public awareness - WWFD Search

Your search for "public awareness" returned 33 results from 16 Founders.

Samuel Adams:"If the liberties of America are ever completely ruined, of which in my opinion there is now the utmost danger, it will in all probability be the consequence of a mistaken notion of prudence, which leads men to acquiesce in measures of the most destructive tendency for the sake of present ease. When designs are form'd to rase the very foundations of a free government, those few who are to erect their grandeur and fortunes upon the general ruin, will employ every art to sooth the devoted people into a state of indolence, inattention and security. ... They are alarmed at nothing so much, as attempts to awaken the people to jealousy and watchfulness; and it has been an old game played over and over again, to hold up the men who would rouse their fellow citizens and countrymen to a sense of their real danger, and spirit them to the most zealous activity in the use of all proper means for the preservation of the public liberty, as a 'pretended patriots,' 'intemperate politicians,' rash, hot-headed men, Incendiaries, wretched desperadoes, who, as was said of the best of men, would turn the world upside down, or have done it already."source: Essay in the Boston Gazette, 1771.attention, neglect, watchfullness, public awareness, liberties, patriotism

Samuel Adams:"The public cannot be too curious concerning the characters of public men."source: To James Warren, 1775.character, representatives, living in the public eye

Benjamin Franklin:"In America, salaries, where indispensable, are extremely low; but much of public business is done gratis. The honor of serving the public ably and faithfully is deemed sufficient. Public spirit really exists there, and has great effects. In England it is universally deemed a nonentity, and whoever pretends to it is laughed at as a fool, or suspected as a knave."source: Smith, Writings of Benjamin Franklin, 7:4.wages, business interactions, public service, dignity

Thomas Paine:"Republican government is no other than government established and conducted for the interest of the public, as well individually as collectively."source: Rights of Man, 1792.republic, government, public, rights, liberties

George Washington:"I hold the maxim no less applicable to public than to private affairs, that honesty is always the best policy."source: Farewell Address, September 17, 1796.honesty, character, public

John Adams:"There must be a positive passion for the public good, the public interest, honour, power and glory, established in the minds of people, or there can be no republication government nor any real liberty: and this public passion must be superior to all private passions. Men must be ready, they must pride themselves and be happy to sacrifice their private pleasures, passions, and interests, nay, their private friendships and dearest connections, when they stand in competition with the rights of society."source: To Mercy Warren, 1776.patriotism, passion, duty, commitment, public good, pure intentions, honor, integrity, liberty

Gouverneur Morris:"The reflection and experience of many years have led me to consider the holy writings not only as the most authentic and instructive in themselves, but as the clue to all other history. They tell us what man is, and they alone tell us why he is what he is: a contradictory creature that seeing and approving of what is good, pursues and performs what is evil. All of private and public life is there displayed. ... From the same pure fountain of wisdom we learn that vice destroys freedom; that arbitrary power is founded on public immorality."source: Collections of the New York historical Society for the Year 1821", (New York: E. Bliss and E. White, 1821), p. 30, from "An Inaugural Discourse Delivered Before the New York Historical Society byt the Honorable Gouverneur Morris", September 4, 1816Public morality, morality, Public Virtue, Separation of Church and State

Thomas Jefferson:"I, however, place economy among the first and most important of republican virtues, and public debt as the greatest of the dangers to be feared"source: Letter to William Plumer (21 July 1816)economy, debt, public debt

George Washington:"Guard against the postures of pretended patriotism."source: Farewell Address, September 17, 1796.patriotism, knowledge, awareness

William Penn:"It is admirable to consider how many millions of people come into, and go out of the world, ignorant of themselves, and of the world they have lived in."source: Some Fruits of Solitude, 1693.intelligence, awareness, ignorance

William Penn:"Governments, like clocks, go from the motion men give them, and as governments are made and moved by men, so by them they are ruined too. Wherefore governments rather depend upon men, than men upon governments. Let men be good, and the government cannot be bad; if it be ill, they will cure it. But if men be bad, let the government be never so good, they will endeavor to warp and soil it to their turn."source: Preface to the First Frame of Government for Pennsylvania, which was formally adopted in England, April 25, 1682.government, public, good vs. evil, corruption, success

Thomas Paine:"A too great inattention to past occurrences retards and bewilders our judgment in every thing; while, on the contrary, by comparing what is past with what is present, we frequently hit on the true character of both, and become wise with very little trouble. It is a kind of countermarch, by which we get into the rear of time, and mark the movements and meanings of things as we make our return."source: The Crisis, 1777.history, education, wisdom, awareness

