"Reason and Ignorance... influence the great bulk of mankind. If either of these can be rendered sufficiently extensive in a country, the machinery of Government goes easily on. Reason obeys itself; and Ignorance submits to whatever is dictated to it."—Paine, Rights of Man

"The right of voting for representatives is the primary right by which other rights are protected."—Thomas Paine, "First Principles of Government" (1795)

"The history of free men is never really written by chance, but by choice—their choice. It is a matter of national will, of political decision, of moral purpose."—Dwight Eisenhower. Speech, Pittsburgh, Oct 9, 1956

"The thinnest-skinned person on Earth is the so-called businessman that tries to go into politics and do a political job... They can't take what I have to take every day."—Harry Truman, Conference w Business and Trade Editors. Apr 23, 1948

"Americanism is not a matter of birthplace, of ancestry, of creed, of occupation; Americanism is a matter of the spirit that is within man's soul."—Theodore Roosevelt, speech NYC, February 14, 1905