None are so hopelessly enslaved as those who falsely believe they are free.

We are never deceived; we deceive ourselves.

The ultimate ownership of all property is in the state; individual so-called ownership is only by virtue of government, i.e. law, amounting to a mere user; and use must be in accordance with law and subordinate to the necessities of the state. Senate Document #43; SENATE RESOLUTION NO.62 (page 9, paragraph 2) April 17, 1933

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe August 28, 1749 March 22, 1832

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe August 28, 1749 March 22, 1832
I see in the near future a crisis approaching that unnerves me and causes me to tremble for the safety of my country... Corporations have been enthroned and an era of corruption in high places will follow, and the money power of the country will endeavor to prolong its reign by working upon the prejudices of people until all wealth is aggregated in a few hands and the Republic is destroyed. --U.S. President Abraham Lincoln, 1864

What luck for Rulers that Men do not Think. Adolf Hitler

Behind the ostensible government sits enthroned an invisible government owing no allegiance and acknowledging no responsibility to the people. To destroy this invisible government, to befoul the unholy alliance between corrupt business and corrupt politics is the first task of the statesmanship of today. --U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt, April 19, 1906

In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist. --U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower, January 17, 1961

It takes a lot of degeneration before a country falls into dictatorship, but we should avoid these ends by avoiding these beginnings. --U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day OConnor, March 9, 2006

How is it that the lives of thousands of millions of people around the globe are threatened by a crisis arising from a financial system in which they are not involved, over which they have no control, and about which they have little or no knowledge? --Nick Beams

Make the lie big, make it simple, keep saying it, and eventually they will believe it. Adolf Hitler

The continued utterance of a lie does not make it true, but it does convince many that it is, particularly if you can squelch most efforts to expose the lie. Shapley R. Hunter

The history of the race, and each individuals experience, are thick with evidence that a truth is not hard to kill and that a lie told well is immortal. Mark Twain

Next the statesmen will invent cheap lies, putting the blame upon the nation that is attacked, and every man will be glad of those conscience-soothing falsities, and will diligently study them, and refuse to examine any refutations of them; and thus he will by and by convince himself that the war is just, and will thank God for the better sleep he enjoys after this process of grotesque selfdeception. Mark Twain, 1916

The masses have never thirsted after truth. Whoever can supply them with illusions is easily their master; whoever attempts to destroy their illusions is always their victim. Gustave Le Bon, The Crowd

An error does not become truth by reason of multiplied propagation, nor does truth become error because nobody sees it. Mohandas Gandhi

Should I keep back my opinions at such a time, through fear of giving offense, I should consider myself as guilty of treason towards my country, and of an act of disloyalty toward the Majesty of Heaven, which I revere above all earthly kings. Patrick Henry, March 23, 1775

When the natural weakness and imperfection of human understanding is considered, with the unavoidable influences of education, custom, books and company, upon our ways of thinking, I imagine a man must have a good deal of vanity who believes, and a good deal of boldness who affirms, that all the doctrines he holds, are true, and all he rejects are false. Benjamin Franklin, 1740

Believe nothing just because a so-called wise person said it. Believe nothing just because a belief is generally held. Believe nothing just because it is said in ancient books. Believe nothing just because it is said to be of divine origin. Believe nothing just because someone else believes it. Believe only what you yourself test and judge to be true. Buddha, Hindu Prince Gautama Siddharta

All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident. Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860)

The simple step of a courageous individual is not to take part in the lie. One word of truth outweighs the world. Alexander Solzhenitsyn (1918- )

For the great majority of mankind are satisfied with appearances, as though they were realities, and are often more influenced by the things that seem than by those that are. Niccolo Machiavelli (1469-1527), Discourses, 1513-1517

The modern susceptibility to conformity and obedience to authority indicates that the truth endorsed by authority is likely to be accepted as such by a majority of the people. David Edwards, British columnist, Burning All Illusions, 1996

One of the worlds greatest problems is the impossibility of any person searching for the truth on any subject when they believe they already have it. Dave Wilbur

The true hypocrite is the one who ceases to perceive his [or her] deception, the one who lies with sincerity. Andre Gide

It is error alone which needs the support of government. Truth can stand by itself. Thomas Jefferson

The greatness of every mighty organization embodying an idea in this world lies in the religious fanaticism and intolerance with which, fanatically convinced of its own right, it intolerantly imposes its will against all others. Adolf Hitler

The truth that makes men free is for the most part the truth which men prefer not to hear. Herbert Agar

Truth, like light, blinds. Falsehood, on the contrary, is a beautiful twilight that enhances every object. Albert Camus

God is, even though the whole world deny him. Truth stands, even if there be no public support. It is selfsustained. Mohandas Gandhi

People say they love truth, but in reality they want to believe that which they love is true. Robert J. Ringer

Search for the truth is the noblest occupation of man; its publication is a duty. Madame de Stael

There is nothing so powerful as truth, and often nothing so strange. Daniel Webster

He who dares not offend cannot be honest. Thomas Paine

I am a firm believer in the people. If given the truth, they can be depended upon to meet any national crisis. The great point is to bring them the real facts. Abraham Lincoln

We are apt to shut our eyes against a painful truth For my part, I am willing to know the whole truth; to know the worst; and to provide for it. Patrick Henry

The victor will never be asked if he told the truth. Adolf Hitler

The most brilliant propagandist technique will yield no success unless one fundamental principle is borne in mind constantly...it must confine itself to a few points and repeat them over and over. Joseph Goebbels, Nazi Propaganda Minister

Truth always rests with the minority, and the minority is always stronger than the majority, because the minority is generally formed by those who really have an opinion, while the strength of a majority is illusory, formed by the gangs who have no opinionand who, therefore, in the next instant (when it is evident that the minority is the stronger) assume its opinion ... while Truth again reverts to a new minority. Soren Kierkegaard (1813-1855)

A lie told often enough becomes the truth. Lenin (1870-1924)

Unthinking respect for authority is the greatest enemy of truth. Albert Einstein

Its not a matter of what is true that counts but a matter of what is perceived to be true. Henry Kissinger

Men stumble over the truth from time to time, but most pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing happened. Winston Churchill

We are often unprepared for Truth, which is why Truth is revealed to us progressively. Chip Brogden

There are few nudities so objectionable as the naked truth. Agnes Repplier

Truth is beautiful, without doubt; but so are lies. Ralph Waldo Emerson

We do not err because truth is difficult to see. It is visible at a glance. We err because this is more comfortable. Alexander Solzhenitsyn

Peace if possible, truth at all costs. Martin Luther

In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act. George Orwell

Honesty consists of the unwillingness to lie to others; maturity, which is equally hard to attain, consists of the unwillingness to lie to oneself. Sydney J. Harris

Humility is nothing but truth, and pride is nothing but lying. Vincent de Paul

The Greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge. Stephen Hawking

There are two ways to be fooled: One is to believe what isnt so; the other is to refuse to believe what is so. Soren Kierkegaard

When a well-packaged web of lies has been sold gradually to the masses over generations, the truth will seem utterly preposterous and its speaker a raving lunatic. Dresden James

I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word in reality. This is why right, temporarily defeated, is stronger than evil triumphant. Martin Luther King

The welfare of the people in particular has always been the alibi of tyrants, and it provides the further advantage of giving the servants of tyranny a good conscience. Albert Camus 1913-1960

This and no other is the root from which a tyrant springs; when he first appears he is a protector. Plato

The means of defense against foreign danger historically have become the instruments of tyranny at home. James Madison, US fourth president, 1751-1836

A great wave of oppressive tyranny isnt going to strike, but rather a slow seepage of oppressive laws and regulations from within will sink the American dream of liberty. George Baumler

