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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 their country; but he that stands by it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph. 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, The Crisis

“The answer to 1984 is 1776”
― Alex E. Jones

“... as long as mankind shall continue to bestow more liberal applause on their destroyers than their benefactors, the thirst of military glory will ever be the vice of the most exalted characters.”
― Edward Gibbon, The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire Volume I

“I lament the want of a liberal education. I feel the mist of ignorance to surround me - Nathanael Greene”
― David McCullough, 1776

“as the Sword was the last resort for the preservation of our liberties, so it ought to be the first thing laid aside when those liberties are firmly established”
― David McCullough, 1776

“Until Washington crossed the Delaware, the triumph of the old order seemed inevitable. Thereafter, things would never be the same again.”
― David Hackett Fischer, Washington's Crossing

“Under a democratical government, the citizens exercise the powers of sovereignty; and those powers will be first abused, and afterwards lost, if they are committed to an unwieldy multitude.”
― Edward Gibbon, The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire Volume I

“Augustus was sensible that mankind is governed by names; nor was he deceived in his expectation, that the senate and the people would submit to slavery, provided they were respectfully assured that they still enjoyed their ancient freedoms.”
― Edward Gibbon, The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire Volume I

“The State (meaning the gov't and society) derives no inconsiderable advantage from the peoples instruction (in other words, education). The more they are instructed, the less liable they are to the delusions of enthusiasm and superstition.
. . .
The expense of the institutions for education and religious instruction, is likewise, no doubt, beneficial to the whole society, and may, therefore, without injustice, be defrayed by the general contribution of society.”
― Adam Smith

“Fiddlesticks!â€� Rall replied. “These clodhoppers will not attack us, and should they do so, we will simply fall on them and rout them.â€�58 (on describing that they had nothing to fear from the COlonists of New Jersey before the night of December 25, 1776; when Washington and his men crossed the Deleware.)”
― David Hackett Fischer

“The obvious definition of a monarchy seems to be that of a state, in which a single person, by whatsoever name he may be distinguished, is entrusted with the execution of the laws, the management of the revenue, and the command of the army. But, unless public liberty is protected by intrepid and vigilant guardians, the authority of so formidable a magistrate will soon degenerate into despotism. The influence of the clergy, in an age of superstition, might be usefully employed to assert the rights of mankind; but so intimate is the connection between the throne and the altar, that the banner of the church has very seldom been seen on the side of the people. A martial nobility and stubborn commons, possessed of arms, tenacious of property, and collected into constitutional assemblies, form the only balance capable of preserving a free constitution against enterprises of an aspiring prince.”
― Edward Gibbon, The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire Volume I

“Most of the crimes which disturb the internal peace of society are produced by the restraints which the necessary, but unequal, laws of property have imposed on the appetites of mankind, by confining to a few the possession of those objects that are coveted by many. Of all our passions and appetites, the love of power is of the most imperious and unsociable nature, since the pride of one man requires the submission of the multitude. In the tumult of civil discord, the laws of society lose their force, and their place is seldom supplied by those of humanity. The ardor of contention, the pride of victory, the despair of success, the memory of past injuries, and the fear of future dangers, all contribute to inflame the mind, and to silence the voice of pity. From such motives almost every page of history has been stained with civil blood....”
― Edward Gibbon, The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire Volume I

“...pseudo-scientific minds, like those of the scientist or the painter in love with the pictorial, both teaching as they were taught to become architects, practice a kind of building which is inevitably the result of conditioning of the mind instead of enlightenment. By this standard means also, the old conformities are appearing as new but only in another guise, more insidious because they are especially convenient to the standardizations of the modernist plan-factory and wholly ignorant of anything but public expediency. So in our big cities architecture like religion is helpless under the blows of science and the crushing weight of conformity--caused to gravitate to the masquerade in our streets in the name of "modernity." Fearfully concealing lack of initial courage or fundamental preparation or present merit: reactionary. Institutional public influences calling themselves conservative are really no more than the usual political stand-patters or social lid-sitters. As a feature of our cultural life architecture takes a backward direction, becomes less truly radical as our life itself grows more sterile, more conformist. All this in order to be safe?
How soon will "we the people" awake to the fact that the philosophy of natural or intrinsic building we are here calling organic is at one with our freedom--as declared, 1776?”
― Frank Lloyd Wright, A Testament

