Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Comment on this quoteShare via Email Print this Page Daily Quotes Archives2026-06-01 Jun 1, 2026There is but one straight course, and that is to seek truth and pursue it steadily.~ George WashingtonThe moment we no longer have a free press, anything can happen. What makes it possible for a totalitarian or any other dictatorship to rule is that people are not informed; how can you have an opinion if you are not informed? If everybody always lies to you, the consequence is not that you believe the lies, but rather that nobody believes anything any longer. This is because lies, by their very nature, have to be changed, and a lying government has constantly to rewrite its own history. On the receiving end you get not only one lie -- a lie which you could go on for the rest of your days -- but you get a great number of lies, depending on how the political wind blows. And a people that no longer can believe anything cannot make up its mind. It is deprived not only of its capacity to act but also of its capacity to think and to judge. And with such a people you can then do what you please.~ Hannah ArendtSecrecy and a free, democratic government don’t mix.~ Harry S. Truman May 29, 2026A people that values its privileges above its principles soon loses both.~ Dwight D. EisenhowerLet us render the tyrant no aid; let us not hold the light by which he can trace the footprints of our flying brother.~ Frederick DouglassFreedom is not a gift which can be enjoyed save by those shown themselves worthy of it.~ Theodore Roosevelt May 28, 2026Any time we deny any citizen the full exercise of his constitutional rights, we are weakening our own claim to them.~ Dwight D. EisenhowerThere is no maxim, in my opinion, which is more liable to be misapplied, and which, therefore, more needs elucidation, than the current, that the interest of the majority is the political standard of right and wrong.~ James MadisonThis is the gravest danger that today threatens civilization: State intervention, the absorption of all spontaneous social effort by the State; that is to say, of spontaneous historical action, which in the long-run sustains, nourishes and impels human destinies.~ José Ortega y Gasset May 27, 2026Nations crumble from within when the citizenry asks of government those things which the citizenry might better provide for itself. ... [I] hope we have once again reminded people that man is not free unless government is limited. There's a clear cause and effect here that is as neat and predictable as a law of physics: As government expands, liberty contracts.~ Ronald ReaganAll see, and most admire, the glare which hovers round the external trappings of elevated office. To me there is nothing in it, beyond the lustre which may be reflected from its connection with a power of promoting human felicity.~ George WashingtonMany now believe that with the rise of the totalitarian State the world has entered upon a new era of barbarism. It has not. The totalitarian State is only the State; the kind of thing it does is only what the State has always done with unfailing regularity, if it had the power to do it, wherever and whenever its own aggrandizement made that kind of thing expedient. Give any State like power hereafter, and put it in like circumstances, and it will do precisely the same kind of thing. The State will unfailingly aggrandize itself, if only it has the power, first at the expense of its own citizens, and then at the expense of anyone else in sight. It has always done so, and always will.~ Albert Jay Nock May 26, 2026The essence of Government is power; and power, lodged as it must be in human hands, will ever be liable to abuse.~ James MadisonWhilst we assert a freedom to embrace, to profess, and to observe the Religion which we believe to be of divine origin, we cannot deny an equal freedom to choose minds who have not yet yielded to the evidence which has convinced us.~ James Madison[In a republic,] it is not the people themselves who make the decisions, but the people they themselves choose to stand in their places.~ James Monroe Previous week's quotes Next week's quotes Share on Facebook Tweet Email Print