It is our duty still to endeavor to avoid war; but if it shall actually take place, no matter by whom brought on, we must defend ourselves. If our house be on fire, without inquiring whether it was fired from within or without, we must try to extinguish it.
Thomas Jefferson

Conquest is not in our principles. It is inconsistent with our government.
Thomas Jefferson

Friendship is but another name for an alliance with the follies and the misfortunes of others. Our own share of miseries is sufficient: why enter then as volunteers into those of another?
Thomas Jefferson

I have no fear that the result of our experiment will be that men may be trusted to govern themselves without a master.
Thomas Jefferson

The whole commerce between master and slave is a perpetual exercise of the most boisterous passions, the most unremitting despotism on the one part, and degrading submissions on the other. Our children see this, and learn to imitate it.
Thomas Jefferson

In defense of our persons and properties under actual violation, we took up arms. When that violence shall be removed, when hostilities shall cease on the part of the aggressors, hostilities shall cease on our part also.
Thomas Jefferson

Peace and abstinence from European interferences are our objects, and so will continue while the present order of things in America remain uninterrupted.
Thomas Jefferson

The constitutions of most of our States assert that all power is inherent in the people; that... it is their right and duty to be at all times armed.
Thomas Jefferson

I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies.
Thomas Jefferson

Let us be sure that those who come after will say of us in our time, that in our time we did everything that could be done. We finished the race; we kept them free; we kept the faith.
Ronald Reagan

There are no constraints on the human mind, no walls around the human spirit, no barriers to our progress except those we ourselves erect.
Ronald Reagan

I call upon the scientific community in our country, those who gave us nuclear weapons, to turn their great talents now to the cause of mankind and world peace: to give us the means of rendering these nuclear weapons impotent and obsolete.
Ronald Reagan

Go up close to your friend, but do not go over to him! We should also respect the enemy in our friend.
Friedrich Nietzsche

Our problems are man-made, therefore they may be solved by man. And man can be a s big as he wants. No problem of human destiny is beyond human beings.
John F. Kennedy

If art is to nourish the roots of our culture, society must set the artist free to follow his vision wherever it takes him.
John F. Kennedy

If we cannot now end our differences, at least we can help make the world safe for diversity.
John F. Kennedy

The human mind is our fundamental resource.
John F. Kennedy

Our progress as a nation can be no swifter than our progress in education. The human mind is our fundamental resource.
John F. Kennedy

I look forward to a great future for America - a future in which our country will match its military strength with our moral restraint, its wealth with our wisdom, its power with our purpose.
John F. Kennedy

Our growing softness, our increasing lack of physical fitness, is a menace to our security.
John F. Kennedy