"You see these dictators on their pedestals, surrounded by the bayonets of their soldiers and the truncheons of their police. Yet in their hearts there is unspoken - unspeakable! - fear. They are afraid of words and thoughts! Words spoken abroad, thoughts stirring at home, all the more powerful because they are forbidden. These terrify them. A little mouse - a little tiny mouse! -of thought appears in the room, and even the mightiest potentates are thrown into panic."
— Winston S. Churchill

"I could never again raise my voice against the violence of the oppressed, without having first spoken clearly to the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today – my own government."
— Martin Luther King Jr.

"If there is ever a fascist takeover in America, it will come not in the form of storm troopers kicking down doors but with lawyers and social workers saying. "I'm from the government and I'm here to help.""
— Jonah Goldberg (Liberal Fascism: The Secret History of the American Left from Mussolini to the Politics of Meaning)

"In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist. We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together."
— Dwight D. Eisenhower

"Whenever governments adopt a moral tone - as opposed to an ethical one - you know something is wrong."
— John Ralston Saul (The Unconscious Civilization)

""To be GOVERNED is to be watched, inspected, spied upon, directed, law-driven, numbered, regulated, enrolled, indoctrinated, preached at, controlled, checked, estimated, valued, censured, commanded, by creatures who have neither the right nor the wisdom nor the virtue to do so. To be GOVERNED is to be at every operation, at every transaction noted, registered, counted, taxed, stamped, measured, numbered, assessed, licensed, authorized, admonished, prevented, forbidden, reformed, corrected, punished. It is, under pretext of public utility, and in the name of the general interest, to be place under contribution, drilled, fleeced, exploited, monopolized, extorted from, squeezed, hoaxed, robbed; then, at the slightest resistance, the first word of complaint, to be repressed, fined, vilified, harassed, hunted down, abused, clubbed, disarmed, bound, choked, imprisoned, judged, condemned, shot, deported, sacrificed, sold, betrayed; and to crown all, mocked, ridiculed, derided, outraged, dishonored. That is government; that is its justice; that is its morality."
General Idea of the Revolution in the Nineteenth Century, translated by John Beverly Robinson (London: Freedom Press, 1923), pp. 293-294."
— Pierre-Joseph Proudhon

"Taxation is robbery based on monopoly of weapons"
— Robert Anton Wilson (The Illuminati Papers)

"Reader, suppose you were an idiot. And suppose you were a member of Congress. But I repeat myself."
— Mark Twain

"You're not to be so blind with patriotism that you can't face reality. Wrong is wrong, no matter who does it or says it."
— Malcolm X (By Any Means Necessary)

"Illegal aliens have always been a problem in the United States. Ask any Indian."
— Robert Orben

"The last thing I ever wanted was to be alive when the three most powerful people on the whole planet would be named Bush, Dick and Colon."
— Kurt Vonnegut

"A paranoid is someone who knows a little of what's going on. "
— William S. Burroughs

"If you're going to kick authority in the teeth, you might as well use two feet."
— Keith Richards (Keith Richards: In His Own Words)

"Too bad that all the people who know how to run the country are busy driving taxicabs and cutting hair."
— George Burns

"The French have a new president, the British will soon have a new P.M., and we envy them as we endure the endless wait for this small dim man to go back to Texas and resume his life."
— Garrison Keillor

"I have left orders to be awakened at any time during national emergency, even if I'm in a cabinet meeting."
— Ronald Reagan

"Civilized men are more discourteous than savages because they know they can be impolite without having their skulls split, as a general thing."
— Robert E. Howard

"Once a government is committed to the principle of silencing the voice of opposition, it has only one way to go, and that is down the path of increasingly repressive measures, until it becomes a source of terror to all its citizens and creates a country where everyone lives in fear."
— Harry S. Truman

"Just because you do not take an interest in politics doesn't mean politics won't take an interest in you. "
— Pericles

"The first time it was reported that our friends were being butchered there was a cry of horror. Then a hundred were butchered. But when a thousand were butchered and there was no end to the butchery, a blanket of silence spread.
When evil-doing comes like falling rain, nobody calls out "stop!"

