Quotations on war, arms and freedom

• "It is better to have a government in fear of its people than to have a people in fear of their government." -Unknown
• "What country can preserve its liberties, if its rulers are not warned from time to time, that this people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms.The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time, with the blood of patriots and tyrants." -Thomas Jefferson 1787 President of the United States and drafter of the US Constitution
• "A Covenant not to defend myself from force, by force, is always void. For...no man can transfer or lay down his Right to save himself from Death" -Thomas Hobbes, 17th Century English Political Philosopher
• "The right of citizens to bear arms is just one more guarantee against arbitrary government, one more safeguard against the tyranny which... historically has proved to be always possible." -Hubert Humphrey, United States Senator
• "Before a standing army can rule, the people must be disarmed; as they are in almost every kingdom in Europe. The supreme power in America cannot enforce unjust laws by the sword; because the whole body of the people are armed." -Noah Webster, Author, An American Dictionary of the English Language
• "The laws that forbid the carrying of arms...serve rather to encourage than to prevent homicides, for an unarmed man may be attacked with greater confidence than an armed man." -Cesare Beccaria, 18th Century Italian Criminologist
• "Rome remained free for four hundred years and Sparta eight hundred, although their citizens were armed all that time; but many other states that have been disarmed have lost their liberties in less than forty years." -Niccolo Machiavelli, 16th Century Italian Political Theorist
• "Among the many misdeeds of the British rule in India, history will look upon the Act depriving a whole nation of arms as the blackest." -Mahatman Ghandi, Indian Political Leader
• "To disarm the people [is] the best and most efficient way to enslave them." -George Mason, American Statesman and Author of the Virginia Declaration of Rights (1776)
• "If our lives are endangered by plots or violence or armed robbers or enemies, any and method of protecting ourselves is morally right." -Cicero, Roman Orator, 1st Century B.C.
• "The most foolish mistake we could possibly make would be to allow the subjected people to carry arms..." Adolph Hitler, German Dictator
• "This year will go down in history. For the first time, a civilized nation has full gun registration. Our streets will be safer, our police more efficient, and the world will follow our lead into the future." -Adolf Hitler, German Dictator 1935
• "Better that ten suspected witches should escape than one innocent person be condemned." Increase Mather in a widely cirulated sermon in 1692 that lead to the end of the Salem Witch Trials
• "To my mind it is wholly irresponsible to go into the world incapable of preventing violence, injury, crime, and death. How feeble is the mindset to accept defenselessness. How unnatural. How cheap. How cowardly. How pathetic." --Ted Nugent, Rock Star
• "Democracy is two wolves and a sheep voting on what to have for dinner. Liberty is two wolves attempting to have a sheep for dinner and finding a well-informed, well-armed sheep." -Unknown
• "Only the dead have seen the end of war." -Plato
• "Those who desire to give up Freedom in order to gain Security, will not have, nor do they deserve, either one." -Thomas Jefferson