“For a trivial offence, a free man shall be fined only in proportion to the degree of his offence, and for a serious offence correspondingly, but not so heavily as to deprive him of his livelihood.”
Magna Carta Libertatum, Clause 20.
“The basis of a democratic state is liberty.”
Aristotle, Politics, Book Six.
“When people are friends, they have no need of justice, but when they are just, they need friendship in addition.”
Aristotle, Politics, Book Eight.
“Both oligarch and tyrant mistrust the people, and therefore deprive them of their arms.”
Aristotle, Politics, Book Five.
“I gave my decisions on the principles of common justice and honesty between man and man, and relied on natural born sense, and not on law, learning to guide me; for I had never read a page in a law book in all my life.”
David Crockett, A Narrative of the Life of David Crockett (1834), chapter 9.
“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.