Were not a democracy. Its a terrible misunderstanding and a slander to the idea of democracy to call us that. In reality, were a plutocracy: a government by the wealthy. Ramsey Clark , former U.S. Attorney General

Of all forms of tyranny the least attractive and the most vulgar is the tyranny of mere wealth, the tyranny of plutocracy John Pierpont Morgan

I hope we shall crush in its birth the aristocracy of our moneyed corporations, which dare already to challenge our government to a trial of strength and bid defiance to the laws of our country. Thomas Jefferson

The real truth of the matter is, as you and I know, that a financial element in the large centers has owned the government of the U.S. since the days of Andrew Jackson. Franklin D. Roosevelt

Where an excess of power prevails, property of no sort is duly respected. No man is safe in his opinions, his person, his faculties, or his possessions. James Madison

All the public business in Congress now connects itself with intrigues, and there is great danger that the whole government will degenerate into a struggle of cabals. John Quincy Adams (1767-1848) 6th US President

The liberties of our country, the freedom of our civil Constitution, are worth defending at all hazards; and it is our duty to defend them against all attacks. We have received them as a fair inheritance from our worthy ancestors: they purchased them for us with toil and danger and expense of treasure and blood, and transmitted them to us with care and diligence. It will bring an everlasting mark of infamy on the present generation, enlightened as it is, if we should suffer them to be wrested from us by violence without a struggle, or to be cheated out of them by the artifices of false and designing men. Samuel Adams- (1722-1803), was known as the Father of the American Revolution.

When fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying the cross. Sinclair Lewis

The two greatest obstacles to democracy in the United States are, first, the widespread delusion among the poor that we have a democracy, and second, the chronic terror among the rich, lest we get it. Edward Dowling, 1941

Fascism should more appropriately be called Corporatism because it is a merger of State and corporate power. Benito Mussolini

Whenever a people... entrust the defence of their country to a regular, standing army, composed of mercenaries, the power of that country will remain under the direction of the most wealthy citizens. -- An Anonymous framer of the US Constitution - Source: Independent Gazetteer, January 29, 1791

The voice of protest, of warning, of appeal is never more needed than when the clamor of fife and drum, echoed by the press and too often by the pulpit, is bidding all men fall in and keep step and obey in silence the tyrannous word of command. Then, more than ever, it is the duty of the good citizen not to be silent. Charles Eliot Norton - (1827-1908) American scholar

An imbalance between rich and poor is the oldest and most fatal ailment of all republics. Plutarch - Mestrius Plutarchus (c. 46 AD- 127 AD)

The greatest country, the richest country, is not that which has the most capitalists, monopolists, immense grabbings, vast fortunes, with its sad, sad soil of extreme, degrading, damning poverty, but the land in which there are the most homesteads, freeholds-where wealth does not show such contrasts high and low, where all men have enough-a modest living-and no man is made possessor beyond the sane and beautiful necessities. Walt Whitman (1819-1892)

Wars are seldom caused by spontaneous hatreds between people, for peoples in general are too ignorant of one another to have grievances and too indifferent to what goes on beyond their borders to plan conquests. They must be urged to the slaughter by politicians who know how to alarm them. H.L. Mencken

The average age of the worlds greatest civilizations has been two hundred years. These nations have progressed through this sequence: From bondage to spiritual faith; from spiritual faith to great courage; from courage to liberty; from liberty to abundance; from abundance to selfishness; from selfishness to complacency; from complaceny to apathy; from apathy to dependence; from dependency back again into bondage. Sir Alex Fraser Tyler: (1742-1813)

The government, which was designed for the people, has got into the hands of the bosses and their employers, the special interests. An invisible empire has been set up above the forms of democracy. Woodrow T. Wilson 18561924 American 28th President of the United States

In the eyes of empire builders men are not men but instruments Napoleon Bonaparte

Americans cannot escape a certain responsibility for what is done in our name around the world. In a democracy, even one as corrupted as ours, ultimate authority rests with the people. We empower the government with our votes, finance it with our taxes, bolster it with our silent acquiescence. If we are passive in the face of Americas official actions overseas, we in effect endorse them. Mark Hertzgaard

The result has been that an increasingly authoritarian agenda has been sold to the American people by a massive, multitentacled media machine that has become, for all intents and purposes, a propaganda organ of the state. David McGowan
With each newly minted crisis, US leaders roll out the same time-tested scenario. They start demonizing a foreign leader ... charging them with being communistic or otherwise dictatorial, dangerously aggressive, power hungry, genocidal, given to terrorism or drug trafficking, ready to deny us access to vital resources, harboring weapons of mass destruction, or just inexplicably anti-American and anti-West. Lacking any information to the contrary, the frightened public ... are swept along. - Michael Parenti

With numbing regularity good people were seen to knuckle under the demands of authority and perform actions that were callous and severe. Men who are in everyday life responsible and decent were seduced by the trappings of authority, by the control of their perceptions, and by the uncritical acceptance of the experimenters definition of the situation, into performing harsh acts. A substantial proportion of people do what they are told to do, irrespective of the content of the act and without limitations of conscience, so long as they perceive that the command comes from a legitimate authority. Stanley Milgram

I believe that if the people of this nation fully understood what Congress has done to them over the last 49 years, they would move on Washington; they would not wait for an election... It adds up to a preconceived plan to destroy the economic and social independence of the United States! -- George W. Malone (1890-1961) U.S. Senator (Nevada) 1957 - Source: speaking before Congress

The individual is handicapped by coming face to face with a conspiracy so monstrous he cannot believe it exists. J. Edgar Hoover, FBI Director

If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State. - Joseph Goebbels, German Minister of Propaganda, 1933-1945

Dogma demands authority, rather than intelligent thought, as the source of opinion; it requires persecution of heretics and hostility to unbelievers; it asks of its disciples that they should inhibit natural kindliness in favor of systematic hatred Bertrand Russell

In politics, nothing happens by accident. If it happens, you can bet it was planned that way. Franklin D. Roosevelt

Since I entered politics, I have chiefly had mens views confided to me privately. Some of the biggest men in the United States, in the fields of commerce and manufacturing, are afraid of somebody. They know that there is a power somewhere so organized, so subtle, so watchful, so interlocked, so complete, so pervasive, that they had better not speak above their breath when they speak in condemnation of it. - Woodrow Wilson

We are on the verge of a global transformation. All we need is the right major crisis and the nations will accept the New World Order. David Rockefeller

We cant be so fixated on our desire to preserve the rights of ordinary Americans. Bill Clinton

We must strengthen the United Nations as a first step toward a World Government, patterned after our Own Government with a legislature, executive and judiciary and police. Walter Cronkite

By the time you become the leader of a country, someone else makes all the decisions. You may find you can get away with Virtual Presidents, Virtual Prime Ministers, and Virtual Everything. Bill Clinton
Naturally the common people dont want warbut after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine policy, and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorshipall you have to do is to tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same way in any country. Herman Goering ( One of Hitlers top men, during the Nuremberg Trials)

The easiest way to gain control of the population is to carry out acts of terror. The public will clamor for such laws if the personal security is threatened. Joseph Stalin

When the Government fears the people, there is Liberty . When the people fear the Government there is Tyranny. Unknown

Despite these warnings, Woodrow Wilson signed the 1913 Federal Reserve Act. A few years later he wrote: I am a most unhappy man. I have unwittingly ruined my country. A great industrial nation is controlled by its system of credit. Our system of credit is concentrated. The growth of the nation, therefore, and all our activities are in the hands of a few men. We have come to be one of the worst ruled, one of the most completely controlled and dominated Governments in the civilized world no longer a Government by free opinion, no longer a Government by conviction and the vote of the majority, but a Government by the opinion and duress of a small group of dominant men. - Woodrow Wilson

