The eighteenth century was an exciting period of history where power shifted from the government to the people. Democracy was born and would begin take hold in societies across the world. Monarchies were violently overthrown as people began to demand freedom and representation. We should forever cherish the eighteenth century as the events that occurred during it grant us many of the freedoms that we enjoy today.
Scholars at colleges and universities around the world have been researching eighteenth century history, culture, science and arts using modern practices to attempt to gain a better understanding of this influential time period.
Below you will find quotes from famous people that lived during the eighteenth century. You will find that they reveal an incredible amount of the thinking of the time and that many are still very meaningful today.
No man has a natural right to commit aggression on the equal rights of another, and this is all from which the laws ought to restrain him.
- Thomas Jefferson
Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.
- John Adams
It is impossible to rightly govern a nation without God and the Bible.
- George Washington
When the people find that they can vote themselves money, that will herald the end of the republic.
- Benjamin Franklin
The beauty of the Second Amendment is that it will not be needed until they try to take it.
- Thomas Jefferson
Give me liberty or give me death.
- Patrick Henry
I do not agree with what you have to say, but I’ll defend to the death your right to say it.
- Voltaire
To become truly great, one has to stand with people, not above them.
- Charles de Montesquieu
Firearms are second only to the Constitution in importance; they are the peoples’ liberty’s teeth.
- George Washington
Man will never be free until the last king is strangled with the entrails of the last priest.
- Denis Diderot
The Constitution preserves the advantage of being armed which Americans possess over the people of almost every other nation where the governments are afraid to trust the people with arms.
- James Madison
God made me and broke the mold.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
The strongest reason for the people to retain the right to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in government.
- Thomas Jefferson
Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch. Liberty is a well-armed lamb contesting the vote.
- Benjamin Franklin
There is no crueler tyranny than that which is perpetuated under the shield of law and in the name of justice.
- Charles de Montesquieu
There is danger from all men. The only maxim of a free government ought to be to trust no man living with power to endanger the public liberty.
- John Adams
The Constitution is the guide which I never will abandon.
- George Washington
It’s not tyranny we desire; it’s a just, limited, federal government.
- Alexander Hamilton
The natural liberty of man is to be free from any superior power on Earth, and not to be under the will or legislative authority of man, but only to have the law of nature for his rule.
- Samuel Adams
As long as people believe in absurdities they will continue to commit atrocities.
- Voltaire
The purpose of separation of church and state is to keep forever from these shores the ceaseless strife that has soaked the soil of Europe with blood for centuries.
- James Madison
They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither safety nor liberty.
- Benjamin Franklin
Was the government to prescribe to us our medicine and diet, our bodies would be in such keeping as our souls are now.
- Thomas Jefferson
All the reasonings of men are not worth one sentiment of women.
- Voltaire
Fear is the foundation of most governments.
- John Adams
I have not yet begun to fight!
- John Paul Jones
Those who stand for nothing fall for anything.
- Alexander Hamilton
It is legal because I wish it.
- Louis XIV
In Republics, the great danger is, that the majority may not sufficiently respect the rights of the minority.
- James Madison
The policy of the American government is to leave their citizens free, neither restraining nor aiding them in their pursuits.
- Thomas Jefferson
The liberties of a people never were, nor ever will be, secure, when the transactions of their rulers may be concealed from them.
- Patrick Henry
To arms, to arms! The British are coming, the British are coming!
- Paul Revere
Insults are the arguments employed by those who are in the wrong.
- Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Therefore, since we may say, after such long experience, that religion does not imply exact honesty, we are authorized by the same reasons to think that atheism does not exclude it.
- Julien Offray de La Mettrie
Rebellion to tyrants is obedience to God.
- Benjamin Franklin
Liberty, when it begins to take root, is a plant of rapid growth.
- George Washington
