Samuel Adams Quotes About Liberty

Quotes about: Liberty

• 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

• 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”

• 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

• 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”

• The natural liberty of man is to be free from any superior power on Earth, and not to be under the will or legislative authority of man, but only to have the law of nature for his rule.

  Samuel Adams

  Men, Reality, Law

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

  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.

• 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.

• 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".

• 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

• He therefore is the truest friend to the liberty of his country who tries most to promote its virtue, and who, so far as his power and influence extend, will not suffer a man to be chosen into any office of power and trust who is not a wise and virtuous man.

  Samuel Adams

  Trust, Wise, Country

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

• 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.

  Samuel Adams

  Religious, Freedom, Religion

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

• A general dissolution of principles and manners will more surely overthrow the liberties of America than the whole force of the common enemy. While the people are virtuous they cannot be subdued; but when once they lose their virtue then will be ready to surrender their liberties to the first external or internal invader.

  Samuel Adams

  Patriotic, America, People

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

• 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”

• 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

• 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.

• If virtue & knowledge are diffused among the people, they will never be enslav'd. This will be their great security.

  Samuel Adams

  People, Liberty, Virtue

• 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”

• 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”

• 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”

• Let us contemplate our forefathers, and posterity, and resolve to maintain the rights bequeathed to us from the former, for the sake of the latter. The necessity of the times, more than ever, calls for our utmost circumspection, deliberation, fortitude and perseverance. Let us remember that "if we suffer tamely a lawless attack upon our liberty, we encourage it, and involve others in our doom," it is a very serious consideration that millions yet unborn may be the miserable sharers of the event.

  Samuel Adams

  Perseverance, Rights, Suffering

  Essay in The Boston Gazette under the pseudonym "Candidus", October 14, 1771.

• 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.

• Before the formation of this Constitution it had been affirmed as a self evident truth, in the Declaration of Independence, very deliberately made by the Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled that 'all men are created equal, and are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights' This declaration of Independence was received and ratified by all the States in the Union & has never been disannuled. May we not from hence conclude, that the doctrine of Liberty and Equality is an article in the political creed of the United States.

  Samuel Adams

  Men, Rights, Self

• Mankind are governed more by their feelings than by reason.

  Samuel Adams

  Political, Feelings, Liberty

  In J. N. Rakove 'The Beginnings of National Politics' (1979) p. 92

• And that the said 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; or to raise standing armies, unless necessary for the defense of the United States, or of some one or more of them; or to prevent the people from petitioning, in a peaceable and orderly manner, the federal legislature, for a redress of grievances; or to subject the people to unreasonable searches and seizures of their persons, papers or possessions.

  Samuel Adams

  Army, Rights, People

  Debates of the Massachusetts Convention, 1788.

• 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”

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