Great Throughts Treasury

This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.

John Dickinson, pen name Fabius

American Lawyer and Influential American Founder, Drafter of the Articles of Confederation

"By uniting we stand; by dividing we fall."

"There is no treasure but Truth, there is no Truth but Wisdom. There is no Wisdom, but from Learning, and Learning is won by the devotion of hours, years, days and nights to the works of Nature and the Treasures of Truth that others have gathered."

"What you keep by you, you may change and mend; But words once spoke can never be recall'd."

"The first duty of a revolutionary is to get away with it."

"Kings or parliaments could not give the rights essential to happiness... We claim them from a higher source -- from the King of kings, and Lord of all the earth. They are not annexed to us by parchments and seals. They are created in us by the decrees of Providence, which establish the laws of our nature. They are born with us; exist with us; and cannot be taken from us by any human power, without taking our lives."

"No free people ever existed, or can ever exist, without keeping the purse strings in their own hands. Where this is the case, they have a constitutional check upon the administration, which may thereby by brought into order without violence. But when such a power is not lodged in the people, oppression proceeds uncontrolled in its career, till the governed, transported into rage, seek redress in the midst of blood and confusion. "