"A patriot must always be ready to defend his country against its government."

"Liberty is not a means to a higher political end. It is the highest political end."

"Liberty is the prevention of control by others. This requires self-control and, therefore, religious and spiritual influences; education, knowledge, well-being."

"...religion and virtue are the only foundations, not of republicanism and of all free government, but of social felicity under all government and in all the combinations of human society."

"But a Constitution of Government once changed from Freedom, can never be restored. Liberty, once lost, is lost forever."

"Children should be educated and instructed in the principles of freedom."

"Each individual of the society has a right to be protected by it in the enjoyment of his life, liberty, and property, according to standing laws."

"Liberty must at all hazards be supported. We have a right to it, derived from our Maker. But if we had not, our fathers have earned and bought it for us, at the expense of their ease, their estates, their pleasure, and their blood."

"Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other."

"Property must be secured or liberty cannot exist."

"Public business must always be done by somebody... If wise men decline it, others will not; if honest men refuse it, others will not."

"Public virtue cannot exist in a nation without private - and public virtue is the only foundation of republics."

"Remember democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide."

"The moment the idea is admitted into society that property is not as sacred as the laws of God, and that there is not a force of law and public justice to protect it, anarchy and tyranny commence."

"There is danger from all men. The only maxim of a free government ought to be to trust no man living with power to endanger the public liberty."

"Posterity - you will never know how much it has cost my generation to preserve your freedom. I hope you will make good use of it."

"[N]either the wisest constitution nor the wisest laws will secure the liberty and happiness of a people whose manners are universally corrupt."

"It does not require a majority to prevail, but rather an irate, tireless minority keen to set brush fires in people's minds."

"It does not take a majority to prevail ... but rather an irate, tireless minority, keen on setting brush fires of freedom in the minds of men."

"Nothing is more essential to the establishment of manners in a State than that all persons employed in places of power and trust must be men of unexceptionable characters."

"Religion and good morals are the only solid foundation of public liberty and happiness."

"The public cannot be too curious concerning the characters of public men."

"We have this day restored the Sovereign to whom alone men ought to be obedient."

"While the people are virtuous they cannot be subdued; but when once they lose their virtue then will be ready to surrender their liberties to the first external or internal invader."

"Wisdom comes alone through suffering."

"Beware lest you lose the substance by grasping at the shadow."

"A positive attitude may not solve all your problems, but it will annoy enough people to make it worth the effort."

"If you want to make GOD Laugh, tell him your future plans."

"Liberty is not to be enjoyed, indeed it cannot exist, without the habits of just subordination; it consists, not so much in removing all restraint from the orderly, as in imposing it on the violent."

"The known propensity of a democracy is to licentiousness which the ambitious call, and ignorant believe to be liberty."

"To one who has faith, no explanation is necessary. To one without faith, no explanation is possible."

"You vote yourselves salaries out of the public funds and care only for your own personal interests; hence the state limps along."

"The fate of empires depends on the education of youth."

"What it lies in our power to do, it lies in our power not to do."

"Conquer yourself and the world lies at your feet."

"Understanding is the reward of faith. Therefore seek not to understand that you may believe, but believe that you may understand."

"Nothing is more desirable than to be released from an affliction, but nothing is more frightening than to be divested of a crutch."

"Everyone wants to live at the expense of the state. They forget that the state lives at the expense of everyone."

"The state is the great fiction by which everybody seeks to live at the expense of everybody else."

"When law and morality contradict each other, the citizen has the cruel alternative of either losing his moral sense or losing his respect for the law."

"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."

"But to manipulate men, to propel them toward goals which you, the social reformers, see, but they may not, is to deny their human essence, to treat them as objects without wills of their own, and therefore to degrade them."

"Death is not the end. There remains the litigation over the estate."

"Politics, n. strife of interests masquerading as a contest of principles."

"It is my belief that there are 'absolutes' in our Bill of Rights, and that they were put there on purpose by men who knew what the words meant and meant their prohibitions to be 'absolutes'."

"Good government generally begins in the family, and if the moral character of a people once degenerate, their political character must soon follow."

"Democracy must be something more than two wolves and a sheep voting on what to have for dinner."

