"It's an unfortunate reality these days that if we do not prepare to defend ourselves against crime, then we must prepare ourselves to become victims of crime" - Steven Rubin

"Courage is the price that life exacts for granting peace."
-Amelia Earhart

"It is better to die on your feet than to live on your knees!"
-Emiliano Zapata

"The fearless are merely fearless. People who act in spite of their fear are truly brave." -James A. LaFond-Lewis

"Great deeds are usually wrought at great risks." -Herodotus

"To endure is greater than to dare; to tire out hostile fortune; to be daunted by no difficulty; to keep heart when all have lost it -- who can say this is not greatness?" -William Makepeace Thackeray

"The true test of character is not how much we know how to do, but how we behave when we don't know what to do." -John Holt

"Character cannot be developed in ease and quiet. Only through experience of trial and suffering can the soul be strengthened, ambition inspired, and success achieved." -Helen Keller

"The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy."
-Martin Luther King, Jr.

"Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man's character, give him power." -Abraham Lincoln

"Nothing in this world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful people with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent. The slogan 'press on' has solved and always will solve the problems of the human race." -Calvin Coolidge

"Whatever our creed, we feel that no good deed can by any possibility go unrewarded, no evil deed unpunished." -Orison Swett Marden

"The measure of a man's real character is what he would do if he knew he would never be found out." -Thomas B. Macaulay

"I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain."
-Frank Herbert, Dune

"You can discover what your enemy fears most by observing the means he uses to frighten you." -Eric Hoffer

"Courage is not the absence of fear, but rather the judgment that something else is more important than fear." -Ambrose Redmoon

"The only thing we have to fear is fear itself."
-Franklin D. Roosevelt First inaugural address

"Never believe that a few caring people can't change the world. For, indeed, that's all who ever have." -Margaret Mead

"Live free or die."* -New Hampshire State Motto

"Freedom is that instant between when someone tells you to do something and when you decide how to respond." -Dr. Jeffrey Borenstein

"The last of the human freedoms is to choose one's attitudes."
-Victor Frankl

"Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that." -Martin Luther King, Jr.

"We must use time wisely and forever realize that the time is always ripe to do right." -Nelson Mandela

"I know that every good and excellent thing in the world stands moment by moment on the razor-edge of danger and must be fought for..."
-Thornton Wilder

"Most of the important things in the world have been accomplished by people who have kept on trying when there seemed to be no hope at all."
-Dale Carnegie

"If we do not maintain Justice, Justice will not maintain us."
-Francis Bacon

"Life without liberty is like a body without spirit."
-Kahlil Gibran, "The Vision"

"Is life so dear or peace so sweet as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take, but as for me, give me liberty, or give me death!" -Patrick Henry

"I learned that it is the weak who are cruel, and that gentleness is to be expected only from the strong." -Leo Rosten

"Nothing is so strong as gentleness and nothing is so gentle as real strength."
-Ralph W. Sockman

"There is nothing wrong with America that cannot be cured with what is right in America." -William J. Clinton

"Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country."
-John Fitzgerald Kennedy Inaugural Address

"We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave, to every living heart and hearth-stone, all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature."
-Abraham Lincoln First inaugural address, March 4, 1861

"Our greatest glory is not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall."
-Confucius

"All that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing." -- Edmund Burke, 18th-century English political philosopher

"The line separating good and evil passes not through states, nor between classes nor between parties either -- but right through the human heart." -- Alexandr Solzhenitzyn, 20th-century Russian Nobel Prize-winning novelist

"What is important is not what happens to us, but how we respond to what happens to us." -- Jean-Paul Sartre, 20th-century Nobel Prize-winner

"Weakness of attitude becomes weakness of character." -- Albert Einstein

"Do not follow where the path may lead. Go instead where there is no path and leave a trail." -- Unknown

Peace, commerce, and honest friendship with all nations -- entangling alliances with none. -Thomas Jefferson

The means of defense against foreign danger historically have become the instruments of tyranny at home. -James Madison

The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted.
- James Madison

Fear is the foundation of most governments. - John Adams

Few men have virtue to withstand the highest bidder. -George Washington


Does the government fear us? Or do we fear the government? When the people fear the government, tyranny has found victory. The federal government is our servant, not our master! -Thomas Jefferson

It does not require a majority to prevail, but rather an irate, tireless minority keen to set brush fires in people's minds - Samuel Adams

The essence of Government is power; and power, lodged as it must be in human hands, will ever be liable to abuse. - James Madison

One man with courage is a majority. - Thomas Jefferson

I consider trial by jury as the only anchor ever yet imagined by man, by which a government can be held to the principles of its constitution.
- Thomas Jefferson

