Philip Morin Freneau Quotes

America was born modern; it did not have to achieve modernity, nor did it have modernity thrust upon it.

The American Revolution was a conservative revolution.

Civilization is merely an advance in taste: accepting, all the time, nicer things, and rejecting nasty ones.

Literature is at once the cause and the effect of social progress.

Civilization is the lamb's skin in which barbarism masquerades.

I mean, the Constitution of this country was written 200 years ago. The house I was living in in Madrid is 350 years old! America is still a project, and you guys are working on it and bringing new things to it every day. That is beautiful to watch.

Let's face it: without the French there would be no America...in other words, without them, there is no us.

I don't know how you talk about the founding of America, and what became of the United States, without talking about religious doctrine.

[American colonists] had no common national tradition except that against which they were revolting.

We have discovered a land rich in gold, pearls, and other things … There are in the city many large and beautiful houses … and pleasant gardens …. Two great aqueducts made of mortar … The people are dressed with elegance and [have a ] courtly bearing …. Considering that these people are barbarous, lacking knowledge of God and communication with other civilized nations, it is remarkable to see all that they have.

Civilizations are a matter of the mind.

At some period, however, of their history, almost every people, now civilized, have consisted, in majority, of slaves. A people in that condition require to raise them out of it a very different polity from a nation of savages.

We have such a great civilization.

We have come in the name of the French Republic founded upon the principles of equality and liberty.

No community ever did or ever can emerge unassisted by external helps from a state of utter barbarism into anything that can be called civilization

It is very true that I threw up my cap for liberty with great ardor, and perfect sincerity, but very soon found the folly of it. A hundred years to come my people will not be fit for liberty. They do not know what it is, unenlightened as they are, and under the influence of a Catholic clergy, a despotism is the proper government for them, but there is no reason why it should not be a wise and virtuous one.

When the tempers of men are softened as well as their knowledge improved, this humanity appears still more conspicuous, and is the chief characteristic which distinguishes a civilized age from times of barbarity and ignorance. Factions are then less inveterate, revolutions less tragical, authority less severe, and seditions less frequent.

Americans are properly Britons. They have the manners, habits, and ideas of Britons; and have been accustomed to a similar form of government. But Britons never could bear the extremes, either of monarchy or republicanism. Some of their Kings have aimed at despotism; but always failed. Repeated efforts have been made towards democracy, and they equally failed.

The farmers of our country live better than did the kings and princes two hundred years ago … Liberty and labor have given us all.

Cultural growth, like economic development rarely comes as a steady advance on all fronts at once.

The progress made in refinement of manners and morals seems to have gone on simultaneously with the improvement in arts, manufactures and commerce. It moved slowly at first, but has been constantly increasing in velocity…. we are a much better people than we were then, better instructed, more sincere and kind-hearted, less gross and brutal, and have fewer of the concomitant vices of a less civilized state.

In the four quarters of the globe, who reads an American book? Or goes to an American play? or looks at an American picture or statue? What does the world yet owe to American physicians or surgeons? What new substances have their chemists discovered? Or what old ones have they advanced? What new constellations have been discovered by the telescopes of Americans? Who drinks out of American glasses? Or eats from American plates? Or wears American coats or gowns? or sleeps in American blankets? Finally, under which of the old tyrannical governments of Europe is every sixth man a slave, whom his fellow-creatures may buy and sell and torture?

Civilization largely consists in hiding human nature. When the barbarian learns to hide it we account him enlightened.

It is common to think of our own time as standing on the apex of human history.

Read the novels of some authors with leftist tendencies, such as Howard Fast. Read the famous book, The Grapes of Wrath, written by John Steinbeck … and see what it says about the situation of the left and how the capitalists of the of the so-called Center of Democracy treated them.