"Power comes from the barrel of a gun." -- Mao Tse-Tung

"Governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed." --Thomas Jefferson: Declaration of Independence, 1776.

"Enlighten the people generally, and tyranny and oppressions of body and mind will vanish like evil spirits at the dawn of day." --Thomas Jefferson to Pierre Samuel Dupont de Nemours, 1816.

"Independence can be trusted nowhere but with the people in mass. They are inherently independent of all but moral law." --Thomas Jefferson to Spencer Roane, 1819.

"What country can preserve its liberties if its rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms. The remedy is to set them right as to facts, pardon and pacify them." --Thomas Jefferson to William Stephens Smith, 1787.

"...The average American is just like the child in the family. You
give him some responsibility and he is going to amount to
something...He is going to do something...If, on the other hand, you
make him completely dependent and pamper him and cater to him too
much, you are going to make him soft, spoiled and eventually a very
weak individual." -- Richard Nixon, Interview, November 9, 1972.

"Our nation must come together to unite." -- George W. Bush, Tampa,                     Florida, Jun. 4, 2001