Category: Thought

“Man, when perfected, is the best of animals, but when separated from law and justice, he is the worst of all.”

Aristotle, Politics, Book One.

“It was expected of me that I was to bow to the name of Andrew Jackson, and follow him in all his motions, and windings, and turnings, even at the expense of my consciences and judgment. Such a thing was new to me, and a total stranger to my principles. . . . His famous, or rather I should say infamous Indian bill was brought forward and, and I opposed it from the purest motives in the world. Several of my colleagues got around me, and told me how well they loved me, and that I was ruining myself. They said it was a favorite measure of the President, and I ought to go for it. I told them I believed it was a wicked unjust measure, and that I should go against it, let the cost to myself be what it might; that I was willing to go with General Jackson in everything that I believed was honest and right; but further than this, I wouldn’t go for him, or any other man in the whole creation.”

David Crockett, A Narrative of the Life of David Crockett (1834), chapter 17.

“I leave this rule for others when I’m dead
Be always sure you’re right — THEN GO AHEAD!”

David Crockett, personal motto.

“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 or weaker than themselves.”

Samuel Adams, from an essay in The Advertiser (1748).

“We have the right as individuals, to give away as much of our own money as we please in charity; but as members of Congress we have no right to appropriate a dollar of the public money.”

David Crockett, from a speech in the U.S. House of Representatives, as quoted in The Life of Colonel David Crockett (1884), by Edward Sylvester Ellis.

“Neither the wisest constitution nor the wisest laws will secure the liberty and happiness of a people whose manners are universally corrupt. He therefore is the truest friend to the liberty of his country who tries most to promote its virtue, and who, so far as his power and influence extend, will not suffer a man to be chosen into any office of power and trust who is not a wise and virtuous man. ”

Samuel Adams, from an essay in The Advertiser (1748).

“I know nothing, by experience, of party discipline. I would rather be a raccoon-dog, and belong to a Negro in the forest, than to belong to any party, further than to do justice to all, and to promote the interests of my country. The time will and must come, when honesty will receive its reward, and when the people of this nation will be brought to a sense of their duty, and will pause and reflect how much it cost us to redeem ourselves from the government of one man.”

David Crockett, after his electoral defeat in 1830, as quoted in David Crockett: His Life and Adventures (1875), by John Stevens Cabot Abbott, p. 294.

Among the natural rights of the colonists are these: First a right to life, secondly to liberty, thirdly to property; together with the right to defend them in the best manner they can.

Samuel Adams, Statement of the Rights of the Colonists, etc. (1772).

“I would rather be beaten and be a man than to be elected and be a little puppy dog. I have always supported measures and principles and not men. I have acted fearless and independent and I never will regret my course. I would rather be politically buried than to be hypocritically immortalized.”

David Crockett, after his electoral defeat in 1830, as quoted in David Crockett: The Man and the Legend (1994), by James Atkins Shackford, p. 133.

“Stretching his hand up to reach the stars, too often man forgets the flowers at his feet.”