• They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.
  Benjamin Franklin [The First American, US Founding Father] (1706-1790) US American statesman, political theorist, occultist, polymath, diplomat, civic activist, author, published in Memoirs of the life and writings, 1818

Part of Franklin's notes for a proposition at the Pennsylvania Assembly, dated shortly before 17. February 1775