Noah Webster:"Perfection is not the lot of humanity. Instead of censuring the small faults of the constitution, I am astonished, that so many clashing interests have been reconciled--and so many sacrifices made to the general interest! The mutual concessions made by the gentlemen of the convention, reflect the highest honor on their cando and liberality; at the same time, they prove that their minds were deeply impressed with a conviction, that such mutual sacrifices are essential to our union."source: An Examination into the Leading Principles of the Federal Constitution, Philadelphia, October 17, 1787.constitution, perfection, sacrifice, public interest, unity

Thomas Jefferson:"The time to guard against corruption and tyranny is before they shall have gotten hold of us. It is better to keep the wolf out of the fold than to trust to drawing his teeth and talons after he shall have entered."source: Notes on Virginia, 1782.corruption, watchdogs, awareness, politicians

Alexander Hamilton:"The principal purposes to be answered by union are these--the common defense of the members; the preservation of the public peace, as well against internal convulsions as external attacks; the regulation of commerce with other nations and between the States; the superintendence of our intercourse, political and commercial, with foreign countries."source: Federalist Papers, No. 23reasons for union, role of federal government

John Adams:"The preservation of the means of knowledge among the lowest ranks is of more importance to the public than all the property of all the rich men in the country."source: Dissertation on the Canon and Feudal Law, 1765education for all, liberty, value of education

John Adams:"When public virtue is gone, when the national spirit is fled [...] the republic is lost in essence, though it may still exist in form."source: To Benjamin Rush, 1808.virtue and freedom, requirements of a free people, American government prerequistes

George Washington:"I entertain a strong hope that the state of the national finances is now sufficiently matured to enable you to enter upon a systematic and effectual arrangement for the regular redemption and discharge of the public debt, according to the right which has been reserved to the government. No measure can be more desirable, whether viewed with an eye to its intrinsic importance, or to the general sentiment and wish of the nation."source: Fitzpatrick, Writings of George Washington, 32:211.debt, national debt, budget, deficit

James Madison:"I go on the principle that public debt is a public curse."source: Letter to Henry Lee, April 13, 1790.debt, deficit, spending

Thomas Jefferson:"I am for a government rigorously frugal & simple, applying all the possible savings of the public revenue to the discharge of the national debt; and not for a multiplication of officers & salaries merely to make partisans, & for increasing, by every device, the public debt, on the principle of its being a public blessing."source: Letter to Elbridge Gerry, January 26, 1799.government spending, debt, frugality, deficit, revenue, corruption

Thomas Jefferson:"For promoting the public happiness, those persons whom nature has endowed with genius and virtue, should be rendered by liberal education worthy to receive, and able to guard the sacred deposit of the rights and liberties of their fellow citizens; and they should be called to that charge without regard to [...] birth, or other accidental condition or circumstance."source: Ibid., 2:221.responsibility of citizery, duty, uphold liberties, prejudice

John Adams:"I do not curse the day when I engaged in public affairs [...]. I cannot repent of any thing I ever did conscientiously and from a sense of duty. I never engaged in public affairs from my own interest, pleasure, envy, jealousy, avarice, or ambition, or even the desire of fame. If any of these had been my motive, my conduct would have been very different. In every considerable transaction of my public life, I have invariably acted according to my best judgment, and I can look up to God for the sincerity of my intentions."source: Ibid., pp. 208-9.honesty, integrity, duty, motive, service, patriotism

Michel Jean De Crevecoeur:"The easiest way of becoming acquainted with the modes of thinking, the rules of conduct, and the prevailing manners of any people, is to examine what sort of education they give their children; how they treat them at home, and what they are taught in their places of public worship."source: Letters From an American Farmer, 1782.parenting, education, respect, home-life, worship habits

James Madison:"Conscience is the most sacred of all property [...]. To guard a man's house as his castle, to pay public and enforce private debts with the most exact faith, can give no title to invade a man's conscience with is more sacred than his castle."source: Article in the National Gazette, March 29, 1792.property, rights, conscience, honestly

John Adams:"The moment the idea is admitted into society that property is not as sacred as the laws of God, and that there is not a force of law and public justice to protect it, anarchy and tyranny commence. Property must be secured or liberty cannot exist."source: Charles Francis Adams, ed., The words of John Adams, 10 vols. 6:9, p. 280.property, socialism, ownership of property, principle of freedom

George Mason:"He would, if interrogated, be obliged to declare that his political opinions at the age of twenty-one were too crude and erroneous to merit an influence on public measures. It had been said that Congress had proved a good school for our young men. It might be so, for anything he knew; but if it were, he chose that they should bear the expense of their own education."source: Madison, p. 149maturity, representative, accountability, responsibility, election

Elbridge Gerry:"All monies to be raised for supplying the public treasury by direct taxation shall be assessed on the inhabitants of the several states according to the number of their representatives respectively in the first branch, [...] according to the general principle that taxation and representation ought to go together."source: Ibid., p. 246taxation without representation, taxation on population, taxes, fairness

