The single most exciting thing you encounter in government is competence, because it's so rare.

The single most exciting thing you encounter in government is competence, because it's so rare.

I hope we shall crush in its birth the aristocracy of our monied corporations which dare already to challenge our read more

I hope we shall crush in its birth the aristocracy of our monied corporations which dare already to challenge our government to a trial by strength, and bid defiance to the laws of our country.

Government is an unnecessary evil. Human beings, when accustomed to taking responsibility for their own behavior, can cooperate on a read more

Government is an unnecessary evil. Human beings, when accustomed to taking responsibility for their own behavior, can cooperate on a basis of mutual trust and helpfulness.

Many forms of Government have been tried, and will be tried in this world of sin and woe. No one read more

Many forms of Government have been tried, and will be tried in this world of sin and woe. No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise. Indeed, it has been said that democracy is the worst form of Government except all those others that have been tried from time to time.

Laws too gentle are seldom obeyed; too severe, seldom executed.

Laws too gentle are seldom obeyed; too severe, seldom executed.

The declaration that our People are hostile to a government made
by themselves, for themselves, and conducted by themselves, read more

The declaration that our People are hostile to a government made
by themselves, for themselves, and conducted by themselves, is an
insult.

Our government... teaches the whole people by its example. If the government becomes the lawbreaker, it breeds contempt for law; read more

Our government... teaches the whole people by its example. If the government becomes the lawbreaker, it breeds contempt for law; it invites every man to become a law unto himself; it invites anarchy.

Despotism tempered by assassination, that is our Magna Carta.
[Fr., Le despotisme tempere par l'assassinat, c'est notre magna
read more

Despotism tempered by assassination, that is our Magna Carta.
[Fr., Le despotisme tempere par l'assassinat, c'est notre magna
charta.]

"The liberties of our country, the freedoms of our civil Constitution are worth defending at all hazards; it is our read more

"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