The best Quotes by all 46 US Presidents

A two-state solution is the only way to guarantee the long-term security of both the Israeli and the Palestinian people.
To make sure Israelis and Palestinians alike live in equal measure of freedom and dignity, we will not give up on working towards that goal.

We must, without equivocation, denounce antisemitism.
We must, without equivocation, denounce Islamophobia.

To all of you hurting: You belong.

You're all America.

The vast majority of Palestinians are not Hamas. And Hamas does not represent the Palestinian people.

There is no justification for terrorism. My commitment to Israel's security and the safety of Jewish people is unshakable. The United States has Israel's back.

I don't know for a fact what happened, but I'm not surprised. There's not much that happens in Russia that Putin is not behind.

If I were Prigozhin, I'd be careful what I ate. I'd keep my eye on my menu.

The midterms are one of the most important elections in our lifetime. This isn't a referendum this year, it's a choice - a choice between two vastly different visions of America.

My fellow Americans, on Saturday, at my direction, the United States successfully concluded an airstrike in Kabul, Afghanistan, that killed the emir of al Qaeda, Ayman al-Zawahiri, who was deeply involved in the planning of 9/11.

How much more bloodshed are we willing to accept? Enough, enough, enough. This time we really have to change something.

This is the first time a president attended this dinner in six years. It's understandable. We had a horrible plague followed by two years of Covid.

I'm not worried about the midterms. We may end up with more partisan gridlock, but I'm confident we can work it out during my remaining six years in the presidency.

For God's sake, this man [Vladimir Putin] cannot remain in power.

You, the Russian people, are not our enemy.

NATO is a defensive alliance. It has never sought the demise of Russia.

In 1989, the Berlin Wall and all the walls of Soviet domination, they fell. They fell! And the people prevailed.

For generations, Warsaw has stood where liberty has been challenged and liberty has prevailed.

The United States and our allies will defend every inch of territory that is NATO territory with the full force of our collective power.

Russia's Vladimir Putin sought to shake the very foundations of the free world, thinking he could make it bend to his menacing ways. But he badly miscalculated. He thought he could roll into Ukraine, and the world would roll over. Instead, he met with a wall of strength he never anticipated or imagined. He met the Ukrainian people.

Last year, Covid-19 kept us apart. This year, we are finally together again.

Russia alone is responsible for the death and destruction this attack will bring, and the United States and its Allies and partners will respond in a united and decisive way. The world will hold Russia accountable.

I suppose there's room for two Commanders in this town.

In order to make America great and glorious again, I am tonight announcing my candidacy for president of the United States.

I'm not going to say it right now. So, everybody, I promise you, in the very next - very, very, very short period of time, you're going to be so happy.

If you want to stop the destruction of our country and save the American dream, then this Tuesday you must vote Republican in a giant way.

You see the mob takes the Fifth. If you're innocent, why are you taking the Fifth Amendment?

I recommend taking the vaccines. I happen to take the vaccine - if it doesn't work you'll be the first to know.

The world respects us again.

These are the things and events that happen when a sacred landslide election victory is so unceremoniously & viciously stripped away from great patriots who have been badly & unfairly treated for so long.

Normally developing a vaccine takes up to 10 years. We developed a vaccine in just nine months. We've already begun a nationwide vaccination program, and we’re sending the vaccine all over the world. The world will benefit will benefit, and everybody’s calling to thank me.

This is a fraud on the American public. Frankly, we did win this election.

We will win this - and as far as I'm concerned... we have already won.

We want the law to be used in a proper manner. So we'll be going to the U.S. Supreme Court. We want all voting to stop. We don't want them to find any ballots at 4 o'clock in the morning and add them to the list.

I wanted to always play it down. I still like playing it down, because I don't want to create a panic.

We have more [Corona-]cases because we do the greatest testing. If we didn't do testing, we'd have no cases.

There are many things we could do. We could cut off the whole relationship [with China].

We can’t keep our country closed. We have to open our country.

In light of the attack from the Invisible Enemy, as well as the need to protect the jobs of our great American Citizens, I will be signing an Executive Order to temporarily suspend immigration into the United States!

We're at the top of the Hill, and now we're going downward.

