"The American Republic will endure until the day Congress discovers that it can bribe the public with their own money." - Alexis de Tocqueville (1805 - 1859)
"There are two ways to conquer and enslave a nation. One is by sword. The other is by debt." – John Adams
"Rebellion to tyrants is obedience to God." - Thomas Jefferson
"A democracy is always temporary in nature; it simply cannot exist as a permanent form of government. A democracy will continue to exist up until the time that voters discover they can vote themselves generous gifts from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates who promise the most benefits from the public treasury, with the result that every democracy will finally collapse due to loose fiscal policy, which is always followed by a dictatorship. The average age of the world’s greatest civilizations from the beginning of history, has been about 200 years." - Alexander Tyler, a Scottish history professor 1787
"I place the economy among the first and most important virtues... and public debt as the great danger to be feared. To preserve your independence, we must not let our leaders load us with perpetual debt. We must make our choice between economy and liberty . . . or profusion and servitude." - Thomas Jefferson
"When injustice becomes law, resistance becomes duty" - Thomas Jefferson
"It is the duty of the patriot to protect his country from its government." - Thomas Paine
"So long as the people do not care to exercise their freedom, those who wish to tyrannize will do so; for tyrants are active and ardent, and will devote themselves in the name of any number of gods, religious and otherwise, to put shackles upon sleeping men." - Voltaire, 1764
"When once a republic is corrupted there is no possibility of remedying any of the growing evils but by removing the corruption and restoring its lost principles; every other correction is either useless or a new evil." – Thomas Jefferson on the necessity of the impeachment provisions to our Constitution
"The price of freedom is eternal vigilance." - Thomas Jefferson
"All tyranny needs to gain a foothold is for people of good conscience to remain silent" - Thomas Jefferson
"When the people fear their government, there is Tyranny; when the government fears the people, there is Liberty." - Thomas Jefferson
"Wars are not paid for in wartime, the bill comes later." - Benjamin Franklin
"Those who would give up essential liberty, to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety." - Benjamin Franklin
"No free man shall ever be de-barred the use of arms. The strongest reason for the people to retain their right to keep and bear arms is as a last resort to protect themselves against tyranny in government." - Thomas Jefferson
"Those who expect to reap the blessings of freedom must, like men, undergo the fatigue of supporting it." - Thomas Paine
"If a Nation expects to be ignorant and free in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be. If we are to guard against ignorance and remain free, it is the responsibility of every American to be informed." - Thomas Jefferson
"It does not require a majority to prevail but rather an irate, tireless minority keen to set brush fires in people's minds." - Samuel Adams
"It will be of little avail to the people that the laws are made by men of their own choice if the laws be so voluminous that they cannot be read, or so incoherent that they cannot be understood." - James Madison, Father of the U.S. Constitution
"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
"Yes, we did produce a near-perfect republic. But will they keep it? Or will they, in the enjoyment of plenty, lose the memory of freedom? Material abundance without character is the path of destruction." - Thomas Jefferson
"The Constitution is not an instrument for the government to restrain the people, it is an instrument for the people to restrain the government -- lest it come to dominate our lives and interests." - Patrick Henry
"We cannot defend freedom abroad by deserting it at home." - Thomas Jefferson
When asked what kind of a government the constitutional convention had given the people: "A republic, if you can keep it." - Benjamin Franklin
"How strangely will the Tools of a Tyrant pervert the plain Meaning of Words!" - Samuel Adams
"The man who never looks into a newspaper is better informed than he who reads them; inasmuch as he who knows nothing is nearer to truth than he whose mind is filled with falsehoods and errors." - Thomas Jefferson
"If our nation is ever taken over, it will be taken over from within." - James Madison
"The means of defense against foreign danger historically have become the instruments of tyranny at home." - James Madison