The eighteenth century was an exciting period of history where power shifted from the government to the people. Democracy was born and would begin to take hold in societies across the world. Monarchies were violently overthrown as people began to demand freedom and representation. We should forever cherish the eighteenth century as the events that occurred during it grant us many of the freedoms that we enjoy today.
Scholars and historians around the world have been researching public records in Pennsylvania to try and get a better understanding of eighteenth century history, culture, science and arts. A visit to Independence Hall in Philadelphia can provide an amazing glimpse into this truly influential time period.
Below you will find quotes from famous people that lived during the eighteenth century. You will find that they reveal an incredible amount of the thinking of the time and that many are still very meaningful today.
“No man has a natural right to commit aggression on the equal rights of another, and this is all from which the laws ought to restrain him.”
– Thomas Jefferson
“Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”
– John Adams
“It is impossible to rightly govern a nation without God and the Bible.”
– George Washington
“When the people find that they can vote themselves money, that will herald the end of the republic.”
– Benjamin Franklin
“The beauty of the Second Amendment is that it will not be needed until they try to take it.”
– Thomas Jefferson
“Give me liberty or give me death.”
– Patrick Henry
“I do not agree with what you have to say, but I’ll defend to the death your right to say it.”
– Voltaire
“To become truly great, one has to stand with people, not above them.”
– Charles de Montesquieu
“Firearms are second only to the Constitution in importance; they are the peoples’ liberty’s teeth.”
– George Washington
“Man will never be free until the last king is strangled with the entrails of the last priest.”
– Denis Diderot
“The Constitution preserves the advantage of being armed which Americans possess over the people of almost every other nation where the governments are afraid to trust the people with arms.”
– James Madison
“God made me and broke the mold.”
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
“The strongest reason for the people to retain the right to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in government.”
– Thomas Jefferson
“Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch. Liberty is a well-armed lamb contesting the vote.”
– Benjamin Franklin
“There is no crueler tyranny than that which is perpetuated under the shield of law and in the name of justice.”
– Charles de Montesquieu
“There is danger from all men. The only maxim of a free government ought to be to trust no man living with power to endanger the public liberty.”
– John Adams
“The Constitution is the guide which I never will abandon.”
– George Washington
“It’s not tyranny we desire; it’s a just, limited, federal government.”
– Alexander Hamilton
“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
“As long as people believe in absurdities they will continue to commit atrocities.”
– Voltaire
“The purpose of separation of church and state is to keep forever from these shores the ceaseless strife that has soaked the soil of Europe with blood for centuries.”
– James Madison
“They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither safety nor liberty.”
– Benjamin Franklin
“Was the government to prescribe to us our medicine and diet, our bodies would be in such keeping as our souls are now.”
– Thomas Jefferson
“All the reasonings of men are not worth one sentiment of women.”
– Voltaire
“Fear is the foundation of most governments.”
– John Adams
“I have not yet begun to fight!”
– John Paul Jones
“Those who stand for nothing fall for anything.”
– Alexander Hamilton
“It is legal because I wish it.”
– Louis XIV
“In Republics, the great danger is, that the majority may not sufficiently respect the rights of the minority.”
– James Madison
“The policy of the American government is to leave their citizens free, neither restraining nor aiding them in their pursuits.”
– Thomas Jefferson
“The liberties of a people never were, nor ever will be, secure, when the transactions of their rulers may be concealed from them.”
– Patrick Henry
“To arms, to arms! The British are coming, the British are coming!”
– Paul Revere
“Insults are the arguments employed by those who are in the wrong.”
– Jean-Jacques Rousseau
“Therefore, since we may say, after such long experience, that religion does not imply exact honesty, we are authorized by the same reasons to think that atheism does not exclude it.”
– Julien Offray de La Mettrie
“Rebellion to tyrants is obedience to God.”
– Benjamin Franklin
“Liberty, when it begins to take root, is a plant of rapid growth.”
– George Washington
