Adam Weishaupt Quotes

We have to deal with the despotism of Princes. This increases every day. But then, the spirit of freedom breathes and sighs in every corner, and, by the assistance of hidden schools of wisdom, Liberty, and Equality, the imprescribable rights of man, warm and glow in every breast. We must therefore unite these extremes.

If it wasn't for Abe Lincoln, I'd still be on the open market.

The Bourbon King was first ambassador of reason and human happiness.

Workers ... do not eat legal rights but bread. History, especially recent history, gives much evidence to support the contention that men want security more than freedom and that for an indefinite time they may be successfully governed by a dictator who keeps in mind the maxim that 'contented cows give the best milk.'

After centuries the time has come when India has gained independence from foreign rule and it's the time when we all [the Independent Princely States) should unite for our motherland""

A British nobleman is a free man, and therefore has a right to adopt any country which is endeavoring to reestablish the rights of aggrieved humanity

Iturbide became a non-person in Mexico. His body was not removed to the great Independence Monument erected in 1925 with those of Hidalgo, Morelos, Matamoros, and Guerrero – all of whom had so signally failed to secure Mexico’s independence. The man who actually gave Mexico nationhood remains despised and obscure.

The Illuminati is inviting to Christians of every communion; gradually frees them from all religious prejudices; cultivates the social virtues; and animates them by a great, a feasible, a speedy prospect of universal happiness, in a state of liberty and moral equality, freed from the obstacles which subordination, rank, and riches, continually throw in our way …. Our secret association works in a way that nothing can withstand, and man shall soon be free and happy.

Revolutions of ages do not oft recover the loss of a rejected truth, for the want of which whole nations fare the worse. We should be wary therefore what persecution we raise against the living labors of public men

Under the Constitution, the Militia must ever be estimated the bulwark of civil and individual liberty. Directed by public sentiment, it will guard us from the oppression of power; regulated by wisdom, and patronized by the Government, it will secure us from anarchy; officered, trained and supported by the States, it is the guarantee of their sovereignty and union; and properly armed and disciplined, ... it forms an impenetrable barrier to the invader.

The Free States have a majority of 44 in that House. Under the new census, they would have 53. The cause of the slaveholding States is getting weaker and weaker, and what are we to do? What would the South have to rely on, if the Union were dissolved? Suppose the dissolution could be peaceably … what had the South to depend upon? All the crowned heads [of Europe] were against her. A million of slaves are ready to rise and strike for freedom at the first tap of the drum. If the South is cut loose from their friends at the North … whither are they to look for protection? How are they to sustain an assault from England or France, with the cancer at their vitals? The more the South reflected, the more clearly she must see that she has a deep and vital interest in maintaining the Union.

History does not long entrust the care of freedom to the weak or the timid

Appreciate the signal and manifold mercies…the great degree of tranquility, union, and plenty which we enjoy, and the peaceable and rational manner in which we have been enabled to establish constitutions of government for our safety and happiness…for the civil and religious liberty with which we are blessed and the means we have of acquiring and diffusing useful knowledge; that we must unite in humbly offering our supplications to pardon our national and other transgressions, to enable us to perform our duties properly and punctually, to render our national government a blessing to all people by constantly being a government of wise, just and constitutional laws, discreetly and faithfully executed and obeyed.

The Confederates (The Iroquois Indian Confederacy) were as celebrated for their eloquence, as for their military skill and political wisdom. Popular, or free governments have, in all ages, been the congenial soil of oratory. And it is, indeed, all important in institutions merely advisory; where persuasion must supply the place of coercion; where there is no magistrate to execute, no military to compel; and where the only sanction of law is the controlling power of public opinion.

The circumstances of the world are continually changing, and the opinions of man change also; and as government is for the living, and not for the dead, it is the living only that has any right in it.

The experience of the past one hundred and fifty years has revealed the danger that, through judicial interpretation, the constitutional device for the protection of minorities from oppressive majority action, may be made the means by which the majority is subject to the tyranny of the minority.

If we always looked to contemporary public opinion we would be a slaveholding British colony today.

France was long a despotism tempered by epigrams.

The position of Princes is no doubt difficult in these times, but it would be much less so if they would behave honorably and straightforwardly, giving the people gradually those privileges which would satisfy all the reasonable and well-intentioned, and would weaken the power of the Red Republicans; instead of that, reaction and a return to all the tyranny and oppression is the cry and the principle—and all papers and books are being seized and prohibited, as in the days of Metternich!..

What matters it to us at present whether Monarchy is reprobated by the Almighty or not, It will be time enough to consider what kind of Government is best suited for America when we have determined ourselves independent; indeed every man who wishes to be free will be forming Opinions relative to the form of Government

The Civil War is a story about how some people clung to the past, while others sought the future.

Abolition—Yes! abolish everything on the face of the earth but this Union; free every slave—slay every traitor—burn every rebel mansion, if these things be necessary to preserve this temple of freedom to the world and to our posterity.

Speech is an essential mechanism of democracy, for it is the means to hold officials accountable to the people. [...] The right of citizens to inquire, to hear, to speak, and to use information to reach consensus is a precondition to enlightened self-government and a necessary means to protect it. [...] By taking the right to speak from some and giving it to others, the Government deprives the disadvantaged person or class of the right to use speech to strive to establish worth, standing, and respect for the speaker’s voice. The Government may not by these means deprive the public of the right and privilege to determine for itself what speech and speakers are worthy of consideration. The First Amendment protects speech and speaker, and the ideas that flow from each.

It is almost inconceivable that citizens of that time were willing to support so bloody a war, by putting so high a price upon Union and Liberty.

The whole conception of a God is a conception derived from the ancient oriental despotisms. It is a conception quite unworthy of free men. We ought to stand up and look the world frankly in the face. We ought to make the best we can of the world, and if it is not so good as we wish, after all it will still be better than what these others have made of it in all these ages.