Oliver Ellsworth Quotes

#1. Judge candidly what a wretched figure the American empire will exhibit in the eye of other nations, without a power to array and support a military force for its own protection.

Oliver Ellsworth

#2. He spent too much time mourning what could have been and questioning what should be.

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

#3. A people cannot long retain their freedom, whose government is incapable of protecting them.

Oliver Ellsworth

#4. There was this book I read and loved, The story of a ship Who sailed around the world and found That nothing else exists Beyond its own two sails And wooden shell And what is held within. All else is sure to pass. We clutch and grasp And debate what's truly permanent.

Conor Oberst

#5. Some persons never attain to the happy art of perspicuous expression, and it is equally true that some persons, thro' a mental defect of their own, will judge the most correct and certain language of others to be indefinite and ambiguous.

Oliver Ellsworth

#6. A desire of gain is common to mankind, and the general motive to business and industry.

Oliver Ellsworth

#7. The sole purpose and effect of it is to exclude persecution and to secure the important right of religious liberty.

Oliver Ellsworth

#8. Legislatures have no right to set up an inquisition and examine into the private opinions of men. Test-laws are useless and ineffectual, unjust and tyrannical.

Oliver Ellsworth

#9. Liberty is a word which, according as it is used, comprehends the most good and the most evil of any in the world.

Oliver Ellsworth

#10. Dedicate yourself to Love. Decide to let Love be your intention, your purpose, and your point. And then let Love inspire you, support you and guide you in every other dedication you make thereafter.

Robert Holden

#11. Passions unguided are for the most part mere madness.

Thomas Hobbes

#12. The Thirteen States are Thirteen Sovereign bodies.

Oliver Ellsworth

#13. Then, his struggles stopped. His eyes stared at me, stunned, and his lips parted, almost into a smile, albeit a grisly and pained one.
"That's what I was supposed to say ... " he gasped out.
Those were his last words.

Richelle Mead

#14. A government capable of controlling the whole, and bringing its force to a point, is one of the prerequisites for national liberty. We combine in society, with an expectation to have our persons and properties defended against unreasonable exactions either at home or abroad.

Oliver Ellsworth

#15. You should always pay attention to your instincts.

Agatha Christie

#16. One learns to adapt to the land in which one lives.

Louis L'Amour

#17. There are many people who reach their conclusions about life like schoolboys; they cheat their master by copying the answer out of a book without having worked out the sum for themselves.

Soren Kierkegaard

#18. The power of collecting money from the people is not to be rejected because it has sometimes been oppressive. Public credit is as necessary for the prosperity of a nation as private credit is for the support and wealth of a family.

Oliver Ellsworth

#19. The powers of congress must be defined, but their means must be adequate to the purposes of their constitution. It is possible there may be abuses and misapplications; still, it is better to hazard something than to hazard at all.

Oliver Ellsworth

#20. It may be assumed as a fixed truth that the prosperity and riches of the farmer must depend on the prosperity and good national regulation of trade.

Oliver Ellsworth

#21. When you fight against your own weaknesses, there's something embarrassing about it.

Charlotte Gainsbourg

#22. A Baby Sermon-
The lighting and thunder, they go and they come: But the stars and the stillness are always at home

George MacDonald

#23. You've got muscles and you use them everywhere else in your body when you want it. Why not your face?

Catherine O'Hara

#24. The right of the judge to inflict punishment gives him both power and opportunity to oppress the innocent; yet none but crazy men will from thence determine that it is best to have neither a legislature nor judges.

Oliver Ellsworth

#25. I don't believe in God. So I'm a non-believer in the non-visible. I'm a believer in us; in humans.

Eddie Izzard