Patriotic Quotes
There are those in our beautiful land who would have us change our Constitution. They take the Constitution and then claim to be experts while quoting it's near sacred words out of context. Of course, the only true way to understand the context of the document, aside from taking literally, which any reasonable person can do, is to see the intent of the authors and signatories of the document. What better way, than to examine the quotes that they made about freedom, life and liberty. Here I will endeavor to do just that.
This document is split into two section. The first section consists of quotes made by patriots, both here and abroad who understood what true freedom and liberty is. The second section is composed of quotes from people, again both here and abroad, who are, or have been, enemies of freedom and liberty. My intent is that by your reading both sections, you will provoked into action and that you will realize that more of our freedoms disappear every day. Together, we can do something to save our nation before it is further dismantled by unscrupulous, power hungry and evil people
Click on the
person's name to go to his quotes
Patriots:
The Constitution / Marcus Tillius / Patrick Henry / Thomas Paine / Thomas Jefferson
George Washington / James Madison / Alexander Hamilton / Benjamin Franklin
John Adams / Samuel Adams / Sir Francis Bacon / Abraham Lincoln / Noah Webster
United States Code / George Mason / Henry David Thoreau / Albert Einstein
Mark Twain / Mahatma Ghandi / Edmund Burke / The Supreme Court / B. Goldwater
Paul Harvey / Winston Churchill / P. J. O'Rourke / R. Lucas / James Earl Jones
Richard Henry Lee / Dresden James / Archbishop Desmond Tutu / Felix Frankfurter
Dr. Walter Williams / Judge Learned Hand / The Liberty Bell / John Ruskin
Herbert Spencer / Charles Caleb Colon / Samuel Butler / John F. Kennedy
Tenche Coxe / Confucius / Alex de Tocqueville / Theodore Roosevelt / Robert Heinlein
Thomas Carlyle / Gen. William Curtis / Milton Friedman / Benjamin Constant
Traitors and Other MalContents:
Henry Kissinger / David Rockefeller / George Bush / Adolph Hitler / Josef Stalin
Sarah Brady / Nikolai Lenin / Nikita Khrushcev / William Jefferson Clinton
"A
well-regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free
State, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not
be infringed."
United States Constitution, Second
Amendment, 1789
"The powers not delegated
to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to
the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the
people."
United States Constitution, Tenth
Amendment
"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 murderer is less to fear."
Marcus Tullius Cicero 42B.C.
"We are not weak, if we make proper use of those means which the God of nature hath placed in our power... The battle, sir, is not to the strong alone; it is to the vigilant, the active, the brave." Patrick Henry
"Guard with jealous
attention the public liberty. Suspect everyone who approaches
that jewel. Unfortunately, nothing will preserve it but downright
force. Whenever you give up that force, you are ruined...The
great object is that every man be armed. Everyone who is able
might have a gun.
Patrick Henry
"Tyranny,
like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation
with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the
triumph."
Thomas Paine
"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."
Thomas Paine
"A long habit of not
thinking a thing wrong, gives it a superficial appearance of
being right."
Thomas Paine
"We are not moved by the
gloomy smile of a worthless king, but by the ardent glow of
generous patriotism. We fight not to enslave, but to set a
country free, and to make room upon the earth for honest men to
live in. In such a case we are sure that we are right; and we
leave to you the despairing reflection of being the tool of a
miserable tyrant."
Thomas Paine
"..the
spirit of the times may alter, will alter. Our rulers will become
corrupt, our people careless. A single zealot may commence
persecutor, and better men be his victims. It can never be too
often repeated, that the time for fixing every essential right on
a legal basis is while our rulers are honest, and ourselves
united. For the conclusion of this war [for Independence] we
shall be going down hill. It will not then be necessary to resort
every moment to the people for support. They will be forgotten,
therefore, and their rights disregarded. They will forget
themselves, but in the sole faculty of making money, and will
never think of uniting to effect a due respect for their rights.
