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I have not come here with reference to any flag but that of freedom. If your Union does not symbolize universal emancipation, it brings no Union for me. If your Constitution does not guarantee freedom for all, it is not a Constitution I can ascribe to. If your flag is stained by the blood of a brother held in bondage, I repudiate it in the name of God. I came here to witness the unfurling of a flag under which every human being is to be recognized as entitled to his freedom. Therefore, with a clear conscience, without any compromise of principles, I accepted the invitation of the Government of the United States to be present and witness the ceremonies that have taken place today. And now let me give the sentiment which has been, and ever will be, the governing passion of my soul: ‘Liberty for each, for all, and forever!’

– William Lloyd Garrison, legendary abolitionist, Speech in Charleston, South Carolina (April 14, 1865) at the end of the Civil War

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“Good intentions will always be pleaded for every assumption of authority. It is hardly too strong to say that the Constitution was made to guard the people against the dangers of good intentions. There are men in all ages who mean to govern well, but they mean to govern. They promise to be good masters, but they mean to be masters.”

– Senator Daniel Webster (1782-1852)

“The welfare of the people in particular has always been the alibi of tyrants, and it provides the further advantage of giving the servants of tyranny a good conscience.”

– Albert Camus (1913-1960)

“Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves.”

– William Pitt (1759-1806)

“The further a society drifts from truth, the more it will hate those who speak it.”

– George Orwell (1903-1950)

“Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it whether it exists or not, diagnosing it incorrectly, and applying the wrong remedy.”

– Ernest Benn (1875-1954)

“If you want government to intervene domestically, you’re a liberal. If you want government to intervene overseas, you’re a conservative. If you want government to intervene everywhere, you’re a moderate. If you don’t want government to intervene anywhere, you’re an extremist.”

– Joseph Sobran, columnist and editor, (1946-2010)

“(Government in America) has taken on a vast mass of new duties and responsibilities; it has spread out its powers until they penetrate to every act of the citizen, however secret; it has begun to throw around its operations the high dignity and impeccability of religion; its agents become a separate and superior caste, with authority to bind and loose, and their thumbs in every pot. But it still remains, as it was in the beginning, the common enemy of all well-disposed, industrious and decent men.”

– H. L. Mencken (1880-1956)

“When the government fears the people, there is liberty. When the people fear the government, there is tyranny.”

– Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826)

“Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered. Yet we have this consolation with us: the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph. What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly. It would be strange indeed if so celebrated an article as freedom should not be highly rated.”

– Thomas Paine (1737-1809)

“Has not the experience of two centuries shown that gradualism in theory is perpetuity in practice? Is there an instance, in the history of the world, where slaves have been educated for freedom by their task-masters?”

– William Lloyd Garrison (1805-1879)

“The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted.”

– James Madison (1751-1836)

“If we steal a man’s purse, we are thieves. If we steal 1,200 islands, we are patriots. If you steal a man’s money, you will be sent to the penitentiary. If you steal his liberty, you will be sent to the White House.”

– William Jennings Bryan (1860-1925), referring to the Philippines after the Spanish-American War

“Just because you do not take an interest in politics doesn’t mean politics won’t take an interest in you.”

– Pericles, 430 B.C.

“Nationalism is an infantile disease. It is the measles of mankind.”

– Albert Einstein (1879-1955)

“I know of no rights of race superior to the rights of humanity, and when there is a supposed conflict between human and national rights, it is safe to go to the side of humanity. I have great respect for the blue eyed and light-haired races of America. They are a mighty people. In any struggle for the good things of this world they need have no fear. They have no need to doubt that they will get their full share.

But I reject the arrogant and scornful theory by which they would limit migratory rights, or any other essential human rights to themselves, and which would make them the owners of this great continent to the exclusion of all other races of men.

I want a home here not only for the negro, the mulatto and the Latin races; but I want the Asiatic to find a home here in the United States, and feel at home here, both for his sake and for ours.

Right wrongs no man.”

