"The Revolution was effected before the war commenced. The Revolution was in the minds and hearts of the people. This radical change in the principles, opinions, sentiments, and affections of the people was the real American Revolution."

-John Adams 

"Learning is not attained by chance, it must be sought for with ardor and attended to with diligence."

-Abigail Adams 

"Controversy is only dreaded by the advocates of error."

- Benjamin Rush 

"Presumption should never make us neglect that which appears easy to us, nor despair make us lose courage at the sight of difficulties."

-Benjamin Banneker  

"Destiny is no matter of chance. It is a matter of choice: It is not a thing to be waited for, it is a thing to be achieved."

-William Jennings Bryan

"Give [judges] the powers and the independence now contended for and... your government becomes a despotism and they become your rulers. They are to decide upon the lives, the liberties, and the property of your citizens; they have an absolute veto upon your laws by declaring them null and void at pleasure; they are to introduce at will the laws of foreign country... after being clothed with this arbitrary power, they are beyond the control of the nation. ... If all this be true - if this doctrine be established in the extent which is now contended for - the Constitution is not worth the time we are now spending on it. It is - as it has been called by it's enemies - mere parchment. For these judges, thus rendered omnipotent, may overleap the Constitution and trample on your laws."

-Joseph Nicholson
 early member of Congress

"[W]hat innumerable acts of injustice may be committed - and how fatally may the principles of liberty be sapped - by a succession of judges utterly independent of the people?"

-John Dickinson  

"You must remember that some things legally right are not morally right"

-Abraham Lincoln 

"The Bible is the chief moral cause of all that is good, and the best corrector of all that is evil, in human society; the best Book for regulating the temporal concerns of men, and the only Book that can serve as an infallible guide to future felicity."

-Noah Webster

"The Constitution of the United States was made not merely for the generation that then existed, but for posterity- unlimited, undefined, endless, perpetual posterity"

-Henry Clay  

"The life of a nation is secure only while the nation is honest, truthful, and virtuous." 

- Frederick Douglass

" I have acted in every instance from a conscientious desire to do what was right, constitutional, within the law, and for the very best interests of the whole people. Failures have been errors of judgment, not of intent."

-Ulysses S. Grant 

"For myself, therefore, I desire to declare that the principle that will govern me in the high duty to which my country call me is a adherence to the letter and spirit of the Constitution as it was designed by those who framed it."

-Martin Van Buren 

"No people can be bound to acknowledge and adore the Invisible Hand which conducts the affairs of men more than those of the United States. Every step by which they have advanced to the character of an independent nation seems to have been distinguished by some token of providential agency; and in the important revolution just accomplished in the system of their united government the tranquil deliberation and voluntary consent of so many distinct communities from which the event has resulted can not be compared with the means by which most governments have been established without some return of pious gratitude, along with and humble anticipation of the future blessings which the past seems to presage."

-George Washington 

First Inaugural Address 

"The ultimate tragedy is not the oppression and cruelty by the bad people but the silence over that by the good people." 

-Martin Luther King 

"What is government but the greatest of all reflections on human nature? If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary."

-James Madison 

"Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn't pass it to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same."

-Ronald Reagan 

"You are not here merely to make a living. You are here in order to enable the world to live more amply, with greater vision, with a finer spirit of hope and achievement. You are here to enrich the world, and you impoverish yourself if you forget the errand."

-Woodrow Wilson

"I believe that any man's life will be filled with constant and unexpected encouragement, if he makes up his mind to do his level best each day, and as nearly as possible reaching the high mark of pure and useful living."

-Booker T. Washington 

"Fear of something is at the root of hate for others, and hate within will eventually destroy the hater."

-George Washington Carver