“I hope we shall crush in its birth the aristocracy of moneyed corporations, which dare already challenge our government to a trial of strength and bid defiance to the laws of our country.”
-Thomas Jefferson

“To sin by silence when they should protest makes cowards of men.”
-Abraham Lincoln

“The truth is that liberty is not safe if the people tolerate the growth of private power to the point where it becomes stronger than that of their democratic state itself. That, in essence, is Fascism.”
-Franklin D. Roosevelt

“In the councils of Government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the Military Industrial Complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists, and will persist. We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals so that security and liberty may prosper together.”
-Dwight D. Eisenhower

“A popular government, without popular information, or the means of acquiring it, is but a prologue to a farce or tragedy or both.”
-James Madison

“To announce that there must be no criticism of the President, or that we are to stand by the President, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public. Nothing but the truth should be spoken about him or any one else. But it is even more important to tell the truth, pleasant or unpleasant, about him than about any one else.”
-Theodore Roosevelt

“The two enemies of the people are criminals and government, so let us tie the second down with the chains of the Constitution so the second will not become the legalized version of the first.”
-Thomas Jefferson

“The only way to win World War III is to prevent it.”
-Dwight D. Eisenhower

“The issue today is the same as it has been throughout all history, whether man shall be allowed to govern himself or be ruled by a small elite.”
-Thomas Jefferson

“Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a mans character, give him power.” -Abraham Lincoln

Other Quotes

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

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

“We must make the rescue of the environment the central organizing principle for civilization.”
-Al Gore

“Like presidents before him, Bush cannot even seem to envision a policy that leads to energy independence…without it, our children and grand-children are likely to see wars of incomprehensible destruction…Why not give research a chance?”
-Michael A. Fox (R-OH)

“We are no longer inheriting the Earth from our parents, we are stealing it from our children.”
-David Brower

“Our current generation is committing treason agains future generations by destroying our global environment.”
-Norman Cousins

“No problem can be solved from the same consciousness that created it.”
-Albert Einstein

“The resistance to a new idea increases as the square of its importance.”
-Bertrand Russell

“If you expect to see the final results of your work, you simply have not asked a big enough question.”
-I.F. Stone

“Non co-operation with evil is as much a duty as co-operation with good.”
-Mahatma Gandhi

“Two critical issues are literally a matter of survival: nuclear war and environmental disaster…the U.S. is acting in ways that enhance these threats (because of) a growing democratic deficit, the gap between public will and public policy.”
-Noam Chomsky

“Climate change is the most severe problem that we are facing today—more serious even than the threat of terrorism.”
-Sir David King, chief scientist (UK)

“Waiting 80 years to eliminate greenhouse-gas emissions would guarantee runaway global warming.”
-James Hansen, NASA scientist

“”The Earth provides for every mans need but not every mans greed.”
-Mahatma Gandhi

“The best lack all conviction while the worst are filled with passionate intensity.”
-W.B. Yeats

“We are here to say, ‘We will not stand for it any more. No more lies. No more pre-emptive, illegal wars, based on false information. No more God-is-on-our-side religious nonsense to justify this immoral, illegal war. We are here to say most fundamentally, no more inhumanity in the name of our nation.’”
-Rocky Anderson, mayor,
Salt Lake City

“The most successful tyranny is not the one that uses force to assure uniformity but the one that removes the awareness of other possibilities.”
-Allan Bloom

“The only way to eliminate an enemy is to make him your friend.”
-Abraham Lincoln

“Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.”
-Martin Luther King

“We’re challenged as mankind has never been challenged before to prove our maturity and mastery, not of nature, but of ourselves.
-Rachel Carson

“In wilderness is the preservation of the world.”
-Henry David Thoreau

“We treat the Earth as if it were a business in liquidation.”
-Herman Daly, economist

“Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.”
-Arthur C. Clarke

“The smart way to keep people passive and obedient is to strictly limit the spectrum of acceptable opinion, but allow very lively debate within that spectrum, and even encourage more critical and dissident views. That gives people the sense there’s free thinking going on, while all the time the presuppositions of the system are being reinforced by the limits put on the range of debate.”
-Noam Chomsky

“Every society honors its live conformists and dead troublemakers.”
-Mignon McCarthy