I guess this one gets posted here from time to time. It's one that bears reposting a few times a year at least until we've taken it to heart.
A man's country is not a certain area of land, of mountains, rivers, and woods, but it is a principle; and patriotism is loyalty to that principle.
-- George William Curtis
The closed door and the sealed lips are prerequisites to tyranny.
--Frank L. Stanton
Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph. What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly: it is dearness only that gives every thing its value.
--Thomas Paine
Let us be poised, and wise, and our own, today.
-- Ralph Waldo Emerson
That said, it rings true with each reading.