Let's open with this one, which seems very appropriate these days...
It will be of little avail to the people that the laws are made by men of their own choice if the laws be so voluminous that they cannot be read, or so incoherent that they cannot be understood.
James Madison
The Father of our Country:
Guard against the impostures of pretended patriotism.
George Washington
If the freedom of speech is taken away then dumb and silent we may be led, like sheep to the slaughter.
George Washington
Laws made by common consent must not be trampled on by individuals.
George Washington
No, not the beer...
A government of laws, and not of men.
John Adams
Abuse of words has been the great instrument of sophistry and chicanery, of party, faction, and division of society.
John Adams
There is danger from all men. The only maxim of a free government ought to be to trust no man living with power to endanger the public liberty.
John Adams
Perhaps the one who invokes him so much should sit down and actually listen to him...
America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves.
Abraham Lincoln
Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak out and remove all doubt.
Abraham Lincoln
Don't interfere with anything in the Constitution. That must be maintained, for it is the only safeguard of our liberties.
Abraham Lincoln
Government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the Earth.
Abraham Lincoln
I hope to stand firm enough to not go backward, and yet not go forward fast enough to wreck the country's cause.
Abraham Lincoln
One of my favorite Presidents...
A Bill of Rights is what the people are entitled to against every government, and what no just government should refuse, or rest on inference.
Thomas Jefferson
A democracy is nothing more than mob rule, where fifty-one percent of the people may take away the rights of the other forty-nine.
Thomas Jefferson
A wise and frugal government, which shall leave men free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned - this is the sum of good government.
Thomas Jefferson
All tyranny needs to gain a foothold is for people of good conscience to remain silent.
Thomas Jefferson
All, too, will bear in mind this sacred principle, that though the will of the majority is in all cases to prevail, that will to be rightful must be reasonable; that the minority possess their equal rights, which equal law must protect, and to violate would be oppression.
Thomas Jefferson
Delay is preferable to error.
Thomas Jefferson
Perhaps the wisest of them all...
Any society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both.
Benjamin Franklin
And a little bit for me, from the Great Communicator...
Government's first duty is to protect the people, not run their lives.
Ronald Reagan
Man is not free unless government is limited.
Ronald Reagan
Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn't pass it to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same.
Ronald Reagan
Entrepreneurs and their small enterprises are responsible for almost all the economic growth in the United States.
Ronald Reagan
Government exists to protect us from each other. Where government has gone beyond its limits is in deciding to protect us from ourselves.
Ronald Reagan