Today, America would be outraged if UN troops entered Los Angeles to restore order. Tomorrow they will be grateful! This is especially true if they were told that there was an outside threat from beyond, whether real or promulgated, that threatened our very existence. It is then that all people of the world will plead to deliver them from this evil. The one thing every man fears is the unknown. When presented with this scenario, individual rights will be willingly relinquished for the guarantee of their wellbeing granted to them by the world government. Henry Kissinger (Bilderburg Conference 1991 Evians, France)

The real rulers of Washington are Invisible and exercise power from behind the scenes. Justice Felix Frankfurter US Supreme Court Justice

The real menace of our Republic is the invisible Government which like a giant Octopus, sprawls its slimy legs over our cities, states, and nation. John F. Hylan - Mayor NYC 19181925

Give me control of a Nations money and I care not who makes the laws. Mayer Amschel Bauer (Rothschild)

I came to America because of the great, great freedom which I heard existed in this country. I made a mistake in selecting America as a land of freedom, a mistake I cannot repair in the balance of my lifetime. Albert Einstein, 1947

Every time we do something, you tell me America will do this and will do that . . . I want to tell you something very clear: Dont worry about American pressure on Israel . We, the Jewish people, control America , and the Americans know it. Ariel Sharon , October 3, 2001

If people let government decide what foods they eat and what medicines they take, their bodies will soon be in as sorry a state as are the souls of those who live under tyranny. Thomas Jefferson

Multi multa, non omnia novit = Many men know many things, no one knows everything.

It is well enough that people of the nation do not understand our Banking and Monetary system, for if they did, I believe there would be a Revolution before tomorrow morning. Henry Ford

The Technetronic era involves the gradual appearance of a more CONTROLLED society. Such a society would be dominated by ELITE, unrestrained by traditional values. Zbigniew Brezhinsky , Advisor to 5 U.S. Presidents - Executive Director Trilateral Commission. Between two Ages The interests behind the Bush Administration, such as the CFR, the Trilateral Commission founded by Brzezinski for David Rockefeller and the Bilderberg Group have prepared for and are now moving to implement open world dictatorship within the next five years. Dr. Johannes Koeppl former official of the German Ministry for Defense and adviser to NATO.

For more than a century, ideological extremists at either end of the political spectrum have seized upon wellpublicized incidents to attack the Rockefeller family for the inordinate influence they claim we wield over American political and economic institutions. Some even believe we are part of a secret cabal working against the best interests of the United States, characterizing my family and me as internationalists and of conspiring with others around the world to build a more integrated global political and economic structure - one world, if you will. If thats the charge, I stand guilty, and I am proud of it. David Rockefeller, Memoirs , 2002

It is the SACRED principals enshrined in the UN Charter to which we will henceforth pledge our Allegiance. President George Herbert Walker Bush - UN building, Feb. 1, 1992

While the people are virtuous they cannot be subdued; but once they lose their virtue, they will be ready to surrender their liberties to the first external or internal invader.... If virtue and knowledge are diffused among the people, they will never be enslaved. This will be their great security. John Adams

Recognition of the inherent dignity and of the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family is the foundation of freedom, justice and peace in the world. Preamble, Universal Declaration of Human Rights

that until the philosophy which holds one race superior and another inferior is finally and permanently discredited and abandoned; that until there is no longer any firstclass and second-class citizens of any nation; that until the color of a mans skin is of no more significance than the color of his eyes; that until the basic human rights are equally guaranteed to all, without regard to race -- until that day, the dreams of lasting peace and world citizenship and the rule of international morality will remain but a fleeting illusion, to be pursued but never attained. Speech by H.I.M. HAILE SELASSIE I - California 28th February 1968

Once you permit those who are convinced of their own superior rightness to censor and silence and suppress those who hold contrary opinions, just at that moment the citadel has been surrendered. Archibald Macleish - (1892-1982)

Whatever the immediate gains and losses, the dangers to our safety arising from political suppression are always greater than the dangers to the safety resulting from political freedom. Suppression is always foolish. Freedom is always wise. Alexander Meiklejohn (1872-1964) - Source: Testimony, First Session, 84th Congress, 1955 In the end more than they wanted freedom, they wanted security. When the Athenians finally wanted not to give to society but for society to give to them, when the freedom they wished for was freedom from responsibility, then Athens ceased to be free. Edward Gibbon (17371794), Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, 1909

If men use their liberty in such a way as to surrender their liberty, are they thereafter any the less slaves? If people by a plebiscite elect a man despot over them, do they remain free because the despotism was of their own making? Herbert Spencer (1820-1903), British author, economist, philosopher, 1884

There is no slippery slope toward loss of liberty, only a long staircase where each step down must first be tolerated by the American people and their leaders. Alan K. Simpson (1931- ), US Senator But you must remember, my fellowcitizens, that eternal vigilance by the people is the price of liberty, and that you must pay the price if you wish to secure the blessing. It behooves you, therefore, to be watchful in your States as well as in the Federal Government. Andrew Jackson, Farewell Address, March 4, 1837

Perhaps the fact that we have seen millions voting themselves into complete dependence on a tyrant has made our generation understand that to choose ones government is not necessarily to secure freedom. Fredrich August von Hayek (1899-1992), Nobel Laureate of Economic Sciences 1974

Those who profess to favor freedom, yet deprecate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground. They want rain without thunder and lightening. They want the ocean without the awful roar of its many waters. This struggle may be a moral one; or it may be a physical one; or it may be both moral and physical; but it must be a struggle. Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will. Frederick Douglass

Liberty is not for these slaves; I do not advocate inflicting it against their conscience. On the contrary, I am strongly in favor of letting them crawl and grovel all they please before whatever fraud or combination of frauds they choose to venerate...Our whole practical government is grounded in mob psychology and the Boobus Americanus will follow any command that promises to make him safer. H. L. Menchen, 1956

We are grateful to the Washington Post, the NY Times, Time Magazine, and other great publications whose directors have attended our meetings, and respected their promises of discretion for almost 40 years. It would have been impossible for us to develop OUR PLAN for the world if we had been subjected to the lights of publicity during those years. But, the world is now more sophisticated and prepared to march towards a World Government. The supranational sovereignty of an intellectual ELITE and World Bankers is surely preferable to the national auto - determination practiced in past centuries. David Rockefeller CFR Kingpin, Founder of the Trilateral Commission, NOW Godfather / June 1991

We shall have World Government. Whether or not we like it. The only Question is whether World Government will be achieved by conquest or consent. James Paul Warburg , Foreign agent for the Rothschild dynasty - Major Player in the Federal Reserve act scam / Feb. 17, 1950 speaking before the U.S. Senate.

The Trilateralist Commission is international ...(and)...is intended to be the vehicle for multinational consolidation of the commercial and banking interests by seizing CONTROL of the political government of the United States. The Trilateralist Commission represents a skillful, coordinated effort to seize COTROL and consolidate the four centers of power: Political - Monetary - Intellectual - and Ecclesiastical. - Barry Goldwater , U.S. Senator AZ. With No Apologies

The meaning of peace is the absence of opposition to socialism. Karl Marx

This great and powerful force-the accumulated wealth of the United States-has taken over all the functions of Government, Congress, the issue of money, and banking and the army and navy in order to have a band of mercenaries to do their bidding and protect their stolen property. Senator Richard Pettigrew - Triumphant Plutocracy - Published, January 1, 1922.