"We have grasped the mystery of the atom and rejected the Sermon on the Mount... The world has achieved brilliance without conscience. Ours is a world of nuclear giants and ethical infants."

"Experience teaches us to be most on our guard to protect liberty when the government's purpose is beneficent."

"A state without some means of change is without the means of its conservation."

"The true danger is when liberty is nibbled away, for expedients, and by parts."

"It is inevitable, that eventually the people will demand absolute security from the state... And absolute security is absolute slavery."

"Make yourself an honest man, and then you may be sure that there is one less scoundrel in the world."

"The courage we desire and prize is not the courage to die decently but to live manfully."

"The majority of us are for free speech when it deals with subjects concerning which we have no intense feelings."

"Prudence and justice tell me that in electricity and steam there is more love for man than in chastity and abstinence from meat."

"English experience indicates that when two political parties agree about something, it is generally wrong."

"Journalism is popular, but it is popular mainly as fiction. Life is one world, and life seen in the newspapers is another."

"The Christian faith has not been tried and found wanting. It has been found difficult and left untried."

"The true soldier fights not because he hates what is in front of him, but because he loves what is behind him."

"Everyone is in favor of free speech. Hardly a day passes without its being extolled, but some people's idea of it is that they are free to say what they like, but if anyone says anything back, that is an outrage."

"It would be a great reform in politics if wisdom could be made to spread as easily and as rapidly as folly."

"Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of them pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing had happened."

"Success is not final, failure is not fatal. It is the courage to continue that counts."

"The best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter."

"The inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of blessings; the inherent virtue of socialism is the equal sharing of miseries."

"Freedom is a possession of inestimable value."

"In a republic this rule ought to be observed: that the majority should not have the predominant power. "

"Just as the soul fills the body, so God fills the world. Just as the soul bears the body, so God endures the world. Just as the soul sees but is not seen, so God sees but is not seen. Just as the soul feeds the body, so God gives food to the world. "

"Next to God we are nothing. To God we are Everything. "

"The budget should be balanced, the Treasury should be refilled, public debt should be reduced, the arrogance of officialdom should be tempered and controlled, and the assistance to foreign lands should be curtailed lest Rome become bankrupt. People must again learn to work, instead of living on public assistance."

"Once the coffers of the federal government are opened to the public, there will be no shutting them again."

"The higher type of man clings to virtue, the lower type of man clings to material comfort. The higher type of man cherishes justice, the lower type of man cherishes the hope of favors to be received."

"After order and liberty, economy is one of the highest essentials of a free government."

"Don't expect to build up the weak by pulling down the strong."

"It is only when men begin to worship that they begin to grow."

"Little progress can be made by merely attempting to repress what is evil; our great hope lies in developing what is good."

"No person was ever honored for what he received. Honor has been the reward for what he gave."

"We demand entire freedom of action and then expect the government in some miraculous way to save us from the consequences of our own acts.... Self-government means self-reliance."

"A liberal is a man who will give away everything he doesn't own."

"A society of sheep must in time beget a government of wolves."

"The more one considers the matter, the clearer it becomes that redistribution is in effect far less a redistribution of free income from the richer to the poorer, as we imagined, than a redistribution of power from the individual to the State."

"Let no man turn aside, ever so slightly, from the broad path of honor, on the plausible pretence that he is justified by the goodness of his end. All good ends can be worked out by good means."

"Reflect upon your present blessings, of which every man has many, not on your past misfortunes, of which all men have some."

"How much easier it is to be critical than to be correct."

"The world's becoming a museum of socialist failures."

"Too often travel, instead of broadening the mind, merely lengthens the conversation."

"Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds."

"It is almost a miracle that modern teaching methods have not yet entirely strangled the holy curiosity of inquiry."

"Never do anything against conscience even if the state demands it."

"Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former."

"The real problem is in the hearts and minds of men. It is not a problem of physics but of ethics. It is easier to denature plutonium than to denature the evil from the spirit of man."

"The world is a dangerous place to live - not because of the people who are evil, but because of the people who don't do anything about it."

"There are two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle."

"We should take care not to make 'intellect' our god; it has, of course, powerful muscles, but no personality."

"If all that Americans want is security, they can go to prison. They'll have enough to eat, a bed and a roof over their heads."

