Quote#World
We cannot make Events. Our Business is wisely to improve them. There…
Quote bySamuel Adams · 1722–1803
Commonly attributed — not confirmed in an authoritative edition. Cited on Wikiquote to: Letter to Samuel Cooper (30 April 1776).
English (original)
We cannot make Events. Our Business is wisely to improve them. There has been much to do to confirm doubting Friends & fortify the Timid. It requires time to bring honest Men to think & determine alike even in important Matters. Mankind are governed more by their feelings than by reason.
— Samuel Adams
More from Samuel Adams
The sum of all is, if we would most truly enjoy this gift of Heaven, let us become a virtuous people.
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It is not unfrequent to hear men declaim loudly upon liberty, who, if we may judge by the whole tenor of their actions, mean nothing else by it but their own liberty, — to oppress without control or the restraint of laws all who are poorer …
If Taxes are laid upon us in any shape without our having a legal Representation where they are laid, are we not reduced from the Character of free Subjects to the miserable State of tributary Slaves?
It is a very great mistake to imagine that the object of loyalty is the authority and interest of one individual man, however dignified by the applause or enriched by the success of popular actions.
The Utopian schemes of levelling, and a community of goods, are as visionary and impracticable, as those which vest all property in the Crown, are arbitrary, despotic, and in our government unconstitutional.