Notable Quotes

"We will have to repent in this generation not merely for the hateful words and actions of the bad people but for the appalling silence of the good people."

—Martin Luther King, Jr.

"A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves money from the public treasure. From that moment on the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most money from the public treasury, with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy followed by a dictatorship. The average age of the world's great civilizations has been two hundred years.

—Alexander Tyler

"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."

—Benjamin Franklin

"Government is not reason, it is not eloquence, it is force; like fire, a troublesome servant and a fearful master."

—George Washington

"My definition of a free society is a society where it is safe to be unpopular."

—Adlai E. Stevenson Jr.

"The First Amendment is often inconvenient. But that is besides the point. Inconvenience does not absolve the government of its obligation to tolerate speech."

—Justice Anthony Kennedy

"Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the peacemakers for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country."

—Hermann Goering

"If you want to be free, there is but one way; it is to guarantee an equally full measure of liberty to all your neighbors. There is no other."

—Carl Schurz

"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 their struggle for independence."

—Charles A. Beard

"First they came for the Communists, but I was not a Communist so I did not speak out. Then they came for the Socialists and the Trade Unionists, but I was neither, so I did not speak out. Then they came for the Jews, but I was not a Jew so I did not speak out. And when they came for me, there was no one left to speak out for me."

—Martin Niemoeller, Editor and concentration camp survivor

"Few of us can easily surrender our belief that society must somehow make sense. The thought that the state has lost its mind is intolerable, and so the evidence has to be internally denied."

—Arthur Miller