Episcopalians From The United States

"Government is, or ought to be instituted for the common benefit, protection, and security of the people, nation, or community; of all the various modes and forms of government, that is best which is capable of producing the greatest degree of happiness and safety, and is most effectually secured against the danger of maladministration and [...] when any government shall be found inadequate or contrary to these purposes, a majority of the community hath an indubitable, inalienable, and indefeasible right to reform, alter, or abolish it, in such manner as shall be judged most conducive to the public weal."

"That the people have a right to uniform government; and, therefore, that no government separate from, or independent of the government of Virginia, ought to be erected or established within the limits thereof."

"That all men are by nature equally free and independent, and have certain inherent rights, of which, when they enter into a state of society, they cannot by any compact deprive or divest their posterity; namely, the enjoyment of life and liberty, with the means of acquiring and possessing property, and pursuing and obtaining happiness and safety."

"All power is vested in, and consequently derived from, the people; [...] magistrates are their trustees and servants, and at all times amenable to them."

"That elections of members to serve as representatives of the people, in assembly, ought to be free; and that all men, having sufficient evidence of permanent common interest with, and attachment to, the community, have the right of suffrage, and cannot be taxed or deprived of their property for public uses, without their own consent, or that of their representatives so elected, nor bound by any law to which they have not, in like manner, assembled, for the public good."

"All men are by nature born equally free and independent."

"Attend with Diligence and strict Integrity to the Interest of your Correspondents and enter into no Engagements which you have not the almost certain Means of performing."

"That the people have a Right to mass and to bear arms; that a well-regulated militia composed of the Body of the people, trained to arms, is the proper natural and safe defense of a free state, that standing armies, in time of peace, are dangerous to liberty, and therefore ought to be avoided."

"I begin to grow heartily tired of the etiquette and nonsense so fashionable in this city."

"I most sincerely console with you for the loss of your dear little girl, but it is our duty to submit with all the resignation human nature is capable of to the dispensation of Divine Providence which bestows upon us our blessings, and consequently has a right to take them away."

"A few years' experiences will convince us that those things which at the time they happened we regarded as our greatest misfortunes have proved our greatest blessings. Of this awful truth, no person has lived to my age without seeing abundant proof. Your dear baby has died innocent and blameless, and has been called away by an all-wise and merciful Creator, most probably from a life of misery and misfortune, and most certainly to one of happiness and bliss."

"Every gentleman here is born a petty tyrant. Practised in acts of despotism and cruelty, we become callous to the dictates of humanity and all the finer feelings of the soul. Taught to regard a part of our own Species in the most abject and contemptible Degree below us, we lose that Idea of the dignity of Man which the Hand of Nature had implanted in us, for great and useful purposes. Habituated from our Infancy to trample upon the Rights of Human Nature, every generous, every liberal Sentiment, if not extinguished, is enfeebled in our Minds; and in such an infernal school are to be educated our future legislators and rulers. The laws of impartial Providence may even by such means as these avenge upon our posterity the injury done to a set of wretches whom our injustice hath debased to a level with the brute creation. These remarks were extorted by a kind of irresistible, perhaps an enthusiastic impulse; and the author of them, conscious of his own good intentions, cares not whom they please or offend."

"I retired from public Business from a thorough Conviction that it was not in my power to do any Good, and very much disgusted with Measures, which appeared to me inconsistent with common Policy and Justice."

"I am now pretty far advanced in life, and all my views are centered in the Happiness and well-fare of my children; you will, therefore, find from me every Indulgence which you have a right to expect from an affectionate Parent."

"I thank God, I have been able, by adopting Principles of strict Economy and Frugality, to keep my principal, I mean my Country-Estate, unimpaired."

"I have been for some time in Retirement, and shall not probably return again to public Life; yet my Anxiety for my Country, in these Times of Danger, makes me sometimes dabble a little in Politicks, and keep up a Correspondence with some Men upon the public Stage."

"Every society, all government, and every kind of civil compact therefore, is or ought to be, calculated for the general good and safety of the community."

"This cold weather has set all the young Folks to providing Bedfellows. I have signed two or three Licences every Day [as a Fairfax Justice of the Peace] since I have been at Home. I wish I knew where to get a good one myself; for I find cold Sheets extremely disagreeable."

"I quitted my seat in the House of Delegates, from a Conviction that I was no longer able to do any essential Service."

"Happiness and Prosperity are now within our Reach; but to attain and preserve them must depend upon our own Wisdom and Virtue."

"I determined to spend the Remainder of my Days in privacy and Retirement with my Children, from whose Society alone I could expect Comfort."

"There is a Passion natural to the Mind of man, especially a free Man, which renders him impatient of Restraint. Do you, does any sensible Man think that three or four Millions of People, not naturally defective in Genius, or in Courage, who have tasted the Sweets of Liberty in a Country that doubles it’s Inhabitants every twenty Years, in a Country abounding in such Variety of Soil & Climate, capable of producing not only the Necessarys, but the Conveniencys & Delicacys of Life, will long submit to Oppression; if unhappily for yourselves oppression should be offered them? Such another Experiment as the Stamp-Act wou’d produce a general Revolt in America."

