Post quotes of famous people that deal with liberty, freedom, and war (now or in the past).

"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."
Benjamin Franklin, Historical Review of Pennsylvania, 1759

"What difference does it make to the dead, the orphans and the homeless, whether the mad destruction is wrought under the name of totalitarianism or the holy name of liberty or democracy?"
Mahatma Gandhi (1869 - 1948), "Non-Violence in Peace and War"

"No poor bastard ever won a war by dying for his country. He won the war by making the other poor bastard die for his country."

-General George S. Patton

"Revenge feels right only to those directly involved. Justice feels right even to outsiders."
-Marilyn Vos Savant

"Those who try to stifle the vibrancy of our democracy and shield policies from scrutiny behind a false cloak of patriotism miss the real value of what our troops defend and how we best defend our troops. We will ask questions and we will defend our democracy."
-US Senator John F. Kerry

"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

"The only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others."
-John Stuart Mill

"Paramount among the responsibilities of a free press is the duty to prevent any part of the government from deceiving the people and sending them off to distant lands to die of foreign fevers and foreign shot and shell."
-Hugo Black, Supreme Court Justice

"Restriction on free thought and free speech is the most dangerous of all subversions. It is the one un-American act that could most easily defeat us."
-Thurgood Marshall

"Man is condemned to be free. Condemned because he did not create himself, yet is nevertheless at liberty, and from the moment he is thrown into this world he is responsible for everything he does."
-Jean-Paul Sartre

"I came to America because of the great, great freedom which I heard existed in this country. I made a mistake in selecting America as a land of freedom, a mistake I cannot repair in the balance of my lifetime."
-Albert Einstein

"We have to fight the terrorists as if there were no rules and preserve our open society as if there were no terrorists."
-Thomas Friedman

"If you will not fight for right when you can easily win without blood shed; if you will not fight when your victory is sure and not too costly; you may come to the moment when you will have to fight with all the odds against you and only a precarious chance of survival. There may even be a worse case. You may have to fight when there is no hope of victory, because it is better to perish than to live as slaves."
-Winston Churchill

"And that the said Constitution be never construed to authorize Congress to prevent the people of the United States, who are peaceable citizens, from keeping their own arms."
-Samuel Adams

"The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants."
-Thomas Jefferson

"The right to swing my fist ends where the other man's nose begins."
-Oliver Wendell Holmes

"You do not examine legislation in the light of the benefits it will convey if properly administered, but in the light of the wrongs it would do and the harms it would cause if improperly administered."
-Lyndon Johnson

"Liberty means responsibility. That is why most men dread it."
-George Bernard Shaw

"I'm the one that has to die when it's time for me to die so let me live my life, the way I want to."
-Jimi Hendrix

"Intellect annuls fate. So far as a man thinks, he is free."
-Ralph Waldo Emerson

"There never was a good war or bad peace." - Benjamin Franklin, September 11, 1773.

"We live in the trenches and we fight. We try not to be killed. Sometimes we are. That is all." - Paul Baumer, All Quiet on the Western Front, 1930.

"O thus be it ever when free-men shall stand
Between their lov'd home and the war's desolation;
Blest with vict'ry and peace, may the heav'n-rescued land
Praise the Pow'r that hath made and preserv'd us a nation!
Then conquer we must, when our cause it is just,
And this be our motto: “In God is our trust!”
And the star-spangled banner in triumph shall wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave!" - Francis Scott Key, the last verse of The Star Spangled Banner, September 13, 1814.

"I have been shown in the files of the War Department a statement of the Adjutant General of Massachusetts that you are the mother of five sons who have died gloriously on the field of battle.
I feel how weak and fruitless must be any word of mine which should attempt to beguile you from the grief of a loss so overwhelming. But I cannot refrain from tendering you the consolation that may be found in the thanks of the Republic they died to save.
I pray that our Heavenly Father may assuage the anguish of your bereavement, and leave you only the cherished memory of the loved and lost, and the solemn pride that must be yours to have laid so costly a sacrifice upon the altar of freedom." - Abraham Lincoln's Letter to Mrs. Bixby, November 21, 1864

"War is the health of the State." - Randolph Bourne

"War is a racket." - Major General Smedley Butler

"War is hell." - William Tecumseh Sherman

"War is kind." - Stephen Crane

"War is peace." - Big Brother

I like the one in my sig :D

Fighting for peace is like screwing for virginity.

- That one guy from the forums.

"We may congratulate ourselves that this cruel war is nearing its end.
It has cost a vast amount of treasure and blood. . . .
It has indeed been a trying hour for the Republic; but
I see in the near future a crisis approaching that unnerves me and causes
me to tremble for the safety of my country. As a result of the war,
corporations have been enthroned and an era of corruption in high places
will follow, and the money power of the country will endeavor to prolong
its reign by working upon the prejudices of the people until all wealth
is aggregated in a few hands and the Republic is destroyed.
I feel at this moment more anxiety for the safety
of my country than ever before, even in the midst of war.
God grant that my suspicions may prove groundless."

-- Lincoln to (Col.) William F. Elkins, Nov. 21, 1864.

Lincoln sure said a lot on November 21.

I wonder if Lincoln actually said that second one. It sure is a good one if he did, but something about it just doesn't seem right.

Only when the individual becomes free to choos his associates for a common purpose, can we hope for order and harmony out of this world of chaos and inequality.
--Emma Goldman [anarchism and other essays]

also, ignore my quote for this one, will you...

If we want to cultivate a true spirit of democracy we cannot afford to be intolerant. Intolerance betrays want of faith in one's cause.

It is any day better to stand erect with a broken and bandaged head then to crawl on one's belly, in order to be able to save one's head.

Non-violence and cowardice are contradictory terms. Non-violence is the greatest virtue, cowardice the greatest vice. Non-violence springs from love, cowardice from hate. Non-violence always suffers, cowardice would always inflict suffering. Perfect non-violence is the highest bravery. Non-violent conduct is never demoralising, cowardice always is.

--the previous are by Mahatma Gandhi

And to make the violent side of me feel better:

War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things. The decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks that nothing is worth war is much worse. The person who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature, and has no chance of being free unless made or kept so by the exertions of better men than himself.
--John Stuart Mill

... going to war without France is like going deer hunting without an accordion. You just leave a lot of useless noisy baggage behind.
--Jed Babbin, former deputy undersecretary of defense in the first Bush administration

Oh yeah, and a big hooah for GWB

America has never been united by blood or birth or soil. We are bound by ideals that move us beyond our backgrounds, lift us above our interests and teach us what it means to be citizens. Every child must be taught these principles. Every citizen must uphold them. And every immigrant, by embracing these ideals, makes our country more, not less, American.
--George W. Bush