The shackles, therefore, which shall not be knocked off at the
conclusion of this war, will remain on us long, will be made
heavier and heavier, till our rights shall revive or expire in a
convulsion."
Thomas Jefferson, Notes on Virginia,
1791
"If we run into such
[government] debts, as that we must be taxed in our meat and in
our drink, in our necessaries and our comforts, in our labors and
our amusements, for our callings and our creeds, as the people of
England are, our people, like them, must come to labor sixteen
hours in twenty-four, give the earnings of fifteen of these to
the government for their debts and daily expenses, and the
sixteenth being insufficient to afford us bread, we must live, as
they now do, on oatmeal and potatoes, have no time to think, no
means of calling the mismanagers to account; but be glad to
obtain subsistence by hiring ourselves to rivet their chains on
the necks of our fellow-suffers."
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?"
Thomas Jefferson
"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 tyrant's will,
and always so when it violates the rights of the
individual."
Thomas Jefferson
"It is strangely absurd to
suppose that a million human beings collected together are not
under the same moral laws which bind each of them
separately."
Thomas Jefferson
"The strongest reason for
people to retain the right to keep and bear arms is, as a last
resort, to protect themsleves against tyranny in
government."
Thomas Jefferson
"No man will ever bring
out of the Presidency the reputation which carried him into
it."
Thomas Jefferson
"I swear upon the altar of
God, eternal hostility to every form of tyranny over the mind of
man."
Thomas Jefferson
"If the American people
ever allow private banks to control the issue of their money,
first by inflation and then by deflation, the banks and
corporations that will grow up around [the banks], will deprive
the people of their property until their children will wake up
homeless on the continent their fathers conquered."
Thomas Jefferson
"[The] governor [is] constitutionally the commander of the militia of the State, that is to say, of every man in it able to bear arms." Thomas Jefferson to A. L. C. Destutt de Tracy, 1811
"Laws that forbid the
carrying of arms...disarm only those who are neither inclined nor
determined to commit crimes...Such laws make things worse for the
assaulted and better for the assailants; they serve rather to
encourage than to prevent homicides, for an unarmed man may be
attacked with greater confidence than an armed man."
Thomas Jefferson
"Experience hath shewn,
that even under the best forms [of government] those entrusted
with power have, in time, and by slow operations, perverted it
into tyranny."
Thomas Jefferson
"The legitimate powers of
government extend to such acts only as they are injurious to
others."
Thomas Jefferson
"To compel a man to subsidize with his taxes the propagation of ideas which he disbelieves and abhors is sinful and tyrannical." Thomas Jefferson
"The beauty of the second
amendment is that it will not be needed until they try to take
it."
Thomas Jefferson
"Timid men prefer the calm
of despotism to the tempestuous sea of liberty."
Thomas Jefferson
"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."
Thomas Jefferson
"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."
Thomas Jefferson
"Does the government fear
us? Or do we fear the government? When the people fear the
government, tyranny has found victory. The federal government is
our servant, not our master!"
Thomas Jefferson
"The course of history
shows that as a government grows, liberty decreases.
Thomas Jefferson
"We hold these truths to
be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are
endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that
among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."
Thomas Jefferson, The Declaration of
Independence
"The democracy will cease to exist when you take away from those who are willing to work and give to those who would not." Thomas Jefferson
"If a nation expects to be
ignorant and free...it expects what never was and never will
be."
Thomas Jefferson
"The true foundation of
republican government is the equal right of every citizen in his
person and property and in their management."
Thomas Jefferson
"Nothing... is
unchangeable but the inherent and unalienable rights of
man."
Thomas Jefferson
"I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too much liberty than to those attending too small a degree of it." Thomas Jefferson
"The freedom and happiness
of man... are the sole objects of all legitimate
government."
Thomas Jefferson
"Our liberty cannot be
guarded but by the freedom of the press, nor that be limited
without danger of losing it."