"An election is coming. Universal peace is declared and the foxes have a sincere interest in prolonging the lives of the poultry."

"There is in the worst of fortune the best of chances for a happy change."

"A lady asked Dr. Franklin, 'Well, Doctor, what have we got, a republic or a monarchy?' 'A republic,' replied the Doctor, 'if you can keep it.'"

"A government big enough to give you everything you want is a government big enough to take from you everything you have."

"Time and money spent in helping men do more for themselves is far better than mere giving."

"The first virtue of all really great men is that they are sincere. They eradicate hypocrisy from their hearts."

"[I]t is a common observation here that our cause is the cause of all mankind, and that we are fighting for their liberty in defending our own."

"Any society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both."

"How many observe Christ's birthday! How few, his precepts! O! 'tis easier to keep Holidays than Commandments."

"I pronounce it as certain that there was never yet a truly great man that was not at the same time truly virtuous."

"If men are so wicked with religion, what would they be if without it?"

"It is a common observation here that our cause is the cause of all mankind, and that we are fighting for their liberty in defending our own."

"Many a man thinks he is buying pleasure, when he is really selling himself a slave to it."

"The whole of that Bill [of Rights] is a declaration of the right of the people at large or considered as individuals. ... [I]t establishes some rights of the individual as unalienable and which consequently, no majority has a right to deprive them of."

"Cutting government spending and government intrusion in the economy will almost surely involve immediate gain for the many, short-term pain for the few, and long-term gain for all."

"Given our monstrous, overgrown government structure, any three letters chosen at random would probably designate an agency or part of a department that could be profitably abolished."

"Television is an invention that permits you to be entertained in your living room by people you wouldn't have in your home."

"Power doesn't corrupt people, people corrupt power."

"I'm proud to pay taxes in the United States; the only thing is, I could be just as proud for half the money."

"If Columbus had an advisory committee he would probably still be at the dock."

"I would remind you that extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice. And let me remind you also that moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue."

"When wealth is lost, nothing is lost; when health is lost, something is lost; when character is lost, all is lost."

"...however weak our country may be, I hope we shall never sacrifice our liberties."

"[T]he Constitution ought to be the standard of construction for the laws, and that wherever there is an evident opposition, the laws ought to give place to the Constitution."

"A fondness for power is implanted, in most men, and it is natural to abuse it, when acquired."

"Let us recollect that peace or war will not always be left to our option; that however moderate or unambitious we may be, we cannot count upon the moderation, or hope to extinguish the ambition of others."

"The injury which may possibly be done by defeating a few good laws, will be amply compensated by the advantage of preventing a number of bad ones."

"To model our political system upon speculations of lasting tranquility, is to calculate on the weaker springs of the human character."

"We may safely rely on the disposition of the State legislatures to erect barriers against the encroachments of the national authority."

"Why has government been instituted at all? Because the passions of men will not conform to the dictates of reason and justice without constraint."

"In all very numerous assemblies, of whatever character composed, passion never fails to wrest the sceptre from reason. ... Had every Athenian citizen been a Socrates, every Athenian assembly would still have been a mob."

"There! His Majesty can now read my name without glasses. And he can double the reward on my head!"

"Our Constitution is color-blind, and neither knows nor tolerates classes among citizens."

"It is essential to the triumph of reform that it should never succeed."

"Is life so dear or peace so sweet as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God. I know not what course others may take, but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!"

"It cannot be emphasized too strongly or too often that this great nation was founded, not by religionists, but by Christians; not on religions, but on the gospel of Jesus Christ. For this very reason peoples of other faiths have been afforded asylum, prosperity, and freedom of worship."

"The battle, sir, is not to the strong alone; it is to the vigilant, the active, the brave."

"Force and reason -- which last is the essence of the moral act -- are at the two opposite poles. The one who compels his neighbor... treats him, not as a being with reason, but as an animal in whom reason is not."

"How should it happen that the individual should be without rights, but the combination of individuals should possess unlimited rights?"

"True liberty cannot exist apart from the full rights of property, for property is the only crystallized form of free faculties...The whole meaning of socialism is a systematic glorification of force... "

"Another plague upon the land, as devastating as the locusts God loosed on the Egyptians, is 'Political Correctness.'"

