John Dickinson Quotes
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With hearts fortified with these animating reflections, we most solemnly, before God and the world, declare, that, exerting the utmost energy of those powers, which our beneficent Creator hath graciously bestowed upon us, the arms we have compelled by our enemies to assume, we will, in defiance of every hazard, with unabating firmness and perseverance employ for the preservation of our liberties; being with one mind resolved to die freemen rather than to live as slaves.
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No free people ever existed, or can ever exist, without keeping the purse strings in their own hands. Where this is the case, they have a constitutional check upon the administration, which may thereby by brought into order without violence. But when such a power is not lodged in the people, oppression proceeds uncontrolled in its career, till the governed, transported into rage, seek redress in the midst of blood and confusion.
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Experience must be our only guide. Reason may mislead us.
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What concerns all, should be considered by all; and individuals may injure a whole society, by not declaring their sentiments. It is therefore not only their right, but their duty, to declare them.
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Let our government be like that of the solar system. Let the general government be like the sun and the states the planets, repelled yet attracted, and the whole moving regularly and harmoniously in several orbits.
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Then join hand in hand, brave Americans all! By uniting we stand, by dividing we fall.
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Let these truths be indelibly impressed on our minds — that we cannot be happy, without being FREE — that we cannot be free, without being secure in our property— that we cannot be secure in our property, if, without our consent, others may, as by right, take it away — that taxes imposed on us by parliament, do thus take it away.
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If the General Government should be left dependent on the State Legislatures, it would be happy for us if we had never met in this room.
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As in forming a political society, each individual contributes some of his rights, in order that he may, from a common stock of rights, derive greater benefits, than he could from merely his own; so, in forming a confederation, each political society should contribute such a share of their rights, as will, from a common stock of these rights, produce the largest quantity of benefits for them.
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Let us take care of our rights and we therein take care of our prosperity. Slavery is ever preceded by sleep
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Honor, justice, and humanity, call upon us to hold, and to transmit to our posterity, that liberty which we received from our ancestors. It is not our duty to leave wealth to our children, but it is our duty to leave liberty to them.
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The rights essential to happiness. . . . We claim them from a higher source - from the King of kings and Lord of all the earth.
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Kings or parliaments could not give the rights essential to happiness... We claim them from a higher source - from the King of kings, and Lord of all the earth. They are not annexed to us by parchments and seals. They are created in us by the decrees of Providence, which establish the laws of our nature. They are born with us; exist with us; and cannot be taken from us by any human power, without taking our lives.
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You can't actually hire and fire people inside of an open source community. Which means that getting people to work together is much more along the lines of making sure that people have the tools they need both to get their work done but also to know what is being done by other people and how to take that to their employer and tell that story to their employer and to show this is why the community is good and this is why we're working on these sort of things because it helps us over here.
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Most men with nothing would rather protect the possibility of becoming rich than face the reality of being poor.
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Our liberties do not come from charters; for these are only the declaration of pre-existing rights. They do not depend on parchments or seals; but come from the King of Kings and the Lord of all the earth.
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Our cause is just. Our union is perfect.
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Government has hardened into a tyrannical monopoly, and the human race in general becomes as absolutely property as beasts in the plow.
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The power of the people pervading the proposed system, together with the strong confederation of the states, will form an adequate security against every danger that has been apprehended.
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Rendering thanks to my Creator for my existence and station among His works, for my birth in a country enlightened by the Gospel and enjoying freedom, and for all His other kindnesses, to Him I resign myself, humbly confiding in His goodness and in His mercy through Jesus Christ for the events of eternity.
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John Dickinson
- Born: November 2, 1732
- Died: February 14, 1808
- Occupation: Former Delegate to the Continental Congress
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