Quotes to Live By

“The Price of Liberty is Eternal Vigilance.” – Thomas Jefferson

“The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.” – Edmund Burke

“They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.” – Benjamin Franklin

“There is no safety for honest men except by believing all possible evil of evil men.” – Edmund Burke

“It is weakness rather than wickedness which renders men unfit to be trusted with unlimited power.” – John Adams

“Those who have been once intoxicated with power and have derived any kind of emolument from it can never willingly abandon it.” – Edmund Burke

“Freedom is never an achieved state; like electricity, we’ve got to keep generating it or the lights go out.” – Wayne LaPierre

“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; and may posterity forget that ye were our countrymen.” – Samuel Adams

“The greatest tyrannies are always perpetrated in the name of the noblest causes.” – Thomas Paine

“Voting is no substitute for the eternal vigilance that every friend of freedom must demonstrate towards government. If our freedom is to survive, Americans must become far better informed of the dangers from Washington — regardless of who wins the Presidency.” – James Bovard

“If we become a people who are willing to give up our money and our freedom in exchange for rhetoric and promises, then nothing can save us.” – Thomas Sowell

“If a nation values anything more than freedom, it will lose its freedom; and the irony of it is that if it is comfort or money that it values more, it will lose that too.” – William Somerset Maugham

“The trade-off between freedom and security, so often proposed so seductively, very often leads to the loss of both.” – Christopher Hitchens

“A people that values its privileges above its principles soon loses both.” – Dwight D. Eisenhower

“No man is entitled to the blessings of freedom unless he be vigilant in its preservation.” – General Douglas MacArthur

“In the beginning of a change the patriot is a scarce man, and brave, and hated and scorned. When his cause succeeds, the timid join him, for then it costs nothing to be a patriot.” – Mark Twain

“History does not long entrust the care of freedom to the weak or the timid.” – Dwight D. Eisenhower

“The future doesn’t belong to the faint-hearted. It belongs to the brave.” – Ronald Reagan

“The land of the free will cease to be when it’s no longer the home of the brave.” – Rick Gaber

“Against us are… all timid men who prefer the calm of despotism to the boisterous sea of liberty… We are likely to preserve the liberty we have obtained only by unremitting labors and perils.” – Thomas Jefferson

“The Romans used to say that courage is not the only virtue, but it’s the only one that makes the other virtues possible.” – Benjamin Netanyahu

“The secret of happiness is freedom. And the secret of freedom is courage.” – Thucydides

“One man with courage makes a majority.” – Andrew Jackson

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

“For those looking for security, be forewarned that there’s nothing more insecure than a political promise.” – Harry Browne

“Liberty without learning is always in peril and learning without liberty is always in vain.” – John F. Kennedy

“If a nation expects to be ignorant and free … it expects what never was and never will be.” – Thomas Jefferson

“The greatest threat to mankind and civilization is the spread of the totalitarian philosophy. Its best ally is not the devotion of its followers but the confusion of its enemies. To fight it, we must understand it.” – Ayn Rand

“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.” – James Madison

“The ignorance of one voter in a democracy impairs the security of all.” – John F. Kennedy

“The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. … God forbid we should ever be twenty years without such a rebellion; what country can preserve its liberties if their rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms.” – Thomas Jefferson

“War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things. The decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling that thinks that nothing is worth war is much worse. The person who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself.” – John Stuart Mill

“It is not the critic who counts, not the man who points out how the strong man stumbled, or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena; whose face is marred by the dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs and comes short again and again; who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions and spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best, knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who, at worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly; so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory or defeat.” – Theodore Roosevelt

“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.” – Theodore Roosevelt

“Personal responsibility is the price of liberty.” – Michael Cloud

“A free society cannot work unless people take charge of their lives and assume responsibility for their actions.” – Jim Powell

“A patriot must always be ready to defend his country against his government.” – Edward Abbey

“The hottest places in hell are reserved for those who, in a time of moral crisis, maintain their neutrality.” – Dante Alighieri