Nobody knew there’d be a pandemic or an epidemic of this proportion. Nobody has ever seen anything like this before.

To keep new cases from entering our shores, we will be suspending all travel from Europe to the United States for 30 days.

The attacks in Orlando - the worst mass shooting and the worst attack on the LGBTQ community in our history - shocked the conscience of our nation.

Jobs are booming, incomes are soaring, poverty is plummeting, crime is falling, confidence is surging, and our country is thriving and highly respected again. America’s enemies are on the run, America’s fortunes are on the rise, and America’s future is blazing bright. The years of economic decay are over.

When you fall, the real test is whether you can ignore the naysayers, pick yourself up and come back stronger.

Change will not come if we wait for some other person or some other time. We are the ones we've been waiting for. We are the change that we seek.

Look at Berlin, where Germans and Americans learned to work together and trust each other less than three years after facing each other on the field of battle.

To Michelle - my love and life's partner and Malia and Sasha - whose dazzling light makes everything brighter.

These days, I look in the mirror and I have to admit, I'm not the strapping young Muslim socialist that I used to be.

As tragic as these past few weeks have been, they offer an opportunity for us to all work together to tackle them, to take them on, to change America and make it live up to its highest ideals.

More than anything, this pandemic has fully, finally torn back the curtain on the idea that so many of the folks in charge know what they're doing.

I'm so proud to endorse Joe Biden for President of the United States.

Money is not the only answer, but it makes a difference.

So congratulations, again, to the Miami Heat. And now we are going to take a picture that makes me look very short.

People of the world - look at Berlin, where a wall came down, a continent came together, and history proved that there is no challenge too great for a world that stands as one.

What makes you a man is not the ability to have a child - it's the courage to raise one.

Know that your people will judge you on what you can build, not what you destroy.

Congrats to the Kansas City Chiefs, MVP Patrick Mahomes, Coach Reid, Travis Kelce, Chris Jones, Mecole Hardman, and the rest of the champs for another Lombardi Trophy. Grace under pressure.

"We have fewer ships than we had in 1916"? Well, Governor, we also have fewer horses and bayonetts. We have these things called aircraft carriers, where planes land on them.

I grew up in Hawaii. My love of the natural world began here.

Coming back - even if I have to wear a tie, which I very rarely do these days - gives me a chance to visit with some of the incredible people who serve the White House.

Congratulations to my friends, Joe Biden and Kamala Harris - our next President and Vice President of the United States.

I never thought Donald Trump would embrace my vision or continue my policies but I did hope for the sake of the country that he might show some interest in taking the job seriously, but it hasn’t happened.

I believe that Israel is rooted not just in history and tradition, but also in a simple and profound idea - the idea that people deserve to be free in a land of their own.

There are certain sports figures who become a larger cultural force. Michael Jordan and the Bulls changed the culture.

The result is an absence of checks and balances in Russia. The decision of one man to launch a wholly unjustified and brutal invasion of Iraq...- I mean of Ukraine.

I have a different vision of leadership. A leader is someone who brings people together.

Terrorist attacks can shake the foundations of our biggest buildings, but they cannot touch the foundation of America. These acts shatter steel, but they cannot dent the steel of American resolve.

This was not an act of terrorism, but it was an act of war.

America is the land of the second chance - and when the gates of the prison open, the path ahead should lead to a better life.

America is a Nation with a mission - and that mission comes from our most basic beliefs. We have no desire to dominate, no ambitions of empire. Our aim is a democratic peace - a peace founded upon the dignity and rights of every man and woman.

Some folks look at me and see a certain swagger, which in Texas is called "walking".

Only a liberal senator from Massachusetts would say that a 49 percent increase in funding for education was not enough.

Now there's no question China has been trying to crack down on the Internet. Good luck! That's sort of like trying to nail jello to the wall.

I haven't eaten at a McDonald's since I became President.

You can put wings on a pig, but you don't make it an eagle.

Strength and wisdom are not opposing values.

Let me say this as clearly as I can: No matter how sharp a grievance or how deep a hurt, there is no justification for killing innocents.

Character is a journey, not a destination.

Work is about more than making a living, as vital as that is. It's fundamental to human dignity, to our sense of self-worth as useful, independent, free people.

