|
|||
|
Sheldon's Book of Quotes
I've collected these quotes
over the last 30+ years and they have had a big part of shaping my
personal "world view". The wisdom of those who've gone before us is
essential to the development of our puny little minds.
Without knowing, or caring, about what others have said, we can so
easily become pawns of extremists; or extremists ourselves. Download the 175k MS Word document or the 144k Adobe PDF file of this page. “Poor planning on your part does not constitute an emergency on my part.” ~~ anonymous “When powerless people suffer, those with power grow fat.” ~~ Sheldon Aubut (Couldn't help myself and included one of my own silly sayings) “They that start by burning books, will end by burning men” ~~ Heinrich Heine “Once a government is committed to the principle of silencing the voice of opposition, it has only one way to go, and that is down the path of increasingly repressive measures, until it becomes a source of terror to all its citizens and creates a country where everyone lives in fear.” ~~ Harry S Truman "It would be a fine thing for the world if some of this goodwill could be bottled up at Christmas time and dealt out regularly wherever it was needed during the rest of the year. For instance, I'm sure the motorcycle world could stand some of it; for, even though we boast of our "good fellowship" spirit, there still seems to be a tendency among a good many motorcyclist to slight the fellow riding another kind of machine. Motorcyclist are all bound together by a brotherhood tie through their love of the sport, and what difference does it make what make of machine he rides as long as he belongs to the clan?" -- Walter Davidson -- The December, 1920 edition of the H-D Enthusiast Magazine. "It is wonderful how much time good people spend fighting the devil. If they would only expend the same amount of energy loving their fellow men, the devil would die in his own tracks of ennui." ~~ Helen Keller (Note: My all-time favorite quote - Sheldon) “We shall never make our republic what it should be until as a people we thoroughly understand and put in practice the doctrine that success is abhorrent if attained by the sacrifice of the fundamental principles of morality. The successful man, whether in business or in politics, who has risen by conscienceless swindling of his neighbors, by deceit and chicanery, by unscrupulous boldness and unscrupulous cunning, stands toward society as a dangerous wild beast.” ~~ Theodore Roosevelt "A determined soul will do more with a rusty monkey wrench than a loafer will accomplish with all the tools in a machine shop." ~~ Robert Hughes “
"Eternal Vigilance is the Price of Liberty." ~~ Thomas Jefferson "They that give up
essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither
liberty nor safety."
~~
Benjamin Franklin - Historical Review of “I believe that banking
institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies."
~~
Thomas Jefferson "They (corporations) cannot commit trespass nor be outlawed, nor excommunicate, for they have no souls." ~~ Sir Edward Coke, Case of Sutton's Hospital “Property monopolized or in the possession of a few is a curse to mankind.” ~~ John Adams “No man ought to own more
property than needed for his livelihood; the rest, by right, belonged to
the state.”
~~
Benjamin Franklin “It’s class warfare, my class is winning, but they shouldn’t be.” ~~ Warren Buffett, World’s Richest Person 2007 “Loyalty to the country always. Loyalty to the government when it deserves it.” ~~ Mark Twain “It is amazing what you can accomplish if you do not care who gets the credit.” ~~ Harry S Truman “What we do for ourselves dies with us. What we do for others and the world remains and is immortal.” ~~ Albert Pine “If at first you don’t succeed, bomb disposal probably isn’t for you. ~~ Anonymous “A generation which ignores history has no past and no future.” ~~ Robert Heinlein “How often we make our history the story of the great conquerors, the men of violence, Alexander, Napoleon, Hitler; that’s what we teach our children in their history books isn’t it? But here is one man who sits under a tree thinking, (Buddha) and changes the world.” ~~ Michael Woods “Religions create bonds, both physical and mental” ~~ Michael Woods “Security is mostly a
superstition.
It does not exist in nature, nor do the
children of men as a whole experience it.
Avoiding danger is no safer in the long
run than outright exposure.
Life is either a daring adventure, or
nothing.”
~~
Helen Keller "Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover." ~~ Mark Twain “A society of sheep must in time beget a government of wolves.” ~~ Bertrand de Jouvenal “Suppose you were an idiot. And suppose you were a member of Congress. But I repeat myself.” ~~ Mark Twain “A Conservative government is an organized hypocrisy." ~~ Benjamin Disraeli “Whenever you have an efficient government you have a dictatorship.” ~~ Harry S Truman “A bureaucrat is a Democrat who holds some office that a Republican wants.” ~~ Harry S Truman “Economics is extremely useful as a form of employment for economists. “ ~~ John Kenneth Galbraith “If all else fails, immortality can always be assured by spectacular error.” ~~ John Kenneth Galbraith
“More die in the
“The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in
moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification
for selfishness. ”
~~
John
Kenneth Galbraith "I never meant to say that the Conservatives are generally stupid. I meant to say that stupid people are generally Conservative. I believe that is so obviously and universally admitted a principle that I hardly think any gentleman will deny it." ~~ John Stuart Mill, - Letter to the Conservative MP, Sir John Pakington (March 1866) “The only function of economic forecasting is to make astrology look respectable. ” ~~ John Kenneth Galbraith “The salary of the chief executive of a large corporation is not a market award for achievement. It is frequently in the nature of a warm personal gesture by the individual to himself. ” ~~ John Kenneth Galbraith “Under capitalism, man exploits man. Under communism, it's just the opposite. ” ~~ John Kenneth Galbraith "I never meant to say that the Conservatives are generally stupid. I meant to say that stupid people are generally Conservative. I believe that is so obviously and universally admitted a principle that I hardly think any gentleman will deny it." ~~ John Stuart Mill, - Letter to the Conservative MP, Sir John Pakington (March 1866)
A
Christian Nation? “Lighthouses are more
useful than churches.”
--
Benjamin Franklin “This would be the best of
all possible worlds if there were no religion in it!”
~~
John
Adams “Christianity is the most
perverted system that ever shone on man.”
~~
Thomas Jefferson “As the Government of the
United States... is not in any sense founded on the Christian religion-as
it has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion, or
tranquility of Musselmen-and as the said States never have entered into
any war or act of hostility against any Mehomitan nation, it is declared
by the parties that no pretext arising from religious opinions shall ever
produce an interruption of the harmony existing between the two
countries.”
~~
Treaty of "I believe in one God, and
no more; and I hope for happiness beyond this life .... I do not believe
in the creed professed by the Jewish church, by the Roman church, by the
Greek church, by the Turkish church, by the Protestant church, nor by any
church that I know of. My own mind is my own church."
~~
Thomas Paine "A man compounded of law
and gospel is able to cheat a whole country with his religion and then
destroy them under color of law"
~~
Benjamin Franklin "It does me no injury for
my neighbor to say there are twenty gods or no god. It neither picks my
pocket nor breaks my leg."
~~
Thomas Jefferson “My indiscreet
disputations about religion began to make me pointed at with horror by
good people as an infidel or atheist”
~~
Benjamin
“The government of the “All national institutions
of churches, whether Jewish, Christian, or Turkish, appear to me no other
than human inventions, set up to terrify and enslave mankind, and
monopolize power and profit.”
~~
Thomas Paine “It is not a God, just and
good, but a devil, under the name of God, that the Bible describes ”
~~
Thomas Paine “Of all the tyrannies that
affect mankind, tyranny in religion is the worst.”
~~
Thomas Paine “There are matters in the
Bible, said to be done by the express commandment of God, that are
shocking to humanity and to every idea we have of moral justice.”
~~
Thomas Paine “One good schoolmaster is
of more use than a hundred priests.”
~~
Thomas Paine "Arms discourage and keep
the invader and plunderer in awe, and preserve order in the world as well
as property... Horrid mischief would ensue were the law-abiding deprived
of the use of them."
~~
Thomas Paine "A learned blockhead is a
greater blockhead than an ignorant one."
~~
Benjamin Franklin “To argue with a person
who has renounced the use of reason is like administering medicine to the
dead.”
~~
Thomas Paine First they came for the
communists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a communist; "If our democracy is to
flourish, it must have criticism; if our government is to function it must
have dissent."
~~
Henry Commager “It cannot be wisdom to
assert the truth of one faith over another.
In our troubled world, so full of
contradictions, the wise person makes justice his guide and learns from
all. ”
~~
Jalaluddin Muhammad Akbar (Akbar the
Great)
“A pessimist is one who makes difficulties of his opportunities and an
optimist is one who makes opportunities of his difficulties.”
~~
Harry S Truman "It is hard to interest
those who have everything in those who have nothing."
~~
Helen Keller "No pessimist ever
discovered the secret of the stars, or sailed to an uncharted land, or
opened a new doorway for the human spirit."
~~
Helen Keller “A politician is a man who
understands government.
A statesman is a politician who’s been
dead for 15 years.”
~~
Harry S Truman
“Always be sincere, even
if you don’t mean it.”
~~
Harry S Truman “Anyway, no drug, not even
alcohol, causes the fundamental ills of society. If we're looking for the
source of our troubles, we shouldn't test people for drugs, we should test
them for stupidity, ignorance, greed and love of power. ”
~~
P. J. O'Rourke “Those who make peaceful
revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable."