Whoever controls the volume of money in any country is absolute master of all industry and commerce. James A. Garfield - (1831-1881) 20th President of the United States (1881)

The soul of our country needs to be awakened . . .When leaders act contrary to conscience, we must act contrary to leaders Veterans Fast for Life

The only foes that threaten America are the enemies at home, and these are ignorance, superstition and incompetence. Elbert Hubbard 1856-1915

The average man does not want to be free. He simply wants to be safe. H.L. Mencken

The vested interests - if we explain the situation by their influence - can only get the public to act as they wish by manipulating public opinion, by playing either upon the publics indifference, confusions, prejudices, pugnacities or fears. And the only way in which the power of the interests can be undermined and their maneuvers defeated is by bringing home to the public the danger of its indifference, the absurdity of its prejudices, or the hollowness of its fears; by showing that it is indifferent to danger where real danger exists; frightened by dangers which are nonexistent. Sir Norman Angell 1872 - 1967

Those who would give up Essential Liberty to purchase a little Temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety. Benjamin Franklin

I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies. If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their currency, first by inflation, then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around [the banks] will deprive the people of all property until their children wake-up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered. The issuing power should be taken from the banks and restored to the people, to whom it properly belongs. Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826), Letter to the Secretary of the Treasury Albert Gallatin (1802)

It is the common fate of the indolent to see their rights become a prey to the active. The condition upon which God hath given liberty to man is eternal vigilance; which condition if he break, servitude is at once the consequence of his crime and the punishment of his guilt. John Philpot Curran, Speech upon the Right of Election, 1790 (Speeches, Dublin, 1808) as quoted in Bartletts Familiar Quotations

Liberty has never come from the government. Liberty has always come from the subjects of government. The history of liberty is the history of resistance. The history of liberty is a history of the limitation of governmental power, not the increase of it. Woodrow Wilson

He that would make his own liberty secure must guard even his enemy from oppression; for if he violates this duty he establishes a precedent that will reach to himself. Thomas Paine

Liberty is meaningless where the right to utter ones thoughts and opinions has ceased to exist. That, of all rights, is the dread of tyrants. It is the right which they first of all strike down. Frederick Douglass

Give me the liberty to know, to utter, and to argue freely according to conscience, above all liberties. John Milton

For those who stubbornly seek freedom, there can be no more urgent task than to come to understand the mechanisms and practices of indoctrination. These are easy to perceive in the totalitarian societies, much less so in the system of brainwashing under freedom to which we are subjected and in which all too often we serve as unwilling instruments. Noam Chomsky

If ye love wealth better than liberty, the tranquility of servitude better than the animating contest of freedom, go home from us in peace. We ask not your counsels or your arms. Crouch down and lick the hands which feed you. May your chains set lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that you were our countrymen. Samuel Adams (1722-1803), was known as the Father of the American Revolution, 1776

So long as the people do not care to exercise their freedom, those who wish to tyrannize will do so; for tyrants are active and ardent, and will devote themselves in the name of any number of gods, religious and otherwise, to put shackles upon sleeping men. Voltaire

The natural progress of things is for liberty to yield and government to gain ground. Thomas Jefferson, 1743-1826

Freedom of expression is the well-spring of our civilization The history of civilization is in considerable measure the displacement of error which once held sway as official truth by beliefs which in turn have yielded to other truths. Therefore the liberty of man to search for truth ought not to be fettered, no matter what orthodoxies he may challenge. Felix Frankfurter (1882-1965), U.S. Supreme Court Justice, Concurring Opinion, Dennis et al. v. U.S. (1951)

Freedom to differ is not limited to things that do not matter much. That would be a mere shadow of freedom. The test of its substance is the right to differ as to things that touch the heart of the existing order. Justice Robert H. Jackson (1892-1954), U. S. Supreme Court Justice, West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette, 1943

What country can preserve its liberties, if its rulers are not warned from time to time that this people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms. Thomas Jefferson

When the rights of just one individual are denied, the rights of all are in jeopardy! Jo Ann Roach

I believe that any man who takes the liberty of another into his keeping is bound to become a tyrant, and that any man who yields up his liberty, in however slight the measure, is bound to become a slave. H. L. Mencken, Why Liberty? January 30, 1927

Men fight for liberty and win it with hard knocks. Their children, brought up easy, let it slip away again, poor fools. And their grand-children are once more slaves. D. H. Lawrence (1885-1938)

We cannot defend freedom abroad by deserting it at home. Edward R. Murrow (1908-1965)

I believe there are more instances of the abridgement of freedom of the people by gradual and silent encroachments of those in power than by violent and sudden usurpations. James Madison

If society fits you comfortably enough, you call it freedom. Robert Frost

Free people, remember this maxim: we may acquire liberty, but it is never recovered if it is once lost. Jean Jacques Rousseau

Liberty, as it is conceived by current opinion, has nothing inherent about it; it is a sort of gift or trust bestowed on the individual by the state pending good behavior. Mary McCarthy

I believe in only one thing: liberty; but I do not believe in liberty enough to want to force it upon anyone. H. L. Mencken

It behoves every man who values liberty of conscience for himself, to resist invasions of it in the case of others: or their case may, by change of circumstances, become his own. Thomas Jefferson

Liberty means responsibility. That is why most men dread it. George Bernard Shaw

Man is born free, and everywhere he is in chains. Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778), The Social Contract

Liberty is rendered even more precious by the recollection of servitude. Marcus Tullius Cicero (106-43 B.C.)

The love of liberty is the love of others; the love of power is the love of ourselves. William Hazlitt (1778-1830)

Over grown military establishments are under any form of government inauspicious to liberty, and are to be regarded as particularly hostile to republican liberty. George Washington

Revolution is not something fixed in ideology, nor is it something fashioned to a particular decade. It is a perpetual process embedded in the human spirit. Abbie Hoffman (1936-1989)

The man who does not do his own thinking is a slave, and is a traitor to himself and his fellow men. Robert G. Ingersoll (1833-1899)

The spirit of liberty is the spirit which is not too sure that it is right; the spirit of liberty is the spirit which seeks to understands the minds of other men and women. Learned Hand

God grant, that not only the love of liberty, but a thorough knowledge of the rights of man, may pervade all the nations of the earth, so that a philosopher may set his foot anywhere on its surface, and say, This is my country. Benjamin Franklin

They tell us that we live in a great free republic; that our institutions are democratic; that we are a free and self-governing people. That is too much, even for a joke. ... Wars throughout history have been waged for conquest and plunder... And that is war in a nutshell. The master class has always declared the wars; the subject class has always fought the battles. Eugene Victor Debs

Guard with jealous attention the public liberty. Suspect every one who approaches that jewel. Unfortunately, nothing will preserve it but downright force. Whenever you give up that force, you are inevitably ruined. Patrick Henry

Individual rights are not subject to a public vote; a majority has no right to vote away the rights of a minority; the political function of rights is precisely to protect minorities from oppression by majorities (and the smallest minority on earth is the individual). Ayn Rand

We the people are the rightful masters of both Congress and the courts, not to overthrow the Constitution but to overthrow the men who pervert the Constitution. Abraham Lincoln (1809-65)

A slave is he who cannot speak his thoughts. Euripides

The object and practice of liberty lies in the limitation of government power. General Douglas MacArthur (18801964), WWII Supreme Allied Commander of the Southwest Pacific, Supreme United Nations Commander

Freedom refer[s] to a social relationship among peoplenamely, the absence of force as a prospective instrument of decision making. Freedom is reduced whenever a decision is made under threat of force, whether or not force actually materializes or is evident in retrospect. Thomas Sowell (1930- )

You can chain me, you can torture me, you can even destroy this body, but you will never imprison my mind. Mahatma Gandhi

Independence is my happiness, and I view things as they are, without regard to place or person; my country is the world, and my religion is to do good. Thomas Paine

If you want total security, go to prison. There youre fed, clothed, given medical care and so on. The only thing lacking is freedom. Dwight Eisenhower

If freedom of speech is taken away, then dumb and silent we may be led, like sheep to the slaughter. George Washington

The whole drift of our law is toward the absolute prohibition of all ideas that diverge in the slightest form from the accepted platitudes, and behind that drift of law there is a far more potent force of growing custom, and under that custom there is a natural philosophy which erects conformity into the noblest of virtues and the free functioning of personality into a capital crime against society. H. L. Mencken (1880-1956)