Thomas Jefferson
"None but an armed nation
can dispense with a standing army. To keep ours armed and
disciplined is therefore at all times important."
Thomas Jefferson
"...the tree of liberty
must from time to time be refreshed with the blood of tyrants and
patriots"
Thomas Jefferson
"The constitutions of most
of our States assert that all power is inherent in the people;
that... it is their right and duty to be at all times
armed."
Thomas Jefferson to John Cartwright,
1824.
"No freeman shall be
debarred the use of arms (within his own lands or
tenements)."
Thomas Jefferson: Draft Virginia
Constitution with his note added, 1776. Papers, 1:353
"We must make our election
between economy and liberty, or profusion and servitude."
Thomas Jefferson to Samuel Kercheval,
1816.
"I am not a friend to a
very energetic government. It is always oppressive."
Thomas Jefferson to James Madison, 1787.
"The
very atmosphere of firearms anywhere and everywhere restrains
evil interference - they deserve a place of honor with all that's
good"
George Washington
"Firearms are second only
to the Constitution in importance; they are the peoples'
liberty's teeth."
George Washington
"How soon we forget
history..."Government is not reason. Government is not
eloquence. It is force. And, like fire, it is a dangerous servant
and a fearful master."
George Washington
"Do
not separate text from historical background. If you do, you will
have perverted and subverted the Constitution, which can only end
in a distorted, bastardized form of illegitimate
government."
James Madison
"Americans [have] the
right and advantage of being armed, unlike citizens of other
countries whose governments are afraid to trust people with
arms."
James Madison
"The
best we can hope for concerning the people at large is that they
be properly armed."
Alexander Hamilton
"They
that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary
safety deserve neither liberty nor safety...."
Benjamin Franklin
"In transactions of trade
it is not to be supposed that, as in gaming, what one party gains
the other must necessarily lose. The gain to each may be equal.
If A has more corn than he can consume, but wants cattle; and B
has more cattle, but wants corn; exchange is gain to each;
thereby the common stock of comforts in life is increased."
Benjamin Franklin
"Remember,
democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders
itself. There never was a democracy yet that did not commit
suicide."
John Adams
"Rights come from GOD not
the state. You have rights antecedent to any earthly governments
rights that can not be repealed or restrained by human laws.
Rights derived from the great legislator: God."
John Adams
"If
ye love wealth greater than liberty, the tranquility of
servitude greater than the animating contest for freedom, go home
from us in peace. We seek not your counsel, nor your arms. Crouch
down and lick the hand that feeds you; May your chains set
lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that ye were our
countrymen."
Samuel Adams
"The Constitution shall
never be construed to authorize Congress to prevent the people of
the United States, who are peaceable citizens, from keeping their
own arms."
Samuel Adams
"Nay,
the number of armies importeth not much, where the people is of
weak courage; for as Virgil saith, "It never troubles the
wolf how many the sheep be."
Sir Francis Bacon, Essays, 1625.
"If
there is anything which it is the duty of the whole people to
never entrust to any hands but their own - that thing is the
preservation of their own liberties and institutions."
Abraham Lincoln
"You cannot bring about
prosperity by discouraging thrift. You cannot strengthen the weak
by weakening the strong. You cannot help the wage earner by
pulling down the wage payer. You cannot further the brotherhood
of many by encouraging class hatred. You cannot help the poor by
destroying the rich. You cannot keep out of trouble by spending
more than you earn. You cannot build character and courage by
taking away man's initiative and independence. You cannot help
men permanently by doing for them what they could and should do
for themselves."
Abraham Lincoln
"Before
a standing army can rule, the people must be disarmed; as they
are in almost every kingdom of Europe. the supreme power in
America cannot enforce unjust laws by the sword; because the
whole body of the people are armed, and constitute a force
superior to any bands of regular troops that can be, on any
pretense, raised in the United States."
Noah Webster
"The
militia of the United States consists of all able-bodied males at
least 17 years of age..."
