Quotes by Samuel Adams

If ye love wealth greater than liberty, the tranquility of servitude greater than the animating contest for freedom, go home from us in peace. We seek not your counsel, nor your arms. Crouch down and lick the hand that feeds you; and may posterity forget that ye were our countrymen.

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

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

In regard to religion, mutual toleration in the different professions thereof is what all good and candid minds in all ages have ever practiced, and both by precept and example inculcated on mankind . . . The only sects which he (Locke) thinks ought to be and which by all wise laws are excluded from such toleration are those who teach doctrines subversive of the civil government under which they live. The Roman Catholics or Papists are excluded by reason of such doctrines as these: that princes excommunicated may be deposed, and those they call heretics may be destroyed without mercy; besides their recognizing the pope in so absolute a manner, in subversion of government, by introducing as far as possible into the states under whose protection they enjoy life, liberty, and property that solecism in politics, imperium in imperio, leading directly to the worst anarchy and confusion, civil discord, war and bloodshed.

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.

The liberties of our country, the freedom of our civil constitution are worth defending at all hazards; and 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, and transmitted them to us with care and diligence. It will bring an everlasting mark of 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 be cheated out of them by the artifices of false and designing men.

The truth is, all might be free if they valued freedom, and defended it as they ought.

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.

Mankind are governed more by their feelings than by reason.

There never was a democracy that did not commit suicide.