"Do you think that all your rival powers in Europe would sit still and see you crush your once flourishing and thriving colonies, unconcerned spectators of such a quarrel? Recollect what happened in the Low Countries a century or two ago. Call to mind the cause of the revolt. Call to mind, too, the part that England herself then acted. The same causes will generally produce the same effects; and it requires no great degree of penetration to foretell that what has happened may happen again. God forbid there should be occasion, and grant that the union, liberty and mutual happiness of Great Britain and her colonies may continue uninterrupted to the latest ages!"

"Our All is at Stake, and the little Conveniences and Comforts of Life, when set in Competition with our Liberty, ought to be rejected not with Reluctance but with Pleasure."

"We owe to our Mother-Country the Duty of Subjects but will not pay her the Submission of Slaves."

"In all our associations; in all our agreements let us never lose sight of this fundamental maxim — that all power was originally lodged in, and consequently is derived from, the people."

"We came equals into this world, and equals shall we go out of it."

"No matter what your age and no matter where you come from, everyone can change the world in some way, whether it's being a mentor to someone younger than you or someone that doesn't have as much experience as you. If you're passionate enough, you can do whatever you want and definitely change the world."

"I have to work hard to not look like a nerd all the time. My friends are the only people I know that don't care about my image. I need to have people who treat me just as Josh, not as Josh the singer."

"I was the hopeless romantic. I had so many crushes. But not on the real obvious girls. I was into the quirky ones. I was so shy, though."

"I don't have a social life right now. I try to -- it's something that I miss -- but David Foster told me: 'The golden microphone is in front of your mouth. You have to sing into it or it will get passed onto someone else.' It's very lonely, what I'm doing. Even though you have a lot of people around you, they're not experiencing it first-hand. It's hard to name more than five close friends. As much as people want to understand, it's hard when you don't see someone for five months at a time, and they're like, 'C'mon, make time.' But I don't have time. My days are gone. There are a lot of firsts for me. And I'm not going to toss it off. It would be silly to say, 'No, I'd rather go see a movie.' I know there will be time for that later."

"It's a nice feeling. I was not like the popular guy in high school. This is revenge for all the bullies in high school [laughter]. It's a great feeling. Maybe women sometimes are more open to romantic music.""

"My life is an unfinished product, but instead of just saying, 'How do I top what I've accomplished,' I decided I wanted to move forward, express my growth and take a big step into the next chapter.""

"I try to have a real close connection with my fans. That's extremely important. They are the ones that have been there from the beginning and proved everyone else wrong.""

"I just have to feel it first. It can't be cerebral at all. I'm big on lyrics, a big lyric person, especially the kind of singing I do. It's hard to sound not cheesy sometimes with the voice I have with English songs.""

"I can only say so much about how I feel. Music is what I always turned to when I was feeling a certain way. It's been my reason for everything.""

"The shower is my time to open up my operatic chops, because of the enormous echo. You sound five times as big in the shower, so I break into some "Nessun Dorma" [from Puccini's Turandot] or Pearl Jam. You've got to go big when you're in the shower. There's no half-singing in the shower, you're either a rock star or an opera diva."

"It's really tough to make a name for yourself without compromising and without fitting yourself into a real specific mold. When I made the choice that I would be involved in every aspect of music and not necessarily make music for radio or MTV, I was saying, 'OK, this is me. You decide who it is.' ""

"I've been fascinated by music for as long as I can remember. I was the kid on the playground in the third grade who would tell other kids about Paul Simon or Depeche Mode.""

"First and foremost, I'd like to continue taking risks with my music. Everything I've done so far has been a gut reaction, honest and real. And that's who I am. That's what I want my music to always be -- honest and real.""

"Las Vegas Sun, 08/13/04"

"Per Te (lyrics by Josh Groban)"

"I hoped to sell 50,000 records. My main goals were to sing my heart out, to challenge myself vocally, to find beautiful music that has great stories and to express what I love about the musicality of different languages. And if 10 people bought it, I'd be thrilled that 10 people listened to it. And if it was 10 million, I'd be thrilled that 10 million people listened to it. This is just beyond any dream that I could have possibly had.""

"I'm not crossing over from anything. I think of it as pop music with different influences. "When I walk in the music store, [my] album is under classical/pop/easy listening. It's hard to say what genre it is. It's genreless. I try not to define what it is. I let the audience define it. Because for me, it's just me."

"You're Still You (lyrics by Linda Thompson)"

"When I make an album I take a lot of risks. I ignore the trends of the moment and one of the things I have to think of when making an album like this is the honesty of it. To connect. It goes against the grain. It's nice to know I can go against the grain."

"I wanted to experiment with that live energy, to push myself a little. It's very much about having intimacy with the music. I love theater - and I love playing in these old theaters. It's not a Vegas stage show. It's very much just me and the music and a five-piece band and a 20-piece string section from each city."

"As a base-runner, I had some pretty radical ideas. Some said I was crazy to take such chances; others were beginning to suspect that maybe I had something. My counter to Criger's challenge had to be something unusual. And when we opened the first Boston series of '08, I watched the Young-Criger battery carefully before coming to the plate. Then I told Criger, "I'm going to steal every base on you today." … On four straight Young pitches, beginning with my single, I'd completed a tour of Boston bases. Our man at bat hadn't taken his club off his shoulder while I was coming around. Criger had been deflated in the worst possible way that can happen to a catcher — I'd told him exactly what I intended to do, and still gotten away with it."

"A ball bat is a wondrous weapon."

"I've been called one of the hardest bargainers who ever held out, and I'm proud of it."