"When the laws undertake ... to make the rich richer and the potent more powerful, the humble members of society - the farmers, mechanics and laborers - who have neither the time nor the means of securing like favors to themselves, have a right to complain of the injustice of their government. ..."
Andrew Jackson

"I know of no safe depository of the ultimate powers of the society but the people themselves; and if we think them not enlightened enough to exercise their control with a wholesome discretion, the remedy is not to take if from them, but inform their discretion."
Thomas Jefferson

"If there is no struggle, there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom and yet renounce controversy are people who want crops without ploughing the ground."
Frederick Douglas

"A people willing to exchange freedom for security deserve neither."
Benjamin Franklin

"And so, my fellow Americans: ask not what your country can do for you-ask what you can do for your country. My fellow citizens of the world: ask not what America will do for you, but what together we can do for the freedom of man."
John Fitzgerald Kennedy

"In the field of world policy; I would dedicate this nation to the policy of the good neighbor."
Franklin D. Roosevelt

"All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act toward one another in a spirit of brotherhood."
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights

"Enlighten the people generally, and tyranny and oppressions of body and mind will vanish like evil spirits at the dawn of day."
Thomas Jefferson

"Up on your feet! This is no time to tire! The man who lies asleep will never waken fame, and his desire and all his life drift past him like a dream, and the traces of his memory fade from time like smoke in air, ripples on a stream. Now, therefore, rise. Control your breath, and call upon the strength of soul that wins all battles unless it sink in the grass body's fall. There is a longer ladder yet to climb: this much is not enough. If you understand me, show that you mean to profit from your time."
Dante, The Inferno, Canto XXIV ll 46-57