[Oppose] with manly firmness [any] invasions on the rights of the people. Thomas Jefferson

Education is a better safeguard of liberty than a standing army. Edward Everett

Freedom had been hunted round the globe; reason was considered as rebellion; and the slavery of fear had made men afraid to think. But such is the irresistible nature of truth, that all it asks, and all it wants, is the liberty of appearing. Thomas Paine, Rights of Man, 1791

When the same man, or set of men, holds the sword and the purse, there is an end of liberty. George Mason

As long as I have any choice in the matter, I shall live only in a country where civil liberty, tolerance and equality of all citizens before the law prevail. Albert Einstein, upon leaving Germany in 1933

Let us contemplate our forefathers, and posterity, and resolve to maintain the rights bequeathed to us from the former, for the sake of the latter. The necessity of the times, more than ever, calls for our utmost circumspection, deliberation, fortitude, and perseverance. Let us remember that if we suffer tamely a lawless attack upon our liberty, we encourage it, and involve others in our doom. It is a very serious consideration that millions yet unborn may be the miserable sharers of the event. Samuel Adams, speech in Boston, 1771

Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves. William Pitt (17591806), British Prime Minister

The price of apathy towards public affairs is to be ruled by evil men. Plato

The people who, in order to enjoy the liberty which suites them, resort to the representative system, must exercise an active and constant surveillance over their representatives, and reserve for themselves...the right to discard them if they betray their trust, and to revoke the powers which them might have abused. Benjamin Constant.

Against the insidious wiles of foreign influence (I conjure you to believe me, fellowcitizens,) the jealousy of a free people ought to be constantly awake; since history and experience prove, that foreign influence is one of the most baneful foes of Republican Government. But that jealousy, to be useful, must be impartial; else it becomes the instrument of the very influence to be avoided, instead of a defense against it. Excessive partiality for one foreign nation, and excessive dislike of another, cause those whom they actuate to see danger only on one side, and serve to veil and even second the arts of influence on the other. Real patriots, who may resist the intrigues of the favorite, are liable to become suspected and odious; while its tools and dupes usurp the applause and confidence of the people, to surrender their interests. George Washington

Guard with jealous attention the public liberty. Suspect every one who approaches that jewel. Unfortunately, nothing will preserve it but downright force. Whenever you give up that force, you are inevitably ruined. Patrick Henry

From the equality of rights springs identity of our highest interests; you cannot subvert your neighbors rights without striking a dangerous blow at your own. Carl Schurz (1829-1906), German-born, US General, US Senator (MO), Founded the Liberal Republican movement

Our progress in degeneracy appears to me to be pretty rapid. As a nation we began by declaring that all men are created equal. When the KnowNothings get control, it will read all men are created equal, except Negroes and foreigners and Catholics. When it comes to this, I shall prefer emigrating to some country where they make no pretense of loving libertyto Russia, for instance, where despotism can be taken pure, and without the base alloy hypocrisy. Abraham Lincoln

A free society is one where it is safe to be unpopular. Adlai Stevenson

It does not require a majority to prevail, but rather an irate, tireless minority keen to set brush fires in peoples minds. Samuel Adams

It is a universal truth that the loss of liberty at home is to be charged to the provisions against danger, real or pretended, from abroad. James Madison

And reason teaches all mankind who will but consult it, that being all equal and independent, no one ought to harm another in his life, health, liberty or possessions. John Locke

To announce that there must be no criticism of the president, or that we are to stand by the president, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public. Theodore Roosevelt, 1918

As I watch government at all levels daily eat away at our freedom, I keep thinking how prosperity and government largesse have combined to make most of us fat and lazy and indifferent to, or actually in favor of, the limits being placed on that freedom. Lyn Nofziger

Then what is freedom? It is the will to be responsible to ourselves. Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900), Twilight of the Idols, 1888

One of the things that bothers me most is the growing belief in the country that security is more important than freedom. It aint. Lyn Nofziger [Franklyn C. Nofziger], Press Secretary for President Reagan

Outside Independence Hall when the Constitutional Convention of 1787 ended, Mrs. Powel of Philadelphia asked Benjamin Franklin, Well, Doctor, what have we got, a republic or a monarchy? With no hesitation whatsoever, Franklin responded, A republic, if you can keep it. Benjamin Franklin as recorded by Constitution signer James McHenry in a diary entry

A man is none the less a slave because he is allowed to choose a new master once in a term of years. Lysander Spooner

One of the best ways to get yourself a reputation as a dangerous citizen these days is to go about repeating the very phrases which our founding fathers used in the great struggle for independence. Charles Austin Beard (1874-1948)

Yes, we did produce a near-perfect republic. But will they keep it? Or will they, in the enjoyment of plenty, lose the memory of freedom? Material abundance without character is the path of destruction. Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826), US Founding Father, drafted the Declaration of Independence, 3rd US President Source: in a letter to John Adams as quoted in John A. Stormer, None Dare Call it Treason (Florissant, MO: Liberty Bell Press, 1964) 93.

There are no boundaries in this struggle to the death. We cannot be indifferent to what happens anywhere in the world, for a victory by any country over imperialism is our victory. Ernesto Che Guevara

Whenever legislators endeavor to take away and destroy the property of the people, or to reduce them to slavery under arbitrary power, they put themselves into a state of war with the people, who are thereupon absolved from any further obedience. John Locke, 1690

When the representative body have lost the confidence of their constituents, when they have notoriously made sale of their most valuable rights, when they have assumed to themselves powers which the people never put into their hands, then indeed their continuing in office becomes dangerous to the state Thomas Jefferson

A right is not what someone gives you; its what no one can take from you. Ramsey Clark, U. S. Attorney General, source: New York Times, 2 October 1977

The individual has always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe. To be your own man is hard business. If you try it, you will be lonely often, and sometimes frightened. But no price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself. Rudyard Kipling (1865-1936)

I have always strenuously supported the right of every man to his own opinion, however different that opinion might be to mine. He who denies another this right makes a slave of himself to his present opinion, because he precludes himself the right of changing it. Thomas Paine (1737-1809), The Age of Reason, 1783

Money is a new form of slavery, and distinguishable from the old simply by the fact that it is impersonalthat there is no human relation between master and slave. Leo Nikolaevich Tolstoi (1828-1910)

The majority, oppressing an individual, is guilty of a crime, abuses its strength, and by acting on the law of the strongest breaks up the foundations of society. Thomas Jefferson

I never submitted the whole system of my opinions to the creed of any party of men whatever, in religion, in philosophy, in politics or in anything else, where I was capable of thinking for myself. Such an addiction is the last degradation of a free and moral agent. If I could not go to Heaven but with a party, I would not go there at all. Thomas Jefferson
Information is the currency of Democracy. In matters of style, swim with the current, in matters of principle, stand like a rock If all the people knew all the facts, they would never make a mistake. It is better for one hundred guilty men to go free than one innocent man to go to jail It is wrong to take a mans money and use it to promote ideas he does not agree with Its better to debate an issue without settling it than to settle an issue without debate. The end of democracy and the defeat of the American Revolution will occur when government falls into the hands of the lending institutions and moneyed incorporations. Thomas Jefferson

Bear in mind this sacred principle, that though the will of the majority is in all cases to prevail, that will, to be rightful, must be reasonable; that the minority possess their equal rights, which equal laws must protect, and to violate would be oppression. Thomas Jefferson: 1st Inaugural, 1801

Political correctness is really a subjective list put together by the few to rule the manya list of things one must think, say, or do. It affronts the right of the individual to establish his or her own beliefs. Mark Berley, source: Argos, Spring 1998

Our only hope today lies in our ability to recapture the revolutionary spirit and go into a sometimes hostile world declaring eternal hostility to poverty, racism, and militarism. Martin Luther King, Jr.