~~
John F. Kennedy “A long tradition of
scholarship in the Catholic Church has argued that ‘truth is one’, that
science and religion should ultimately be in harmony.
But that doesn’t make faith a scientific
proposition...
Faith and reason are both gifts from
God.
If God is real then faith and reason
should compliment each other, rather than be in conflict.”
~~
Kenneth R. Miller, "I
like to believe that people in the long run are going to do more to
promote peace than our governments. Indeed, I think that people want peace
so much that one of these days governments had better get out of the way
and let them have it."
~~
Dwight D. Eisenhower “The spirit of resistance
to government is so valuable on certain occasions, that I wish it always
to be kept alive."
~~
Thomas Jefferson “I would rather be exposed
to the inconveniences attending too much liberty than to those attending
too small a degree of it."
~~
Thomas Jefferson “Change does not roll in
on the wheels of inevitability, but comes through continuous struggle. And
so we must straighten our backs and work for our freedom. A man can't ride
you unless your back is bent.”
~~
Martin Luther King, Jr.
“American stuntmen
are smart - they think about safety. When they do a jump in a car, they
calculate everything: the speed, the distance... But in
“I've
always found that the speed of the boss is the speed of the team.”
~~
Lee Iacocca
“Computer: a million morons working at the speed of light.”
~~
David Ferrier
"All great change in "We must become the change
we want to see in the world."
~~
Mohandas Gandhi " "The spirit of democracy
is not a mechanical thing to be adjusted by abolition of forms.
It requires change of heart."
~~
Mohandas Gandhi As a very important source
of strength and security, cherish public credit. One method of preserving
it is, to use it as sparingly as possible; avoiding occasions of expense
by cultivating peace, but remembering also that timely disbursements to
prepare for danger frequently prevent much greater disbursements to repel
it; avoiding likewise the accumulation of debt, not only by shunning
occasions of expense, but by vigorous exertions in time of peace to
discharge the debts, which unavoidable wars may have occasioned, not
ungenerously throwing upon posterity the burthen, which we ourselves ought
to bear. ~~
George Washington's Farewell Address
September 17, 1796 "For having lived long, I
have experienced many instances of being obliged, by better information or
fuller consideration, to change opinions, even on important subjects,
which I once thought right but found to be otherwise."
~~
Benjamin Franklin "Education is the most
powerful weapon which you can use to change the world."
~~
Nelson Mandela "For time and the world do
not stand still.
Change is the law of life.
And those who look only to the past or
present are certain to miss the future."
~~
John F. Kennedy "Failure is not fatal, but
failure to change might be."
~~
John Wooden "Only the wisest and
stupidest of men never change."
~~
Confucius "Change in all things is
sweet."
~~
Aristotle "If you do not change
direction, you may end up where you are heading."
~~
Lao Tzu "If you realize that all
things change, there is nothing you will try to hold on to. If you are not
afraid of dying, there is nothing you cannot achieve."
~~
Lao Tzu "You cannot control what
happens to you, but you can control your attitude toward what happens to
you, and in that, you will be mastering change rather than allowing it to
master you."
~~
Brian Tracy "Change your thoughts and
you change your world."
~~
Norman Vincent Peale “It doesn't matter who
casts the votes, what matters is who counts them.”
~~
Josef Stalin “Carry the battle to them.
Don’t let them bring it to you.
Put them on the defensive and don’t ever
apologize for anything.”
~~
Harry S Truman
“I remember when I first came to “My choice early in life
was either to be a piano player in a whorehouse or a politician.
And to tell the truth, there’s hardly
any difference..”
~~
Harry S Truman “Don't
join the book burners. Don't think you're going to conceal faults by
concealing evidence that they ever existed. Don't be afraid to go in your
library and read every book...”
~~
Dwight D. Eisenhower “What counts is not
necessarily the size of the dog in the fight - it's the size of the fight
in the dog.” ~~
Dwight D. Eisenhower “Every gun that is made,
every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense,
a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and not
clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending
the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its
children. This is not a way of life at all in any true sense. Under the
cloud of threatening war, it is humanity hanging from a cross of iron.”
~~
Dwight D. Eisenhower Those who want the
Government to regulate matters of the mind and spirit are like men hwo are
so afraid of being murdered that they commit suicide to avoid
assassination.”
~~
Harry S Truman “You do not lead by
hitting people over the head-that's assault, not leadership.”
~~
Dwight
D. Eisenhower “We merely want to live in
peace with all the world, to trade with them, to commune with them, to
learn from their culture as they may learn from ours, so that the products
of our toil may be used for our schools and our roads and our churches and
not for guns and planes and tanks and ships of war.”
~~
Dwight D. Eisenhower “You cannot win a War on
Terrorism. It’s like having a war on jealousy.”
~~
David Cross “I hate war as only a
soldier who has lived it can, only as one who has seen its brutality, its
futility, its stupidity.”
~~
Dwight D. Eisenhower “How far can you go
without destroying from within what you are trying to defend from
without?”
~~
Dwight D. Eisenhower “A Patriot must always be
ready to defend his country against his government.”
~~
Ed Abbey "The old lady said she'd
leave me if I bought another bike. “First they came for the
Jews
~~ Pastor Martin Niemöller – “To lay one's plans
carefully, to wreak an implacable vengeance, and then to go to sleep,
there is nothing
sweeter in the world"
~~
Josef Stalin
“A little rebellion now and then... is a medicine necessary for the sound
health of government.”
~~
Thomas Jefferson "Government's view of the economy could be summed
up in a few short phrases: If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving,
regulate it.
And if it stops moving, subsidize it."
~~
Ronald Reagan "The snow doesn't give a
soft white damn whom it touches."
--
E(dward) E(stlin) Cummings
“There’s simply no two
ways about this fuel question.
Gasoline is going – alcohol is coming.
And we might as well get ready for it
now.
All the world is waiting for a
substitute for gasoline.”
~~ Henry Ford, in an
interview with The "The price of apathy
towards public affairs is to be ruled by evil men."
~~
Plato "...those who propose such
a thing (violating citizen privacy through illegal wiretaps) are more of a
danger to the country than the ones they want to listen in on."
~~
Harry Truman “The greatest danger for
most of us is not that our aim is too high and we miss it, but that it is
too low and we reach it.”
~~
Michelangelo "The erosion of freedom
rarely comes as an all-out frontal assault.
Rather, it is a gradual, noxious
creeping cloaked in secrecy and glossed over by
reassurances of greater security."
~~
Senator Robert C. Byrd “What luck for rulers that
men do not think.”
~~
Adolf
Hitler “The great masses of the
people…
will more easily fall victims to a great
lie than to a small one.”
~~
Adolf Hitler “I use emotion for the
many and reserve reason for the few.”
~~
Adolf Hitler “By means of shrewd lies,
unremittingly repeated, it is possible to make people believe that heaven
is hell – and hell is heaven.
The greater the lie, the more readily it
will be believed.”
~
Adolf Hitler “Naturally, the common
people don’t want war, but after all, it is the leaders of a country who
determine the policy, and it is always a simple matter to drag people
along whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or a
parliament, or a communist dictatorship.
Voice or no voice, the people can always
be brought to the bidding of the leaders.
This is easy.
All you have to do is tell them they are
being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and
exposing the country to danger.
It works the same in every country.”
~~
Herman Goering "Never eat more than you
can lift." ~~
Miss Piggy
"If government were a product, selling it would
be illegal."
~~ P. J. O'Rourke "With or without religion,
you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil
things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion."
~~
Steven Weinberg "An idealist is a person
who helps other people to be prosperous."
~~
Henry Ford "There is nothing so
stable as change."
~~
Bob Dylan "Willingness to change is
a strength, even if it means plunging part of the company into total
confusion for a while."
~~
Jack Welch "You cannot expect to
achieve new goals or move beyond your present circumstances unless you
change."
~~
Les Brown "We are taught you must
blame your father, your sisters, your brothers, the school, the teachers -
but never blame yourself. It's never your fault. But it's always your
fault, because if you wanted to change you're the one who has got to
change." ~~
Katharine Hepburn "I have noticed even
people who claim everything is predestined, and that we can do nothing to
change it, look before they cross the road."
~~
Stephen Hawking “Those Who Risk Nothing,
Do, Achieve, & Become Nothing”
~~
David Jefferies (motorcycle racer,
paraphrasing Leo F. Buscaglia" “The person who risks
nothing, does nothing, has nothing, is nothing, and becomes nothing. He
may avoid suffering and sorrow, but he simply cannot learn and feel and
change and grow and love and live.”
~~
Leo F. Buscaglia "Only those who will risk
going too far can possibly find out how far one can go."
~~
T. S. Eliot "We are just an advanced
breed of monkeys on a minor planet of a very average star. But we can
understand the Universe. That makes us something very special."
~~
Stephen Hawking “No one knows what it is
that he can do till he tries.”
~~
Publilius
Syrus “I never hurt nobody but
myself and that's nobody's business but my own.”
~~
Billie
Holiday “The man of character, in
relation to his superiors, finds himself in a difficult position.
Sure of his own judgment and conscious
of his strengths, he makes no concessions to the desire to please.