"We may not imagine how our lives could be more frustrating and complex, but Congress can."

"A free man is he that, in those things which by his strength and wit he is able to do, is not hindered to do what he has a will to."

"Totalitarianism spells simplification: an enormous reduction in the variety of aims, motives, interests, human types, and, above all, in the categories and units of power."

"The sound of a kiss is not so loud as that of a cannon, but its echo lasts a great deal longer."

"Freedom conceives that the mind and spirit of man can be free only if he is free to pattern his own life, to develop his own talents, free to earn, to spend, to save, to acquire property as the security of his old age and his family."

"Congress may be going home for the holidays soon. How can you beat a Christmas gift like that?"

"I like to come to Washington, D.C., at least once a year. Why should my tax money travel more than I do?"

"Eagles may soar in the clouds, but weasels never get sucked into jet engines."

"Proclaim liberty throughout the land unto all the inhabitants thereof."

"[A] rigid economy of the public contributions and absolute interdiction of all useless expenses will go far towards keeping the government honest and unoppressive."

"[A] wise and frugal government...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."

"[T]he States can best govern our home concerns and the general government our foreign ones. I wish, therefore...never to see all offices transferred to Washington, where, further withdrawn from the eyes of the people, they may more secretly be bought and sold at market."

"The natural progress of things is for liberty to yield and government to gain ground."

"A free people [claim] their rights as derived from the laws of nature, and not as the gift of their chief magistrate."

"A judiciary independent of a king or executive alone, is a good thing; but independence of the will of the nation is a solecism, at least in a republican government."

"Congress has not unlimited powers to provide for the general welfare but only those specifically enumerated. ... A wise and frugal government ... shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned."

"Dependence begets subservience and venality, suffocates the germ of virtue, and prepares fit tools for the designs of ambition."

"Enlighten the people, generally, and tyranny and oppressions of body and mind will vanish like spirits at the dawn of day."

"Every government degenerates when trusted to the rulers of the people alone. The people themselves, therefore, are its only safe depositories."

"Excessive taxation ... will carry reason & reflection to every man's door, and particularly in the hour of election."

"I think we have more machinery of government than is necessary, too many parasites living on the labor of the industrious."

"I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too much liberty than those attending too small a degree of it."

"It is not honorable to take mere legal advantage, when it happens to be contrary to justice."

"Never suppose that in any possible situation, or under any circumstances, it is best for you to do a dishonorable thing..."

"One single object... [will merit] the endless gratitude of the society: that of restraining the judges from usurping legislation."

"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 forms of kings to govern him? Let history answer this question."

"The boisterous sea of liberty is never without a wave."

"The care of human life and happiness, and not their destruction, is the first and only legitimate object of good government."

"The duty of an upright administration is to pursue its course steadily, to know nothing of these family [dissensions], and to cherish the good principles of both parties."

"The foundation on which all [constitutions] are built is the natural equality of man, the denial of every preeminence but that annexed to legal office, and particularly the denial of a preeminence by birth."

"The freedom and happiness of man...[are] the sole objects of all legitimate government."

"The God who gave us life, gave us liberty at the same time; the hand of force may destroy, but cannot disjoin them."

"The legitimate powers of government extend to such acts only as are injurious to others."

"The love of justice and the love of country plead equally the cause of these people, and it is a moral reproach to us that they should have pleaded it so long in vain."

"The multiplication of public offices, increase of expense beyond income, growth and entailment of a public debt, are indications soliciting the employment of the pruning knife."

"The principle of spending money to be paid by posterity, under the name of funding, is but swindling futurity on a large scale."

"The republican is the only form of government which is not eternally at open or secret war with the rights of mankind."

"The same prudence which in private life would forbid our paying our own money for unexplained projects, forbids it in the dispensation of the public moneys."

"The spirit of resistance to government is so valuable on certain occasions, that I wish it to be always kept alive."

"The strongest reason for people to retain the right to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in government."

"To take from one, because it is thought 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 everyone the free exercise of his industry and the fruits acquired by it."

"We must not let our rulers load us with perpetual debt."

"Were we directed from Washington when to sow, and when to reap, we should soon want bread."

