Samuel Adams Quotes

Quotes about:

• 

  It is in the interest of tyrants to reduce the people to ignorance and vice. For they cannot live in any country where virtue and knowledge prevail.

  Samuel Adams

  Country, Ignorance, Tyrants

  Samuel Adams (1968). “The Writings of Samuel Adams: 1770-1773”

  284 Copy quote

• If ever a time should come, when vain and aspiring men shall possess the highest seats in Government, our country will stand in need of its experienced patriots to prevent its ruin.

  Samuel Adams

  Country, Patriotic, Men

  433 Copy quote
• 

  If ye love wealth better than liberty, the tranquility of servitude than the animated contest of freedom - go home from us in peace. We ask not your counsels or arms. Crouch down and lick the hands which feed you. May your chains sit lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that you were our countrymen!

  Samuel Adams

  Love, Peace, Freedom

  Samuel Adams' Speech delivered at the State House in Philadelphia, Philadelphia, August 1, 1776.

  388 Copy quote
• 

  It does not take a majority to prevail... but rather an irate, tireless minority, keen on setting brushfires of freedom in the minds of men.

  Samuel Adams

  Inspirational, Life, Freedom

  330 Copy quote

• Liberty will not long survive the total extinction of morals.

  Samuel Adams

  Long, Liberty, Extinction

  Samuel Adams (1968). “The Writings of Samuel Adams: 1773-1777: 1773-1777”

  130 Copy quote

• 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

  Country, Struggle, Patriotic

  223 Copy quote

• For no People will tamely surrender their Liberties, nor can they easily be subdued, where Knowledge is diffusd and Virtue preservd . On the Contrary, when People are universally ignorant and debauched in their Manners, they will sink under their own Weight, without the Aid of foreign Invaders.

  Samuel Adams

  Patriotic, People, Ignorant

  "Warren-Adams Letters: Being Chiefly a Correspondence Among John Adams, Samuel Adams, and James Warren ... 1743-1814".

  221 Copy quote

• It is in the interest of tyrants to reduce the people to ignorance and vice. For they cannot live in any country where virtue and knowledge prevail. The religion and public liberty of a people are intimately connected; their interests are interwoven, they cannot subsist separately; and therefore they rise and fall together. For this reason, it is always observable, that those who are combin'd to destroy the people's liberties, practice every art to poison their morals.

  Samuel Adams

  Country, Art, Fall

  Samuel Adams (1906). “The Writings of Samuel Adams: 1770-1773”

  107 Copy quote
• 

  The Constitution be never construed to authorize Congress to infringe the just liberty of the press, or the rights of conscience; or to prevent the people of the United States, who are peaceable citizens, from keeping their own arms.

  Samuel Adams

  Gun, Strong Arms, People

  Debates of the Massachusetts Convention, 1788.

  104 Copy quote
• 

  Among the natural rights of the colonists are these: First a right to life, secondly to liberty, and thirdly to property; together with the right to defend them in the best manner they can.

  Samuel Adams

  Rights, Liberty, Together

  Samuel Adams (1946). “Samuel Adams: selections from his writings”

  223 Copy quote

• How strangely will the Tools of a Tyrant pervert the plain Meaning of Words!

  Samuel Adams

  Tyrants, Tools, Tyranny

  Samuel Adams (1968). “The Writings of Samuel Adams: 1773-1777: 1773-1777”

  102 Copy quote

• It is no dishonor to be in a minority in the cause of liberty and virtue

  Samuel Adams

  Liberty, Minorities, Causes

  Massachusetts Historical Society, John Adams, Samuel Adams, James Warren (1917). “Warren-Adams Letters: Being Chiefly a Correspondence Among John Adams, Samuel Adams, and James Warren ... 1743-1814”

  99 Copy quote

• Let no man thirst for good beer.

  Samuel Adams

  Beer, Men, Brewing

  14 Copy quote

• A true patriot would keep the attention of his fellow citizens awake to their grievances, and not allow them to rest till the causes of their just complaints are removed.

  Samuel Adams

  Citizens, Attention, Causes

  173 Copy quote

• Let each citizen remember at the moment he is offering his vote...that he is executing one of the most solemn trusts in human society for which he is accountable to God and his country.

  Samuel Adams

  Country, Offering, Voting

  Samuel Adams (1968). “The Writings of Samuel Adams: 1778-1802”

  112 Copy quote

• The right to freedom is the gift of God Almighty....The rights of the Colonists as Christians may be best understood by reading, and carefully studying the institutes of the great Lawgiver and head of the Christian Church: which are to be found clearly written and promuligated in the New Testament.

  Samuel Adams

  Bible, God, Christian

  76 Copy quote

• If the public are bound to yield obedience to laws to which they cannot give their approbation, they are slaves to those who make such laws and enforce them.

  Samuel Adams

  Yield, Law, Giving

  Samuel Adams (1968). “The Writings of Samuel Adams: 1770-1773”

  74 Copy quote

• If we suffer tamely a lawless attack upon our liberty, we encourage it, and involve others in our doom.

  Samuel Adams

  Suffering, Liberty, Doom

  Samuel Adams (1906). “The Writings of Samuel Adams: 1770-1773”

  79 Copy quote

• Nil desperandum, -- Never Despair. That is a motto for you and me. All are not dead; and where there is a spark of patriotic fire, we will rekindle it.

  Samuel Adams

  Being Strong, Hope, Freedom

  135 Copy quote

• Neither the wisest constitution nor the wisest laws will secure the liberty and happiness of a people whose manners are universally corrupt.

  Samuel Adams

  Law, Government, People

  The Advertiser, 1748.

  46 Copy quote

• The liberties of our country, the freedom of our civil constitution, are worth defending against all hazards: And it is our duty to defend them against all attacks.

  Samuel Adams

  Country, Liberty, Hazards

  Samuel Adams (1968). “The Writings of Samuel Adams: 1770-1773”

  85 Copy quote

• In a state of tranquility, wealth, and luxury, our descendants would forget the arts of war and the noble activity and zeal which made their ancestors invincible. Every art of corruption would be employed to loosen the bond of union which renders our resistance formidable. When the spirit of liberty which now animates our hearts and gives success to our arms is extinct, our numbers will accelerate our ruin and render us easier victims to tyranny.

  Samuel Adams

  Art, War, Luxury

  16 Copy quote

• It is not unfrequent to hear men declaim loudly upon liberty, who, if we may judge by the whole tenor of their actions, mean nothing else by it but their own liberty, to oppress without control or the restraint of laws all who are poorer or weaker than themselves.

  Samuel Adams

  Mean, Men, Law

  "Loyalty and Sedition". Essay published in The Advertiser, 1748.

  24 Copy quote

• A general dissolution of principles and manners will more surely overthrow the liberties of America than the whole force of the common enemy.

  Samuel Adams

  America, Enemy, Liberty

  Samuel Adams (1968). “The Writings of Samuel Adams: 1778-1802”

  135 Copy quote

• All might be free if they valued freedom, and defended it as they should.

  Samuel Adams

  Truth, Liberty, Politics

  Samuel Adams (1906). “The Writings of Samuel Adams: 1770-1773”

  84 Copy quote

Page 1 of 5

← Prev

1

2

3

4

5

Next →

• facebook
• twitter
• googleplus
• email
• linkedin