You need only reflect that 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 struggle for independence.
—CHARLES A. BEARD

Throughout history, poverty is the normal condition of man. Advances which permit this norm to be exceeded–here and there, now and then–are the work of an extremely small minority, frequently despised, often condemned, and almost always opposed by all right-thinking people. Whenever this tiny minority is kept from creating, or (as sometimes happens) is driven out of a society, the people then slip back into abject poverty. This is known as “bad luck.”  —Robert Heinlein

“No matter how brilliant a man may be, he will never engender confidence in his subordinates and associates if he lacks simple honesty and moral courage.”
-GEN J. Lawton Collins, Chief of Staff of the Army 1949-1953

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

“I always consider the settlement of America with reverence and wonder, as the opening of a grand scene and design in providence, for the illumination of the ignorant and the emancipation of the slavish part of mankind all over the earth.” – John Adams

“Let us contemplate our forefathers, and posterity, and resolve to maintain the rights bequeathed to us from the former, for the sake of the latter. The necessity of the times, more than ever, calls for our utmost circumspection, deliberation, fortitude, and perseverance. Let us remember that `if we suffer tamely a lawless attack upon our liberty, we encourage it, and involve others in our doom.’ It is a very serious consideration-that millions yet unborn may be the miserable sharers of the event.”
–Samuel Adams, 1771

“Who are the militia? Are they not ourselves? 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 governments, but, where I trust in God it will ever remain, in the hands of the people.”
— Tench Coxe in The Pennsylvania Gazette, Feb. 20, 1788

Give a man a fish and he eats for a day. Teach a man about socialism and he eats his neighbors fish for ever, while envying his neighbor for catching fish successfully and regulating his neighbor so he can’t catch as many fish for both of them. – Alice Smith

Every moment of peace mankind has ever known was bought with blood. This is not Heaven, it’s Earth. And it’s built specifically for trial and tribulation. Peace demands its protectors. Forget that, and the wolves return. – ‘Infantry Dort’.