Sarah Vowell Quote

Dealing with pain for surviving on this thirsty concrete

In questions of power, let no more be heard of confidence in man, but bind him down from mischief by the chains of the constitution.

An essential difference between the American and French revolutions was that the American version allowed a search for many truths, while French zealots tried to impose a single sacred truth that allo...

Give me liberty or give me death.

The U.S. didn't achieve its liberty or prosperity by mistake. It was by design, and the architects were the Founding Fathers. Don't mess with the Constitution. The Constitution matters.

Without Thomas Jefferson and his Declaration of Independence, there would have been no American revolution that announced universal principles of liberty. Without his participation by the side of the...

[I]t is the greatest absurdity to suppose it in the power of one, or of any number of men, at the entering into society to renounce their essential natural rights, or the means of preserving those rig...

Jefferson appeared to his enemies as an American version of Candide; Hamilton as an American Machiavelli.

Until Washington crossed the Delaware, the triumph of the old order seemed inevitable. Thereafter, things would never be the same again.

Stain not the glory of your worthy ancestors, but like them resolve never to part with your birthright; be wise in your deliberations, and determined in your exertions for the preservation of your lib...