Title 10, Section 311 of the U.S. Code.
"To
disarm the people (is) the best and most effectual way to enslave
them..."
George Mason
"I ask, sir, what is the
militia? It is the whole people, except for a few public
officials."
George Mason
"There
will never be a really free and enlightened State until the State
comes to recognize the individual as a higher and independent
power, from which all its own power and authority are derived,
and treats him accordingly."
Henry David Thoreau
"Anyone in a free society
where the laws are unjust has an obligation to break the
law."
Henry David Thoreau
"The
strength of the Constitution lies entirely in the determination
of each citizen to defend it. Only if every single citizen feels
duty bound to do his share in this defense are the constitutional
rights secure."
Albert Einstein
"I know not with what
weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be
fought with sticks and stones."
Albert Einstein
"Great spirits have always
encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds."
Albert Einstein
"In
the beginning of a change, the Patriot is a scarce man, Brave,
Hated, and Scorned. When his cause succeeds however, the timid
join him, For then it costs nothing to be a Patriot."
Mark Twain
"Among
the many misdeeds of the British rule in India, history will look
upon the act of depriving a whole nation of arms, as the
blackest."
Mahatma Ghandi
"A
government big enough to give you everything you want is big
enough to take everything you have."
Barry Goldwater
"The
only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to
do nothing."
Edmund Burke (1729-1797)
"It
is not the function of the government to keep the citizen from
falling into error; it is the function of the citizen to keep the
government from falling into error."
U.S. Supreme Court Justice Robert H.
Parker, Chief Prosecutor for the United States of America at the
Nurnberg Trials
"If 'pro' is the opposite of 'con' what is the opposite of 'progress'?" Paul Harvey
"Some
regard private enterprise as if it were a predatory tiger to be
shot. Others look upon it as a cow that they can milk. Only a
handful see it for what it really is--the strong horse that pulls
the whole cart."
Winston Churchill
"You
can't get rid of poverty by giving people money."
P.J. O'Rourke
"The militia is the dread of tyrants and the guard of freemen." Gov. R. Lucas, former Major General of the Ohio Militia, 1832
"The
world is filled with violence. Because criminals carry guns, we
decent law-abiding citizens should also have guns. Otherwise they
will win and the decent people will loose."
James Earl Jones
"To
preserve liberty it is essential that the whole body of the
people always possess arms and be taught alike, especially when
young, how to use them..."
Richard Henry Lee
"A militia, when properly
formed, are in fact the people themselves...and include all men
capable of bearing arms."
Richard Henry Lee
"The
ideal tyranny is that which is ignorantly self-administered by
its victims. The most perfect slaves are, therefore, those which
blissfully and unawaredly enslave themselves."
Dresden James
"Freedom
and liberty lose out by default because good people are not
vigilant."
Archbishop Desmond Tutu
"Freedom
of the press is not an end in itself but a means...to a free
society."
Felix Frankfurter
"...they who do not learn from History are DOOMED to repeat it."
"When
you read in the newspaper that the government has taken Walter
Williams' guns, then you will know that Walter Williams is
dead."
Dr. Walter Williams , George Mason
University Economics Dept.
"It is both possible and
moral, to love one's country and hate its government."
Dr. Walter Williams , George Mason
University Economics Dept.
"Liberty
lies in the hearts of men and women; when it dies there, no
constitution, no law, no court can save it."
Judge Learned Hand
Inscribed on our Hallowed LIBERTY BELL are these words: "Proclaim Liberty throughout all the land unto all the inhabitants thereof. We Paid the Price ONCE!"
Without
seeking, truth cannot be know at all. It can neither be declared
from pulpits, nor set down in articles, nor in any wise prepared
and sold in packages ready for use, Truth must be ground for
every man by itself out of its husk, with such help as he can
get, indeed, but not without stern labor of his own.
