"They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety." Benjamin Franklin
Thomas Jefferson said...
"A wise and frugal government," Thomas Jefferson declared in his first inaugural address in 1801, "which shall restrain men from injuring one another, shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned. This is the sum of good government."
"To take from one, because it is thought that his own industry and that of his fathers has acquired too much, in order to spare to others, who, or whose fathers, have not exercised equal industry and skill, is to violate arbitrarily the first principle of association, the guarantee to every one of a free exercise of his industry and the fruits acquired by it."
When we get piled upon one another in large cities, as in Europe, we shall become as corrupt as Europe.
It is incumbent on every generation to pay its own debts as it goes. A principle which if acted on would save one-half the wars of the world.
I predict future happiness for Americans I if they can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them.
My reading of history convinces me that most bad government results from too much government.
The strongest reason for the people to retain the right to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in government.
A democracy is nothing more than mob rule, where fifty-one percent of the people may take away the rights of the other forty-nine.
When the people fear their government, there is tyranny; when the government fears the people, there is liberty.
Educate and inform the whole mass of the people... They are the only sure reliance for the preservation of our liberty.
A Bill of Rights is what the people are entitled to against every government, and what no just government should refuse, or rest on inference.
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, (Attributed)
3rd president of US (1743 - 1826)
A people free to choose will always choose peace.
Ronald Reagan
Above all, we must realize that no arsenal, or no weapon in the arsenals of the world, is so formidable as the will and moral courage of free men and women. It is a weapon our adversaries in today's world do not have.
Ronald Reagan
All great change in America begins at the dinner table.
Ronald Reagan
All the waste in a year from a nuclear power plant can be stored under a desk.
Ronald Reagan
Concentrated power has always been the enemy of liberty.
Ronald Reagan
Democracy is worth dying for, because it's the most deeply honorable form of government ever devised by man.
Ronald Reagan
Each generation goes further than the generation preceding it because it stands on the shoulders of that generation. You will have opportunities beyond anything we've ever known.
Ronald Reagan
Entrepreneurs and their small enterprises are responsible for almost all the economic growth in the United States.
Ronald Reagan
Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn't pass it to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same.
Ronald Reagan
Freedom prospers when religion is vibrant and the rule of law under God is acknowledged.
Ronald Reagan
Government always finds a need for whatever money it gets.
Ronald Reagan
Government does not solve problems; it subsidizes them.
Ronald Reagan
Government exists to protect us from each other. Where government has gone beyond its limits is in deciding to protect us from ourselves.
Ronald Reagan
