Thomas Paine on critical thought and freedom

When men yield up the privilege of thinking, the last shadow of liberty quits the horizon. 

~ Thomas Paine, Reflections on Titles (1775)

Thomas Paine
1965-1968

Frederick Douglass on the "negro problem"

There is no negro problem. The problem is whether the American people have loyalty enough, honor enough, patriotism enough, to live up to their own constitution.

~ Frederick Douglass

Frederick Douglass
1965-1968

John Bassett Moore on the American empire

There can hardly be room for doubt that the Founding Fathers of the United States, when they vested in Congress the power to declare war, never imagined that they were leaving it to the executive to use the military and naval forces of the United States all over the world for the purpose of actually coercing other nations, occupying their territory, and killing their soldiers and citizens, all according to his own notions of the fitness of things, as long as he refrained from calling his action war or persisted in calling it peace.

~ John Bassett Moore, Secretary of State in 1898, authority on international law, Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, vol. 60, 1921

Eugene O'Neill on critics

Critics? I love every bone in their heads.

~ Eugene O'Neill

George C. Marshall on freedom and force

We are determined that before the sun sets on this terrible struggle, Our Flag will be recognized throughout the World as a symbol of Freedom on the one hand and of overwhelming force on the other.

~ General George C. Marshall

George Marshall
1965-1968

John Dewey on public schools and social change

Schools should take an active part in directing social change, and share in the construction of a new social order.

~ John Dewey

Albert Einstein on learning and knowledge

The more I learn, the more I realize how much I don't know.

~ Albert Einstein

George Washington on learning from the past

We should not look back unless it is to derive useful lessons from past errors, and for the purpose of profiting by dearly bought experience.

~ George Washington

Henry Ford on aging and learning

Anyone who stops learning is old, whether at twenty or eighty.  Anyone who keeps learning stays young.  The greatest thing in life is to keep your mind young.

~ Henry Ford

John F. Kennedy on expectations

For those to whom much is given, much is expected.

~ John F. Kennedy

Lincoln on the role of education in molding servile citizens

Education does not mean teaching people what they do not know. It means teaching them to behave as they do not behave.

~ Abraham Lincoln

Abraham Lincoln
1965-1968

FDR on politics

In politics, nothing happens by accident. If it happens, you can bet it was planned that way.

~ Franklin D. Roosevelt

Thomas Jefferson on power

I hope our wisdom will grow with our power, and teach us that the less we use our power, the greater it will be.

~ Thomas Jefferson

Thomas Jefferson
1965-1968

Andrew Jackson on courage

One man with courage makes a majority.

~ Andrew Jackson

Andrew Jackson

Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes on liberty

The liberty of the citizen to do as he likes so long as he does not interfere with the liberty of others to do the same, which has been a shibboleth for some well-known writers, is interfered with by school laws, by the Post Office, by every state or municipal institution which takes his money for purposes thought desirable, whether he likes it or not.

Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, dissenting opinion, Lochner v. New York, 198 U.S. 45, 25 S.Ct. 539 (1905)