Chief Decorator Elmer Garnsey, as a part of the mural decoration, worked with Capitol Architect Cass Gilbert to create a list of quotes to be used in the Minnesota State Capitol. The list was submitted to the commission for examination and revision. Originally there were in all 51 inscriptions in different places about the building, from 39 different men.
Inscriptions in Staircase Hall, Second Floor, Senate Side
The true grandeur of nations is in those equalities which constitute the true greatness of the individual. ~Charles Sumner Labor to keep alive in your heart that little spark of celestial fire called Conscience. ~President George Washington The proper function of a government is to make it easy for the people to do good, and difficult for them to do evil. ~William Ewart Gladstone No government is respectable which is not just. ~Daniel Webster The liberty of a people consists in being governed by laws which they have made themselves. ~Abraham Cowley Education is a better safeguard of liberty than a standing army.~Edward Everett Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty. ~President Thomas Jefferson True liberty consists in the privilege of enjoying our own rights; not in the destruction of the rights of others. ~Charles C. Pinckney If we mean to support the liberty and independence which have cost us so much blood and treasure to establish, we must drive far away the demon of party spirit and local reproach. ~President George Washington Equal and exact justice to all men, of whatever state or persuasion, religious or political; peace, commerce and honest friendship with all nations, entangling alliances with none. ~President Thomas Jefferson Next in importance to freedom and justice is popular education, without which neither justice nor freedom can be permanently maintained. ~President James Garfield Education is our only political safety. ~Horace Mann Let us ever remember that our interest is in concord, not conflict, and that our real eminence rests in the victories of peace, not those of war. ~President William McKinley Nothing is politically right which is morally wrong. ~Daniel O'Connell Eternal good citizenship is the price of good government. ~Elihu Root Votes should be weighed, not counted. ~Friedrich Schiller War's legitimate object is more perfect peace. ~Gen. William T. Sherman To be prepared for war is one of the most effectual means of preserving peace. ~President George Washington. Let us have peace. ~Gen. Ulysses S. Grant
Inscriptions in Staircase Hall, Second Floor, Supreme Court Side
Justice is the idea of God, the ideal of man. ~Theodore Parker
Law is the embodiment of the moral sentiment of the people. ~William Blackstone
The people's safety is the law of God. ~James Otis Jr. The absolute justice of the state, enlightened by the perfect reason of the state, that is law. ~Rufus Choate God's laws make it easier to do right, and harder to do wrong. ~William Ewart Gladstone Laws are the very bulwarks of liberty; they define every man's rights, and defend the individual liberties of all men. ~Josiah Gilbert Holland The science of jurisprudence, the pride of the human intellect, with all its defects, redundancies and errors, is the collected reason of ages. ~Edmund Burke Of law there can be no less acknowledged than that her seat is the bosom of God, her voice the harmony of the world. ~Richard Hooker Ignorance of the law excuses no man. ~John Selden The best way to get a bad law repealed is to enforce it strictly. ~Abraham Lincoln First make him obey the law, then remove the cause that in cites him to law-breaking. ~Wilson Law is a science which employs in its theory the noblest faculties of the soul, and exerts in its practice the cardinal virtues of the heart. ~William Blackstone Justice is the constant desire and effort to render to every man his due. ~Justinian Impartiality is the life of justice, as justice is of all good government. ~Justinian Reason is the life of law, nay, the common law it self is nothing else but reason. ~Edward Coke The law is made to protect the innocent by punishing the guilty. ~Daniel Webster To embarrass justice by a multiplicity of laws, or to hazard it by confidence in judges, are the opposite rocks on which all civil institutions have been wrecked. ~Samuel Johnson Empires place their reliance upon sword and cannon; republics put their trust in the citizens' respect for law. If law be not sacred, a free government will not endure. ~Archbishop John Ireland