More than that, those who do great
things must often ignore the conventions of a false discipline.”
~~
Charles
DeGaulle “Natural abilities are
like natural plants; they need pruning by study.”
~~
Francis
Bacon “It rankles me when
somebody tries to force somebody to do something.”
~~
John
Wayne “Authors, like coins, grow
dear as they grow old:
It is the rust we value, not the gold.”
~~
Alexander
Pope “Everything used in this
book is from public sources.
The stuff that's available publicly is
far more frightening than a lot of people realize.”
~~
Tom
Clancy “I was in prison and you
came to visit me.”
~~
Jesus of “Perhaps the sentiments
contained in the following pages, are not yet sufficiently fashionable to
procure them general favor; a long habit of not thinking a thing wrong,
gives it a superficial
appearance
of being right, and raises at first a formidable outcry in defense of
custom.
But the tumult soon subsides.”
~~
Thomas Paine
(Common Sense, Jan 1776) “The author who speaks
about his own books is almost as bad as a mother who talks about her own
children.”
~~
Benjamin
Disraeli “Why doesn't everybody
leave everybody else the hell alone?”
~~
Jimmy
Durante “No loss by flood or
lightning, no destruction of cities and temples by hostile forces of
nature, has deprived man of so many noble lives and impulses as those
which his intolerance has destroyed.”
~~
Helen
Keller “They can because they
think they can.”
~~
Vergil “That which we call sin in
others is experiment for us.”
~~
Ralph
Waldo Emerson "Citizenship? We have
none! In place of it we teach patriotism which Samuel Johnson said a
hundred and forty or a hundred and fifty years ago was the last refuge of
the scoundrel -- and I believe that he was right. I remember when I was a
boy and I heard repeated time and time again the phrase, 'My country,
right or wrong, my country!' How absolutely absurd is such an idea. How
absolutely absurd to teach this idea to the youth of the country."
~~
Mark Twain, True Citizenship at the
Children's Theater, 1907
“Enlighten the people generally, and tyranny and oppressions of body and
mind will vanish like evil spirits at the dawn of day.”
~~
Thomas Jefferson “It has been my experience
that folks who have no vices have very few virtues.”
~~
Abraham
Lincoln “Absence makes the heart
grow fonder.”
~~
Thomas
Haynes Bayly “My definition of a free
society is a society where it is safe to be unpopular.”
~~
Adlai
E. Stevenson “If we've learned anything
in the past quarter century, it is that we cannot federalize virtue.”
~~
President
George Bush 1991 “Fools admire, but men of
sense approve.”
~~
Alexander
Pope “We are so concerned to
flatter the majority that we lose sight of how very often it is necessary,
in order to preserve freedom for the minority, let alone for the
individual, to face that majority down.”
~~
William
F. Buckley, Jr. “A fool always finds a
greater fool to admire him.”
~~
Nicholas
Boileau “All men are frauds.
The only difference between them is that
some admit it.
I myself deny it.”
~~
H.
L. Mencken “The first thing to learn
in intercourse with others is non-interference with their own particular
ways of being happy, provided those ways do not assume to interfere by
violence with ours.”
~~
William
James “Truth resides in every
human heart, and one has to search for it there, and to be guided by truth
as one sees it.
But no one has a right to coerce others
to act according to his own view of truth.”
~~
Mohandas
K. Gandhi “As a human being,
regardless if a believer or non-believer this inner human value, is very
essential in order to have happier individuals, happier family, happier
society or happier nation.”
~~
Dalai Lama “Resort to military force
is a first sure sign that we are giving up the struggle for the democratic
way of life, and that the Old World has conquered morally as well as
geographically ~~ succeeding in imposing upon us its ideals and methods.”
~~
John
Dewey (1939) “The worst men give oft
the best advice.”
~~
Philip
James Bailey “Nobody can be so
amusingly arrogant as a young man who has just discovered an old idea and
thinks it is his own.”
~~
“A wise and frugal
Government, which shall restrain men from injuring one another, shall
leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and
improvement.”
~~
Thomas
Jefferson (1801) “Freedom is the right to
choose:
the right to create for oneself the
alternatives of choice.
Without the possibility of choice a man
is not a man but a member, and instrument, a thing.”
~~
Archibald
MaCleish “A civilized society is
one which tolerates eccentricity to the point of doubtful sanity.”
~~
Robert
Frost “ “Every man desires to live
long, but no man would be old.”
~~
Johnathan
Swift
“The “Do what's right for you,
as long as it don't hurt no one.”
~~
Elvis
Presley “In framing a government,
which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in
this:
you must first enable the government to
control the governed, and in the next place, oblige it to control itself.”
~~
James Madison “ “Life is a sexually
transmitted terminal disease.”
~~
Peter
McWilliams “Whether or not
legislation is truly moral is often a question of who has the power to
define morality.”
~~
Jerome
H. Skolnick “In a free society,
standards of public morality can be measured only by whether physical
coercion ~~
violence against persons or property ~~
occurs.
There is no right not to be offended by
words, actions or symbols.”
~~
Richard
E. Sincere, Jr. “Moral indignation is in
most cases 2% moral, 48% indignation and 50% envy.
~~
Vittorio
De Sica “Give me chastity and
self-restraint, but do not give it yet.”
~~
“Without doubt the
greatest injury of all was done by basing morals on myth.
For, sooner or later, myth is recognized
for what it is, and disappears.
Then morality loses the foundation on
which it has been built.”
~~
Lord
Herbert Louis Samuel “My people and I have come
to an agreement which satisfies us both.
They
are to say what they please, and I am to do what I please.”
~~
“I have never been able to conceive how any rational being could propose
happiness to himself from the exercise of power over others.”
~~ Thomas Jefferson “It is not only vain, but
wicked, in a legislator to frame laws in opposition to the laws of nature,
and to arm them with the terrors of death.
This is truly creating crimes in order
to punish them.”
~~
Thomas
Jefferson (1779) “Every tyrant who has
lived has believed in freedom
~~
for himself.”
~~
Elbert Hubbard “Civil laws against
adultery and fornication have been on the books forever, in every country.
That's not the law's business; that's
God's business.
He can handle it.”
~~
Justice
Thomas G. Kavanagh “Republic.
I like the sound of the word.
It means people can live free, talk
free, go or come, buy or sell, be drunk or sober, however they choose.”
~~
John
Wayne “We are all tolerant
enough of those who do not agree with us, provided only they are
sufficiently miserable.”
~~
David
Grayson “Youth is a blunder,
manhood a struggle; old age a regret.”
~~
Benjamin
Disraeli “I hate the man who builds his name
On ruins of another's fame.”
~~
John
Gay “The policy of the
American government is to leave their citizens free, neither restraining
nor aiding them in their pursuits.”
~~
Thomas
Jefferson “For why should my freedom
be judged by another's conscience?”
~~
Paul
(1 Corinthians “In a civilized society,
all crimes are likely to be sins, but most sins are not and ought not to
be treated as crimes.
Man's ultimate responsibility is to God
alone.”
~~
Geoffrey
Fisher, Archbishop of “To be prepared for war is
one of the most effectual means of preserving peace.”
~~
George
Washington “The people's government,
made for the people, made by the people, and answerable to the people.”
~~
Daniel
Webster “In the field of world
policy, I would dedicate this nation to the policy of the good neighbor.”
~~
Franklin
Delano “The test of our progress
is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much;
it is whether we provide enough for
those who have too little.”
~~
Franklin
Delano "I admire men of
character.
And I judge character not by how men
deal
with their superiors, but mostly how they deal with their
subordinates.
And that, to me, is where you find out
what the character of a man is."
~~
Gen. H. Norman Schwarzkopf "We must be the great
arsenal of democracy."
~~
Franklin
Delano "Speak softly and carry a
big stick: you will go far.”
~~
Theodore
Roosevelt "We have met the enemy,
and they are ours."
~~
Oliver H. Perry "Freedom of religion;
freedom of the press; freedom of person under the protection of the habeas
corpus; and trial by juries impartially selected, -These principles form
the bright constellation which has gone before us, and guided our steps
through an age of revolution and reformation."
~~
Thomas
Jefferson "It is not best to swap
horses when crossing a stream."
~~
Abraham
Lincoln "The God who gave us life,
gave us liberty at the same time."
~~
Thomas
Jefferson - Summary View of the Rights of "Nothing is certain but
death and taxes."
~~
Benjamin
Franklin “Because of the diverse
conditions of humans, it happens that some acts are virtuous to some
people, as appropriate and suitable to them, while the same acts are
immoral for others, as inappropriate to them.”
~~
Saint
Thomas Aquinas “I like white trash
cooking.
Cheeseburgers.
The greasier the better.
Mashed potatoes served in a scoop, a
little dent in the top for the gravy.
Drake's Devel Dogs for dessert.
Pure pleasure; no known nutrient.”
~~
Orson
Bean “I have every sympathy
with the American who was so horrified by what he had read of the effects
of smoking that he gave up reading.”
~~
Lord
Conesford “Fanaticism consists in
redoubling your effort when you have forgotten your aim.”
~~
George
Santayana “If we cannot end our
differences, at least we can help make the world safe for diversity.”
