Eternal Vigilance Quotes

• Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty; power is ever stealing from the many to the few.

  Wendell Phillips

  Liberty, Esprit De Corps, Stealing

  Wendell Phillips (1863). “Speeches, Lectures, and Letters”, p.52

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• War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things. The decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks that nothing is worth war is much worse.

  John Stuart Mill

  Military, War, Patriotic

  "The Contest in America", Fraser's Magazine, February 1862.

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• A man who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself.

  John Stuart Mill

  Freedom, War, Military

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• To fight for one's country, to offer one's very life to promote the well being of the United States, is truly a noble undertaking. But so is the vigilance of the citizen who carefully examines our leaders to see if political problems are being solved by wars simply because this seems to be the easiest solution.

  Walter Dean Myers

  Country, War, Fighting

  "An Interview With Walter Dean Myers About The Journal of Scott Pendleton Collins". Interview with Richard F. Abrahamson and Linda M. Pavonetti, www.scholastic.com.

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• What is government itself but the greatest of all reflections on human nature? If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary.

  James Madison

  Nature, Patriotic, Angel

  1788 The Federalist, Jan.

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• What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly; it is dearness only that gives everything its value.

  Thomas Paine

  Inspirational, Perseverance, Motivation

  Thomas Paine (2011). “Thomas Paine on Liberty: Including Common Sense and Other Writings”, p.80, Skyhorse Publishing, Inc.

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• These are the times that try men's souls.

  Thomas Paine

  Veterans Day, Time, Motivation

  The American Crisis, 19 Dec. 1776

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• The things that will destroy America are prosperity-at-any-price, peace-at-any-price, safety-first instead of duty-first, the love of soft living, and the get-rich-quick theory of life.

  Theodore Roosevelt

  Love, Inspirational, Wisdom

  Theodore Roosevelt (1954). “Letters: The days of Armageddon, 1909-1914”

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• That government is best which governs least.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Freedom, Democracies Have, Government

  Civil Disobedience (1849) See Ralph Waldo Emerson 29; O'Sullivan 1; Shipley 1

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• 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

  Love, Summer, Country

  The American Crisis, 19 Dec. 1776

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• What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly: it is dearness only that gives every thing its value. Heaven knows how to put a proper price upon its goods; and it would be strange indeed if so celestial an article as freedom should not be highly rated.

  Thomas Paine

  Giving, Heaven, Would Be

  The American Crisis, 19 Dec. 1776

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• Liberty without Learning is always in peril and Learning without Liberty is always in vain.

  John F. Kennedy

  Education, Freedom, Learning

  Vanderbilt University 90th Anniversary Convocation Address, delivered 18 May 1963, Vanderbilt University Stadium, Nashville Tennessee

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• The future doesn't belong to the light-hearted. It belongs to the brave.

  Ronald Reagan

  Inspirational, Strength, Light

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• There is no safety for honest men, but by believing all possible evil of evil men, and by acting with promptitude, decision, and steadiness on that belief.

  Edmund Burke

  Wisdom, Believe, Men

  "Edmund Burke: Selected Writings and Speeches".

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• It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; . . . who at best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly.

  Theodore Roosevelt

  Motivational, Courage, Strong

  Address at the Sorbonne, Paris, 23 Apr. 1910. Richard M. Nixon quoted this passage in his address to the nation announcing his decision to resign the presidency, 8 Aug. 1974. See Theodore Roosevelt 1; Theodore Roosevelt 2; Theodore Roosevelt 5

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• The majority, oppressing an individual, is guilty of a crime, abuses its strength, and by acting on the law of the strongest breaks up the foundations of society.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Freedom, 4th Of July, Law

  Thomas Jefferson, Henry Augustine Washington (1854). “The Writings of Thomas Jefferson: Being His Autobiography, Correspondence, Reports, Messages, Addresses, and Other Writings, Official and Private : Published by the Order of the Joint Committee of Congress on the Library, from the Original Manuscripts, Deposited in the Department of State”, p.591

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• What country can preserve its liberties if its rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Country, Freedom, Gun

  Letter toWilliam Stephens Smith, 13 Nov. 1787

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• The spirit of resistance to government is so valuable on certain occasions that I wish it to be always kept alive.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Freedom, War, Patriotic

  Thomas Jefferson (2010). “The Works of Thomas Jefferson: Correspondence 1786-1787”, p.263, Cosimo, Inc.

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• A patriot must always be ready to defend his country against his government.

  Edward Abbey

  Inspirational, Country, Freedom

  Edward Abbey (2015). “A Voice Crying in the Wilderness”, p.17, RosettaBooks

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• In the End, we will remember not the words of our enemies but the silence of our friends.

  Martin Luther King, Jr.

  Friendship, Wisdom, Kings

  "The Trumpet of Conscience". Martin Luther King, Jr.'s steeler lecture at Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery, Alabama, November 17, 1957.

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  A nation which can prefer disgrace to danger is prepared for a master, and deserves one.

  Alexander Hamilton

  Voting, Politics, American Revolution

  Alexander Hamilton, Donald R. Hickey, Connie D. Clark (2006). “Citizen Hamilton: The Wit and Wisdom of an American Founder”, p.105, Rowman & Littlefield

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• I own that I am not a friend to a very energetic government. It is always oppressive.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Life And Love, Government, Liberty

  Thomas Jefferson, Joyce Appleby, Terence Ball (1999). “Jefferson: Political Writings”, p.19, Cambridge University Press

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• The greatest dangers to liberty lurk in the insidious encroachment by men of zeal, well meaning but without understanding.

  Louis D. Brandeis

  Peace, Freedom, War

  Olmstead v. United States (dissenting opinion) (1928)

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• I have sworn upon the altar of God Eternal, hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Change, Religious, Men

  Letter to Benjamin Rush, 23 Sept. 1800

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• History does not long entrust the care of freedom to the weak or the timid.

  Dwight D. Eisenhower

  Veterans Day, Freedom, Military

  1953 Inaugural address, 20 Jan.

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