Samuel Adams Quotes - Page 2

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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
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.

Samuel Adams

Country, Liberty, Hazards

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

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

Samuel Adams

America, Enemy, Liberty

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

134 Copy quote
Mankind are governed more by their feelings than by reason.

Samuel Adams

Political, Feelings, Liberty

In J. N. Rakove 'The Beginnings of National Politics' (1979) p. 92

136 Copy quote
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.

Samuel Adams

Independent, Sight, Ideas

38 Copy quote
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.

Samuel Adams

Giving Up, Mistake, Men

John White, Cecil Calvert Baltimore (2d Baron), Charles Hudson, Harriet Jane Hanson Robinson, Massachusetts Historical Society (1904). “The planting of colonies in New England”

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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
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.

Samuel Adams

Patriotic, America, People

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

26 Copy quote
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.

Samuel Adams

Character, Slave, States

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

Samuel Adams

Character, Men, Voting

73 Copy quote
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.

Samuel Adams

Government, Ideas, Community

24 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
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.

Samuel Adams

Mean, Men, Law

"Loyalty and Sedition". Essay published in The Advertiser, 1748.

24 Copy quote
Rebellion against a king may be pardoned, or lightly punished, but the man who dares to rebel against the laws of a republic ought to suffer death.

Samuel Adams

Kings, Men, Law

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

Samuel Adams

Perseverance, Fortitude, Deliberation

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

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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.

Samuel Adams

Perseverance, Rights, Suffering

Essay in The Boston Gazette under the pseudonym "Candidus", October 14, 1771.

132 Copy quote
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.

Samuel Adams

Jesus, Dust, Soul

40 Copy quote
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

Gun, Hands, Security And Freedom

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

25 Copy quote
Nothing is more essential to the establishment of manners in a State than that all persons employed in places of power and trust must be men of unexceptionable characters.

Samuel Adams

Character, Patriotic, Men

25 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
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.

Samuel Adams

Men, Reality, Law

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

71 Copy quote
If virtue & knowledge are diffused among the people, they will never be enslav'd. This will be their great security.

Samuel Adams

People, Liberty, Virtue

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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.

Samuel Adams

Men, Rights, Self

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He therefore is the truest friend to the liberty of his country who tries most to promote its virtue, and who, so far as his power and influence extend, will not suffer a man to be chosen into any office of power and trust who is not a wise and virtuous man.

Samuel Adams

Trust, Wise, Country

"Loyalty and Sedition". Essay published in The Advertiser, 1748.

77 Copy quote
It bodes very ill for government when men are exalted to places of high trust through their own solicitations. He only fills a place with dignity who is invited to it by his fellow citizens from the experience they have had of his adequate abilities.

Samuel Adams

Men, Citizens, Adequate

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

34 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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