“We did not raise armies for glory or for conquest.”
Optimistic feeling
Optimistic Quotes — page 111 of 204
“[A]lthough a republican government is slow to move, yet when once in motion, its momentum becomes irresistible.”
“My confidence is that there will for a long time be virtue and good sense enough in our countrymen to correct abuses.”
“I think all the world would gain by setting commerce at perfect liberty.”
“The Declaration of Independence . . . [is the] declaratory charter of our rights, and the rights of man.”
“Our attachment to no nation on earth should supplant our attachment to liberty.”
“The only security of all is in a free press. The force of public opinion cannot be resisted when permitted freely to be expressed. The agitation it produces must be submitted to. It is necessary, to keep he waters pure.”
“There are two subjects, indeed, which I shall claim a right to further as long as I breathe: the public education, and the sub-division of counties into wards. I consider the continuance of republican government as absolutely hanging on these two hooks.”
“[The people] are in truth the only legitimate proprietors of the soil and government.”
“The inhabitants of the ceded territory shall be incorporated in the Union of the United States, and admitted as soon as possible, according to the principles of the Federal constitution, to the enjoyment of all the rights, advantages, and immunities, of citizens of the United States; and, in the mean time, they shall be maintained and protected in the free enjoyment of their liberty, property, and the religion which they profess.”
“The tumults in America I expected would have produced in Europe an unfavorable opinion of our political state. But it has not. On the contrary, the small effect of these tumults seems to have given more confidence in the firmness of our governments. The interposition of the people themselves on the side of government has had a great effect on the opinion here in Europe.”
“A right to property is founded in our natural wants, in the means with which we are endowed to satisfy these wants, and the right to what we acquire by those means without violating the similar rights of other sensible beings.”
“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.”
“The elective franchise, if guarded as the ark of our safety, will peaceably dissipate all combinations to subvert a Constitution, dictated by the wisdom, and resting on the will of the people.”
“I sincerely join you in abjuring all political connection with every foreign power; and tho I cordially wish well to the progress of liberty in all nations, and would forever give it the weight of our countenance, yet they are not to be touched without contamination from their other bad principles. Commerce with all nations, alliance with none, should be our motto.”
“We are destined to be a barrier against the return of ignorance and barbarism. Old Europe will have to lean on our shoulders, and to hobble along by our side, under the monkish trammels of priests and kings, as she can. What a colossus shall we be when the southern continent comes up to our mark! What a stand will it seem as a ralliance for the reason and freedom of the globe!”
“I think it's very clear that the American people are frustrated with this move toward socialism. And so whether you're back or white, if you believe that the conservative construct is in the best interest of our future, than you too would be voting with Republicans, and if you had the opportunity to run you'd join us as well.”
“We have to attack those things which stand in the way of America progress. And what stands in the way of American progress right now is the federal government.”
“With the increased cost of gasoline, it doesn't appear that we're going to see a slowing of interest in mass transit. I think it's going to continue to grow.”
“As long as you as an individual... can convince yourself that in order to move forward as best you can you have to be optimistic, you can be described as 'one of the faithful,' one of those people who can say, 'Well, look, something's going to happen! Let's just keep trying. Let's not give up.”