JOHN HANCOCK

The important consequences to the American States from this Declaration of Independence, considered as the ground and foundation of a future government, naturally suggest the propriety of proclaiming it in such a manner as that the people may be universally informed of it.

I find money some way or other goes very fast. But I think I can reflect it has been spent with satisfaction and to my own honour.

The greatest ability in business is to get along with others and to influence their actions.

There, I guess King George will be able to read that without his spectacles!

Every People should have, within themselves, all the Means of Self Defense.

Some boast of being friends to government; I am a friend to righteous government, to a government founded upon the principles of reason and justice; but I glory in publicly avowing my eternal enmity to tyranny.

In circumstances as dark as these, it becomes us, as Men and Christians, to reflect that whilst every prudent measure should be taken to ward off the impending judgments, ...at the same time all confidence must be withheld from the means we use; and reposed only on that God rules in the armies of Heaven, and without His whole blessing, the best human counsels are but foolishness.

I glory in publicly avowing my eternal enmity to tyranny.

Sensible of the importance of Christian piety and virtue to the order and happiness of a state, I cannot but earnestly commend to you every measure for their support and encouragement

people who pay greater respect to a wealthy villain than to an honest, upright man in poverty, almost deserve to be enslaved; they plainly show that wealth, however it may be acquired, is, in their esteem, to be preferred to virtue.

Resistance to tyranny becomes the Christian and social duty of each individual… Continue steadfast and, with a proper sense of your dependence on God, nobly defend those rights which heaven gave, and no man ought to take from us.

A chip on the shoulder is too heavy a piece of baggage to carry through life.

Sensible of the importance of Christian piety and virtue to the order and happiness of a state, I cannot but earnestly commend to you every measure for their support and encouragement ... Manners, by which not only the freedom, but the very existence of the republics, are greatly affected, depend much upon the public institutions of religion and the good education of youth; in both these instances our fathers laid wise foundations, for which their posterity have had reason to bless their memory.

It is the Happiness of his Church that, when the Powers of Earth and Hell combine against it...that the Throne of Grace is of the easiest access-and its Appeal thither is graciously invited by the Father of Mercies, who has assured it, that when his Children ask Bread he will not give them a Stone.

...that all may bow to the scepter of our Lord Jesus Christ and that the whole Earth may be filled with his glory.

I urge you by all this is dear, by all that is honorable, by all that is sacred, not only that you pray but also that you act!

Let this sad tale of death never be told without a tear: let every parent tell the shameful story to his listening children, till tears of pity glisten in their eyes, or boiling passion shakes their tender frames.