We prefer self-government with danger to servitude in tranquility.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
I think that it's always appropriate for Americans and for American foreign policy to make clear why we feel that self-government is most compatible with peace, the well-being of people, and human dignity.
Unless your government is respectable, foreigners will invade your rights; and to maintain tranquillity, it must be respectable - even to observe neutrality, you must have a strong government.
I believe that in every country the people themselves are more peaceably and liberally inclined than their governments.
We prefer world law in the age of self-determination to world war in the age of mass extermination.
A people morally and intellectually equal to self-government must also be equal in self-defence.
It's not tyranny we desire; it's a just, limited, federal government.
We're not going to meddle in the internal life of other peoples and other governments, because we don't want them meddling in ours.
The best government is that which teaches us to govern ourselves.
The best form of government is that which is most likely to prevent the greatest sum of evil.
The best government is a benevolent tyranny tempered by an occasional assassination.