If you live long enough, you'll make mistakes. But if you learn from them, you'll be a better person. It's how you handle adversity, not how it affects you. The main thing is never quit, never quit, never quit.

It turns out that advancing equal opportunity and economic empowerment is both morally right and good economics, because discrimination, poverty and ignorance restrict growth, while investments in education, infrastructure and scientific and technological research increase it, creating more good jobs and new wealth for all of us.

Being president is like running a cemetery: you've got a lot of people under you and nobody's listening.

I want to nominate a man, who's cool on the outside, but who burns for America on the inside.

Granada, the most beautiful sunset in the world.

We don't want an America that is closed to the world. What we want is a world that is open to America.

I do not like broccoli. And I haven't liked it since I was a little kid and my mother made me eat it. And I'm President of the United States and I'm not going to eat any more broccoli.

We know what works. Freedom Works. We know what's right. Freedom is right.

Never ask anyone over 70 how they feel. They'll tell you.

Life is one grand, sweet song, so start the music.

Mr. Gorbatschow, tear down this wall!

I call upon the scientific community in our country, those who gave us nuclear weapons, to turn their great talents now to the cause of mankind and world peace: to give us the means of rendering these nuclear weapons impotent and obsolete.

Would you rather reduce deficits and interest rates by raising revenue from those who are not now paying their fair share, or would you rather accept larger budget deficits, higher interest rates, and higher unemployment? And I think I know your answer.

I have often wanted to drown my troubles, but I can't get my wife to go swimming.

Unless both sides win, no agreement can be permanent.

Like music and art, love of nature is a common language that can transcend political or social boundaries.

Republicans are men of narrow vision, who are afraid of the future.

We should live our lives as though Christ was coming this afternoon.

Jesus never said a word about homosexuality. In all of his teachings about multiple things - he never said that gay people should be condemned. I personally think it is very fine for gay people to be married in civil ceremonies.

We have a special relationship with Israel. It's absolutely crucial that no one in our country or around the world ever doubt that our number one committment in the Middle East is to protect the right of Israel to exist, to exist permanently, and to exist in peace.

We become not a melting pot but a beautiful mosaic. Different people, different beliefs, different yearnings, different hopes, different dreams.

Human rights is the soul of our foreign policy, because human rights is the very soul of our sense of nationhood.

When I was in the White House, I was confronted with the challenge of the Cold War. Both the Soviet Union and I had 30,000 nuclear weapons that could destroy the entire earth and I had to maintain the peace.

You can do what you have to do, and sometimes you can do it even better than you think you can.

Tell the truth, work hard, and come to dinner on time.

A government big enough to give you everything you want is a government big enough to take from you everything you have.

I had a lot of experience with people smarter than I am.

History and experience tell us that moral progress comes not in comfortable and complacent times, but out of trial and confusion.

If you take no risks, you will suffer no defeats. But if you take no risks, you win no victories.

No event in American history is more misunderstood than the Vietnam War. It was misreported then, and it is misremembered now.

Only if you have been in the deepest valley, can you ever know how magnificent it is to be on the highest mountain.

The Cold War isn't thawing; it is burning with a deadly heat.

Peace is a journey of a thousand miles and it must be taken one step at a time.

We have the opportunity to move not only toward the rich society and the powerful society, but upward to the Great Society.

If future generations are to remember us with gratitude rather than contempt, we must leave them more than the miracles of technology. We must leave them a glimpse of the world as it was in the beginning, not just after we got through with it.

Our most basic common link is that we all inhabit this planet. We all breathe the same air. We all cherish our children's future. And we are all mortal.

Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable.

Change is the law of life. And those who look only to the past or present are certain to miss the future.

Leadership and learning are indispensable to each other.

Let every nation know... that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe, to assure the survival and the success of liberty.

Today, in the world of freedom, the proudest boast is "Ich bin ein Berliner."

Mankind must put an end to war or war will put an end to mankind.

If anybody really wants to shoot the President of the United States, it is not a very difficult job - all one has to do is get a high building some day with a telescopic rifle, and there is nothing anybody could do to defend against such an attempt on the President's life.

The time to repair the roof is when the sun is shining.

Efforts and courage are not enough without purpose and direction.