~~
John
F. Kennedy “If you say a modern
celebrity is an adulterer, a pervert, and a drug addict, all it means is
that you've read his autobiography.”
~~
P.J.
O'Rourke “I am an actor.
Of COURSE I can play a heterosexual!”
~~
Sir
John Gielgud “Our relations with a good
joke are direct and even divine relations.”
~~
G.K.
Chesterton “There are more old
drunkards than old doctors.”
~~
Benjamin
Franklin “I once shook hands with
Pat Boone and my whole right side sobered up.”
~~
Dean
Martin There's something about me
that makes a lot of people want to throw up.”
~~
Pat
Boone “My dad was the town
drunk.
Usually that's not so bad, but “Although man is already
ninety per cent water, the Prohibitionists are not yet satisfied.”
~~
John
Kendrick Bangs “Prohibition only drives
drunkenness behind doors and into dark places and does not cure or even
diminish it.”
~~
Mark
Twain “They can never repeal
it.”
~~
Senator
Andrew J. Volstead of “I'm only a beer
teetotaler, not a champagne teetotaler; I don't like beer.”
~~
George
Bernard Shaw “I see that you, too, put
up monuments to your great dead.”
~~
A
Frenchman on viewing the Statue of “When I sell liquor, it's
bootlegging.
When my patrons serve it on a silver tray on
“When a friend warned him that alcohol was slow
poison,
Robert Benchley
replies, "So who's in a hurry?" “I have taken more out of
alcohol than alcohol has taken out of me.”
~~
Winston
Churchill “There should be asylums
for habitual teetotalers, but they would probably relapse into teetotalism
as soon as they got out.”
~~
Samuel
Butler “In a generation, those
who are now children will have lost their taste for alcohol.”
~~
John
Fuller (1925) “We learn from history
what we do not learn from history.”
~~
Hegel
Jon Winokur:
“How did you react to winning a
Pulitzer?”
Dave
Barry: “I figured it was just one
more indication of the nation’s drug problem.” “While Congress was
snoozing, the American taxpayers were losing.”
~~
Senator
Bob Dole “Any company executive who
overcharges the government more than $5,000,000 will be fined $50 or have
to go to traffic school three nights a week.”
~~
Art
Buchwald “Even very young children
need to be informed about dying. Explain the concept of death very
carefully to your child. This will make threatening him with it much more
effective.”
~~
P. J. O'Rourke
“The mystery of government is not how “Maybe a nation that
consumes as much booze and dope as we do and has our kind of divorce
statistics should pipe down about ''character issues.'' Either that or
just go ahead and determine the presidency with three-legged races and
pie-eating contests. It would make better TV. ”
~~
P. J. O'Rourke “Cleanliness becomes more
important when godliness is unlikely. ”
~~
P. J. O'Rourke “There are a number of
mechanical devices which increase sexual arousal, particularly in women.
Chief among these is the Mercedes-Benz 380SL convertible. ”
~~
P. J. O'Rourke “After all, what is your
host's purpose in having a party?
Surely
not for you to enjoy yourself; if that were their sole purpose, they'd
have simply sent champagne and women over to your place by taxi. ”
~~
P. J. O'Rourke “Giving money and power to
government is like giving whiskey and car keys to teenage boys. ”
~~
P. J. O'Rourke "The financial honor of
this government is of too vast importance, is entirely too sacred to be
the football of party politics."
~~
William
McKinley
"I am for "We go to war only to make
peace.
We never went to war with any other
design.
We carry the national conscience
wherever we go."
~~
William
McKinley "No material greatness, no
wealth, no accumulation of splendor, is to be compared with those humble
and homely virtues which have generally characterized our American homes."
~~
Benjamin
Harrison "Performance should be
made square with promise."
~~
Theodore
Roosevelt "The country's honor must
be upheld at home and abroad."
~~
Theodore
Roosevelt "A man's disposition is
never well known till he be crossed."
~~
Francis
Bacon "Anger is short madness."
~~
Horace "He who conquers his wrath
overcomes his greatest enemy."
~~
Publilius
Syrus "The elephant is never won
with Anger, Nor must that man who would reclaim a lion take him by the
teeth."
~~
Earl
of "Nothing is so good as it
seems beforehand."
~~
George
Eliot, Silas Marner "Apologies only account
for that which they do not alter."
~~
Bejamin
Disraeli "Great men are seldom
over-scrupulous in the arrangement of their attire."
~~
Charles
Dickens, Pickwick Papers "All that glisters is not
gold, Gilded tombs do worms infold."
~~
William
Shakespeare "By outward show let's not
be cheated; An ass should like an ass be treated."
~~
John
Gay, Fables "Things are seldom what
they seem; Skim milk masquerades as cream."
~~
Sir William Schwenck Gilbert, H.M.S.
Pinafore "Who, too deep for his
hearers, still went on refining, And thought of convincing while they
thought of dining."
~~
Oliver Goldsmith, Retaliation "Too low they build who
build beneath the stars."
~~
Edward
Young,
Night Thoughts "Hitch your wagon to a
star."
~~
Ralph
Waldo Emerson "To know ourselves disease
is half our cure."
~~
Alexander
Pope “Beauty is but skin deep”
~~
Proverb
"The saying that beauty is but skin deep
is but a skin-deep saying."
~~
Herbert
Spencer, Essays "A thing of beauty is a
joy forever;
Its loveliness increases; it will never
Pass into nothingness."
~~
John
Keats,
Endymion "If eyes were made for seeing,
Then Beauty is its own excuse for
being."
~~
Ralph
Walso Emerson,
The Rhodora "A man lives by believing something;
Not by debating and arguing about many
things."
~~
Thomas
Carlyle "Man prefers to believe
what he prefers to be true."
~~
Francis
Bacon,
Aphorisms "What we ardently wish, we
believe."
~~
Edward
Young,
Night Thoughts "Would you know the
qualities in which a man is wanting?
Examine those of which he boasts."
~~
Segur,
Poams "The empty vessel makes
the greatest sound."
~~
Proverb Notice, Hartford Courant,
May 20, 1875: "Who kills a man, kills a
reasonable creature, God's image; but he who destroys a good book kills
reason itself."
~~
John
Milton,
Areopagitica "Books, like friends,
should be few and well chosen."
~~
Samuel
Paterson,
Joineriana "God be thanked for books.
They are the voices of the distant and
the dead, and make us heirs of the spiritual life of past ages."
~~
William
Ellery Channing "Books are the best
things, well used; abused, among the worst."
~~
Ralph
Waldo Emerson "Some books are to be
tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested."
~~
Francis
Bacon,
Essay on Studies "A good book is the
precious lifeblood of a master-spirit embalmed and treasured up on purpose
to a life beyond life."
~~
John
Milton,
Areopagitica "Again I hear the creaking step!~~-
He's rapping at the door!~~-
Too well I know the boding sound
That ushers in a bore."
~~
John
Godfrey Saxe,
My Familiar "We always get bored with
those whom we bore."
~~
La
Rochefoucauld,
Maximes "A man in debt is so far a
slave."
~~
Ralph
Waldo Emerson "The human species,
according to the best theory I can form of it, is composed of two distinct
races, The men who borrow and the men who lend."
~~
Charles
Lamb "Let us all be happy and
live within our means, even if we have to borrow the money to do it with."
~~
Artemus
Ward,
Natural History "Neither a borrower nor a lender be:
For loan oft loses both itself and
friend;
And borrowing dulls the edge of
husbandry."
~~
William
Shakespeare,
Hamlet "Creditors have better
memories than debtors."
~~
Proverb "None but the brave
deserves the fair."
~~
John
Dryden,
Alexander's Feast "Brevity is the soul of
wit."
~~
William
Shakespeare,
Hamlet "Shallow men believe in luck, believe in
circumstances.
Strong men believe in cause and effect."
~~
Ralph
Waldo Emerson,
Conduct of Life "Great estates may venture more,
But little boars should keep near
shore."
~~
Benjamin
Franklin, Poor Richard's Almanac "They that fear the
adder’s sting, will not come near his hissing."
~~
George
Chapman,
Widow's Tears "In this world, nothing is
certain but death and taxes."
~~
Benjamin
Franklin,
Letter "There is nothing certain
in man's life but that he must lose it."
~~
Owen
Meredith,
Clytemnestra "The only thing that is
certain is that nothing is certain."
~~
Pliny
the Elder,
Historia Naturalis "Chance is the providence
of adventurers."
~~
Napoleon
Bonaparte "A fool must now and then
be right by chance."
~~
William
Cowper,
Conversations "Life belongs to the
living, and he who lives must be prepared for changes."
~~
Johann
Wolfgang Von Goethe "Character is simply a
habit long continued."
~~
Plutarch "The best investment I
know of is charity:
You git your principal back immediately,
and draw a dividend every time you think of it."
~~
Josh
Billings (Henry Wheeler Shaw) "They serve God well
Who serve his creatures."
~~
Caroline
Elizabeth Norton,
Lady of La Garaye "How sharper than a
serpent's tooth it is
To have a thankless child!"
~~
William
Shakespeare,
King Lear "A man is too apt to
forget that in this world he cannot have everything.