“The ecclesiastical governors of the Christians were taught to unite the wisdom of the serpent with the innocence of the dove; but as the former was refined, so the latter was insensibly corrupted, by the habits of government. In the church as well as in the world, the persons who were placed in any public station rendered themselves considerable by their eloquence and firmness, by their knowledge of mankind, and by their dexterity in business; and while they concealed from others, and perhaps from themselves, the secret motives of their conduct, they too frequently relapsed into all the turbulent passions of active life, which were tinctured with an additional degree of bitterness and obstinacy from the infusion of spiritual zeal.”
― Edward Gibbon, The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire Volume I

“Madame la Guillotine" is the younger sister, the ideological sibling of the 2nd Amendment; both were conceived of a need to purge overbearing governments.”
― A.E. Samaan, H.H. Laughlin: American Scientist, American Progressive, Nazi Collaborator

“Of the various forms of government which have prevailed in the world, an hereditary monarchy seems to present the fairest scope for ridicule.”
― Edward Gibbon, The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire 1: 180-395

“The declining age of learning and of mankind is marked, however, by the rise and rapid progress of the new Platonists. The school of Alexandria silenced those of Athens; and the ancient sects enrolled themselves under the banners of the more fashionable teachers, who recommended their system by the novelty of their method and the austerity of their manners. Several of these mastersâ€�Ammonius, Plotinus, Amelius, and Porphyry—were men of profound thought and intense application; but, by mistaking the true object of philosophy, their labors contributed much less to improve than to corrupt human understanding. The knowledge that is suited to our situation and powers, the whole compass of moral, natural and mathematical science, was neglected by the new Platonists; whilst they exhausted their strength in the verbal disputes of metaphysics, attempted to explore the secrets of the invisible world, and studied to reconcile Aristotle with Plato, on subjects of which both of these philosophers were as ignorant as the rest of mankind. Consuming their reason in these deep but unsubstantial meditations, their minds were exposed to illusions of fancy. They flattered themselves that they possessed the secret of disengaging the soul from its corporeal prison, claimed a familiar intercourse withe dæmons and spirits; and, by a very singular revolution, converted the study of philosophy into that of magic. The ancient sages had derided the popular superstition; after disguising its extravagance by the this pretense of allegory, the disciples of Plotinus and Porphyry becomes its most zealous defenders. As they agreed with the Christians in a few mysterious points of faith, they attacked the remainder of their theological system with all the fury of civil war. The new Platonists would scarcely deserve a place in the history of science, but in that of the church the mention of them will very frequently occur.”
― Edward Gibbon, The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire Volume I

“Passing from the sectaries of the law itself,[the Gnostics] asserted that it was impossible that a religion which consisted only of bloody sacrifices and trifling ceremonies, and whose rewards as well as punishments were all of a carnal and temporal nature, could inspire the love of virtue, or restrain the impetuosity of passion.”
― Edward Gibbon, The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire 1: 180-395

“A perpetual stream of strangers and provincials flowed into the capacious bosom of Rome. Whatever was strange or odious, whoever was guilty or suspected, might hope, in the obscurity of that immense capital, to elude the vigilance of the law. In such a various conflux of nations, every teacher, either of truth or of falsehood, every founder, whether of a virtuous or a criminal association, might easily multiply his disciples or accomplices.”
― Edward Gibbon, The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire: Complete and Unabridged

“The Americans invented the 2nd Amendment.
The French invented the "le madame guillotine".
Neither was invented for hunting.”
― A.E. Samaan

“The founding fathers of America, if alive today, would be thrown in prison and be charged as domestic terrorist by todays government.”
― James Thomas Kesterson Jr

“If a man, woman, or child of color dies in this dizzying world of theirs, trust that OUR reincarnation wouldn't come in the form of no goddamn tree. We would be buried as cannabis. A beautiful people with the perfect hue, doomed to be routinely smoked by those with seeming unfettered impunity, the...”
― A.K. Kuykendall

“We the People have the power that becomes the power but the power abuses its power becoming tyrannical to its source of power.”
― Jose R. Coronado, The Land Flowing With Milk And Honey

“War brings about resolution for we've seen history repeat itself. Who respect a humble, peaceful negotiation between a colony subjected to its supremacy?
None! Blood is accepted, violence is respected & war is honored.”
― Jose R. Coronado, The Land Flowing With Milk And Honey

“LIBERTY WAS BATTLED, BLOOD-SHED, AND WON WITH A PAYMENT OF PEACE AND INDEPENDENCE.”
― D.L. Lewis

“Liberty was fought with bullets, Blood was shed for independence, Sacrifices were made for freedom.”
― D.L. Lewis