Let the word go forth... that the torch has been passed to a new generation of Americans.

Ask not what your country can do for you - ask what you can do for your country.

The world is very very different now. For man holds in his mortal hands the power to abolish all forms of human poverty and all forms of human life.

When power leads men towards arrogance, poetry reminds him of his limitations.

Let us never negotiate out of fear. But let us never fear to negotiate.

The Chinese use two brush strokes to write the word 'crisis.' One brush stroke stands for danger; the other for opportunity.

As we express our gratitude, we must never forget that the highest appreciation is not to utter words, but to live by them.

Some people wanted champagne and caviar when they should have had beer and hot dogs.

The supreme quality for leadership is unquestionably integrity. Without it, no real success is possible, no matter whether it is on a section gang, a football field, in an army, or in an office.

Motivation is the art of getting people to do what you want them to do because they want to do it.

In preparing for battle I have always found that plans are useless, but planning is indispensable.

Neither a wise man nor a brave man lies down on the tracks of history to wait for the train of the future to run over him.

I've always loved my wife, my children, and my grandchildren, and I've always loved my country. I want to go. God, take me.

It is amazing what you can accomplish if you do not care who gets the credit.

You want a friend in Washington? Get a dog!

Men make history and not the other way around. In periods where there is no leadership, society stands still. Progress occurs when courageous, skillful leaders seize the opportunity to change things for the better.

I had faith in Israel before it was established, I have in it now. I believe it has a glorious future before it - not just another sovereign nation, but as an embodiment of the great ideals of our civilization.

This government has been informed that a Jewish state has been proclaimed in Palestine, and recognition has been requested by the provisional government thereof. The United States recognizes the provisional government as the de facto authority of the new State of Israel.

In politics, nothing happens by accident. If it happens, you can bet it was planned that way.

When you reach the end of your rope, tie a knot in it and hang on.

Let us never forget that government is ourselves and not an alien power over us. The ultimate rulers of our democracy are not a President and senators and congressmen and government officials, but the voters of this country.

The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.

Happiness lies in the joy of achievement and the thrill of creative effort.

Fishing is much more than fish. It is the great occasion when we may return to the fine simplicity of our forefathers.

When all the routines and details and the human bores get on our nerves, we just yearn to go away from here to somewhere else. To go fishing is a sound, a valid, and an accepted reason for an escape. It requires no explanation.

Freedom is the open window through which pours the sunlight of the human spirit and human dignity.

There is no employing class, no working class, no farming class. You may pigeonhole a man or woman as a farmer or a worker or a professional man or an employer or even a banker. But the son of the farmer will be a doctor or a worker or even a banker, and his daughter a teacher. The son of a worker will be an employer - or maybe president.

Nothing in this world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not: nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not: unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not: the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent.

Knowledge comes, but wisdom lingers. It may not be difficult to store up in the mind a vast quantity of facts within a comparatively short time, but the ability to form judgments requires the severe discipline of hard work and the tempering heat of experience and maturity.

All growth depends upon activity. There is no development physically or intellectually without effort, and effort means work.

When more and more people are thrown out of work, unemployment results.

Woman: "Mr. Coolidge, I've made a bet against a fellow who said it was impossible to get more than two words out of you."
Calvin Coolidge: "You lose."

I have no trouble with my enemies. I can take care of my enemies in a fight. But my friends, my goddamned friends, they're the ones who keep me walking the floor at nights.

I am not fit for this office and never should have been here.

I don't know much about Americanism, but it's a damn good word with which to carry an election.

Friendship is the only cement that will ever hold the world together.

This is a war to end all wars.

Neutrality is a negative word. It does not express what America ought to feel. We are not trying to keep out of trouble; we are trying to preserve the foundations on which peace may be rebuilt.

America was established not to create wealth but to realize a vision, to realize an ideal - to discover and maintain liberty among men.

The man who is swimming against the stream knows the strength of it.

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.

The world must be made safe for democracy. Its peace must be planted upon the tested foundations of political liberty.

The ear of the leader must ring with the voices of the people.

The only use of an obstacle is to be overcome. All that an obstacle does with brave men is, not to frighten them, but to challenge them.

Don't write so that you can be understood, write so that you can't be misunderstood.