"When all government, domestic and foreign, in little as in great things, shall be drawn to Washington as the center of all power, it will render powerless the checks provided of one government on another."

"Be not too hasty to trust or admire the teachers of morality; they discourse like angels but they live like men."

"Courage is the first of all the virtues because if you haven't courage, you may not have the opportunity to use any of the others."

"The true measure of a man is how he treats someone who can do him absolutely no good."

"Face your deficiencies and acknowledge them; but do not let them master you. Let them teach you patience, sweetness, insight."

"I long to accomplish a great and noble task; but it is my chief duty to accomplish small tasks as if they were great and noble."

"Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe to assure the survival and the success of liberty."

"Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable."

"Today, we need a nation of Minutemen, citizens who are not only prepared to take arms, but citizens who regard the preservation of freedom as the basic purpose of their daily life and who are willing to consciously work and sacrifice for that freedom."

"The elements of our strength are many. They include our democratic government, our economic system, our great natural resources. But, the basic source of our strength is spiritual. We believe in the dignity of man."

"The slave has but one master; the ambitious man has as many as can help in making his fortune."

"Man is so made that whenever anything fires his soul, impossibilities vanish."

"Love of justice in the generality of men is only the fear of suffering from injustice."

"I do esteem individual liberty above everything. What is a nation for, but to secure the maximum liberty to every individual?"

"Finish last in your league and they call you idiot. Finish last in medical school and they call you doctor."

"And then she understood the devilish cunning of the enemies' plan. By mixing a little truth with it they had made their lie far stronger."

"We all want progress, but if you're on the wrong road, progress means doing an about-turn and walking back to the right road; in that case, the man who turns back soonest is the most progressive."

"We make men without chests and expect of them virtue and enterprise. We laugh at honor and are shocked to find traitors in our midst."

"Never undertake anything for which you wouldn't have the courage to ask the blessing of heaven."

"A liberal is someone who feels a great debt to his fellow man, which debt he proposes to pay off with your money."

"It's not me who can't keep a secret, it's the people I tell that can't."

"Whatever man loves, that is his god. For he carries it in his heart; he goes about with it night and day; he sleeps and wakes with it, be it what it may - wealth or self, pleasure or renown."

"The object and practice of liberty lies in the limitation of government power."

"...[T]he States will retain, under the proposed Constitution, a very extensive portion of active sovereignty..."

"A just security to property is not afforded by that government, under which unequal taxes oppress one species of property and reward another species."

"Charity is no part of the legislative duty of the government."

"Government is instituted to protect property of every sort; as well that which lies in the various rights of individuals.... The invasion of private rights is chiefly to be apprehended..."

"How could a readiness for war in time of peace be safely prohibited, unless we could prohibit, in like manner, the preparations and establishments of every hostile nation?"

"I cannot undertake to lay my finger on that article of the Constitution which granted a right to Congress of expending, on objects of benevolence, the money of their constituents...."

"If Congress can do whatever in their discretion can be done by money, and will promote the General Welfare, the Government is no longer a limited one, possessing enumerated powers, but an indefinite one, subject to particular exceptions."

"Justice is the end of government. It is the end of civil society. It ever has been and ever will be pursued until it be obtained, or until liberty be lost in the pursuit."

"The essence of Government is power; and power, lodged as it must be in human hands, will ever be liable to abuse."

"The powers delegated by the proposed Constitution to the federal government are few and defined. Those which are to remain in the State governments are numerous and indefinite."

"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."

"An unlimited power to tax involves, necessarily, a power to destroy; because there is a limit beyond which no institution and no property can bear taxation."

"The secret of life is honesty and fair dealing. If you can fake that, you've got it made."

"It is the right as well as the duty of all men in society, publicly and at stated seasons, to worship the Supreme Being, the great Creator and Preserver of the universe."

"People constantly speak of 'the government' doing this or that, as they might speak of God doing it. But the government is really nothing but a group of men, and usually they are very inferior men."

"The only good bureaucrat is one with a pistol at his head. Put it in his hand and it's good-bye to the Bill of Rights."

"The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed, and hence clamorous to be led to safety, by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary."

"Unionism seldom, if ever, uses such power as it has to insure better work; almost always it devotes a large part of that power to safeguarding bad work."

