A few from my collection......some may be repeats
"In Germany they first came for the Communists, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Communist. Then they came for the Jews, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Jew. Then they came for the trade unionists, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a trade unionist. Then they came for the Catholics, and I didn't speak up because I was Protestant. Then they came for me - and by that time no one was left to speak up."
-Pastor Martin Nimoller
"The tradition of dead generations weighs like a nightmare on the brain of the living."
-Karl Marx
The more people are dependent upon the government, the more controlled they are."
— United States Secretary of State Madeline Albright, 20 Mar 1998
"I think we have more machinery of government than is necessary, too many parasites living on the labor of the industrious."
—Thomas Jefferson Letter to William Ludlow, 1824
"Liberty means responsibility. That is why most men dread it."
— George Bernard Shaw, Maxims for Revolutions, 1903
"What luck for rulers, that men do not think."
—Adolf Hitler
"The watchword of the left in those days [1960's & 1970's] was 'Never trust the government.' Now, of course, the left IS the government, and the new watchword is 'Never mind.'"
—C. D. Tavares, 1997
"Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."
—Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790), reply of the Pennsylvania Assembly to the governor, November 11, 1755
"He that hath no sword, let him sell his garment and buy one."
—Jesus Christ Luke 22 :36
"...quemadmodum gladius neminem occidit, occidentis telum est."
[...a sword never kills anybody; it's a tool in the killer's hand.]
—(Lucius Annaeus) Seneca "the Younger" (ca. 4 BC-65 AD),
Ad Lucilium Epistulae Morales,
[Letters to Lucilius on Morals,]
Letter 87, c.63-65 AD
"I declare to you that woman must not depend upon the protection of man, but must be taught to protect herself, and there I take my stand."
—Susan B. Anthony (1820-1906), speech in San Franscisco, July 1871
"Americans have the will to resist because you have weapons. If you don't have a gun, freedom of speech has no power."
—Yoshimi Ishikawa, Japanese author, in the Los Angeles Times, October 15, 1992.
You may have to fight when there is no chance of victory, because it is better to perish than to live as slaves."
—Winston Churchill
"Contemplate the mangled bodies of your countrymen, and then say,
'What should be the reward of such sacrifices?' Bid us and our
posterity bow the knee, supplicate the friendship, and plough, and
sow, and reap, to glut the avarice of the men who have let loose on us
the dogs of war to riot in our blood and hunt us from the face of the
earth? If ye love wealth better than liberty, the tranquility of
servitude than the animating contest of freedom, go from us in peace.
We ask not your counsels or arms. Crouch down and lick the hands which
feed you. May your chains sit lightly upon you, and may posterity
forget that ye were our countrymen!" --Samuel 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 only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to stand by and do nothing." --Edmund Burke
"Whenever books are burned, men also in the end are burned." --Heinrich Heine
"Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it with religious conviction." --Blaise Pascal
"A friend is someone who will help you move. A GOOD friend is someone who will help you move a body." --unknown
"You may never know what results come from your action.
But if you do nothing, there will be no result." ~ Gandhi
"Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it's the only thing that ever does." ~ Margaret Mead
The most potent weapon in the hands of the oppressor is the mind of the oppressed.
Steve Biko
There will come a time when our silence will be louder than the voices you strangle today.
Albert Spies
Don't go around saying the world owes you a living. The world owes you nothing. It was here first. -- Mark Twain
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
There are two major products that come out of Berkeley: LSD and UNIX. We don't believe this to be a coincidence. -- Jeremy S. Anderson
The definition of diplomacy is saying 'Nice doggie, nice doggie' until you can find a stick. -- Will Rodgers
The victor will always judge the defeated, and always find him guilty. -- Goering, during the Nuremberg Trials
``The great masses of the people . . . will more easily fall victims to a big lie than to a small one.'' [Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf [1933]]
``Government is like a baby. An alimentary canal with a big appetite at one end and no sense of responsibility at the other.'' [Ronald Reagan]
"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."