Presidents come and go, but the Supreme Court goes on forever.

Anti-Semitism is a noxious weed that should be cut out. It has no place in America.

People ask the difference between a leader and a boss. The leader leads, and the boss drives.

Nobody cares how much you know, until they know how much you care.

Far better is it to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs, even though checkered by failure... than to rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy nor suffer much, because they live in a gray twilight that knows not victory nor defeat.

Restaurant bathroom doors should be identified with the words, "men" and "women". Silhouettes and cartoon drawings of sombreros, bowler hats, puffy skirts and pretty mouths do not provide enough information for drunks.

That's all a man can hope for during his lifetime - to set an example - and when he is dead, to be an inspiration for history.

The mission of the United States is one of benevolent assimilation.

We need Hawaii just as much and a good deal more than we did California. It is manifest destiny.

I could not have told where those damned islands were within 2,000 miles.

The ship of democracy, which has weathered all storms, may sink through the mutiny of those on board.

Though the people support the government, the government should not support the people.

I know there is a Supreme Being who rules the affairs of men and whose goodness and mercy have always followed the American people, and I know He will not turn from us now if we humbly and reverently seek His powerful aid.

Public officers are the servants and agents of the people, to execute the laws which the people have made.

Officeholders are the agents of the people, not their masters.

A government for the people must depend for its success on the intelligence, the morality, the justice, and the interest of the people themselves.

The office of the Vice-President is a greater honor than I ever dreamed of attaining.

Experience has shown that the trade of the East is the key to national wealth and influence.

The truth will set you free, but first it will make you miserable.

Suicide is not a remedy.

Man cannot live by bread alone; he must have peanut butter.

A brave man is a man who dares to look the Devil in the face and tell him he is a Devil.

Conscience is the authentic voice of God to you.

To vote is like the payment of a debt, a duty never to be neglected, if its performance is possible.

The President of the United States should strive to be always mindful of the fact that he serves his party best who serves his country best.

I am not liked as a President by the politicians in office, in the press, or in Congress. But I am content to abide the judgment the sober second thought of the people.

The progress of society is mainly the improvement in the condition of the workingmen of the world.

In every battle there comes a time when both sides consider themselves beaten, then he who continues the attack wins.

The friend in my adversity I shall always cherish most. I can better trust those who helped to relieve the gloom of my dark hours than those who are so ready to enjoy with me the sunshine of my prosperity.

The art of war is simple enough. Find out where your enemy is. Get at him as soon as you can. Strike him as hard as you can, and keep moving on.

My failures have been errors in judgment, not of intent.

I propose to fight it out on this line if it takes all summer.

Whenever you hear a man prating about the Constitution, spot him as a traitor.

Slavery exists. It is black in the South, and white in the North.

No, gentlemen, if I am to be shot at, I want no man to be in the way of the bullet.

Do I not destroy my enemies when I make them my friends?

The ballot is stronger than the bullet.

I have always found that mercy bears richer fruits than strict justice.

No man has a good enough memory to be a successful liar.

All that I am, or hope to be, I owe to my angel mother.

My dream is of a place and a time where America will once again be seen as the last best hope of earth.

And in the end, it's not the years in your life that count. It's the life in your years.

You cannot escape the responsibility of tomorrow by evading it today.

A woman is the only thing I am afraid of that I know will not hurt me.

America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves.

Whatever you are, be a good one!

If friendship is your weakest point, then you are the strongest person in the world.

God must love the common man, he made so many of them.

This country, with its institutions, belongs to the people who inhabit it. Whenever they shall grow weary of the existing Government, they can exercise their constitutional right of amending it or their revolutionary right to dismember or overthrow it.

We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection.

I have found that most people are about as happy as they make up their minds to be.

The true rule, in determining to embrace, or reject any thing, is not whether it have any evil in it; but whether it have more of evil, than of good.

Perhaps a man's character was like a tree, and his reputation like its shadow; the shadow is what we think of it; the tree is the real thing.

The world has never had a good definition of the word liberty

Ich gehe langsam, aber ich gehe nie zurück.

Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak out and remove all doubt.

The ballot box is the surest arbiter of disputes among free men.

