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)

My ardent desire is...  to keep the United States free from political connexions with every other Country.  To see that they may be independent of all, and under the influence of none.

George Washington  (1732–1799)
Letter, 1795

The policy of the American government is to leave their citizens free, neither restraining nor aiding them in their pursuits.

Thomas Jefferson  (1743–1826)

I predict future happiness for Americans if they can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them.

Thomas Jefferson  (1743–1826)

If the American people ever allow the banks to control the issuance of their currency, first by inflation, and then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around them will deprive the people of all property, until their children wake up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered.  The issuing power of money should be taken from banks and restored to Congress and the people to whom it belongs.  I sincerely believe the banking institutions having the issuing power of money, are more dangerous to liberty than standing armies.

Thomas Jefferson  (1743–1826)

I know too that it is a maxim with us, and I think it a wise one, not to entangle ourselves with the affairs of Europe.

Thomas Jefferson  (1743–1826)
Letter, December 21, 1787

In Europe, charters of liberty have been granted by Power.  In America...  charters of power are granted by Liberty.

James Madison  (1751–1836)
'Charters', January 8, 1792

Good intentions will always be pleaded for every assumption of authority.  It is hardly too strong to say that the Constitution was made to guard the people against the dangers of good intentions.  There are men in all ages who mean to govern well, but they mean to govern.  They promise to be good masters, but they mean to be masters.

Noah Webster  (1758–1843)

The American Republic will endure, until politicians realize they can bribe the people with their own money.

Alexis de Tocqueville  (1805–1859)

Americans are so enamored of equality, they would rather be equal in slavery than unequal in freedom.

Alexis de Tocqueville  (1805–1859)

The territorial aristocracy of former ages was either bound by law, or thought itself bound by usage, to come to the relief of its serving-men, and to relieve their distress.

But the manufacturing aristocracy of our age first impoverishes and debases the men who serve it, and then abandons them to be supported by the charity of the public.

Alexis de Tocqueville  (1805–1859), 'Democracy in America', 1834

America will never be destroyed from the outside.  If we falter and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves.

Abraham Lincoln  (1809–1865)

Our safety, our liberty, depends upon preserving the Constitution of the United States as our fathers made it, inviolable.  The people of the United States 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  (1809–1865)

Let us discard all this quibbling about this man and the other man, this race and that race and the other race being inferior and therefore they must be placed in an inferior position.  Let us discard all these things, and unite as one people throughout this land, until we shall once more stand up declaring that all men are created equal.

Abraham Lincoln  (1809–1865), Address to Chicago Abolitionists  (10 July 1858)

America is the only nation in history which miraculously has gone directly from barbarism to degeneration without the usual interval of civilization.

Georges Clemenceau  (1841–1929)

This country will not be a good place for any of us to live in unless we make it a good place for all of us to live in.

Theodore Roosevelt  (1858–1919)

In the first place, we should insist that if the immigrant who comes here in good faith becomes an American and assimilates himself to us, he shall be treated on an exact equality with everyone else, for it is an outrage to discriminate against any such man because of creed, or birthplace, or origin.  But this is predicated upon the person's becoming in every facet an American, and nothing but an American...  There can be no divided allegiance here.  Any man who says he is an American, but something else also, isn't an American at all.  We have room for but one flag, the American flag...  We have room for but one language here, and that is the English language...  And we have room for but one sole loyalty and that is a loyalty to the American people.

Theodore Roosevelt  (1858–1919)

Americans always try to do the right thing after they've tried everything else.

Winston Churchill  (1874–1965)

The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have too much; it is whether we provide enough for those who have too little.

Franklin Delano Roosevelt  (1882–1945), 32-nd President  (1933–1945)

Intellectually I know that America is no better than any other country; emotionally I know she is better than every other country.

Sinclair Lewis  (1885–1951)

This nation will remain the land of the free only so long as it is the home of the brave.

Elmer Davis  (1890–1958)

Freedom is the recognition that no single person, no single authority or government has a monopoly on the truth, but that every individual life is infinitely precious, that every one of us put in this world has been put there for a reason and has something to offer.

Ronald Reagan  (1911–2004)

A citizen of America will cross the ocean to fight for democracy, but won't cross the street to vote in a national election.

Bill Vaughan  (1915–1977)