A choice is all that is left him."
~~
H.
Mathews, Diary of an Invalid "Everyone is as God has
made him, and often-times a great deal worse."
~~
Miguel
De Cervantes, Don Quixote "Common sense is not so
common."
~~
Voltaire "They who complain most
are most to be complained of."
~~
Matthew
Henry "All great alterations in
human affairs are produced by compromise."
~~
Sydney
Smith,
Catholic Question "Nothing is pleasant Joined
with a must."
~~
Robert
Bridges,
Nero "Who overcomes by force
has overcome but half his foe."
~~
John
Milton,
"Many persons have a wrong
idea of what constitutes true happiness. It is not attained through
self-gratification but through fidelity to a worthy purpose."
~~
Helen Keller "Conceit may puff a man
up, but never prop him up."
~~
John
Ruskin "Confidence is a thing
that cannot be produced by compulsion."
~~
Daniel Webster "Confidence is a plant of
slow growth in an aged bosom."
~~
William
Pitt "For they can conquer who
believe they can."
~~
Ralph
Waldo Emerson,
Society and Solitude "A burthen'd conscience
Will never need a hangman."
~~
Beaumont
and Fletcher, Laws of Comedy "Whatever creed be taught or land be trod,
Man's conscience is the oracle of God!"
~~
Lord
Byron,
The "Let his tormentor,
Conscience, find him out."
~~
John
Milton,
"The fond fantastic thing call'd conscience,
Which serves for nothing but to make men
cowards."
~~
Thomas
Shadwell,
The Libertine "Conscience, the
bosom-hell of guilty man!"
~~
James
Montgomery,
The "A guilty conscience needs
no accuser."
~~
Proverb "Conscience is the chamber
of justice."
~~
Origen "Show me a thoroughly
contented person, and I will show you a useless one."
~~
Josh
Billings (Henry Wheeler Shaw) "Contentment consisteth
not in adding more fuel, but in taking away some fire.
~~
Thomas
Fuller "He that wrestles with us
strengthens our nerves and sharpens our skill.
Our antagonist is our helper."
~~
Edmund
Burke,
Reflections on the Revolution in "Silence and modesty are
very valuable qualities in conversation."
~~
Michel De Montaigne "Conversation is an art in
which a man has all mankind for competitors."
~~
Ralph Waldo Emerson "Corruption is like a ball
of snow, when once set a-rolling it must increase."
~~
Charles
Caleb Colton "They also serve who only
stand and wait."
~~
John
Milton “I would rather be exposed
to the inconveniences attending too much liberty than those attending too
small a degree of it.”
~~
Thomas
Jefferson (1791) “A government which robs
Peter to pay Paul can always depend on the support of Paul.”
~~
George
Bernard Shaw (1944) “The inherent vice of
capitalism is the unequal sharing of the blessings. The inherent blessing
of socialism is the equal sharing of misery.”
~~
Winston
Churchill “There is only one basic
human right, the right to do as you damn well please. And with it comes
the only basic human duty, the duty to take the consequences.”
~~
P.J.
O'Rourke (1993) “Government's view of the
economy could be summed up in a few short phrases: If it moves, tax it. If
it keeps moving, regulate it. And if it stops moving, subsidize it.”
~~
Ronald
Reagan (1986) “I was guilty of judging
capitalism by its operations and socialism by its hopes and aspirations;
capitalism by its works and socialism by its literature.”
~~
Sidney
Hook “ “Everything that is really
great and inspiring is created by the individual who can labor in
freedom.”
~~
Albert
Einstein (1950)
“War is just one more big
government program.”
~~
Joseph
Sobran “War is the health of the
State.
~~
“Remember, democracy never
lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There never was
a democracy yet that did not commit suicide.”
~~
John
Adams (1814) “Foreign aid might be
defined as a transfer from poor people in rich countries to rich people in
poor countries.”
~~
Douglas
Casey (1992) “Peace, commerce and
honest friendship with all nations; entangling alliances with none.”
~~
Thomas
Jefferson (1801) “Where the Spirit of the
Lord is, there is liberty.”
~~
The
Bible, II Corinthians 3:17. “If you want government to
intervene domestically, you're a liberal. If you want government to
intervene overseas, you're a conservative. If you want government to
intervene everywhere, you're a moderate. If you don't want government to
intervene anywhere, you're an extremist.”
~~
Joseph
Sobran (1995) “One of the greatest
delusions in the world is the hope that the evils in this world are to be
cured by legislation.”
~~
Thomas
B. Reed (1886) “In general, the art of
government consists in taking as much money as possible from one party of
the citizens to give to the other.”
~~
Voltaire
(1764) “They that can give up
essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither
liberty nor safety.”
~~
Benjamin
Franklin (1755) “Necessity is the plea for
every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is
the creed of slaves.”
~~
William
Pitt (1783) “If you are not free to
choose wrongly and irresponsibly, you are not free at all.”
~~
Jacob
Hornberger (1995) “I heartily accept the
motto, "That government is best which governs least."
~~
Henry
David Thoreau “Government is not reason;
it is not eloquence; it is force! Like fire, it is a dangerous servant and
a fearful master.”
~~
Attributed
to George Washington “Giving money and power to
government is like giving whiskey and car keys to teenage boys.”
~~
P.J.
O'Rourke “When buying and selling
are controlled by legislation, the first things to be bought and sold are
legislators.”
~~
P.J.
O'Rourke “A government that is big
enough to give you all you want is big enough to take it all away.”
~~
Barry
Goldwater (1964) “I don't make jokes. I
just watch the government and report the facts.”
~~
Will
Rogers “Nothing is so permanent
as a temporary government program.”
~~
Milton
Friedman “Politicians are the same
all over: they promise to build a bridge even where there is no river.”
~~
Nikita
Khrushchev (1960) “The whole aim of
practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed ~~ and hence clamorous
to be led to safety ~~ by menacing it with an endless series of
hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.”
~~
H.L.
Mencken “Rebellion to tyrants is
obedience to God.”
~~
John
Bradshaw “There are just two rules
of governance in a free society: Mind your own business. Keep your hands
to yourself.”
~~
P.J.
O'Rourke (1993) “The human race divides
politically into those who want people to be controlled and those who have
no such desire.”
~~
Robert
A. Heinlein “Just because you do not
take an interest in politics doesn't mean politics won't take an interest
in you.”
~~
Pericles
(430 BC) “The more corrupt the
state, the more it legislates.”
~~
Tacitus “There is no virtue in
compulsory government charity, and there is no virtue in advocating it. A
politician who portrays himself as "caring" and "sensitive" because he
wants to expand the government's charitable programs is merely saying that
he's willing to try to do good with other people's money. Well, who isn't?
And a voter who takes pride in supporting such programs is telling us that
he'll do good with his own money ~~ if a gun is held to his head.”
~~
P.J.
O'Rourke “The ultimate result of
shielding men from the effects of folly is to fill the world with fools.”
~~
Herbert
Spencer (1891) “More laws, less justice.”
~~
Marcus
Tullius Ciceroca (42 BC) “No man's life, liberty,
or property are safe while the legislature is in session.”
~~
Mark
Twain (1866) “The strongest reason for
the people to retain the right to bear arms is, as a last resort, to
protect themselves against tyranny in government.”
~~
Thomas
Jefferson “There is no worse tyranny
than to force a man to pay for what he does not want merely because you
think it would be good for him.”
~~
Robert
Heinlein “
“The true danger is when
“I have ever deemed it fundamental for the
“ “He that would make his
own liberty secure must guard even his enemy from oppression.”
~~
Thomas Paine (1795) “Government is the great
fiction, through which everybody endeavors to live at the expense of
everybody else.”
~~
Frederic
Bastiat “Ask not what you can do
for your country; ask what your government is doing to you.”
~~
Joseph
Sobran (1990) “God grants liberty only
to those who love it, and are always ready to guard and defend it.”
~~
Daniel
Webster (1834) “The greatest dangers to
liberty lurk in insidious encroachment by men of zeal, well-meaning but
without understanding.”
~~
Justice
Louis Brandeis (1928) “The saddest epitaph which
can be carved in memory of a vanished liberty is that it was lost because
its possessors failed to stretch forth a saving hand while yet there was
time.”
~~
Justice
George Sutherland (1938) “The era of resisting big
government is never over.”
~~
Paul
Gigot (1998)
“Not a place upon earth might be so happy as
“Bureaucracy is a giant
mechanism operated by pygmies.”
~~
Honore
de Balzac “Whoever prefers life to
death, happiness to suffering, well-being to misery must defend without
compromise private ownership in the means of production.”
~~
Ludwig
von Mises (1920) “The triumph of persuasion
over force is the sign of a civilized society.”
~~
Mark
Skousen “Good intentions will
always be pleaded for any assumption of power. The Constitution was made
to guard the people against the dangers of good intentions. There are men
in all ages who mean to govern well, but they mean to govern. They promise
to be good masters, but they mean to be masters.”
~~
Daniel
Webster “If angels were to govern
men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be
necessary. In framing a government that is to be administered by men over
men, the great difficulty lies in this: you must first enable the
government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to
control itself.”