"We must respect the other fellow's religion, but only in the sense and to the extent that we respect his theory that his wife is beautiful and his children smart."

"If all mankind minus one, were of one opinion, and only one person were of the contrary opinion, mankind would be no more justified in silencing that one person, than he, if he had the power, would be justified in silencing mankind."

"That which seems to be the height of absurdity in one generation often becomes the height of wisdom in the next."

"Truth gains more even by the errors of one who, with due study and preparation, thinks for himself, than by the true opinions of those who only hold them because they do not suffer themselves to think."

"War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things; the decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feelings which thinks that nothing is worth war is much worse."

"If the laws could speak for themselves, they would complain of lawyers in the first place."

"God sends no one away empty except those who are full of themselves."

"A man generally has two reasons for doing a thing. One that sounds good, and a real one."

"The enemies of truth are always awfully nice."

"Show me a man who is a good loser and I'll show you a man who is playing golf with his boss."

"Our major obligation is not to mistake slogans for solution."

"The only way to reduce the influence of money in politics is to reduce the size and power of government. If Congress had nothing to sell, special interests would have nothing to buy."

"In the absence of any other proof, the thumb would convince me of God's existence."

"This most beautiful system of the sun, planets, and comets, could only proceed from the counsel and dominion of an intelligent Being ... All variety of created objects which represent order and life in the universe could happen only by the willful reasoning of its original Creator, Whom I call the Lord God."

"The government now has license to transfer property from those with fewer resources to those with more. The Founders cannot have intended this perverse result."

"Giving money and power to government is like giving whiskey and car keys to teenage boys."

"If you think health care is expensive now, wait until you see what it costs when it's free!"

"Your money does not cause my poverty. Refusal to believe this is at the bottom of most bad economic thinking."

"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."

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

"He who dares not offend cannot be honest."

"Moderation in temper is always a virtue; but moderation in principle is always a vice."

"Society in every state is a blessing, but government, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil; in its worst state an intolerable one; for when we suffer or are exposed to the same miseries by a government, which we might expect in a country without government, our calamity is heightened by reflecting that we furnish the means by which we suffer."

"Those who expect to reap the blessings of freedom, must, like men, undergo the fatigues of supporting it."

"Faith declares what the senses do not see, but not the contrary of what they see. It is above them, not contrary to them."

"Great danger lies in the notion that we can reason with evil."

"Just because you do not take an interest in politics doesn't mean politics won't take an interest in you."

"It must be felt that there is no national security but in the nation's humble, acknowledged dependence upon God and His overruling providence."

"The dangers of a concentration of all power in the general government of a confederacy so vast as ours are too obvious to be disregarded."

"Everything that deceives can be said to enchant."

"One of the penalties for refusing to participate in politics is that you end up being governed by your inferiors."

"The punishment of wise men who refuse to take part in the government is to live under the government of worse men."

"We can forgive a child who is afraid of the dark; the real tragedy of life is when men are afraid of the light."

"The mind is not a vessel to be filled, but a fire to be kindled."

"America derives its laws from its Constitution. It derives its values from the Bible. We don't get inalienable rights from the Constitution; we get them from God."

"Enough generations of socialist policies have now passed for us to judge their effects. They are bleak. Socialism undermines the character of a nation and of its citizens. In simpler words, socialism makes people worse."

"Nothing more separates Judeo-Christian values from secular values than the question of whether morality - what is good or evil - is absolute or relative."

"Independence is the recognition of the fact that yours is the responsibility of judgment and nothing can help you escape it - that no substitute can do your thinking, as no pinch-hitter can live your life."

"[W]e don't have deficits because people are taxed too little. We have deficits because big government spends too much."

"Freedom is indivisible - there is no 's' on the end of it. You can erode freedom, diminish it, but you cannot divide it and choose to keep 'some freedoms' while giving up others."

"Government does not tax to get the money it needs; government always finds a need for the money it gets."

"Government is like a baby. An alimentary canal with a big appetite at one end and no sense of responsibility at the other."

"Government is not a solution to our problem, government is the problem."

"Government's view of the economy could be summed up in a few short phrases: If it moves, tax it.  If it keeps moving, regulate it.  And if it stops moving, subsidize it."