When crimes begin to pile up they become invisible. When sufferings become unendurable the cries are no longer heard. The cries, too, fall like rain in summer."
— Bertolt Brecht (Selected Poems)

"Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about its own things. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble. Matthew 6:34"
— Various (Holy Bible: NIV Student Bible)

"One should never trust a woman who tells one her real age. A woman who would tell one that would tell one anything."
— Oscar Wilde

""Who we are is but a stepping stone to what we can become.""
— Uknown (Deus Ex 3)

"Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I'm not sure about the universe."
— Albert Einstein

"You only live once, but if you do it right, once is enough"
— Mae West

"A day without sunshine is like, you know, night."
— Steve Martin

"I love mankind, it's people I can't stand."
— Charles M. Schulz

"Be careful about reading health books. You may die of a misprint."
— Mark Twain

"Some humans would do anything to see if it was possible to do it. If you put a large switch in some cave somewhere, with a sign on it saying 'End-of-the-World Switch. PLEASE DO NOT TOUCH', the paint wouldn't even have time to dry."
— Terry Pratchett (Thief of Time)

"Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect."
— Mark Twain

"The man who does not read good books has no advantage over the man who can't read them."
— Mark Twain

"Beauty is in the eye of the beholder and it may be necessary from time to time to give a stupid or misinformed beholder a black eye."
— Miss Piggy

"Yes, reason has been a part of organized religion, ever since two nudists took dietary advice from a talking snake."
— Jon Stewart

"I've been to Canada, and I've always gotten the impression that I could take the country over in about two days."
— Jon Stewart

"I was not designed to be forced. I will breathe after my own fashion. Let us see who is the strongest."
— Henry David Thoreau (On the Duty of Civil Disobedience)

"Our behavior is different. How often have you seen a headline like this?--TWO DIE ATTEMPTING RESCUE OF DROWNING CHILD. If a man gets lost in the mountains, hundreds will search and often two or three searchers are killed. But the next time somebody gets lost just as many volunteers turn out.
Poor arithmetic, but very human. It runs through all our folklore, all human religions, all our literature--a racial conviction that when one human needs rescue, others should not count the price."
— Robert A. Heinlein (Starship Troopers)

"Do not be too moral. You may cheat yourself out of much life so. Aim above morality. Be not simply good, be good for something."
— Henry David Thoreau

"All these people talk so eloquently about getting back to good old-fashioned values. Well, as an old poop I can remember back to when we had those old-fashioned values, and I say let's get back to the good old-fashioned First Amendment of the good old-fashioned Constitution of the United States -- and to hell with the censors! Give me knowledge or give me death!"
— Kurt Vonnegut

"Tomorrow you're all going to wake up in a brave new world, a world where the Constitution gets trampled by an army of terrorist clones, created in a stem-cell research lab run by homosexual doctors who sterilize their instruments over burning American flags. Where tax-and-spend Democrats take all your hard-earned money and use it to buy electric cars for National Public Radio, and teach evolution to illegal immigrants. Oh, and everybody's high!"
— Stephen Colbert (I Am America: And So Can You!)

"Under the United States Constitution, the federal government has no authority to hold states "accountable" for their education performance...In the free society envisioned by the founders, schools are held accountable to parents, not federal bureaucrats."
— Ron Paul

"If I had a dime for everytime that I was wrong, I'd be broke."
— Stephen Colbert

"Agnostics are just atheists without balls."
— Stephen Colbert (I Am America: And So Can You!)

"Look, PETA! If God hadn't wanted us to eat animals, he wouldn't have made them so darn tasty!"
— Stephen Colbert (I Am America: And So Can You!)

"All Dogs Go To Heaven? Sorry, kids. It's only the dogs who've accepted Christ."
— Stephen Colbert (I Am America: And So Can You!)

"Remember, you cannot be both young and wise. Young people who pretend to be wise to the ways of the world are mostly just cynics. Cynicism masquerades as wisdom, but it is the farthest thing from it. Because cynics don’t learn anything. Because cynicism is a self-imposed blindness, a rejection of the world because we are afraid it will hurt us or disappoint us. Cynics always say no. But saying “yes” begins things. Saying “yes” is how things grow. Saying “yes” leads to knowledge. “Yes” is for young people. So for as long as you have the strength to, say “yes'."
— Stephen Colbert

"(on fox news).... it's like watching a Disney movie about the news."
— Stephen Colbert

"Here's an easy way to figure out if you're in a cult:If you're wondering whether you're in a cult, the answer is yes."
— Stephen Colbert (I Am America: And So Can You!)

"The only thing that gets me high is the musky scent of my enemy's fear"
— Stephen Colbert

"The summer movies are coming out. My advice: just stay home and burn a good book."
— Stephen Colbert

"I may not agree with what you have to say but I will fight you to the death for the right to fight you to the death."
— Stephen Colbert