American Revolution Quotes - Page 8

• ... the connection between imperial politics and culture is astonishingly direct. American attitudes to American "greatness", to hierarchies of race, to the perils of "other" revolutions (the American revolution being considered unique and somehow unrepeatable anywhere else in the world) have remained constant, have dictated, have obscured, the realities of empire, while apologists for overseas American interests have insisted on American innocence, doing good, fighting for freedom.

  Edward Said

  Attitude, Fighting, Reality

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• These are the times that try men's souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of his country; but he that stands it NOW, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman.

  Thomas Paine

  Love, Summer, Country

  The American Crisis, 19 Dec. 1776

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• Having now finished the work assigned me, I retire from the great theatre of Action; and bidding an Affectionate farewell to this August body under whose orders I have so long acted, I here offer my commission, and take my leave of all the employments of public life.

  George Washington

  Farewell, August, Order

  George Washington, William Jackson (1838). “Monuments of Washington's Patriotism: Containing a Fac Simile of His Publick Accounts Kept During the Revolutionary War; and Some of the Most Interesting Documents Connected with His Military Command and Civil Administration; Embracing, Among Others, the Farewell Address to the People of the United States”, p.9

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• Our unalterable resolution would be to be free. They have attempted to subdue us by force, but God be praised! in vain. Their arts may be more dangerous then their arms. Let us then renounce all treaty with them upon any score but that of total separation, and under God trust our cause to our swords.

  Samuel Adams

  Art, Would Be, May

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• I consider the war of America against Britain as the country's war, the public's war, or the war of the people in their own behalf, for the security of their natural rights, and the protection of their own property.

  Thomas Paine

  Country, War, Rights

  Thomas Paine (1819). “The American Crisis”, p.154

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• You and I love understanding American Revolution, but let's also understand the digital revolution, because that makes us more comfortable with our technology.

  Walter Isaacson

  Technology, Understanding, Revolution

  Source: www.pbs.org

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• The die is cast. The people have passed the river and cut away the bridge. Last night three cargoes of tea were emptied into the harbor. This is the grandest event which has ever yet happened since the controversy with Britain opened.

  John Adams

  Cutting, Night, Bridges

  John Adams (1854). “The Works of John Adams, Second President of the United States: With a Life of the Author, Notes and Illustrations”, p.333

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• Well, I am actually a daughter of the American Revolution

  Katie Pavlich

  Daughter, Revolution, Wells

  Source: www.foxnews.com

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• Several country towns, within my observation, have at least a dozen taverns. Here the time, the money, the health and the modesty, of most that are young and of many old, are wasted. Here diseases, vicious habits, bastards and legislators are frequently spawned.

  John Adams

  Country, Taverns, Dozen

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• You are a Virginian, and a Virginian ought to appear at the head of this business. I am obnoxious, suspected and unpopular; you are very much otherwise. And you can write ten times better than I can.

  John Adams

  Writing, Revolution, Obnoxious

  John Adams, Charles Francis Adams (1850). “The Works of John Adams, Second President of the United States: With a Life of the Author, Notes and Illustrations”, p.514

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• During the whole time I sat with him in Congress, I never heard him utter three sentences together.

  John Adams

  Together, Revolution, Three

  John Adams, Charles Francis Adams (1850). “The Works of John Adams, Second President of the United States: Diary, with passages from an autobiography. Notes of debates in the Continental Congress, in 1775 and 1776. Autobiography”, p.511

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• If you want to be a great American, you have got to understand Ben Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, George Washington, how the American Revolution happened. I think if you want to be a good citizen of the digital age, it helps to feel comfortable with both the people and the ways of thinking that created the digital revolution.

  Walter Isaacson

  Thinking, People, Age

  Source: www.pbs.org

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• I was very strenuous for retaining and insisting on it [law of nature], as a resource to which we might be driven by Parliament much sooner than we were aware.