What is right and what is practicable are two different things.

I like the noise of democracy.

You have summoned me in my weakness. You must sustain me by your strength.

Let us remember that revolutions do not always establish freedom.

Church and state should be separate, not only in form, but fact - religion and politics should not be mingled.

It is not strange... to mistake change for progress.

The nourishment is palatable.

Stop your nonsense and drink your whiskey!

A strong reputation is like a good bonfire. When you have one kindled it's easy to keep the flame burning, even if someone comes along and tries to piss on it. But if you fall asleep and neglect it...You'll wake up with ashes.

My wife was as much of a soldier as I was.

No president who performs his duties faithfully and conscientiously can have any leisure.

There is more selfishness and less principle among members of Congress than I had any conception of, before I became President of the U.S.

One great object of the Constitution was to restrain majorities from oppressing minorities or encroaching upon their just rights.

Peace, plenty, and contentment reign throughout our borders, and our beloved country presents a sublime moral spectacle to the world.

I cannot adequately express the horror I feel for a man who can be so base as to veil his hypocrisy under the cloak of religion, and state the base falsehood he has done.

Popularity, I have always thought, may aptly be compared to a coquette - the more you woo her, the more apt is she to elude your embrace.

I can never consent to being dictated to.

I believe that all the measures of the Government are directed to the purpose of making the rich richer and the poor poorer.

I contend that the strongest of all governments is that which is most free.

It is easier to do a job right than to explain why you didn't.

Between Russia and the United States sentiments of good will continue to be mutually cherished.

I have never in my life seen a Kentuckian who didn’t have a gun, a pack of cards, and a jug of whiskey.

I have always been afraid of banks.

Never take counsel of your fears.

Take time to deliberate; but when the time for action arrives, stop thinking and go in!

Heaven will be no heaven to me if I do not meet my wife there.

There is no pleasure in having nothing to do; the fun is having lots to do and not doing it.

The Bible is the rock on which this Republic rests.

No one need think that the world can be ruled without blood. The civil sword shall and must be red and bloody.

Try and fail, but don't fail to try.

If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more and become more, you are a leader.

Patience and perseverance have a magical effect before which difficulties disappear and obstacles vanish.

Where annual elections end where slavery begins.

A little flattery will support a man through great fatigue.

National honor is the national property of the highest value.

A king without power is an absurdity.

The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted.

The rights of persons, and the rights of property, are the objects, for the protection of which Government was instituted.

Liberty may be endangered by the abuse of liberty, but also by the abuse of power.

If Tyranny and Oppression come to this land, it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy.

If you want something you’ve never had, you must be willing to do something you’ve never done.

I find that the harder I work, the more luck I seem to have.

I like the dreams of the future better than the history of the past.

IN CONGRESS, July 4, 1776.

The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America,

When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.–That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, –That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.–Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.

He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.

He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.

He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.

He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.

He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.

He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.

He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers.

He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.

He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance.

He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.

He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power.

He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:

For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:

For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:

For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:

For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:

For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury:

For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences

For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies:

For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:

For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.

He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.

He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.

He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty

Honesty is the first chapter in the book of wisdom.

In matters of style, swim with the current; in matters of principle, stand like a rock.

The glow of one warm thought is to me worth more than money.

Fear is the foundation of most governments.

Facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, or the dictates of our passions, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence.

Liberty cannot be preserved without general knowledge among the people.

Old minds are like old horses; you must exercise them if you wish to keep them in working order.

I must study politics and war that my sons may have liberty to study mathematics and philosophy.

Let your heart feel for the afflictions and distress of everyone.

Liberty, when it begins to take root, is a plant of rapid growth.

True friendship is a plant of slow growth.

The fate of unborn millions will now depend, under God, on the courage and conduct of this army. Our cruel and unrelenting enemy leaves us only the choice of brave resistance, or the most abject submission. We have, therefore, to resolve to conquer or die.

It is better to offer no excuse than a bad one.

My first wish is to see this plague of mankind, war, banished from the earth.

Some day, following the example of the United States of America, there will be a United States of Europe.

To be prepared for war is one of the most effective means of preserving peace.

Observe good faith and justice toward all nations. Cultivate peace and harmony with all.