"How do you tell a Communist? Well, it's someone who reads Marx and Lenin. And how do you tell an anti-Communist? It's someone who understands Marx and Lenin."

"I hope we have once again reminded people that man is not free unless government is limited. There's a clear cause and effect here that is as neat and predictable as a law of physics: as government expands, liberty contracts."

"If history teaches us anything, it teaches that simple-minded appeasement or wishful thinking about our adversaries is folly."

"Liberals fought poverty and poverty won."

"Man is not free unless government is limited.... As government expands, liberty contracts."

"Our natural, inalienable rights are now considered to be a dispensation from government, and freedom has never been so fragile, so close to slipping from our grasp as it is at this moment."

"Republicans believe the best way to assure prosperity is to generate more jobs. The Democrats believe in more welfare."

"The best minds are not in government. If any were, business would hire them away."

"The federal government has taken too much tax money from the people, too much authority from the states, and too much liberty with the Constitution."

"The nine most terrifying words in the English language are, 'I'm from the government and I'm here to help.'"

"The taxpayer; that's someone who works for the federal government, but doesn't have to take a civil service examination."

"There is no limit to what you can accomplish if you don't care who gets the credit."

"Thomas Jefferson once said, 'We should never judge a president by his age, only by his works.' And ever since he told me that, I stopped worrying."

"What is euphemistically called government-corporate 'partnership' is just government coercion, political favoritism, collectivist industrial policy, and old-fashioned federal boondoggles nicely wrapped up in a bright-colored ribbon. It doesn't work."

"You can't be for big government, big taxes, and big bureaucracy and still be for the little guy."

"You know it's said that an economist is the only professional who sees something working in practice and then seriously wonders if it works in theory."

"Clearly, a civilization that feels guilty for everything it is and does will lack the energy and conviction to defend itself."

"A fool and his money are soon elected."

"All I know is just what I read in the Congressional Record. They have had some awful funny articles in there lately. As our government deteriorates, our humor increases."

"I don't make jokes. I just watch the government and report the facts."

"I don't think you can make a lawyer honest by an act of legislature. You've got to work on his conscience. And his lack of conscience is what makes him a lawyer."

"If you ever injected truth into politics, you would have no politics."

"The minute you read something that you can't understand, you can almost be sure it was drawn up by a lawyer."

"The trouble with practical jokes is that very often they get elected."

"They are voting whether to keep a governor two years or four. I think a good, honest governor should get four years, and the others life."

"This country has come to feel the same when Congress is in session as when the baby gets hold of a hammer."

"All that the law can do is to shape things so that no injustice shall be done by one to the other, and that each man shall be given the first chance to show the stuff that is in him."

"Better faithful than famous. Honor before prominence."

"The only man who never makes a mistake is the man who never does anything."

"The things that will destroy America are prosperity-at-any-price, peace-at-any-price, safety-first instead of duty-first, the love of soft living, and the get-rich-quick theory of life."

"When they call the roll in the Senate, the senators do not know whether to answer 'present' or 'guilty'."

"[T]he only foundation for a useful education in a republic is to be laid in religion. Without this there can be no virtue, and without virtue there can be no liberty, and liberty is the object and life of all republican governments."

"Talent hits a target no one else can hit. Genius hits a target no one else can see."

"Real valor consists not in being insensible to danger, but in being prompt to confront and disarm it."

"Most powerful is he who has himself in his own power."

"Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don't matter and those who matter don't mind."

"One may smile and smile and be a villain."

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

"A life spent making mistakes is not only more honorable, but more useful than a life spent doing nothing."

"The work of the individual still remains the spark that moves mankind forward."

"By pursuing his own interest [every individual] frequently promotes that of the society more effectually than when he really intends to promote it. I have never known much good done by those who affected to trade for the public good."

"In politics, throwing the taxpayers' money at disasters is supposed to show your compassion. But robbing Peter to pay Paul is not compassion. It is politics."

"We have been imposed on so often that it is understandable how some would think that we had reached the point where we would stand for anything."

"The ultimate result of shielding men from the effects of folly is to fill the world with fools."

