of Liberty and Equality is an article in the political creed of the United States.

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.

The utopian schemes of leveling and a community of goods, are as visionary and impractical as those which vest all property in the crown. These ideas are arbitrary, despotic, and, in our government unconstitutional.

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

If ye love wealth better than liberty, the tranquility of servitude than the animated contest of freedom - go home from us in peace. We ask not your counsels or arms. 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!

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

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. The necessity of the times, more than ever, calls for our utmost circumspection, deliberation, fortitude and perseverance. Let us remember that "if we suffer tamely a lawless attack upon our liberty, we encourage it, and involve others in our doom," it is a very serious consideration that millions yet unborn may be the miserable sharers of the event.