John Ruskin
"Without seeking, truth
cannot be known at all. It can neither be declared from pulpits,
nor set down in articles, nor in any wise prepared and sold in
packages ready for use. Truth must be ground for every man by
itself out of it such, with such help as he can get, indeed, but
not without stern labor of his own."
John Ruskin
"The
liberty which a citizen employs is to be measured, not by the
nature of the governmental machinery he lives under, whether
representative or other, but by the relative paucity of the
restraints it imposes on him; and that, whether this machinery is
or is not one he shared in making, its actions are not of the
kind proper to Liberalism if they increase such restraints beyond
those which are needful for preventing him from directly or
indirectly aggressing on his fellows---needful, that is, for
maintaining the liberties of his fellows against his invasions of
them; restraints which are, therefore, to be distinguished as
negatively coercive, nor positively coercive...."
Herbert Spencer
The liberty which a citizen
employs is to be measured, not by the nature of the governmental
machinery he lives under, whether representative or other, but by
the relative paucity of the restraints it imposes on him; and
that, whether this machinery is or is not one he shared in
making, its actions are not of the kind proper to Liberalism if
they increase such restraints beyond those which ar needful for
preventing him from directly or indirectly aggressing on his
fellows---needful, that is, for maintaining the liberties of his
fellows against his invasions of them: restraints which are,
therefore, to be distinguished as negatively coercive, not
positively coercive.....
Herbert Spencer
"He
that is good, will infallibly become better, and he that is bad,
will as certainly become worse; for vice, virtue and time are
three things that never stand still."
Charles Caleb Colon
"The
reasonable man adapts himself to the world, but the unreasonable
man tries to adapt to the world to him--therefore, all progress
depends upon the unreasonable man."
Samuel Butler
"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."
John F. Kennedy
"Who
are the militia? Are they not ourselves? Is it feared, then, that
we shall turn our arms each man against his own bosom? Congress
have no power to disarm the militia. Their swords, and every
other terrible implement of the soldier, are the birthright of an
American. The unlimited power of the sword, is not in the hands
of either the federal or state government, but, where I trust in
God it will ever remain, in the hands of the people."
Tench Coxe 1788
"There
are many men of principle in both parties in America, but there
is no party of principle."
Alexis de Tocqueville
Americans are so enamored of
equality they would rather be equal in slavery than unequal in
freedom.
Alexis de Tocqueville
"America is great because
America is good. When America ceases to be good, America will
cease to be great."
Alexis de Tocqueville
"Patriotism
means to stand by the country. It does NOT mean to stand by the
President or any other public official save exactly to the degree
in which he himself stands by the country. It is patriotic to
support him insofar as he efficiently serves the country. It is
unpatriotic not to oppose him to the exact extent that by
inefficiency or otherwise he fails in his duty to stand by the
country."
Theodore Roosevelt
"In
a country well governed, poverty is something to be ashamed of.
In a country badly governed, wealth is something to be ashamed
of."
Confucius
"An
armed society is a polite society."
Robert A. Heinlein
"Popular
opinion is the greatest lie in the world."
Thomas Carlyle
"A
man's country is not a certain area of land, of mountains, rives
and woods, but it is a principle; and patriotism is loyalty to
that principle."
General William Curtis
"There
are severe limits to the good that the government can do for the
economy, but there are almost no limits to the harm it can
do."
Milton Friedman. Nobel laureate
"Ever
time government attempts to handle our affairs, it costs more and
the results are worse than if we had handled them
ourselves."
Benjamin Constant, Brazilian statesman
1833-1891
"Five
percent of the people think; ten percent of the people think they
think; and the other eighty-five percent would rather die than
think."
Thomas Edison
Quotes By Infamous People
"Today
Americans would be outraged if U.N. troops entered Los Angeles to
restore order; tomorrow they will be grateful! This is especially
true if they were told there was an outside threat from beyond,
whether real or promulgated, that threatened our very existence.