~~
James
Madison “Let the people think they
govern and they will be governed.”
~~
William
Penn (1693) “In 1940, teachers were
asked what they regarded as the three major problems in American schools.
They identified the three major problems as: Littering, noise, and chewing
gum. Teachers last year were asked what the three major problems in
American schools were, and they defined them as: Rape, assault, and
suicide.”
~~
William
Bennett (1993) “The threat posed by
humans to the natural environment is nothing compared to the threat to
humans posed by global environmental policy.”
~~
Fred
L. Smith (1992) “The great virtue of a
free market system is that it does not care what color people are; it does
not care what their religion is; it only cares whether they can produce
something you want to buy. It is the most effective system we have
discovered to enable people who hate one another to deal with one another
and help one another.”
~~
Milton
Friedman “The spirit of truth and
the spirit of freedom ~~ they are the pillars of society.”
~~
Henrik
Ibsen (1877) “Government is actually
the worst failure of civilized man. There has never been a really good
one, and even those that are most tolerable are arbitrary, cruel,
grasping, and unintelligent.”
~~
H.
L. Mencken “Government cannot make
man richer, but it can make him poorer.”
~~
Ludwig von Mises “Sometimes it is said that
man cannot be trusted with the government of himself. Can he, then, be
trusted with the government of others?”
~~
Thomas
Jefferson (1801) “A wise and frugal
government, which shall restrain men from injuring one another, which
shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry
and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it
has earned. This is the sum of good government.”
~~
Thomas
Jefferson (1801) “This country is a
one-party country. Half of it is called Republican and half is called
Democrat. It doesn't make any difference. All the really good ideas belong
to the Libertarians.”
~~
Hugh
Downs (1997) “Power tends to corrupt,
and absolute power corrupts absolutely.”
~~
Lord
Acton (1887) “Political power grows out
of the barrel of a gun.”
~~
Mao
Zedong (1938) “The difference between
libertarianism and socialism is that libertarians will tolerate the
existence of a socialist community, but socialists can't tolerate a
libertarian community.”
~~
David
D. Boaz (1997) “We contend that for a
nation to try to tax itself into prosperity is like a man standing in a
bucket and trying to lift himself up by the handle.”
~~
Winston
Churchill (1903) “If you have been voting
for politicians who promise to give you goodies at someone else's expense,
then you have no right to complain when they take your money and give it
to someone else, including themselves.”
~~
Thomas Sowell (1992) “War has all the
characteristics of socialism most conservatives hate: Centralized power,
state planning, false rationalism, restricted liberties, foolish optimism
about intended results, and blindness to unintended secondary results.”
~~
Joseph
Sobran (1991) “There never was a good
war or a bad peace.”
~~
Benjamin
Franklin (1773) "The only thing that saves
us from the bureaucracy is inefficiency. An efficient bureaucracy is the
greatest threat to liberty."
~~
Eugene
McCarthy "They that can give up
essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither
liberty nor safety."
~~
Benjamin Franklin "All national institutions
of churches, whether Jewish, Christian, or Turkish, appear to me no other
than human inventions, set up to terrify and enslave mankind, and
monopolize power and profit."
~~
Thomas
Paine
“I sincerely believe that banking establishments are more dangerous than
standing armies, and that the principle of spending money to be paid by
posterity, under the name of funding, is but swindling futurity on a large
scale.”
~~
Thomas Jefferson "He that would make his
own liberty secure must guard even his enemy from oppression; for if he
violates this duty he establishes a precedent that will reach to himself."
~~
Thomas
Paine “I
admire men of character.
And I judge character not by how men
deal with their superiors, but mostly how they deal with their
subordinates.
And that, to me, is where you find out
what the character of a man is.”
~~
Gen.
H. Norman Schwarzkopf, Commander of Forces in the "The power of the
Executive to cast a man into prison without formulating any charge, and
particularly to deny him the judgment of his peers, is in the highest
degree odious and is the foundation of all totalitarian government whether
Nazi or Communist."
~~
Winston Churchill, "When they call the roll
in the Senate, the Senators do not know whether to answer 'Present' or
'Not guilty.'"
~~
Theodore Roosevelt "Every man is guilty of
all the good he didn't do."
~~
Voltaire
"If I had my way, any man guilty of golf would
be ineligible for any office of trust in the "Now and then an innocent
man is sent to the legislature."
~~
Kin Hubbard “That we are to stand by
the president, right or wrong is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is
morally treasonable to the American public.”
~~
Theodore
Roosevelt "Life is not a journey to
the grave with the intention of arriving safely in one pretty and well
preserved piece, but to skid across the finish line broadside, thoroughly
used up, worn out, leaking oil and shouting, ‘GERONIMO!’."
~~
Anonymous “It is the duty of every
citizen according to his best capacities to give validity to his
convictions in political affairs.”
~~
Albert Einstein, 'Treasury for the Free
World,' 1946 “Crime does not pay ... as
well as politics.”
~~
Alfred E. Newman “Politics, n. Strife of
interests masquerading as a contest of principles.”
~~
Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary
“Man is by nature a
political animal.”
~~
Aristotle “I have come to the
conclusion that politics are too serious a matter to be left to the
politicians.”
~~
Charles De Gaulle “Politics is made up
largely of irrelevancies.”
~~
“Politics is the art of
looking for trouble, finding it whether it exists or not, diagnosing it
incorrectly, and applying the wrong remedy.”
~~
Ernest Benn “Being in politics is like
being a football coach. You have to be smart enough to understand the
game, and dumb enough to think it's important.”
~~
Eugene McCarthy “When the political
columnists say 'Every thinking man' they mean themselves, and when
candidates appeal to 'Every intelligent voter' they mean everybody who is
going to vote for them.”
~~
Franklin P. Adams “The problem with
political jokes is they get elected.”
~~
Henry Cate “Nothing is so admirable
in politics as a short memory.”
~~
John Kenneth Galbraith “Politics is not the art
of the possible. It consists in choosing between the disastrous and the
unpalatable.”
~~
John Kenneth Galbraith “The word 'politics' is
derived from the word 'poly', meaning 'many', and the word 'ticks',
meaning 'blood sucking parasites'.”
~~
Larry Hardiman “Politics is the skilled
use of blunt objects.”
~~
Lester B. Pearson “Politics is war without
bloodshed while war is politics with bloodshed.”
~~
Mao Tse-Tung “Nothing can so alienate a
voter from the political system as backing a winning candidate.”
~~
Mark B. Cohen “Politics is the art of
the possible.”
~~
Otto Von Bismarck “Politics is the art of
preventing people from taking part in affairs which properly concern
them.”
~~
Paul Valery “In politics you must
always keep running with the pack. The moment that you falter and they
sense that you are injured, the rest will turn on you like wolves.”
~~
R. A. Butler “Politics is perhaps the
only profession for which no preparation is thought necessary.”
~~
Robert Louis Stevenson “Politics is not a bad
profession. If you succeed there are many rewards, if you disgrace
yourself you can always write a book.”
~~
Ronald Reagan “Politics is supposed to
be the second oldest profession.
I have come to realize that it bears a
very close resemblance to the first.”
~~
Ronald Reagan “Politics is applesauce.”
~~
Will Rogers “The more you read and
observe about this Politics thing, you got to admit that each party is
worse than the other. The one that's out always looks the best.”
~~
Will Rogers “He who would travel
happily must travel light.“
~~
Antoine de Saint-Exupery “Thanks to the Interstate
Highway System, it is now possible to travel from coast to coast without
seeing anything.“
~~
Charles Kuralt “When you travel, remember
that a foreign country is not designed to make you comfortable. It is
designed to make its own people comfortable.”
~~
“Lawyers, I suppose, were
children once.”
~~
Charles Lamb “The true traveler is he
who goes on foot, and even then, he sits down a lot of the time.“
~~
Colette “A man travels the world
over in search of what he needs and returns home to find it.“
~~
George Moore “Before he sets out, the
traveler must possess fixed interests and facilities to be served by
travel.“
~~
George Santayana “The saying "Getting there
is half the fun" became obsolete with the advent of commercial airlines.“
~~
Henry J. Tillman “Certainly, travel is more
than the seeing of sights; it is a change that goes on, deep and
permanent, in the ideas of living.“
~~
Miriam Beard “Travel is only glamorous
in retrospect.“
~~
Paul Theroux “Two roads diverged in a wood, and I-- I took the one less traveled by, And that has made all the
difference.“
~~
Robert Frost “Everywhere I go I find a
poet has been there before me.“
~~
Sigmund Freud “Travel only with thy
equals or thy betters; if there are none, travel alone.“
~~
The Dhammapada “No one travelling on a
business trip would be missed if he failed to arrive.“
~~
Thorstein Veblen “In the depth of winter, I
finally learned that within me there lay an invincible summer.“
~~
Albert Camus “If we had no winter, the
spring would not be so pleasant: if we did not sometimes taste of
adversity, prosperity would not be so welcome.”
