John F. Kennedy on liberty

Ask not what your country can do for you⁠—ask what you can do for your country.

Leadership and learning are indispensable to each other.

For in the final analysis, our most basic common link, is that we all inhabit this small planet, we all breathe the same air, we all cherish our children’s futures, and we are all mortal.

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

Thomas Jefferson1743–1826Letter to William Stephens Smith (13 November 1787). Manuscript at the Library of Congress.

• War & Peace

They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.

Benjamin Franklin1706–1790This was first used by Franklin for the Pennsylvania Assembly in its “Reply to the Governor” (November 11, 1755) Reply to the Governor

Any society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both.

Benjamin Franklin1706–1790