Samuel Adams Quotes

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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.

Samuel Adams

Country, Ignorance, Tyrants

Samuel Adams (1968). “The Writings of Samuel Adams: 1770-1773”

277 Copy quote
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!

Samuel Adams

Love, Peace, Freedom

Samuel Adams' Speech delivered at the State House in Philadelphia, Philadelphia, August 1, 1776.

379 Copy quote
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.

Samuel Adams

Country, Patriotic, Men

424 Copy quote
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.

Samuel Adams

Inspirational, Life, Freedom

318 Copy quote
Liberty will not long survive the total extinction of morals.

Samuel Adams

Long, Liberty, Extinction

Samuel Adams (1968). “The Writings of Samuel Adams: 1773-1777: 1773-1777”

123 Copy quote
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.

Samuel Adams

Country, Struggle, Patriotic

219 Copy quote
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.

Samuel Adams

Patriotic, People, Ignorant

"Warren-Adams Letters: Being Chiefly a Correspondence Among John Adams, Samuel Adams, and James Warren ... 1743-1814".

217 Copy quote
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.

Samuel Adams

Country, Art, Fall

Samuel Adams (1906). “The Writings of Samuel Adams: 1770-1773”

101 Copy quote
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.

Samuel Adams

Gun, Strong Arms, People

Debates of the Massachusetts Convention, 1788.

98 Copy quote
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.

Samuel Adams

Rights, Liberty, Together

Samuel Adams (1946). “Samuel Adams: selections from his writings”

219 Copy quote
How strangely will the Tools of a Tyrant pervert the plain Meaning of Words!

Samuel Adams

Tyrants, Tools, Tyranny

Samuel Adams (1968). “The Writings of Samuel Adams: 1773-1777: 1773-1777”

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

Samuel Adams

Liberty, Minorities, Causes

Massachusetts Historical Society, John Adams, Samuel Adams, James Warren (1917). “Warren-Adams Letters: Being Chiefly a Correspondence Among John Adams, Samuel Adams, and James Warren ... 1743-1814”

95 Copy quote
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.

Samuel Adams

Citizens, Attention, Causes

171 Copy quote
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.

Samuel Adams

Country, Offering, Voting

Samuel Adams (1968). “The Writings of Samuel Adams: 1778-1802”

110 Copy quote
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.

Samuel Adams

Yield, Law, Giving

Samuel Adams (1968). “The Writings of Samuel Adams: 1770-1773”

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

Samuel Adams

Suffering, Liberty, Doom

Samuel Adams (1906). “The Writings of Samuel Adams: 1770-1773”

76 Copy quote
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.

Samuel Adams

Bible, God, Christian

74 Copy quote
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.

Samuel Adams

Being Strong, Hope, Freedom

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

Samuel Adams

Truth, Liberty, Politics

Samuel Adams (1906). “The Writings of Samuel Adams: 1770-1773”

83 Copy quote
Let no man thirst for good beer.

Samuel Adams

Beer, Men, Brewing

14 Copy quote
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.

Samuel Adams

Country, Men, Feelings

Samuel Adams (1968). “The Writings of Samuel Adams: 1773-1777: 1773-1777”

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

Samuel Adams

Law, Government, People

The Advertiser, 1748.

45 Copy quote
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.

Samuel Adams

Kings, Struggle, Power

46 Copy quote
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.

Samuel Adams

Art, War, Luxury

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

Samuel Adams

Country, War, Independent

Entry for March 9, 1774. "The History of the Rise, Progress, and Establishment, of the Independence of the United States of America". Book by William Gordon, Volume 1 p. 347, 1969.

186 Copy quote

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Born: September 27, 1722
Died: October 2, 1803
Occupation: Founding Father of the United States
Cite this Page: Citation

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