~~
Anne Bradstreet, 'Meditations Divine and
Moral,' 1655 “Perhaps I am a bear, or
some hibernating animal underneath, for the instinct to be half asleep all
winter is so strong in me.“
~~
Anne Morrow Lindbergh “Every winter, When the
great sun has turned his face away, The earth goes down into a vale of
grief, And fasts, and weeps, and shrouds herself in sables, Leaving her
wedding-garlands to decay-- Then leaps in spring to his returning kisses.“
~~
Charles Kingsley “In the bleak midwinter
Frosty wind made moan, Earth stood hard as iron, Water like a stone; Snow
had fallen, snow on snow, Snow on snow, In the bleak midwinter, Long ago.“
~~
Christina Rossetti “There's a certain Slant
of light, Winter Afternoons-- That oppresses, like the Heft Of Cathedral
Tunes--“
~~
Emily Dickinson “Every mile is two in
winter.“
~~
George Herbert “One kind word can warm
three winter months.“
~~
Japanese proverb “The tendinous part of the
mind, so to speak, is more developed in winter; the fleshy, in summer. I
should say winter had given the bone and sinew to literature, summer the
tissues and the blood.“
~~
John Burroughs
“When you live in “Winter is on my head, but
eternal spring is in my heart.“
~~
Victor Hugo “Winter lies too long in
country towns; hangs on until it is stale and shabby, old and sullen.“
~~
Willa Cather, My Antonia “And for the season it was
winter, and they that know the winters of that country know them to be
sharp and violent, and subject to cruel and fierce storms.“
~~
William Bradford, Of “O Winter! ruler of the
inverted year, . . . I crown thee king of intimate delights, Fireside
enjoyments, home-born happiness, And all the comforts that the lowly roof
Of undisturb'd Retirement, and the hours Of long uninterrupted evening,
know.“
~~
William Cowper “Blow, blow, thou winter wind Thou art not so unkind, As man's ingratitude.“
~~
William Shakespeare “Wisdom doesn't
automatically come with old age. Nothing does - except wrinkles. It's
true, some wines improve with age. But only if the grapes were good in the
first place.“
~~
Abigail Van Buren “The whole problem with
the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves,
but wiser people so full of doubts.“
~~
Bertrand Russell “Wisdom is what's left
after we've run out of personal opinions.“
~~
Cullen Hightower “One's first step in
wisdom is to question everything - and one's last is to come to terms with
everything.“
~~
Georg Christoph Lichtenberg “The older I grow the more
I distrust the familiar doctrine that age brings wisdom.“
~~
H. L. Mencken “Force without wisdom
falls of its own weight.“
~~
Horace “Science is organized
knowledge. Wisdom is organized life.“
~~
Immanuel Kant “Men are wise in
proportion, not to their experience, but to their capacity for
experience.“
~~
James Boswell “It is unwise to be too
sure of one's own wisdom. It is healthy to be reminded that the strongest
might weaken and the wisest might err.”
~~
Mahatma Gandhi “We don't receive wisdom;
we must discover it for ourselves after a journey that no one can take for
us or spare us.“
~~
Marcel Proust “To acquire knowledge, one
must study; but to acquire wisdom, one must observe.“
~~
Marilyn vos Savant “It is not white hair that
engenders wisdom.”
~~
Menander “Those who wish to appear
wise among fools, among the wise seem foolish.”
~~
Quintilian, De Institutione Oratoria “Like an ability or a
muscle, hearing your inner wisdom is strengthened by doing it.”
~~
Robbie Gass “Wisdom outweighs any
wealth.”
~~
Sophocles “No man is wise enough by
himself.”
~~
Titus Maccius Plautus “Not by age but by
capacity is wisdom acquired.”
~~
Titus Maccius Plautus “A wise man can see more
from the bottom of a well than a fool can from a mountain top.”
~~
Unknown “Good people are good
because they've come to wisdom through failure.”
~~
William Saroyan “The fool doth think he is
wise, but the wise man knows himself to be a fool.”
~~
William Shakespeare “One is left with the
horrible feeling now that war settles nothing; that to win a war is as
disastrous as to lose one.”
~~
Agatha Christie “I know not with what
weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with
sticks and stones.”
~~
Albert Einstein “You cannot simultaneously
prevent and prepare for war.”
~~
Albert Einstein “War is not nice.”
~~
Barbara Bush “Sometime they'll give a
war and nobody will come.”
~~
Carl Sandburg “The quickest way of
ending a war is to lose it.”
~~
George Orwell “War is a series of
catastrophes that results in a victory.”
~~
Georges Clemenceau “War is much too serious a
matter to be entrusted to the military.”
~~
Georges Clemenceau “The outcome of the war is
in our hands; the outcome of words is in the council.”
~~
Homer, The Iliad “You can no more win a war
than you can win an earthquake.”
~~
Jeannette Rankin “War may sometimes be a
necessary evil. But no matter how necessary, it is always an evil, never a
good. We will not learn how to live together in peace by killing each
other's children.”
~~
Jimmy Carter “War is an ugly thing, but
not the ugliest of things. The decayed and degraded state of moral and
patriotic feeling which thinks that nothing is worth war is much worse.
The person who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which
is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature
and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions
of better men than himself.”
~~
John Stuart Mill “War is not its own end,
except in some catastrophic slide into absolute damnation. It's peace
that's wanted. Some better peace than the one you started with.”
~~
Lois McMaster Bujold “What difference does it
make to the dead, the orphans and the homeless, whether the mad
destruction is wrought under the name of totalitarianism or the holy name
of liberty or democracy?”
~~
Mahatma Gandhi “Politics is war without
bloodshed while war is politics with bloodshed.”
~~
Mao Tse-Tung “The way to win an atomic
war is to make certain it never starts.”
~~
Omar Bradley “Either war is obsolete or
men are.”
~~
R. Buckminster Fuller “It is well that war is so
terrible, or we should grow too fond of it.”
~~
Robert E. Lee “Never, never, never
believe any war will be smooth and easy, or that anyone who embarks on the
strange voyage can measure the tides and hurricanes he will encounter. The
statesman who yields to war fever must realize that once the signal is
given, he is no longer the master of policy but the slave of unforeseeable
and uncontrollable events.”
~~
Sir Winston Churchill “One day President
Roosevelt told me that he was asking publicly for suggestions about what
the war should be called. I said at once 'The Unnecessary War'.”
~~
Sir Winston Churchill “The only winner in the
War of 1812 was Tchaikovsky.”
~~
Solomon Short “The art of war is simple
enough. Find out where your enemy is. Get at him as soon as you can.
Strike him as hard as you can, and keep moving.”
~~
Ulysses S. Grant “Wars teach us not to love
our enemies, but to hate our allies.”
~~
W. L. George “The idea of all-out
nuclear war is unsettling.”
~~
Walter Goodman “Take the diplomacy out of
war and the thing would fall flat in a week.”
~~
Will Rogers “You can't say that
civilization don't advance, however, for in every war they kill you in a
new way.”
~~
Will Rogers “When I was a boy I was
told that anybody could become President. Now I'm beginning to believe
it.”
~~
Clarence Darrow (1857 - 1938) “I have been thinking that
I would make a proposition to my Republican friends... that if they will
stop telling lies about the Democrats, we will stop telling the truth
about them.”
~~
Adlai E. Stevenson Jr. (1900 - 1965),
Speech during 1952 Presidential Campaign
“In “Democracy means that
anyone can grow up to be president, and anyone who doesn't grow up can be
vice president.”
~~
Johnny Carson (1925 - 2005) “We need a president who's
fluent in at least one language.”
~~
Buck Henry “Any American who is
prepared to run for president should automatically, by definition, be
disqualified from ever doing so.”
~~
Gore Vidal “CNN is one of the
participants in the war. I have a fantasy where Ted Turner is elected
president but refuses because he doesn't want to give up power.”
~~
Arthur C. Clarke “Half of the American
people have never read a newspaper. Half never voted for President. One
hopes it is the same half.”
~~
Gore Vidal “Men of shady character
frequently try to cover their misconduct by fervent protestations of love
of country.”
~~
Theodore Roosevelt “If
we stand idly by, if we seek merely swollen, slothful ease and ignoble
peace, if we shrink from the hard contests where men must win at hazard of
their lives and at the risk of all they hold dear, then the bolder and
stronger peoples will pass us by, and will win for themselves the
domination of the world.”
~~
Theodore Roosevelt “Patriotism is the
willingness to kill and be killed for trivial reasons.”
~~
Bertrand Russell “Patriotism is your
conviction that this country is superior to all other countries because
you were born in it.”
~~
George Bernard Shaw A good plan violently
executed now is better than a perfect plan executed next week."
~~
George S. Patton " "Don't tell people how to
do things, tell them what to do and let them surprise you with their
results. "
~~
George S. Patton "I don't measure a man's
success by how high he climbs but how high he bounces when he hits
bottom."
~~
George S. Patton "If we take the generally
accepted definition of bravery as a quality which knows no fear, I have
never seen a brave man. All men are frightened. The more intelligent they
are, the more they are frightened."
~~
George S. Patton "Prepare for the unknown
by studying how others in the past have coped with the unforeseeable and
the unpredictable."
~~
George S. Patton “Patriotism is often an
arbitrary veneration of real estate above principles.”
~~
George Jean Nathan “Patriotism is the last
refuge of a scoundrel.”
