Samuel Adams

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Driven from every other corner of the earth, freedom of thought and the right of private judgment in matters of conscience direct their course to this happy country as their last asylum.

Samuel Adams (27 September 1722 - 2 October 1803) was an American revolutionary and organizer of the Boston Tea Party.

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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.
- Speech (1771)

What a glorious morning for America!
- Upon hearing the gunfire at Lexington (April 19, 1775)

In monarchy the crime of treason may admit of being pardoned or lightly punished, but the man who dares rebel against the laws of a republic ought to suffer death.
- Debates over the hangings of Northampton rebels, quoted in Howard Zinn, A People's History of the United States, p. 95

Men who content themselves with the semblance of truth and a display of words talk much of our obligations to Great Britain for protection. Had she a single eye to our advantage? A nation of shopkeepers is seldom so disinterested.
- Speech at the Pennsylvania State House (August 1, 1776)

If ye love wealth better than liberty, the tranquility of servitude better than the animating contest of freedom—go from us in peace. We ask not your counsel nor your arms. Crouch down and lick the hand that feeds you. May your chains sit lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that ye were our countrymen!
- Speech delivered at the State House in Philadelphia, “to a very numerous audience,” on August 1, 1776. [1]

Driven from every other corner of the earth, freedom of thought and the right of private judgment in matters of conscience direct their course to this happy country as their last asylum.
- Speech, Philadelphia (August 1, 1776)

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Attributed

He who made all men hath made the truths necessary to human happiness obvious to all… Our forefathers opened the Bible to all.

It does not require a majority to prevail, but rather an irate, tireless minority keen to set brush fires in people's minds.

Let divines and philosophers, statesmen and patriots, unite their endeavors to renovate the age by impressing the minds of men with the importance of educating their little boys and girls, inculcating in the minds of youth the fear and love of the Deity… and leading them in the study and practice of the exalted virtues of the Christian system.

Remove both regiments or none.
- To Governor Hutchinson about the state of the two regiments in Boston.

The said constitution shall never be construed to authorize congress to prevent the people of the United States who are peaceable citizens from keeping their own arms.

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