Governments last as long as the undertaxed can defend themselves against the overtaxed.

Governments last as long as the undertaxed can defend themselves against the overtaxed.

That government is best which governs the least, because its people discipline themselves.

That government is best which governs the least, because its people discipline themselves.

"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

Good government is no substitute for self-government

Good government is no substitute for self-government

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.

Everybody wants to eat at the government's table, but nobody wants to do the dishes.

Everybody wants to eat at the government's table, but nobody wants to do the dishes.

A wise government knows how to enforce with temper, or to conciliate with dignity, but a weak one is odious read more

A wise government knows how to enforce with temper, or to conciliate with dignity, but a weak one is odious in the former, and contemptible in the latter.

Franklin Roosevelt stands like a sharply formed rock in a shapeless sea.
spoken on Book TV by a Jackson biographer.

Franklin Roosevelt stands like a sharply formed rock in a shapeless sea.
spoken on Book TV by a Jackson biographer.

So that every wand or staff of empire is forsooth curved at top.
[Lat., Adeo ut omnes imperii virga read more

So that every wand or staff of empire is forsooth curved at top.
[Lat., Adeo ut omnes imperii virga sive bacillum vere superius
inflexum sit.]