  John Adams

  Law, Might, Revolution

  John Adams, Charles Francis Adams (1850). “The Works of John Adams, Second President of the United States: With a Life of the Author, Notes and Illustrations”, p.374

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• What if hamsters fought in the American Revolution?

  Colin Mochrie

  What If, Revolution, Hamsters

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• Obama is now fighting for his life. He's fighting for a federal government. I believe in a federal government. I hope it sticks around. We had the American Revolution. There was this whole tension between the federalists and the anti-federalists. Then we had the Civil War. We had Lincoln fighting for it. And the secessionists were there. And we have the same issue today.

  Oliver Stone

  War, Believe, Fighting

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• A reading of the Declaration of Independence on the steps of a building is widely covered. The events that started the American Revolution were the meetings in homes, pubs, on street corners.

  Harvey Milk

  Reading, Home, Independence

  Harvey Milk (2013). “An Archive of Hope: Harvey Milk's Speeches and Writings”, p.6, Univ of California Press

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• If our country, when pressed with wrongs at the point of the bayonet, had been governed by its heads instead of its hearts, where should we have been now? Hanging on a gallows as high as Haman's.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Wisdom, Country, Heart

  Thomas Jefferson, H. A. Washington (2011). “The Writings of Thomas Jefferson: Being His Autobiography, Correspondence, Reports, Messages, Addresses, and Other Writings, Official and Private”, p.40, Cambridge University Press

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• I am now . . . on a subject, which fills me with inexpressible concern . . . . But as it has been a kind of destiny, that has thrown me upon this service, I shall hope that my undertaking it is designed to answer some good purpose.

  George Washington

  Destiny, Answers, Revolution

  George Washington (1852). “The life of General Washington: first president of the United States”, p.123

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• Make no mistake; the American Revolution was not fought to obtain freedom, but to preserve the liberties that Americans already had as colonials. Independence was no conscious goal, secretly nurtured in cellar or jungle by bearded conspirators, but a reluctant last resort, to preserve "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness."

  Samuel Eliot Morison

  Life, Mistake, Pursuit Of Happiness

  Samuel Eliot Morison (1972). “The Oxford history of the American people”, Signet

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• Whatever deficiencies the leaders of the American Revolution may have had, reticence, fortunately, was not one of them.

  Bernard Bailyn

  Leader, May, Revolution

  "The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution". Book by Bernard Bailyn, August 1967.

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• It's going to be like herding stray cats, and the political leaders who can do it will be remembered as the same kind of geniuses who pulled off the American Revolution.

  William H. Calvin

  Cat, Leader, Political

  William H. Calvin (2010). “Global Fever: How to Treat Climate Change”, p.177, William H. Calvin

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• The American Revolution was a vindication of liberties inherited and possessed. It was a conservative revolution.

  William E. Gladstone

  Liberty, Revolution, Conservative

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• On June 22, 2008, at the age of 71, an American revolutionary died. He was a bona fide genius, an outspoken critich, a literary giant and an unprecedented visionary. For 50 years he entertained, challenged and amazed not only my generation, but also ones before mine and well after. He was sensational, brilliant, iconic and unique - the quintessential individual. He was my lifelong hero. His name was George Carlin.

  Corey Taylor

  Hero, Memorable, Unique

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• Some of my ancestors fought in the American Revolution. A few more wore red coats, a few wore blue coats, and the rest wore no coats at all. We never did figure out who won that war.

  Edward Abbey

  War, Blue, Coats

  Edward Abbey (2015). “A Voice Crying in the Wilderness”, p.17, RosettaBooks

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• James Watt patented his steam engine on the eve of the American Revolution, consummating a relationship between coal and the new Promethean spirit of the age, and humanity made its first tentative steps into an industrial way of life that would, over the next two centuries, forever change the world.

  Jeremy Rifkin

  Change, Science, Two

  Jeremy Rifkin (2003). “The Hydrogen Economy”, p.6, Penguin

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