The only maxim of a free government ought to be to trust no man living with power to endanger the public liberty - John Adams

Our citizens may be deceived for awhile, and have been deceived; but as long as the presses can be protected, we may trust to them for light.
- Thomas Jefferson

They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety. - Benjamin Franklin


When once a republic is corrupted, there is no possibility of remedying any of the growing evils but by removing the corruption and restoring its lost principles; every other correction is either useless or a new evil.- Thomas Jefferson

Our contest is not only whether we ourselves shall be free, but whether there shall be left to mankind an asylum on earth for civil and religious liberty. -Samuel Adams


I like to see a man proud of the place in which he lives. I like to see a man live so that his place will be proud of him. ~Abraham Lincoln


America is a tune. It must be sung together. ~Gerald Stanley Lee, Crowds


We can't all be Washingtons, but we can all be patriots. ~Charles F. Browne


What is the essence of America? Finding and maintaining that perfect, delicate balance between freedom "to" and freedom "from." ~Marilyn vos Savant


Patriotism... is not short, frenzied outbursts of emotion, but the tranquil and steady dedication of a lifetime. ~Adlai Stevenson


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


When an American says that he loves his country, he means not only that he loves the New England hills, the prairies glistening in the sun, the wide and rising plains, the great mountains, and the sea. He means that he loves an inner air, an inner light in which freedom lives and in which a man can draw the breath of self-respect. ~Adlai Stevenson


Love your country. Your country is the land where your parents sleep, where is spoken that language in which the chosen of your heart, blushing, whispered the first word of love; it is the home that God has given you that by striving to perfect yourselves therein you may prepare to ascend to him. ~Giuseppe Mazzini


There are those, I know, who will say that the liberation of humanity, the freedom of man and mind, is nothing but a dream. They are right. It is the American dream. ~Archibald MacLeish


National honor is national property of the highest value. ~James Monroe


How often we fail to realize our good fortune in living in a country where happiness is more than a lack of tragedy. ~Paul Sweeney


May the sun in his course visit no land more free, more happy, more lovely, than this our own country! ~Daniel Webster


This nation will remain the land of the free only so long as it is the home of the brave. ~Elmer Davis


The stern hand of fate has scourged us to an elevation where we can see the great everlasting things that matter for a nation; the great peaks of honour we had forgotten - duty and patriotism, clad in glittering white; the great pinnacle of sacrifice pointing like a rugged finger to heaven. ~David Lloyd George


Yet America is a poem in our eyes; its ample geography dazzles the imagination, and it will not wait long for metres. ~Ralph Waldo Emerson


If our country is worth dying for in time of war let us resolve that it is truly worth living for in time of peace. ~Hamilton Fish


The cement of this union is the heart-blood of every American. ~Thomas Jefferson


America is much more than a geographical fact. It is a political and moral fact - the first community in which men set out in principle to institutionalize freedom, responsible government, and human equality. ~Adlai Stevenson


Ours is the only country deliberately founded on a good idea. ~John Gunther


America is a passionate idea or it is nothing. America is a human brotherhood or it is chaos. ~Max Lerner


Then join hand in hand, brave Americans all! By uniting we stand, by dividing we fall.~John Dickinson


If you are ashamed to stand by your colors, you had better seek another flag. ~Author Unknown

Where liberty dwells, there is my country. ~Benjamin Franklin


Liberty and Union, now and forever, one and inseparable! ~Daniel Webster


If you take advantage of everything America has to offer, there’s nothing you can’t accomplish. ~Geraldine Ferraro


Oh, it's home again and home again, America for me!
I want a ship that's westward bound to plough the rolling sea
To the blessed land of Room Enough beyond the ocean bars,
Where the air is full of sunlight and the flag is full of stars.
~Henry Van Dyke


Sometimes people call me an idealist. Well, that is the way I know I am an American. America is the only idealistic nation in the world. ~Woodrow Wilson


This, then, is the state of the union: free and restless, growing and full of hope. So it was in the beginning. So it shall always be, while God is willing, and we are strong enough to keep the faith. ~Lyndon B. Johnson


America is another name for opportunity. Our whole history appears like a last effort of divine providence on behalf of the human race. ~Ralph Waldo Emerson


This country will not be a good place for any of us to live in unless we make it a good place for all of us to live in. ~Theodore Roosevelt


Of all the supervised conditions for life offered man, those under USA's constitution have proved the best. Wherefore, be sure when you start modifying, corrupting or abrogating it. ~Martin H. Fischer