– Frederick Douglass (1817-1895)

“Racism is the lowest, most crudely primitive form of collectivism. It is the notion of ascribing moral, social or political significance to a man’s genetic lineage — the notion that a man’s intellectual and characterological traits are produced and transmitted by his internal body chemistry. Which means, in practice, that a man is to be judged, not by his own character or actions, but by the character and actions of a collective of ancestors.”

– Ayn Rand (1905-1982)

“Why of course people don’t want war. Why should some poor slob on a farm want to risk his life in a war when the best he can get out of it is to come back to his farm in one piece? Naturally, the common people don’t want war; neither in Russia, nor England, nor for that matter Germany. That is understood. But after all, it is leaders of the country who determine the policy, and it is always a simple matter to drag people along, whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can 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 pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in every country.”

– Hermann Goering (1893-1946)

“Law after law breeds
A multitude of thieves.
Therefore a sensible man says:
If I keep from meddling with people,
they take care of themselves;
If I keep from commanding people,
they behave themselves;
If I keep from preaching at people,
they improve themselves;
If I keep from imposing on people,
they become themselves.”

– Lao-Tzu (founder of Taoism), 6th century B. C.

“The individual is the true reality in life … the individual has always been and necessarily is the sole source and motive power of evolution and progress. Civilization has been a continuous struggle of the individual or groups of individuals against the State and even against society; that is, against the majority subdued and hypnotized by the State and State worship.”

– Emma Goldman (1869-1940)

“Whether the mask is labeled Fascism, Democracy, or Dictatorship of the Proletariat, our great adversary remains the Apparatus — the bureaucracy, the police, the military. Not the one facing us across the frontier or the battle lines, which is not so much our enemy but our brothers’ enemy, but the one that calls itself our protector and makes us its slaves. No matter what the circumstances, the worst betrayal will always be to subordinate ourselves to this Apparatus — and to trample under foot, in its service, all human values in ourselves and others.”

– Simone Weil (1909-1943), murdered by Nazis

“You can muffle the drum, and you can loosen the strings of the lyre, but who shall command the skylark not to sing.”

– Kahlil Gibran (1883-1931) “The Prophet”

“Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand
Glows worldwide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.

‘Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp,’ cries she
With silent lips. ‘Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!'”

– Emma Lazarus “The New Colossus” (on the base of the Statue of Liberty)

“Wherever the standard of freedom and independence has been or shall be unfurled, there will (America’s) heart, her benedictions and her prayers be. But she goes not abroad in search of monsters to destroy. She is the well-wisher to the freedom and independence of all. She is the champion and vindicator only of her own. She will recommend the general cause, by the countenance of her voice, and the benignant sympathy of her example.

She well knows that by once enlisting under other banners than her own, were they even the banners of foreign independence, she would involve herself, beyond the power of extrication, in all the wars of interest and intrigue, of individual avarice, envy, and ambition, which assume the colors and usurp the standard of freedom. The fundamental maxims of her policy would insensibly change from liberty to force. The frontlet upon her brows would no longer beam with the ineffable splendor of freedom and independence; but in its stead would soon be substituted an imperial diadem, flashing in false and tarnished luster the murky radiance of dominion and power. She might become the dictatress of the world: she would be no longer the ruler of her own spirit.”

– John Quincy Adams (1767-1848)

“Set aside justice, then, and what are kingdoms but great bands of brigands? For what are brigands’ bands but little kingdoms? For in brigandage, the hands of the underlings are directed by the commander, the confederacy of them is sworn together, and the pillage is shared by law among them.  And if those ragamuffins grow up to be able to keep forts, build habitations, possess cities, and conquer adjoining nations, then their government is no longer called brigandage, but is graced with the eminent name of kingdom, given and gotten not because they have left their practices but because they use them without danger of law.

Elegant and excellent was that pirate’s answer to the great Macedonian Alexander (Alexander the Great), who had taken him.  The king asked him how he dares molest the seas so, and he replied with a free spirit, “How dare you molest the whole earth? But because I do it only with a little ship, I am called brigand.  You doing it with a great Navy are called emperor.”

– St. Augustine (354-430), “City of God”