My notion of democracy is that under it the weakest shall have the same opportunities as the strongest no country in the world today shows any but patronizing regard for the weak Western democracy, as it functions today, is diluted fascism true democracy cannot be worked by twenty men sitting at the center. It has to be worked from below, by the people of every village. Gandhi

There is a wonderful mythical law of nature that the three things we crave most in lifehappiness, freedom, and peace of mindare always attained by giving them to someone else. Peyton Conway March (1864-1955), US Army General, US Army Chief of Staff during the final year of WWI

The price of apathy towards public affairs is to be ruled by evil men. Plato

Apathy is the glove into which evil slips its hand. Bodie Thoene

Most Americans arent the sort of citizens the Founding Fathers expected; they are contented serfs. Far from being active critics of government, they assume that its might makes it right. Joseph Sobran

By far the most dangerous foe we have to fight is apathy - indifference from whatever cause, not from a lack of knowledge, but from carelessness, from absorption in other pursuits, from a contempt bred of self satisfaction William Osler (Canadian Physician, 1849-1919)

Philosophy should always know that indifference is a militant thing. It batters down the walls of cities and murders the women and children amid the flames and the purloining of altar vessels. When it goes away it leaves smoking ruins, where lie citizens bayonetted through the throat. It is not a childrens pastime like mere highway robbery. Stephen Crane

Protest that endures is moved by a hope far more modest than that of public success: namely, the hope of preserving qualities in ones own heart and spirit that would be destroyed by acquiescence. Wendell Berry

A mans liberties are none the less aggressed upon because those who coerce him do so in the belief that he will be benefited. Herbert Spencer (1820-1903), The Principles of Ethics Bd. II, ed. T. Machan, Indianapolis 1978, S. 242-43

The man who does not do his own thinking is a slave, and is a traitor to himself and his fellow men. Robert G. Ingersoll (1833-1899)

Whoever will have nothing to do with thorns, can never gather roses.

Trouble is only opportunity in work clothes.

To get out of difficulty, we must go through it.

The lowest ebb is the turn of the tide.

You will never be the person God wants you to be, if afflictions, trials, and disciplines are taken out of your life.

Afflictions are but the shadow of Gods wings.

The keenest sorrow is to recognize ourselves as the sole cause of all our adversities Sophocles

Make men wise, and by that very operation you make them free. Civil liberty follows as a consequence of this; no usurped power can stand against the artillery of opinion. William Godwin (1756-1836)

But this is slavery, not to speak ones thought. Euripides (480-406 B.C.), The Phoenician Women, 411-409 B.C.

Knowledge makes a man unfit to be a slave. Frederick Douglass

I know no safe depository of the ultimate powers of the society but the people themselves; and if we think them not enlightened enough to exercise their control with a wholesome discretion, the remedy is not to take it from them, but to inform their discretion. Thomas Jefferson, September 28, 1820

Many people today believe that society is broken. It is not broken; it is working exactly as it was planned to work. John Harris, Its an Illusion,
http://bbc5.tv/eyeplayer/articles/john-harris-its-illusion

SOCIETY; the SOCIALLY DOMINANT members of a community, a SOCIETY is a number of PERSONS united together by mutual CONSENT, to deliberate, determine and act jointly for a COMMON PURPOSE. John Harris, Its an Illusion,
http://bbc5.tv/eyeplayer/articles/john-harris-its-illusion

CONTRACT; an agreement by two or more PERSONS that CREATES or MODIFIES an existing RELATIONSHIP, John Harris, Its an Illusion,
http://bbc5.tv/eyeplayer/articles/john-harris-its-illusion

CONSTITUTION; the fundamental RULES, written or unwritten, that establishes the CHARACTER of a GOVERNMENT by defining the basic principles that a SOCIETY MUST CONFORM. John Harris, Its an Illusion,
http://bbc5.tv/eyeplayer/articles/john-harris-its-illusion

You were not given a choice if you wanted to join this SOCIETY. It was made for you at a time that you could not make a choice. John Harris, Its an Illusion,
http://bbc5.tv/eyeplayer/articles/john-harris-its-illusion

The individual has always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe. To be your own man is hard business. If you try it, you will be lonely often, and sometimes frightened. But no price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself. Rudyard Kipling (18651936)

It is seldom that liberty of any kind is lost all at once. David Hume (1711-1776)

The highest manifestation of life consists in this: that a being governs its own actions. A thing which is always subject to the direction of another is somewhat of a dead thing. Saint Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274) The study of history is a powerful antidote to contemporary arrogance. It is humbling to discover how many of our glib assumptions, which seem to us novel and plausible, have been tested before, not once but many times and in innumerable guises; and discovered to be, at great human cost, wholly false. -- Paul Johnson

And reason teaches all mankind who will but consult it, that being all equal and independent, no one ought to harm another in his life, health, liberty or possessions. John Locke

No provision in our Constitution ought to be dearer to man than that which protects the rights of conscience against the enterprises of the civil authority. Thomas Jefferson

Political history is largely an account of mass violence and of the expenditure of vast resources to cope with mythical fears and hopes. Murray Edelman

Democracy dont rule the world, Youd better get that in your head; This world is ruled by violence, But I guess thats better left unsaid. Bob Dylan

The ordinary man is passive. Within a narrow circle, home life, and perhaps the trade unions or local politics, he feels himself master of his fate. But otherwise he simply lies down and lets things happen to him. George Orwell

It is only when the people become ignorant and corrupt, when they degenerate into a populace, that they are incapable of exercising their sovereignty. Usurpation is then an easy attainment, and an usurper soon found. The people themselves become the willing instruments of their own debasement and ruin. James Monroe

The soft, the complacent the selfsatisfied societies will be swept away with the debris of history John Fitzgerald Kennedy

It is difficult to free fools from the chains they revere. Voltaire

A long habit of not thinking a thing wrong, gives it a superficial appearance of being right, and raises at first a formidable outcry in defence of custom. But tumult soon subsides. Time makes more converts than reason Thomas Paine - Common Sense -[January 10, 1776]

In the general course of human nature, a power over mans substance amounts to a power over his will. Alexander Hamilton

What a curious phenomenon it is that you can get men to die for the liberty of the world who will not make the little sacrifice that is needed to free themselves from their own individual bondage. Bruce Barton (1886-1967)

To act without clear understanding, to form habits without investigation, to follow a path all ones life without knowing where it really leads -- such is the behavior of the multitude.: Mencius - [Mengzi Meng-tse] (c.371 - c.288 B.C.) Chinese Confucian philosopher

Collective fear stimulates herd instinct, and tends to produce ferocity toward those who are not regarded as members of the herd. Bertrand Russell

There is no nonsense so errant that it cannot be made the creed of the vast majority by adequate governmental action Bertrand Russell

Now those who seek absolute power, even though they seek it to do what they regard as good, are simply demanding the right to enforce their own version of heaven on earth, and let me remind you they are the very ones who always create the most hellish tyranny. Barry Goldwater

A people living under the perpetual menace of war and invasion is very easy to govern. It demands no social reforms. It does not haggle over expenditures for armaments and military equipment. It pays without discussion, it ruins itself, and that is an excellent thing for the syndicates of financiers and manufacturers for whom patriotic terrors are an abundant source of gain: Anatole France, pseudonym for Jacques Anatole Thibault (1844-1924)

The challenges that America faces are not terrorism and oil supply. The challenges that we face are the police state that Bush has created and the disrespect for truth that is endemic in government, the universities, and the media. The US has entered a dark age of dogmas and unaccountable power. --Paul Craig Roberts was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury in the Reagan administration.

