Philip Hone Quotes

Were an energetic and judicious system to be proposed with your signature it would be a circumstance highly honorable to your fame ... and doubly entitle you to the glorious republican epithet, The Father of your Country.

James Madison was the Speaker of the House. But he also wrote many speeches for George Washington. He even wrote some of Washington’s Messages to Congress. Then as the Speaker, he would write the reply to Washington’s message that he had written.

Barack Obama is the most famous living person in the history of the world.

Give Obama a script he has made his own, and he is the motivational speaker to end all speakers. Tony Robbins cloned with Honest Abe.

People have always said - those words, 'too conservative,' is fairly relative. I'm sure that they probably said that about Thomas Jefferson and George Washington and Benjamin Franklin.

I think we need one recognized, respected public figure to make a tough, blunt statement on just what Reagan's record is and what he might do to the country, let alone the Republican Party before Christmas.

The Founding Fathers are not just some people that happened to get mad a long time ago and want their freedom. They were special people in addition to what their natural yearnings were.

For years, I've had a hankering for the portrait of Benjamin Franklin by Joseph Duplessis. Franklin is credited with so many inventions: the postal system, lightning rods, the constitution. He was a rock star before there was such a thing.

Washington's character was rock solid. He came to stand for the new nation and its republican virtues, which was why he became our first President by unanimous choice.

I like Thomas Jefferson, though he intimidated me. I thought he would have been very tough to be around. I don't know if he had such a sense of humor.

George Washington had a vision for this country. Was it three days of uninterrupted shopping?

I found him [Benjamin Franklin] social but not talkative, and when he spoke something useful dropped from his tongue.

The Cincinnatus of the West, Whom envy dared not hate, Bequeathed the name of Washington To make man blush there was but one!

… the grand lama of Federal adoration, the immaculate divinity of Mt. Vernon

Father of his country

Here was buried Thomas Jefferson, Author of the Declaration of Independence, of the Statute of Virginia for Religious Freedom & Father of the University of Virginia

To the memory of the man, first in war, first in peace, first in the hearts of his countrymen.

That people [the Founding Fathers] were few in numbers and without resources, save only their wise heads and stout hearts.

Eloquence and wisdom are by no means the same thing. They are sometimes united, but not necessarily ; perhaps never when eloquence is the mere gift of nature rather than the slow result of nature and art conjoined. A ready supply of glittering language and an ardent conception, i. e. a fertile imagination, and quick feelings, united to a retentive memory—these are together quite sufficient to make an orator, but by no means to make a wise man; to make a speaker or even a leader in a popular assembly, but not necessarily a statesman.

Benjamin Franklin was probably America’s first juvenile delinquent.

After the American Revolution Alexander Hamilton wanted to study law, but there were no law books. So Hamilton wrote them.

Because of its rhetorical power, the Founding Fathers mythos is always going to be invoked for rhetorical legitimacy.

Here comes the orator with his flood of words and his drop or reason.

Not enough people really think about the founding of our country, how it all began and what its really about. They don't even teach it in schools any more.

Washington worked very hard to create his legacy. Even before the War of Independence was over, he was assembling his papers and making sure they were going to be in a state of preservation that would represent as best he could the official side of what occurred during the Revolution.