~~
Samuel Johnson
“In the “You're not to be so blind
with patriotism that you can't face reality. Wrong is wrong, no matter who
does it or says it.”
~~
Malcolm X "My country, right or
wrong," is a thing that no patriot would think of saying except in a
desperate case. It is like saying, "My mother, drunk or sober.”
~~
G. K. Chesterton “When a whole nation is
roaring Patriotism at the top of its voice, I am fain to explore the
cleanness of its hands and purity of its heart.”
~~
Ralph Waldo Emerson “You'll never have a quiet
world till you knock the patriotism out of the human race.”
~~
George Bernard Shaw “Patriotism having become
one of our topicks, Johnson suddenly uttered, in a strong determined tone,
an apophthegm, at which many will start: "Patriotism is the last refuge of
a scoundrel." But let it be considered that he did not mean a real and
generous love of our country, but that pretended patriotism which so many,
in all ages and countries, have made a cloak of self- interest.”
~~
Samuel Johnson “Patriotism is the
willingness to kill and be killed for trivial reasons.”
~~
Bertrand Russell “I know [patriotism]
exists, and I know it has done much in the present contest. But a great
and lasting war can never be supported on this principle alone. It must be
aided by a prospect of interest, or some reward.”
~~
George Washington “Patriotism is a
pernicious, psychopathic form of idiocy.”
~~
George Bernard Shaw “...a man may be a patriot
without risking his own life or sacrificing his health. There are plenty
of lives less valuable.”
~~
James Mellon, who paid $300 for a civil
war Union army deferment “Speculations and loans in
foreign fields are likely to bring us into war... The war-for-profit group
has counterfeited patriotism.”
~~
Charles Lindberg Sr. “No, I don't know that
atheists should be considered as citizens, nor should they be considered
patriots. This is one nation under God.”
~~
President George Bush, to Robert Sherman of
American Atheist Press, at the
“Dachshunds are ideal dogs for small children,
as they have already been stretched and pulled to such a length that the
child cannot do much harm one way or the other," ~~
Robert
Benchley "Traditions are group
efforts to keep the unexpected from happening."
~~
Barbara Tober “Never tell people how to
do things. Tell them what to do and they will surprise you with their
ingenuity.”
~~
George S. Patton, Jr
"Typos are very important to all written form.
It gives the reader something to look for so they aren't distracted by the
total lack of content in your writing." ~~
Randy K.
Milholland
"When the politicians complain that TV turns
the proceedings into a circus, it should be made clear that the circus was
already there, and that TV has merely demonstrated that not all the
performers are well trained." ~~
Edward R. Murrow "To my embarrassment I was
born in bed with a lady." ~~
Wilson Mizner
"To be conscious that you are ignorant is a
great step to knowledge. " ~~
Benjamin Disraeli
"There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned
lies, and statistics. " ~~ Benjamin Disraeli "The best way to become
acquainted with a subject is to write a book about it.” ~~
Benjamin Disraeli
"When men are pure, laws are useless; when men
are corrupt, laws are broken.” ~~
Benjamin Disraeli
"What we anticipate seldom occurs; what we
least expected generally happens.” ~~
Benjamin Disraeli
"The wisdom of the wise, and the experience of
ages, may be preserved by quotation.” ~~
Benjamin Disraeli
"My idea of an agreeable person is a person who
agrees with me.” ~~
Benjamin Disraeli
"The most dangerous strategy is to jump a chasm
in two leaps.” ~~
Benjamin Disraeli
"How much easier it is to be critical than to
be correct.” ~~
Benjamin Disraeli
"The greatest good you can do for another is
not just share your riches, but to reveal to him his own.” ~~
Benjamin
Disraeli
"Cleanliness and order are not matters of
instinct; they are matters of education, and like most great things, you
must cultivate a taste for them.” ~~
Benjamin
Disraeli
"Never apologize for showing feeling. When you
do so, you apologize for truth." ~~
Benjamin
Disraeli
"Nurture your mind with great thoughts; to
believe in the heroic makes heroes.” ~~
Benjamin
Disraeli
"I am a Conservative to preserve all that is
good in our constitution, a Radical to remove all that is bad. I seek to
preserve property and to respect order, and I equally decry the appeal to
the passions of the many or the prejudices of the few." ~~
Benjamin
Disraeli
"How much easier it is to be critical than to
be correct.” ~~ Benjamin Disraeli
"The secret of success is constancy of
purpose.” ~~ Benjamin Disraeli "Next to knowing when to
seize an opportunity, the most important thing in life is to know when to
forego an advantage.” ~~
Benjamin Disraeli
"No government can be long secure without
formidable opposition.” ~~
Benjamin Disraeli
"The difference of race is one of the reasons
why I fear war may always exist; because race implies difference,
difference implies superiority, and superiority leads to predominance.” ~~
Benjamin Disraeli
"As a general rule the most successful man in
life is the man who has the best information.” ~~
Benjamin
Disraeli
"Individuals may form communities, but it is
institutions alone that can create a nation.” ~~
Benjamin
Disraeli
"I repeat...that all power is a trust; that we
are accountable for its exercise; that from the people, and for the people
all springs, and all must exist.” ~~
Benjamin
Disraeli
"The hare-brained chatter of irresponsible
frivolity.” ~~ Benjamin Disraeli
"Ignorance never settles a question. " ~~
Benjamin Disraeli
"The magic of first love is our ignorance that
it can ever end.” ~~
Benjamin Disraeli
"It is knowledge that influences and equalizes
the social condition of man; that gives to all, however different their
political position, passions which are in common, and enjoyments which are
universal.” ~~ Benjamin Disraeli
"The more extensive a
man's knowledge of what has been done, the greater will be his power of
knowing what to do. " ~~
Benjamin Disraeli "When we would prepare the mind by a forcible appeal, an opening quotation is a symphony preluding on the chords those tones we are about to harmonize.” ~~ Benjamin Disrael "Seeing much, suffering
much, and studying much, are the three pillars of learning.” ~~
Benjamin
Disraeli
Great Insult Quotes: "He had delusions of adequacy." ~~ Walter Kerr "He has all the virtues I dislike and none of the vices I admire." ~~ Winston Churchill "I have never killed a man, but I have read many obituaries with great pleasure." ~~ Clarence Darrow "He has never been known to use a word that might send a reader to the dictionary." ~~ William Faulkner (about Ernest Hemingway). "Thank you for sending me a copy of your book; I'll waste no time reading it." ~~ Moses Hadas "I didn't attend the funeral, but I sent a nice letter saying I approved of it." ~~ Mark Twain "He has no enemies, but is intensely disliked by his friends." ~~ Oscar Wilde "I am enclosing two tickets to the first night of my new play; bring a friend.... if you have one." ~~ George Bernard Shaw to Winston Churchill "Cannot possibly attend first night, will attend second... if there is one." ~~ Winston Churchill, in response. "I feel so miserable without you; it's almost like having you here." ~~ Stephen Bishop "He is a self-made man and worships his creator." ~~ John Bright "I've just learned about his illness. Let's hope it's nothing trivial." ~~ Irvin S. Cobb "He is not only dull himself; he is the cause of dullness in others." ~~ Samuel Johnson "He is simply a shiver looking for a spine to run up." ~~ Paul Keating "In order to avoid being called a flirt, she always yielded easily." ~~ Charles, Count Talleyrand "He loves nature in spite of what it did to him." ~~ Forrest Tucker "Why do you sit there looking like an envelope without any address on it?" ~~ Mark Twain "His mother should have thrown him away and kept the stork." ~~ Mae West "Some cause happiness wherever they go; others, whenever they go." ~~ Oscar Wilde "He uses statistics as a drunken man uses lamp-posts... for support rather than illumination." ~~ Andrew Lang "I've had a perfectly wonderful evening. But this wasn't it." ~~ Groucho Marx “There's nothing wrong with you that reincarnation won't cure.” ~~ Jack E. Leonard “He has the attention span of a lightning bolt.” ~~ Robert Redford “They never open their mouths without subtracting from the sum of human knowledge.” ~~ Thomas Brackett Reed “He has Van Gogh's ear for music.” ~~ Billy Wilder “He can compress the most words into the smallest idea of any man I know.” ~~ Abraham Lincoln “Poor Faulkner. Does he really think big emotions come from big words?” ~~ Ernest Hemingway (about William Faulkner) “A modest little person, with much to be modest about.” ~~ Winston Churchill She said, "If you were my husband I'd give you
poison." "Sir, you will either die on the gallows or of
some unspeakable disease." “All Congresses and Parliaments have a kindly feeling for idiots, and a compassion for them, on account of personal experience and heredity” ~~ Mark Twain “The taxpayers are sending congressmen on
expensive trips abroad. “This country has come to feel the same when Congress is in session as when the baby gets hold of a hammer. ” ~~ Will Rogers “The trouble with practical jokes is that very often they get elected [to Congress]. ” ~~ Will Rogers “The only difference between death and taxes is that death doesn't get worse every time Congress meets. ” ~~ Will Rogers "With Congress, every time they make a joke it's a law, and every time they make a law
Download the 175k MS Word document or the 144k Adobe PDF file of this page.
|