Cicero, 63 BC
"One of the penalties for refusing to participate in politics is that you end up being governed by your inferiors."
Plato
"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 Austin Beard, historian
"We have rights, as individuals, to give as much of our own money as we please to charity; but as members of Congress we have no right so to appropriate a dollar of public money."
David Crockett, Congressman 1827-35
"Our schools have been scientifically designed to prevent overeducation from happening. The average American (should be) content with their humble role in life, because they're not tempted to think about any other role."
U.S. Commissioner of Education, William T. Harris, 1889
"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 inevitably ruined."
"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!"
Patrick Henry
"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
"Those who do not learn from the mistakes of history are doomed to repeat them."
George Santayana
"There are more instances of the abridgement of the freedom of the people by the gradual and silent encroachment of those in power, than by violent and sudden usurpation."
James Madison
"Ideas are more powerful than guns. We would not let our enemies have guns, why should we let them have ideas."
Joseph Stalin
"Germans who wish to use firearms should join the SS or the SA - ordinary citizens don't need guns, as their having guns doesn't serve the State."
Heinrich Himmler
Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man's character, give him power.
-- Abraham Lincoln
When we are planning for posterity, we ought to remember that virtue is not hereditary.
-- Thomas Paine
"Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter."
-Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
"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."
Adolf Hitler, 1935
''Our task of creating a socialist America can only succeed when those who would resist us have been totally disarmed."
Sarah Brady, Chair Handgun Control, Inc.
"I think you should defend to the death their right to march, and then go down and meet them with baseball bats."
Woody Allen, on the KKK
"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, quoting Cesare Beccaria
"A fear of weapons is a sign of retarded sexual and emotional maturity."
Sigmund Freud, General Introduction to Psychoanlysis (1952)
More formidable is an army of deer, led by a lion, than an army of lions, led by a deer.
Rev. Bob Thieme
"We don't inherit the world from our parents, we borrow it from our children."
Sioux Indians
"If you're standing upright, don't worry if your shadow is crooked."
Chinese proverb
"... to the last I grapple with thee; from hell's heart I stab at thee; for hate's sake I spit my last breath at thee."
Captain Ahab - Moby Dick by Herman Melville
"If you teach someone what to think, you make them a slave to your knowledge -- if you teach someone how to think, you make all knowledge their slave."
"One ship drives east and the other drives west
With the selfsame winds that blow.
`Tis the set of the sails and not the gales
Which tells the way to go."
Ella Wheeler Wilcox - "Winds of Fate"
"Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work."
Thomas Edison
"It is better to die on your feet than live on your knees."
Dolores Isárruri
"If you have made mistakes ... there is always another chance for you ... you may have a fresh start any moment you choose, for this thing we call 'failure' is not the falling down, but the staying down."
Mary Pickford
"Moses dragged us for 40 years through the desert to bring us to the one place in the Middle East where there was no oil."
Golda Meir
"The road to Auschwitz was built by hate but paved by indifference."
Professor Aron Rodrigue
"We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit."
Aristotle
"When the first baby laughed for the first time, the laugh broke into a thousand pieces and they all went skipping about, and that was the beginning of fairies."
James Matthew Barrie
"Never fear shadows. They simply mean there's a light shining somewhere nearby."
Ruth Renkel
"It is forbidden to kill; therefore all murderers are punished unless they kill in large numbers and to the sound of trumpets."
Voltaire
It is foolish and wrong to mourn the men who died. Rather we should thank God that such men lived."
George S. Patton, Jr.
"In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends."
Martin Luther King, Jr.
"Dream as if you'll live forever, live as if you'll die today."
James Dean
"A person will be called to account on Judgement Day for every permissible thing he might have enjoyed but didn't."
Talmud
"A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an
invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write
a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort
the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone,
solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program
a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die
gallantly. Specialization is for insects."
Robert Heinlein
"In the end they will lay their freedom at our feet and say to us,
'Make us your slaves, but feed us.'" Dostoevsky
Len in PHoenix
