James Monroe Quotes

We must support our rights or lose our character, and with it, perhaps, our liberties.

It is only when the people become ignorant and corrupt, when they degenerate into a populace, that they are incapable of exercising the sovereignty. Usurpation is then an easy attainment, and a usurper soon found. The people themselves become the willing instruments of their own debasement and ruin. Let us, then, look to the great cause, and endeavor to preserve it in full force. Let us by all wise and constitutional measures promote intelligence among the people as the best means of preserving our liberties.

In a representative republic, the education of our children must be of the utmost importance!

The best form of government is that which is most likely to prevent the greatest sum of evil.

A free, virtuous, and enlightened people must know full well the great principles and causes upon which their happiness depends.

Our country may be likened to a new house. We lack many things, but we possess the most precious of all - liberty!

The emigrants although of different parties and different religious sects all flew from persecution in pursuit of liberty.

How prone all human institutions have been to decay; how subject the best-formed and most wisely organized governments have been to lose their check and totally dissolve; how difficult it has been for mankind, in all ages and countries, to preserve their dearest rights and best privileges, impelled as it were by an irresistible fate of despotism.

There is a price tag on human liberty. That price is the willingness to assume the responsibilities of being free men. Payment of this price is a personal matter with each of us.

It is better to spread trust all around than to hand out money!

The earth was given to mankind to support the greatest number of which it is capable, and no tribe or people have a right to withhold from the wants of others more than is necessary for their own support and comfort.

The right of self-defense never ceases. It is among the most sacred, and alike necessary to nations and to individuals.

The liberty, prosperity, and the happiness of our country will always be the object of my most fervent prayers to the Supreme Author of All Good.

If it was wise, manly, and patriotic for us to establish a free government, it is equally wise to attend to the necessary means of its preservation.

Let us by wise and constitutional measures promote intelligence among the people as the best means of preserving our liberties.

If America wants concessions, she must fight for them. We must purchase our power with our blood.

A little flattery will support a man through great fatigue.

While we assert for ourselves a freedom to embrace, to profess, and to observe, the Religion which we believe to be of divine origin, we cannot deny an equal freedom to them whose minds have not yielded to the evidence which has convinced us.

By the last returns to the Department of War the militia force of the several States may be estimated at 800,000 men - infantry, artillery, and cavalry.

National honor is national property of the highest value.

It is only when the people become ignorant and corrupt, when they degenerate into a populace, that they are incapable of exercising their sovereignty.

I regret that I should leave this world without again beholding him.

Peace is the best time for improvement and preparation of every kind; it is in peace that our commerce flourishes most, that taxes are most easily paid, and that the revenue is most productive.

Of the liberty of conscience in matters of religious faith, of speech and of the press; of the trial by jury of the vicinage in civil and criminal cases; of the benefit of the writ of habeas corpus; of the right to keep and bear arms.... If these rights are well defined, and secured against encroachment, it is impossible that government should ever degenerate into tyranny.

Republics demanded virtue. Monarchies could rely on coercion and "dazzling splendor" to suppress self-interest or factions; republics relied on the goodness of the people to put aside private interest for public good. The imperatives of virtue attached all sorts of desiderata to the republican citizen: simplicity, frugality, sobriety, simple manners, Christian benevolence, duty to the polity. Republics called on other virtues--spiritedness, courage--to protect the polity from external threats. Tyrants kept standing armies; republics relied on free yeomen, defending their own land.

History has shown that at least one-half of every century is consumed in war.

The Executive is charged officially in the Departments under it with the disbursement of the public money, and is responsible for the faithful application of it to the purposes for which it is raised. The Legislature is the watchful guardian over the public purse. It is its duty to see that the disbursement has been honestly made.

The mention of Greece fills the mind with the most exalted sentiments and arouses in our bosoms the best feelings of which our nature is capable.

From several of the Indian tribes inhabiting the country bordering on Lake Erie purchases have been made of lands on conditions very favorable to the United States, and, as it is presumed, not less so to the tribes themselves.

[In a republic,] it is not the people themselves who make the decisions, but the people they themselves choose to stand in their places.

The crime of ingratitude has not yet stained, and I trust never will stain, our national character. You are considered by them as not only having rendered important service in our own revolution, but as being, on a more extended scale, the friend of human rights, and able advocate of public liberty. To the welfare of Thomas Paine, the Americas are not, nor can they be, indifferent.

At no period of our political existence had we so much cause to felicitate ourselves at the prosperous and happy condition of our country.

During the darkest days of the Revolutionary War, the Continental Congress and George Washington - I call him the first George W. - (laughter and applause) - urged citizens to pray and to give thanks and to ask for God's protection.

To impose taxes when the public exigencies require them is an obligation of the most sacred character, especially with a free people.

Before any man can be considered as a member of civil society, he must be considered as a subject of the Governor of the Universe. And to the same Divine Author of every good and perfect gift we are indebted for all those privileges and advantages, religious as well as civil, which are so richly enjoyed in this favored land.

If we look to the history of other nations, ancient or modern, we find no example of a growth so rapid, so gigantic, of a people so prosperous and happy.

The great increase of our population throughout the Union will alone produce an important effect, and in no quarter will it be so sensibly felt as in those in contemplation.

The American continents, by the free and independent condition by which they have assumed and maintained, are henceforth not to be considered as subjects for future colonization by any European powers.

The payments which have been made into the Treasury show the very productive state of the public revenue.

The public lands are a public stock, which ought to be disposed of to the best advantage for the nation.

The movements of a great nation are connected in all their parts. If errors have been committed they ought to be corrected; if the policy is sound it ought to be supported.

Preparation for war is a constant stimulus to suspicion and ill will.

There is every reason to believe that our system will soon attain the highest degree of perfection of which human institutions are capable.

I have great satisfaction in stating that our relations with France, Russia, and other powers continue on the most friendly basis.

In wars of the European powers in matters relating to themselves we have never taken any part, nor does it comport with our policy so to do

I enter on the trust to which I have been called by the suffrages of my fellow-citizens with my fervent prayers to the Almighty that He will be graciously pleased to continue to us that protection which He has already so conspicuously displayed in our favor.

Our relations with the other powers of Europe have experienced no essential change since the last session.

The citizens of the United States cherish sentiments the most friendly in favor of liberty and happiness...beyond the Atlantic. In the wars of the European powers in matters relating to themselves we have never taken any part, nor does it comport with our policy to do so. It is only when our rights are invaded or seriously menaced that we resent injuries.

The civil war which has so long prevailed between Spain and the Provinces in South America still continues, without any prospect of its speedy termination.