Internal Threats Quotes

America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves.

The deadliest enemies of nations are not their foreign foes; they always dwell within their borders. And from these internal enemies civilization is always in need of being saved.

Every department in Washington…contained numerous traitors and spies.

From whence shall we expect the approach of danger? Shall some trans-Atlantic military giant step the earth and crush us at a blow? Never. All the armies of Europe and Asia...could not by force take a drink from the Ohio River or make a track on the Blue Ridge in the trial of a thousand years. No, if destruction be our lot we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of free men we will live forever or die by suicide.

We need to defend against weaknesses within and enemies without, using the tools of civil society and hard power. We don't have to pick one over the other.

I am convinced that there are more threats to American liberty within the 10 mile radius of my office on Capitol Hill than there are on the rest of the globe.

I wish for an America no less alert in guarding against dangers from within than it is watchful against enemies from without.

The first duty of any government is to protect its citizens, whether the threat is a domestic one or from abroad.

Look, the FBI has the tools necessary un-American activities in our country. It goes on, we shouldn't even be talking about it.

Dictators must have enemies. They must have internal enemies to justify their secret police and external enemies to justify their military forces.

The ravening wolves are amongst us, from our own membership, and they, more than any others, are clothed in sheep's clothing, because they wear the habiliments of the priesthood…We should be careful of them.

I am concerned for the security of our great Nation; not so much because of any threat from without, but because of the insidious forces working from within.

The problem in defense is how far you can go without destroying from within what you are trying to defend from without.

Our country is in danger, not only from foreign enemies, but from our own policies.

Our worst enemies here are not the ignorant and simple, however cruel; our worst enemies are the intelligent and corrupt

Take heed of winde that comes in at a hole, and a reconciled Enemy.

Inter Services Intelligence-aided sleeper modules within the country are more dangerous than a nuclear bomb.

While there are still imperialist aggressors, the state that has no defense power of its own to protect its sovereignty against the internal and external enemies is, in fact, not a fully independent and sovereign state.

Our system must remain solvent as we attempt a solution to this great problem of security. Else we have lost the battle from within that we are trying to win from without.

I am not afraid of my enemies, but by God, you must look out when you get among your friends.

I greatly fear some of America's greatest and most dangerous enemies are such as think themselves her best friends.

In the past, public health officials could argue that they were protecting people from external threats: carriers of contagious diseases, fumes from the local glue factory, contaminated water, food poisoning, dangerous quack remedies. By contrast, the new enemies of public health come from within; the aim is to protect people from themselves rather than each other.

The only real danger to our country is from within, that we forget our own power to be what we want to be.

Abuse of power isn't limited to bad guys in other nations. It happens in our own country if we're not vigilant.

The fetters imposed on liberty at home have ever been forged out of the weapons provided for defense against real, pretended, or imaginary dangers from abroad.