Every collectivist revolution rides in on a Trojan horse of emergency. It was the tactic of Lenin, Hitler, and Mussolini. In the collectivist sweep over a dozen minor countries of Europe, it was the cry of men striving to get on horseback. And emergency became the justification of the subsequent steps. This technique of creating emergency is the greatest achievement that demagoguery attains.: Herbert Hoover

What experience and history teach is this -- that people and governments never have learned anything from history, or acted on principles deduced from it.: Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel - (1770-1831)

In order to get power and retain it, it is necessary to love power; but love of power is not connected with goodness but with qualities that are the opposite of goodness, such as pride, cunning and cruelty. Leo Nikolaevich Tolstoi

The test of every religious, political, or educational system is the man that it forms.: Henri-Frdric Amiel - (1821-1881)

Find out just what people will quietly submit to, and you have found out the exact measure of injustice and wrong which will be imposed on them, and these will continue till they are resisted with either words or blows. The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress. ~ Frederick Douglass

The liberty of a democracy is not safe if the people tolerate the growth of private power to the point where it becomes stronger than the democratic state itself. That in its essence is fascism ownership of government by an individual, by a group or any controlling private power. President Franklin D. Roosevelt

The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, and wiser people so full of doubts. Bertrand Russell

...because I think a general Government necessary for us, and there is no form of Government but what may be a blessing to the people if well administered, and believe farther that this is likely to be well administered for a course of years, and can only end in Despotism, as other forms have done before it, when the people shall become so corrupted as to need despotic Government, being incapable of any other. Ben Franklins speech at the Constitutional Convention, Pennsylvania 1787

...free enterprise, [is] a term that refers, in practice, to a system of public subsidy and private profit, with massive government intervention in the economy to maintain a welfare state for the rich. Noam Chomsky

...There is no nation on earth powerful enough to accomplish our overthrow. ... Our destruction, should it come at all, will be from another quarter. From the inattention of the people to the concerns of their government, from their carelessness and negligence, I must confess that I do apprehend some danger. I fear that they may place too implicit a confidence in their public servants, and fail properly to scrutinize their conduct; that in this way they may be made the dupes of designing men, and become the instruments of their own undoing. Daniel Webster, June 1, 1837

A centralized democracy may be as tyrannical as an absolute monarch; and if the vigour of the nation is to continue unimpaired, each individual, each family, each district, must preserve as far as possible its independence, its self-completeness, its powers and its privilege to manage its own affairs and think its own thoughts. James Anthony Froude (1818-1894), author and historian, Short Studies on Great Subjects

Democracy must be something more than two wolves and a sheep voting on what to have for dinner. James Bovard, Lost Rights: The Destruction of American Liberty (St. Martins Press: New York, 1994), p. 333

A government which robs Peter to pay Paul can always depend on the support of Paul. George Bernard Shaw

A nation can survive its fools, and even the ambitious. But it cannot survive treason from within. An enemy at the gates is less formidable, for he is known and carries his banner openly. But the traitor moves amongst those within the gate freely, his sly whispers rustling through all the alleys, heard in the very halls of government itself. For the traitor appears not a traitor; he speaks in accents familiar to his victims, and he wears their face and their arguments, he appeals to the baseness that lies deep in the hearts of all men. He rots the soul of a nation, he works secretly and unknown in the night to undermine the pillars of the city, he infects the body politic so that it can no longer resist. A murder is less to fear. Marcus Tullius Cicero (106-43 B.C.)

A nation which can prefer disgrace to danger is prepared for a master, and deserves one! Alexander Hamilton

The issue today is the same as it has been throughout all history, whether man shall be allowed to govern himself or be ruled by a small elite. Thomas Jefferson

A people may prefer a free government, but if, from indolence, or carelessness, or cowardice, or want of public spirit, they are unequal to the exertions necessary for preserving it; if they will not fight for it when it is directly attacked; if they can be deluded by the artifices used to cheat them out of it; if by momentary discouragement, or temporary panic, or a fit of enthusiasm for an individual, they can be induced to lay their liberties at the feet even of a great man, or trust him with powers which enable him to subvert their institutions; in all these cases they are more or less unfit for liberty: and though it may be for their good to have had it even for a short time, they are unlikely long to enjoy it. John Stuart Mill, Representative Government, 1861

A popular government, without popular information, or the means of acquiring it, is but a Prologue to a Farce or a Tragedy; or, perhaps both. Knowledge will forever govern ignorance: And a people who mean to be their own Governors, must arm themselves with the power which knowledge gives. James Madison, letter to W.T. Barry, 4 August 1822

A society of sheep must in time beget a government of wolves. Bertrand de Jouvenel (1903-1987)

Abolish plutocracy if you would abolish poverty. Rutherford Birchard Hayes (18771881), 19th President of the United States

Any man who wants to be president is either an egomaniac or crazy. Dwight D. Eisenhower

As soon as people drop the reins on government, government will leash the people. James Bovard

But it was impossible to save the Great Republic. She was rotten to the heart. Lust of conquest had long ago done its work; trampling upon the helpless abroad had taught her, by a natural process, to endure with apathy the like at home; multitudes who had applauded the crushing of other peoples liberties, lived to suffer for their mistake in their own persons. The government was irrevocably in the hands of the prodigiously rich and their hangers-on; the suffrage was become a mere machine, which they used as they chose. There was no principle but commercialism, no patriotism but of the pocket. Mark Twain

By a declaration of rights, I mean one which shall stipulate freedom of religion, freedom of the press, freedom of commerce against monopolies, trial by juries in all cases, no suspensions of the habeas corpus, no standing armies. These are fetters against doing evil which no honest government should decline. Thomas Jefferson

Once a government is committed to the principle of silencing the voice of opposition, it has only one way to go, and that is down the path of increasingly repressive measures, until it becomes a source of terror to all its citizens and creates a country where everyone lives in fear. Harry S. Truman

Can we truly expect that those who aim to exploit us can be trusted to educate us? Eric Schaub

Civil disobedience is not our problem. Our problem is civil obedience. Our problem is that numbers of people all over the world have obeyed the dictates of the leaders of their government and have gone to war, and millions have been killed because of this obedience Our problem is that people are obedient all over the world in the face of poverty and starvation and stupidity, and war, and cruelty. Howard Zinn

We hang the petty thieves and appoint the great ones to public office. Aesop (c. 550 B.C.)

Conquered states that have been accustomed to liberty and the government of their own laws can be held by the conqueror in three different ways. The first is to ruin them; the second, for the conqueror to go and reside there in person; and the third is to allow them to continue to live under their own laws, subject to a regular tribute, and to create in them a government of a few, who will keep the country friendly to the conqueror. Niccolo Machiavelli, The Prince

Democracy is a process, not a static condition. It is becoming rather than being. It can easily be lost, but is never fully won. Its essence is eternal struggle. William H. Hastie

Corruption and hypocrisy ought not to be inevitable products of democracy, as they undoubtedly are today. Mahatma Gandhi

For in every city these two opposite parties [people vs aristocracy] are to be found, arising from the desire of the populace to avoid oppression of the great, and the desire of the great to command and oppress the people....For when the nobility see that they are unable to resist the people, they unite in exalting one of their number and creating him prince, so as to be able to carry out their own designs under the shadow of his authority. (Machiavelli, The Prince, ch. IX)

Here is my first principle of foreign policy: good government at home. William Ewart Gladstone

Our government teaches the whole people by its example. If the government becomes the lawbreaker, it breeds contempt for law; it invites every man to become a law unto himself; it invites anarchy. Louis D. Brandeis

For in reason, all government without the consent of the governed is slavery. Jonathan Swift (1667-1745)

The form of law which I propose would be as follows: In a state which is desirous of being saved from the greatest of all plagues not faction, but rather istraction there should exist among the citizens neither extreme poverty nor, again, excessive wealth, for both are productive of great evil Now the legislator should determine what is to be the limit of poverty or of wealth. Plato (427-347 B.C.)

