“Crisis is the rallying cry of the tyrant.”
- James Madison
"It is error only, and not truth, that shrinks from inquiry."
- Thomas Paine
“When the freedom of speech is taken away then dumb and silent we may be led, like sheep to the slaughter.”
- George Washington
"A sacred respect for the constitutional law is the vital principle, the sustaining energy of a free government."
- Alexander Hamilton
"It is not unfrequent to hear men declaim loudly upon liberty, who, if we may judge by the whole tenor of their actions, mean nothing else by it but their own liberty, to oppress without control or the restraint of laws all who are poorer or weaker than themselves."
- Samuel Adams
"It is always to be taken for granted, that those who oppose an equality of rights never mean the exclusion should take place on themselves."
- Thomas Paine
“If our nation is ever taken over, it will be taken over from within.”
- James Madison
“Evil triumphs when good men do nothing.”
- Thomas Jefferson
“There is something in corruption which, like a jaundiced eye, transfers the color of itself to the object it looks upon, and sees everything stained and impure.”
- Thomas Paine
“The practice of arbitrary imprisonments have been, in all ages, the favorite and most formidable instruments of tyranny.”
- Alexander Hamilton
"But if the laws are to be so trampled upon with impunity, and a minority is to dictate to the majority, there is an end put at one stroke to republican government, and nothing but anarchy and confusion is to be expected thereafter."
- George Washington
"When People are universally ignorant and debauched in their Manners, they will sink under their own Weight, without the Aid of foreign invaders."
- Thomas Paine
“We should indignantly frown upon the first dawning of every attempt to alienate any portion of our country from the rest, or to enfeeble the sacred ties which now link together the various parts”
- George Washington
"If we suffer tamely a lawless attack upon our liberty, we encourage it, and involve others in our doom."
- Samuel Adams
“A body of men holding themselves accountable to nobody ought not to be trusted by anybody.”
- Thomas Paine
“A Constitution of Government once changed from Freedom, can never be restored. Liberty, once lost, is lost forever.”
- John Adams
"The Constitution be never construed to authorize Congress to infringe the just liberty of the press, or the rights of conscience."
- Thomas Paine
"A standing army, however necessary it may be at some times, is always dangerous to the liberties of the people. Such power should be watched with a jealous eye."
- Samuel Adams
"A nation which can prefer disgrace to danger is prepared for a master, and deserves one."
- Alexander Hamilton
“The very definition of tyranny is when all powers are gathered under one place.”
- James Madison
“The strength and power of despotism consists wholly in the fear of resistance.”
- Thomas Paine
"The purpose of separation of church and state is to keep forever from these shores the ceaseless strife that has soaked the soil of Europe with blood for centuries."
- James Madison
"He who dares not offend cannot be honest."
- Thomas Paine
"A President is impeachable if he attempts to subvert the Constitution."
- James Madison
“Shame on the men who can court exemption from present trouble and expense at the price of their own posterity’s liberty!”
- Samuel Adams
"The power under the Constitution will always be in the people."
- George Washington
“He that would make his own liberty secure, must guard even his enemy from oppression; for if he violates this duty, he establishes a precedent that will reach to himself.”
- Thomas Paine
“It is the first responsibility of every citizen to question authority.”
- Benjamin Franklin
“An army of principles will penetrate where an army of soldiers cannot.”
- Thomas Paine
"When you get into a tight place and everything goes against you, till it seems as though you could not hold on a minute longer, never give up then, for that is just the place and time that the tide will turn."
- Benjamin Franklin
“When tyranny becomes law, rebellion becomes duty.”
- Thomas Jefferson
"These are the times that try men's souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of his country; but he that stands it NOW, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman."
- Thomas Paine
“First they came for the Communists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Communist
Then they came for the Socialists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Socialist
Then they came for the trade unionists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a trade unionist
Then they came for the Jews
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Jew
Then they came for me
And there was no one left
To speak out for me”
- the poetic form of a 1946 post-war confessional prose piece by the German Lutheran pastor Martin Niemöller (1892–1984)