It is then that all peoples of the world will pledge with world
leaders to deliver them from this evil. The one thing every man
fears is the unknown. When presented with this scenarios,
individual rights will be willingly relinquished for the
guarantee of their well being granted to them by their world
government."
Henry Kissinger in an address to the
Bilderberg organization meeting at Evian, France, May 21, 1992.
Transcribed from a tape recording made by one of the Swiss
delegates.
"We
are grateful to the Washington Post, the New York Times, Time
Magazine and other great publications whose directors have
attended our meetings and respected their promises of discretion
for almost forty years." He went on to explain: "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 more sophisticated and prepared to
march towards a world government. The supernational sovereignty
of an intellectual elite and world bankers is surely preferable
to the national autodetermination practiced in past
centuries."
David Rockefeller speaking at the June
1991 Bilderberger meeting in Baden Baden, Germany (a meeting also
attended by then Governor Bill Clinton and Dan Quayle).
"It is
the sacred principles enshrined in the UN Charter to which we
will henceforth pledge our allegiance."
George H.W.Bush addressing the world leaders
at the UN.
"This year will go down in history. For the first time, a civilized nation has full gun registration! Our streets will be safer, our police more efficient, and the world will follow our lead into the future!" Adolph Hitler (1889-1945), April 15, 1935
"... History shows that
all conquerors who have allowed their subjected peoples to carry
arms have prepared their own fall."
Adolf Hitler, Edict of 18 March 1939
"The
United States should get rid of its militias."
Josef Stalin, 1933
"Our
task of creating a socialist America can only succeed when those
who would resist us have been totally disarmed."
Sarah Brady to Howard Metzenbaum, 1984
"The
best way to destroy the capitalist system is to debase the
currency."
Nikolai Lenin
"Politicians
are the same all over. They promise to build a bridge even when
there is no river."
Nikita Khrushcev
"I'm a politician,
and when I'm not out kissing babies, I thinking of ways to steal
their lollypops."
American Politician in the movie
"The Hunt for Red October"
"The
purpose of government is to rein in the rights of the
people"
William Jefferson
Clinton; during an interview on MTV in 1993 Note:
Finally, we get a politician to admit it!
"You know the one thing
that's wrong with this country? Everyone gets a chance to have
their fair say."
Bill Clinton, May 29,
1993, The White House
Note:
Didn't this guy swear to protect and defend the Constitution?
"I can tell you that the
decisions we made, we made because we thought they were in the
interests of the American people,"
Bill Clinton, on being
asked why he signed waivers, against the Pentagon's protest, to
sell Loral missile guidance systems technology to Communist
China, enabling China for the first time to launch nuclear
weapons. (May 18, 1998 edition of the Washington Times, front
page)
Note:
When will this traitor learn that the American People and the
Democratic Party are two different things?
"There are a lot of very
brilliant people who believe that the nation-state is fast
becoming a relic of the past,"
President Clinton, New
York Times, November 25, 1997
Note:
And these same brilliant people would like to take away your
freedom and enslave you in a one world government!
"We can't be so fixated on
our desire to preserve the rights of ordinary Americans . . .
."
William J. Clinton, USA
Today, March 11, 1993
Note: No, he
has to be fixated on destroying our individual rights.
When we got organized as a
country and we wrote a fairly radical Constitution with a radical
Bill of Rights, giving a radical amount of individual freedom to
Americans, it was assumed that the Americans who had that freedom
would use it responsibly.... [However, now] there's a lot of
irresponsibility. And so a lot of people say there's too much
freedom. When personal
freedom's being abused, you have to move to limit it.
President Bill Clinton,
3-22-94, MTV's "Enough is Enough"
Note:
Finally, he admits his real motives. I'll bet that only 1 out of
10,000 MTV viewers really understood what he said.
"African-Americans watch
the same news at night that ordinary Americans do."
President Clinton on
Black Entertainment Television, November 2, 1994
Note: If
I were an African American Person, I would be greatly insulted.
Personally, I thought that all Americans were ordinary Americans.