This page contains a collection of American Revolution quotations from revolutionary leaders, contemporary figures and prominent historians, pertaining to the Stamp Act crisis. These quotations have been gathered and compiled by Alpha History authors. We are adding new quotations to this page in October-December 2015. If you would like to contribute an interesting or useful quotation, please contact Alpha History.

“Mr. Grenville strongly urged not only the power but the right of Parliament to tax the colonies and hoped in God’s name that none would dare dispute their Sovereignty.”
Edward Montague, 1764

“This open resistance to [Parliament’s] authority can only have found place among the lower and more ignorant of the people.”
Henry Seymour Conway, 1764

“You must not deprive the colonies of their right to make laws for themselves. Parliament should only make laws necessary for the empire as a whole.”
Thomas Hutchinson

“It cannot be good to tax the Americans… You will lose more than you gain.”
Thomas Hutchinson, 1765

“The Stamp Act imposed on the colonies by the Parliament of Great Britain is an ill-judged measure. Parliament has no right to put its hands into our pockets without our consent.”
George Washington, 1765

“No parts of his Majesty’s dominions can be taxed without their consent.”
James Otis

“This [trade revenue] is the price that America pays you for her protection… the Stamp Act [must] he repealed absolutely; totally and immediately.”
William Pitt

“I will never burn my fingers with an American stamp tax.”
William Pitt

“Do you think if the stamp-act is repealed, that the North Americans will be satisfied?”
Peter Thomas

“Planted by your care? No! Your oppression planted them in America… nourished by your indulgence? They grew by your neglect of them… As soon as you began to care about them, that care was exercised in sending persons to rule over them… men whose behaviour on many occasions has caused the blood of those sons of liberty to recoil within them.”
Isaac Barre, British MP, 1765

“A colonist cannot make a button, a horseshoe or a hobnail and some snootly ironmonger or respectable buttonmaker of England shall bawl and squall that he is most egregiously maltreated, injured, cheated, and robbed by the rascally American republicans.”
Boston Gazette, 1765

“The epithets of parent and child have been long applied to Great Britain and her colonies, [but] we rarely see anything from your side of the water except the authoritative style of a master to a school-boy.”
George Mason, to an English acquaintance

“Britain to America: You impudent bitch! Am I not your mother country? Is that not a sufficient title to your respect and obedience?”
A Benjamin Franklin satire

“No mobs or tumults… let the persons and properties of [even] your most inveterate enemies be safe!”
The Loyal Nine, 1765

“The King has degenerated into a tyrant and forfeits all rights to his subjects’ obedience.”
Attributed to Patrick Henry, 1765