"The most tyrannical of governments are those which make crimes of opinions, for everyone has an inalienable right to his thoughts."

"To know what you prefer instead of humbly saying 'Amen' to what the world tells you you ought to prefer, is to have kept your soul alive."

"The right of the citizens to keep and bear arms has justly been considered as the palladium of the liberties of a republic..."

"Consensus is the negation of leadership."

"The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people's money."

"Any fool can make a rule, and any fool will mind it."

"If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away."

"If I knew that a man was coming to my house with the conscious design of doing me good, I should run for my life."

"Somehow strangely the vice of men gets well represented and protected but their virtue has none to plead its cause - nor any charter of immunities and rights."

"No man's life, liberty or property are safe while the legislature is in session."

"If you don't read the newspaper you are uninformed, if you do read the newspaper you are misinformed."

"In Paris they simply stared when I spoke to them in French; I never did succeed in making those idiots understand their own language."

"Often, the surest way to convey misinformation is to tell the strict truth."

"The only difference between a tax man and a taxidermist is that the taxidermist leaves the skin."

"Whenever you find you are on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect."

"There are many ways to measure success; not the least of which is the way your child describes you when talking to a friend."

"Politics is the art of preventing people from taking part in affairs which properly concern them."

"I am certain that nothing has done so much to destroy the juridical safeguards of individual freedom as the striving after this mirage of social justice."

"To be controlled in our economic pursuits means to be controlled in everything."

"The essential characteristic of Western civilization that distinguishes it from the arrested and petrified civilizations of the East was and is its concern for freedom from the state."

"[T]here is not a man living who wishes more sincerely than I do, to see a plan adopted for the abolition of [slavery]."

"A people ... who are possessed of the spirit of commerce, who see and who will pursue their advantages may achieve almost anything."

"Arbitrary power is most easily established on the ruins of liberty abused to licentiousness."

"Government is not reason, it is not eloquence - it is force. Like fire, it is a dangerous servant and fearful master."

"If we desire to secure peace, one of the most powerful instruments of our rising prosperity, it must be known that we are at all times ready for war."

"It is the duty of all Nations to acknowledge the providence of Almighty God, to obey his will, to be grateful for his benefits, and humbly to implore his protection and favors."

"Knowledge is, in every country, the surest basis of public happiness."

"My anxious recollections, my sympathetic feeling, and my best wishes are irresistibly excited whensoever, in any country, I see an oppressed nation unfurl the banners of freedom."

"No taxes can be devised which are not more or less inconvenient and unpleasant."

"The propitious smiles of Heaven can never be expected on a nation that disregards the eternal rules of order and right, which Heaven itself has ordained."

"'Tis our true policy to steer clear of permanent Alliances, with any portion of the foreign world."

"To be prepared for war is one of the most effectual means of preserving peace."

"To the distinguished character of patriot, it should be our highest glory to add the more distinguished character of Christian."

"Whatever may be conceded to the influence of refined education on minds of peculiar structure, reason and experience both forbid us to expect that National morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle."

"I am not surprised at what George has done, for he was always a good boy."

"The Constitution was made to guard the people against the dangers of good intentions."

"We may be tossed upon an ocean where we can see no land - nor, perhaps, the sun or stars. But there is a chart and a compass for us to study, to consult, and to obey. That chart is the Constitution."

"The real freedom of any individual can always be measured by the amount of responsibility which he must assume for his own welfare and security."

"The great trouble with you Americans is that you are still under the influence of that second -- rate -- shall I say third -- rate?mind, Karl Marx."

"There is nothing more likely to start disagreement among people or countries than an agreement."

"The shallow consider liberty a release from all law, from every constraint. The wise see in it, on the contrary, the potent Law of Laws."

"A cynic is a man who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing."

"Those who try to lead the people can only do so by following the mob."

"Without liberty, law loses its nature and its name, and becomes oppression. Without law, liberty also loses its nature and its name, and becomes licentiousness."

"There is not a single instance in history in which civil liberty was lost, and religious liberty preserved entire. If therefore we yield up our temporal property, we at the same time deliver the conscience into bondage."

"You can stand tall without standing on someone. You can be a victor without having victims."

"Education is not the filling of a pail but the lighting of a fire. Of such is wisdom."