James Madison:"Of all the enemies to public liberty war is, perhaps, the most to be dreaded, because it comprises and develops the germ of every other. War is the parent of armies; from these proceed debts and taxes; and armies, and debts, and taxes are the known instruments for bringing the many under the domination of the few. In war, too, the discretionary power of the Executive is extended; its influence in dealing out offices, honors, and emoluments is multiplied; and all the means of seducing the minds, are added to those of subduing the force, of the people. The same malignant aspect in republicanism may be traced in the inequality of fortunes, and the opportunities of fraud, growing out of a state of war, and in the degeneracy of manners and of morals, engendered by both. No nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare."source: "Political Observations" April 20, 1795.war, libery, freedom, conflict, national security, balance of powers, virtue

Rev. Jonathan Mayhew:"To a generous mind, the public good, as it is the end of government, so it is also such a noble and excellent one, that the prospect of attaining it will animate the pursuit, and being attained, it will reward the pains. The very name of patriotism is indeed become a jest with some men; which would be much stranger than it is, had not so many others made a jest of the thing, serving their own base and wicked ends, under the pretext and colour of it. But there will be hypocrites in politicks, as well as in religion. Nor ought so sacred a name to fall into contempt, however it may have been prostituted & profaned, to varnish over crimes. And those times are perilous indeed, wherein men shall be only lover of their own selves, having no concern for the good of the public. Shall we go to the pagans to learn this god-like virtue? Even they can teach it. ... [A Christian lacking patriotism] ... would be a reporach not only to his religion, a religion of charity and beneficence, but even to our own common nature, as corrupt and depraved as it is. But how much more infamous were this, in persons of public character? in those, on whom the welfare of their country, under providence, immediately depends?"source: Election sermon, 1754.patriotism, hypocrites, politics, christianity

James Otis:"The only [worthy] principles of public conduct ... are to sacrifice estate, ease, health, and applause, and even life, to the sacred calls of his country. These manly sentiments, in private life, make the good citizen in public life, the patiot and the hero."source: Statement in court opposing "Writs of Assistance," 1761.patriotism, sacrifice, hero, patriot

Samuel Adams:"The true patriot therefore, will enquire into the causes of the fears and jealousies of his countrymen; and if he finds they are not groundless, he will be far from endeavoring to allay or stifle them: On the contrary, constrain'd by the Amor Patriae and from public views, he will by all proper means in his power foment and cherish them: He will, as far as he is able, keep the attention of this fellow citizens awake to their grievances; and not suffer them to be at rest, till the causes of their just complaints are removed. --At such a time Philanthrop's Patriot [a King's man] may be "very cautious of charging the want of ability or integrity to those with whom any of the powers of government are entrusted": But the true patriot, will constantly be jealous of those very men: Knowing that power, especially in times of corruption, makes men wanton; that it intoxicates the mind; and unless those with whom it is entrusted, are carefully watched, such is the weakness or the perverseness of human nature, they will be apt to domineer over the people, instead of governing them, according to the known laws of the state, to which alone they have submitted. If he finds, upon the best enquiry, the want of ability or integrity; that is, an ignorance of, or a disposition to depart from, the constitution, which is the measure and rule of government & submission, he will point them out, and loudly proclaim them: He will stir up the people, incessantly to complain of such men, till they are either reform'd, or remov'd from that sacred trust, which it is dangerous for them any longer to hold. "source: Essay in the Boston Gazette, 1771.patriotism, truth, corruption, power, power of free speech, removal from office

George Washington:"Let me now ... warn you in the most solemn manner against the baneful effects of the spirit of party. ... It serves always to distract the public councils and enfeebles the public administration. It agitates the community with ill-founded jealousies and false alarms; kindles the animosity of one party against another; foments occasionally riot and insurrection. It opens the door to foreign influence and corruption. ... A fire not to be quenched, it demands a uniform vigilance to prevent its bursting into flame, lest, instead of warming, it should consume."source: Farewell Address, September 17, 1796.political parties, party votes, disagreements, corruption, pay offs

Alexander Hamilton:"The republican principle demands that the deliberate sense of the community should govern the conduct of those to whom they intrust the management of their affairs; but it does not require an unqualified complaisance to every sudden breeze of passion, or to every transient impulse which the people may receive from the arts of men, who flatter their prejudices to betray their interests. It is a just observation, that the people commonly INTEND the PUBLIC GOOD. This often applies to their very errors. But their good sense would despise the adulator who should pretend that they always REASON RIGHT about the MEANS of promoting it."source: The Federalist Papers: No. 17good intentions, whims

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