Jesse Helms Quotes

Ours is the only country deliberately founded on a good idea.

I'm honored to serve as mayor of my hometown where our founders started America with three simple words: 'We, the people.' And when they said 'people' they didn't mean 'corporations.'

Based on what our country stands for. We can't fail to stand for democracy.

A people that values its privileges above its principles soon loses both.

America was not founded to improve health care or housing; it was founded for freedom.

The amazing fact is that America is founded on a document. It's a work in progress. It can be tested by each generation.

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

I do not believe in a political strategy that does not have a moral foundation.

America was based on a big promise—a great big one: the Declaration of Independence. When you have to live with that in the house, that’s quite a problem—particularly when you’ve got to make money and get ahead, open world markets, do all the things you have to, raise your children, and so forth. America is stuck with its self-definition put on paper in 1776, and that was just like putting a burr under the metaphysical saddle of America—you see, that saddle’s going to jump now and then and it pricks.

We know, deep down, that repression is not the wave of the future. We know that the desire for freedom is not confined to, or owned by, any culture; it is the inborn hope of our humanity. We know that free governments are the only way to ensure that the strong are just and the weak are valued. And we know that when we lose sight of our ideals, it is not democracy that has failed. It is the failure of those charged with preserving and protecting democracy.

The American dream comes from opportunity. The opportunity comes from our founding principles, our core values that's held together and protected by the Constitution. Those ideas are neither Republican, Democrat, conservative, liberal, white, or black. Those are American ideologies.

The American people are bigger than any president. I suppose I have faith in my country and in what it is founded on and the values we hold dear.

America was founded by statesmen who were guided by strong moral and political principles. These principles have allowed this nation to flourish and continually improve itself.

I have spent my life fighting for our country and our values. When those values are jeopardized, when our democracy is threatened, I believe it is our responsibility to speak out and demand accountability.

Tonight, we gather to affirm the greatness of our nation - not because of the height of our skyscrapers, or the power of our military, or the size of our economy. Our pride is based on a very simple premise, summed up in a declaration made over two hundred years ago.

The perfection of our union, especially our commitment to equality of opportunity, has been a story of constant striving to live up to our Founding principles. This is what Abraham Lincoln meant when he said, 'In giving freedom to the slave, we assure freedom to the free - honorable alike in what we give, and what we preserve.'

I think the average American has forgotten the great feel for liberty and accountability that the framers of the Constitution believed.

Faith in reason was the foundation stone of the United States.

America is great not because it's a team. America is great because it is a nation whose founding documents elevated the rights of the individual.

I very, very much want to be involved in helping those senators, congressmen, and women who support the principles that made America great.

As citizens of this democracy, you are the rulers and the ruled, the law-givers and the law-abiding, the beginning and the end.

Democracy without morality is impossible.

America's greatness has been the greatness of a free people who shared certain moral commitments. Freedom without moral commitment is aimless and promptly self-destructive.

America's veterans embody the ideals upon which America was founded more than 229 years ago.

Our Founding Fathers would be proud of all that America has achieved, and will continue to achieve, in the coming years.