Because Im feeling nostalgic, and revolutionary all at once...
John Adams
John Adams: Liberty will reign in America!
Ben Franklin: Where are these gentlemen from Massachussetts? What have you done with these gentlemen from Massachussetts? Have you stolen these gentlemen from Massachussetts? There they are, all the way from Boston. Are they not a shame on their country? Are they not a disgrace to all civilized beings? Has not even the Rev. Ebinezer Slither declared them so? They have violated the fundamental rule of warfare, which is to always let the British win. Did they not pursue the British army with ungentemenly haste after their cowardly victory at Concord?
Edward Rutledge: Must you be so extreme, Dr. Franklin?
Ben Franklin: I'm an extreme moderate, Mr. Rutledge. I believe anybody not in favor of moderation and compromise ought to be castrated. And all this should be sent down to the Parliament...for they seem to need, how shall I put it...stones? There, I think we scared him off. I am very glad to have you gentlemen with us, very glad indeed.
Sam Adams: I remind Mr. Rutledge, and Mr. Dwayne, that blood has been shed. Massachussetts blood!
John Adams: Mr. Dickenson, the time for negotiation is passed. The actions of the British army at Lexington and Concord speak plainly enough. If we wish to regain our natural born rights as Englishmen, than we must fight for them.
John Adams: Mr. Dickenson, my wife and young children live on the main road to Boston, fewer than five mile from the full might of the British army. Should they wait for savages to rob them of their home, their posessions, their very lives?!?!
Ben Franklin: Politics is the art of the possible.
John Adams: Do you not believe in speaking your mind?
Ben Franklin: No. I'm very much against it. Thinking aloud is a habit responsible for much of mankinds misery. St. Thomas of Beckett might have lived to a ripe old age, if he...You insulted Mr. Dickenson. You insulted him in public.
John Adams: Would you have me insult him in private?
Ben Fanklin: Perfectly acceptable to insult someone in private, sometimes they might even thank you for it, afterward. But when you do it in public, they tend to think you are serious.
John Adams: Colonel, you are in mourning?
George Washington: For Massachussetts. An attack made on one of our sister colonies, is an attack on all of us.
John Adams: If only all the Congress were of your sentiments, sir.
Abigail: Send a woman to the Congress, she might knock some sense into them.
John Adams: Its not a question of men or women, Abigail, It is a matter of politics.
Abigail Adams: Politics! Politics?? And do women not live politics, John Adams? When I go to the cupboard and I find no coffee, no sugar, no pins, no meat, am I not living politics?!? This war touches people that
your Congress treats with the same contempt King George reserves to the people of Boston. Yes, I mean women, and slaves, too, for that matter. Though I'm sure you wish I would not mention that subject, since it might upset your Southern friends.
John Adams: You are harsh, Madam.
Abigail Adams: I am cold! I am frightened. I fear this war will never end, or begin.
John Hancock: [reluctantly] God save the King.
Sam Adams: God damn the King!
Ben Franklin: [happily] God bless the King. Who else could've brought such a spirit of unity to the Congress?
Thomas Jefferson: I would gladly lend my hand to sink the whole island of Great Britain into the ocean.
John Adams: I have not heard you say three words together in the last Congress. With such passion, I regret that you have not made your mind more plainly known!
Thomas Jefferson: I have no gift for oratory.
Thomas Jefferson: What can possibly be your reasons?
John Adams: First, you are a Virginian, and a Virginian should be at the head of this business, as it is the most powerful state. Second, I am obnoxious, suspected, and unpopular. You are very much otherwise. And third, and perhaps most important, I have read your Summary of the Rights of British America, and have a great in the eloquence of your pen, and none of my own.
John Adams: This is altogether unsuspected. Not only a Declaration of our Independence, but the rights of
ALL men. This is well said, sir. Very, very well said. "The Christian King of Great Britain has waged cruel war against human nature itself. In the persons of a distant people who never offended him. Captivating, and carrying them into slavery in another hemisphere."
Thomas Jefferson: Slavery is an abomination, and must be loudly proclaimed as such. But I own that not I, nor any man has an immediate solution to the problem.
John Adams: There may be expressions which I would not have inserted, if I had drawn it up, but I will defend every word of it.
Thomas Jefferson: Well, its what I believe.
John Adams: Objects of the most stupendous magnitude...measures which will effect the lives of millions, born and unborn...are now before us. We must expect a great expense of blood, through men. But we must always remember that a free Constitution of civil government, cannot be purchased at too dear a rate. As there is nothing on this side of Jerusalem, of greater importance to mankind. My worthy colleague from Pennsylvania, has spoken with great ingenuity and eloquence. He has given you a grim prognistication of our national future. But where he forsees apocolypse, I see hope. I see a new nation, ready to take its place in the world. Not an empire, but a republic! And a republic of Laws, not men. Gentlemen, we are in the very midst of Revolution! The most complete, unexpected, and remarkable of any in the history of the world. How few of the human race have ever had an opportunity of choosing a system of government, for themselves, and their children? I am not without apprehensions, gentlemen. But the end we have in sight, is worth all than more the means. I believe, sirs, that the hour has come. My judgement approves this measure, and my whole heart is in it.
All that I have, all that I am, and all that I hope in this life, I am now ready to stake upon it. While I live, let me have a country! A FREE country!
Reality Bites
Vickie: Laney, sex is the quickest way to ruin a friendship.
Lelaina: He's so cheesy, I can't watch him without crackers.
Vickie: Do you ever wish you were a lesbian? Don't you think it would be so much easier?
Lelaina: Sometimes, but I don't know. I could never go through with it. I'd start laughing or something.
Vickie: That is such a shame because I have had it with men.
Michael: Have I stepped over some line in the sands of coolness with you? Because excuse me if somebody doesn't know the secret handshake with you.
Troy: There's no secret handshake. There's an IQ prerequisite, but there's no secret handshake.
Troy: The only thing you have to be by the age of 23 is yourself.
Lelaina: Yeah, well, I'm not sure who that is anymore.
Troy: You look like a doily.
Laney: I'd like to somehow make a difference in peoples' lives.
Troy: And I... I would like to buy them all a Coke.
Laney: And you wonder why we never got involved?
Vickie: Would the two of you just do it and get it over with? I'm starving!
Vickie: Sometimes I get that not-so-fresh feeling.
Troy: You can't navigate me. I may do mean things, and I may hurt you, and I may run away without your permission, and you may hate me forever, and I know that scares the living shit outta you 'cause you know I'm the only real thing you got.
Laney: Yeah, well that ain't much.
Troy: Did he dazzle you with his extensive knowledge of mineral water? Or was it his in-depth analysis of, uh, uh, Marky Mark that finally reeled you in?
Troy: He's the reason Cliffs Notes were invented.
Laney: Are you religious?
Michael: Um, uh, I guess uh, I guess I'm, uh a non-practicing Jew.
Laney: Hey, I'm a non-practicing virgin.
Laney: I was really going to be somebody by the time I was 23.
Troy: Honey, all you have to be by the time you're 23, is yourself.
Laney: I don't know who that is anymore.
Troy: I do. And we all love her. I love her. She breaks my heart again and again. But I love her.
Vickie: Evian is naive spelled backward.
Vickie: [about Troy] He's weird, he's strange, he's sloppy, he's a total nightmare for women...I can't believe I haven't slept with him yet.
Lelaina: Welcome to the world of the emtionally mature. Maybe you've seen Michael, he lives here.
Laney: I just don't understand why things just can't go back to normal at the end of the half hour like on the Brady Bunch or something.
Troy Dyer: Well, 'cause Mr. Brady died of AIDS. Things don't turn out like that.