Government is not reason, it is not eloquence, it is force; like fire, a troublesome servant and a fearful master. Never for a moment should it be left to irresponsible action. George Washington

Government is the Entertainment Division of the military-industrial complex. Frank Zappa

Government, when it is examined, turns out to be nothing more nor less than a group of fallible men with the political force to act as though they were infallible. Robert LeFevre, in his essay Aggression Is Wrong

Hitler and Mussolini were only the primary spokesmen for the attitude of domination and craving for power that are in the heart of almost everyone. Until the source is cleared, there will always be confusion and hate, wars and class antagonisms. J. Krishnamurti

The evils of government are directly proportional to the tolerance of the people. Frank Kent

Republics are created by the virtue, public spirit, and intelligence of the citizens. They fall, when the wise are banished from the public councils, because they dare to be honest, and the profligate are rewarded, because they flatter the people, in order to betray them. Justice Joseph Story (1779-1845), US Supreme Court Justice, 1833 If once [the people] become inattentive to the public affairs, you and I, and Congress and Assemblies, Judges and Governors, shall all become wolves. It seems to be the law of our general nature, in spite of individual exceptions. Thomas Jefferson to Edward Carrington, 1787

I wouldnt call it fascism exactly, but a political system nominally controlled by an irresponsible, dumbed down electorate who are manipulated by dishonest, cynical, controlled mass media that dispense the propaganda of a corrupt political establishment can hardly be described as democracy either. Edward Zehr (1936-2001), columnist

In relation to the political decontamination of our public life, the government will embark upon a systematic campaign to restore the nations moral and material health. The whole educational system, theater, film, literature, the press and broadcastingall these will be used as a means to this end. Adolf Hitler (1889-1945), source: Volkischer Beobachter, 23 March 1933

When buying and selling are controlled by legislation, the first things to be bought and sold are legislators. P. J. ORourke

If the citizens neglect their duty and place unprincipled men in office, the government will soon be corrupted; laws will be made, not for the public good so much as for selfish or local purposes; corrupt or incompetent men will be appointed to execute the laws; the public revenues will be squandered on unworthy men; and the rights of the citizen will be violated or disregarded. Noah Webster (1758-1843)

If the machine of government is of such a nature that it requires you to be the agent of injustice to another, then, I say, break the law. Henry David Thoreau, On the Duty of Civil Disobedience, 1849

In dealing with the state, we ought to remember that its institutions are not aboriginal, though they existed before we were born; that they are not superior to the citizen; that every one of them was once the act of a single man; every law and usage was a mans expedient to meet a particular case; that they all are imitable, all alterable; we may make as good; we may make better. Ralph Raldo Emerson (1803-1882), Essays, Second Series (1844)

We are not afraid to entrust the American people with unpleasant facts, foreign ideas, alien philosophies and competitive values. For a nation that is afraid to let its people judge the truth and falsehood of an open market is a nation that is afraid of its people.

The ignorance of one voter in a democracy impairs the security of all. John F. Kennedy President of the United States from 1961 to 1963.

John F. Kennedy President of the United States from 1961 to 1963.

Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable. John F. Kennedy President of the United States from 1961 to 1963.

We have the power to make this the best generation of mankind in the history of the world - or to make it the last. John F. Kennedy President of the United States from 1961 to 1963.

Mankind must put an end to war, or war will put an end to mankind. John F. Kennedy President of the United States from 1961 to 1963.

In the long history of the world, only a few generations have been granted the role of defending freedom in its hour of maximum danger... The energy, the faith, the devotion which we bring to this endeavor will light our country and all who serve it, and the glow from that fire can truly light the world. John F. Kennedy President of the United States from 1961 to 1963.

Change is the law of life, and those who look only to the past or the present are certain to miss the future. John F. Kennedy President of the United States from 1961 to 1963.

To those people in the huts and villages of half the globe struggling to break the bonds of mass misery, we pledge our best efforts to help them help themselves, for whatever period is required, not because the Communists may be doing it, not because we seek their votes, but because it is right. If a free society cannot help the many who are poor, it cannot save the few who are rich.

John F. Kennedy

You know nothing for sure...except the fact that you know nothing for sure. John F. Kennedy President of the United States from 1961 to 1963.

Every people may establish what form of government they please, and change it as they please, the will of the nation being the only thing essential. Thomas Jefferson

No government ought to be without censors; and where the press is free no one ever will.

Thomas Jefferson

There is...an artificial aristocracy founded on wealth and birth, without either virtue or talents.... The artificial aristocracy is a mischievous ingredient in government, and provisions should be made to prevent its ascendancy. Thomas Jefferson

The whole commerce between master and slave is a perpetual exercise of the most boisterous passions, the most unremitting despotism on the one part, and degrading submissions on the other. Our children see this, and learn to imitate it. Thomas Jefferson

Whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends (life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness) it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it, and to institute new government... Thomas Jefferson

The will of the people is the only legitimate foundation of any government, and to protect its free expression should be our first object. Thomas Jefferson

If people let government decide what foods they eat and what medicines they take, their bodies will soon be in as sorry a state as are the souls of those who live under tyranny. Thomas Jefferson

Were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers, or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter. But I should mean that every man should receive those papers and be capable of reading them.

Thomas Jefferson

Under the law of nature, all men are born free, every one comes into the world with a right to his own person, which includes the liberty of moving and using it at his own will. This is what is called personal liberty, and is given him by the Author of nature, because necessary for his own sustenance.

Of liberty I would say that, in the whole plenitude of its extent, it is unobstructed action according to our will. But rightful liberty is unobstructed action according to our will within limits drawn around us by the equal rights of others. I do not add within the limits of the law, because law is often but the tyrants will, and always so when it violates the right of an individual.

It is to secure our rights that we resort to government at all.

Thomas Jefferson

Thomas Jefferson

Thomas Jefferson

No man has a natural right to commit aggression on the equal rights of another, and this is all from which the laws ought to restrain him. Thomas Jefferson

I have never been able to conceive how any rational being could propose happiness to himself from the exercise of power over others. Thomas Jefferson

Experience declares that man is the only animal which devours his own kind, for I can apply no milder term to...the general prey of the rich on the poor. Thomas Jefferson

I know no safe depositary of the ultimate powers of the society but the people themselves; and if we think them not enlightened enough to exercise their control with a wholesome discretion, the remedy is not to take it from them, but to inform their discretion by education. This is the true corrective of abuses of constitutional power.

If once (the people) become inattentive to the public affairs, you and I, and Congress and Assemblies, Judges and Governors, shall all become wolves. It seems to be the law of our general nature, in spite of individual exceptions. Thomas Jefferson

Sometimes it is said that man cannot be trusted with the government of himself. Can he, then, be trusted with the government of others? Or have we found angels in the form of kings to govern him? Let history answer this question. Thomas Jefferson

Thomas Jefferson

G o v e r n m e n t is t h e g r e a t f i ct i o n , through which everybody endeavors to live at the expense of everybody else. Frederic Bastiat, French Economist (1801-1850)

An Avidity to punish is always dangerous to liberty. It leads men to stretch, to misinterpret, and to misapply even the best of laws. He that would make his own liberty secure must guard even his enemy from oppression; for if he violates this duty he establishes a precedent that will reach to himself. -- Thomas Paine

Find out just what any people will quietly submit to and you have found out the exact measure of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them, and these will continue till they are resisted with either words or blows, or with both. The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress. Frederick Douglass, If There Is No Struggle, There Is No Progress

It is the common fate of the indolent to see their rights become a prey to the active. The condition upon which God hath given liberty to man is eternal vigilance; which condition if he break, servitude is at once the consequence of his crime and the punishment of his guilt. John Philpot Curran (1750-1817)