"The basis of a democratic state is liberty."
-Aristotle

"A man's country is not a certain area of land, of mountains, rivers, and woods, but it is a principle; and patriotism is loyalty to that principle." ~George William Curtis

"The cause of freedom is not the cause of a race or a sect, a party or a class-- it is the cause of humankind, the very birthright of humanity" ~Anna Julia Cooper

"We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness."
~ Beginning of Declaration of Independence

"There are no constraints on the human mind, no walls around the human spirit, no barriers to our progress except those we ourselves erect."
-Ronald Reagan

"The world is my country, all mankind are my brethren, and to do good is my religion."
-Thomas Paine

"Every citizen should be a soldier. This was the case with the Greeks and Romans, and must be that of every free state."
Thomas Jefferson

"America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves."
-Abraham Lincoln

"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 errs and comes short again and again; because there is not effort without error and shortcomings; but who does actually strive to do the deed; who knows the great enthusiasm, the great devotion, who spends himself in a worthy cause, who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement and who at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly. So that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat."
-TR

"Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe, in order to assure the survival and the success of liberty" ~John F. Kennedy