He loves his country best who strives to make it best. ~Robert G. Ingersoll


It is the love of country that has lighted and that keeps glowing the holy fire of patriotism. ~J. Horace McFarland


"Our country, right or wrong." When right to be kept right; when wrong to be put right. ~Carl Schurz


Off with your hat, as the flag goes by!
And let the heart have its say;
you're man enough for a tear in your eye
that you will not wipe away.
~Henry Cuyler Bunner


It is the flag just as much of the man who was naturalized yesterday as of the men whose people have been here many generations. ~Henry Cabot Lodge


The winds that blow through the wide sky in these mounts, the winds that sweep from Canada to Mexico, from the Pacific to the Atlantic - have always blown on free men. ~Franklin D. Roosevelt


Some Americans need hyphens in their names, because only part of them has come over; but when the whole man has come over, heart and thought and all, the hyphen drops of its own weight out of his name. ~Woodrow Wilson


My God! How little do my countrymen know what precious blessings they are in possession of, and which no other people on earth enjoy! ~Thomas Jefferson


I wish that every human life might be pure transparent freedom. ~Simone de Beauvoir


Our country is not the only thing to which we owe our allegiance. It is also owed to justice and to humanity. Patriotism consists not in waving the flag, but in striving that our country shall be righteous as well as strong. ~James Bryce


Our great modern Republic. May those who seek the blessings of its institutions and the protection of its flag remember the obligations they impose. ~Ulysses S. Grant


For what avail the plough or sail, or land or life, if freedom fail? ~Ralph Waldo Emerson


Those who won our independence believed liberty to be the secret of happiness and courage to be the secret of liberty. ~Louis D. Brandeis


Men love their country, not because it is great, but because it is their own. ~Seneca


Territory is but the body of a nation. The people who inhabit its hills and valleys are its soul, its spirit, its life. ~James Garfield


We need a type of patriotism that recognizes the virtues of those who are opposed to us..... The old "manifest destiny" idea ought to be modified so that each nation has the manifest destiny to do the best it can - and that without cant, without the assumption of self-righteousness and with a desire to learn to the uttermost from other nations. ~Francis John McConnell


I believe in America because we have great dreams - and because we have the opportunity to make those dreams come true. ~Wendell L. Wilkie


We on this continent should never forget that men first crossed the Atlantic not to find soil for their ploughs but to secure liberty for their souls. ~Robert J. McCracken


It is sweet to serve one's country by deeds, and it is not absurd to serve her by words. ~Sallust


We need an America with the wisdom of experience. But we must not let America grow old in spirit. ~Hubert H. Humphrey


A real patriot is the fellow who gets a parking ticket and rejoices that the system works. ~Bill Vaughan


I think there is one higher office than president and I would call that patriot. ~Gary Hart


Each man must for himself alone decide what is right and what is wrong, which course is patriotic and which isn't. You cannot shirk this and be a man. To decide against your conviction is to be an unqualified and excusable traitor, both to yourself and to your country, let men label you as they may. ~Mark Twain


All we have of freedom, all we use or know - This our fathers bought for us long and long ago.~Rudyard Kipling


What we need are critical lovers of America - patriots who express their faith in their country by working to improve it. ~Hubert H. Humphrey


You cannot spill a drop of American blood without spilling the blood of the whole world.... We are not a nation, so much as a world. ~Herman Melville


Our hearts where they rocked our cradle,
Our love where we spent our toil,
And our faith, and our hope, and our honor,
We pledge to our native soil.
God gave all men all earth to love,
But since our hearts are small,
Ordained for each one spot should prove
Beloved over all.
~Rudyard Kipling


He is a poor patriot whose patriotism does not enable him to understand how all men everywhere feel about their altars and their hearthstones, their flag and their fatherland. ~Harry Emerson Fosdick


We have enjoyed so much freedom for so long that we are perhaps in danger of forgetting how much blood it cost to establish the Bill of Rights. ~Felix Frankfurter


Patriotism is easy to understand in America - it means looking out for yourself by looking out for your country. ~Calvin Coolidge


We dare not forget that we are the heirs of that first revolution. ~John F. Kennedy


The American Revolution was a beginning, not a consummation. ~Woodrow Wilson


Intellectually I know that America is no better than any other country; emotionally I know she is better than every other country. ~Sinclair Lewis


"Democracy is the government of the people, by the people, for the people"

“America did not invent human rights. In a very real sense, it is the other way around. Human rights invented America.”

“War may sometimes be a necessary evil. But no matter how necessary, it is always an evil, never a good. We will not learn how to live together in peace by killing each other's children.”

"We must learn to live together as brothers or perish together as fools."

We hold these truths to be self evident: that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness”