Warning
The following is guaranteed to offend statists of all stripes, those
comfortable in Satan's armchair, as well as other ideological malcontents.
If you choose to feel offended, don't bother sending flames. Examine your
grasp on reality.
You have been warned.
Government
"We hold these Truths to be self-evident..." which is a gracious, Jeffersonian, way of saying, "Any idiot ought to be able to understand this."
- Former Congressman Bob McEwen, "Politics: Easy as PIE"
...in fact fascists and socialists are indistinguishable -- it's just a matter of which words will get you bludgeoned.
- unknown
A Bill of Rights that means what the majority wants it to mean is worthless.
- Justice Antonin Scalia
A centralized administration is fit only to enervate the nations in which it exists....
- Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America, 1835
A free society is one where it is safe to be unpopular.
- Adlai Stevenson
A government big enough to give you everything you want is big enough to take from you everything you have.
- Gerald R. Ford, Time, November 8, 1976
A government which cannot preserve the peace is no government at all, and in that case we pay our money for nothing.
- Thomas Paine, Common Sense, 1776
A government which robs Peter to pay Paul can always depend on the support of Paul.
- George Bernard Shaw, Everybody's Political What's What? 1944
A law repugnant to the Constitution is void.
- Marbury v. Madison, U.S. Supreme Court, 1803
A license is permission to do something which is otherwise unlawful; it is a contract which lowers your status from free man to subject, member, or slave
- unknown
A man who has nothing which he is willing to fight for, nothing which he cares about more than he does about his personal safety, is a miserable creature who has no chance of being free, unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself.
- John Stuart Mill, writing on the U.S. Civil War in 1862
A nation can survive its fools, and even the ambitious. But it cannot survive treason from within. An enemy at the gates is less formidable, for he is known and carries his banner openly. But the traitor moves among those within the gate freely, his sly whispers rustling through all the alleys, heard in the very halls of government itself. For the traitor appears not a traitor; he speaks in accents familiar to his victims, and he wears their face and their arguments, he appeals to the baseness that lies deep in the hearts of all men. He rots the soul of a nation, he works secretly and unknown in the night to undermine the pillars of the city, he infects the body politic so that it can no longer resist. A murderer is less to fear.
- Marcus Tullius Cicero (42B.C)
A popular government without popular information, or the means of acquiring it, is but a prologue to a farce or a tragedy or perhaps both. Knowledge will forever govern ignorance, and a people who mean to be their own governors must arm themselves with the power which knowledge gives.
- James Madison, 1822
A prendre le terme dans la rigueur de l'acception, il n'a jamais existé de véritable démocratie, et il n'en existera jamais.
In its strict definition, a true democracy never existed, nor ever will.- Jean-Jacques Rousseau, (1712-1778) "Emile"
A society of sheep must in time beget a government of wolves.
- Bertrand de Juvenal
Against the insidious wiles of foreign influence the jealousy of a free people ought to be constantly awake, since history and experience prove, that foreign influence is one of the most baneful foes of republican Government.
- George Washington, 1796.
Ah consensus... the process of abandoning all beliefs, principles, values and policies in search of something in which no one believes, but to which no one objects; the process of avoiding the very issues that have to be solved, merely because you cannot get agreement on the way ahead. What great cause would have been fought and won under the banner "I stand for consensus"?
- Margaret Thatcher
All men having power ought to be distrusted to a certain degree.
- James Madison, speech at the Constitutional Convention, July 11, 1787
All, too, will bear in mind this sacred principle, that though the will of the majority is in all cases to prevail, that will, to be rightful, must be reasonable; that the minority possess their equal rights, which equal laws must protect, and to violate which would be oppression.
- Thomas Jefferson, "First Inaugural Address," March 4, 1801
Almighty God hath created the mind free. All attempts to influence it by temperal punishments or burthens... are a departure from the plan of the Holy Author of our religion.... No man shall be compelled to frequent or support any religious worship ministry or shall otherwise suffer on account of his oppinions in matters of religion. I know but one code of morality for men whether acting songly or collectively.
- Thomas Jefferson, "A Bill for Establishing Religious Freedom," 1771; engraven on the Jefferson Memorial.
Almighty God hath created the mind free. All attempts to influence it by temporal punishments or burthens are a departure from the plan of the Holy Author of our religion. No man shall be compelled to frequent or support any religious worship or ministry or shall otherwise suffer on account of his religious opinions or belief, but all men shall be free to profess and by argument to maintain, their opinions in matters of religion. I know but one code of morality for men whether acting singly or collectively.
- Thomas Jefferson, from "A Bill for Establishing Religious Freedom, 1777."
Already, I can hear the chorus chanting "isolationism, isolationism,
he's turning back the clock to isolationism." How many use that word
without having the slightest idea of what it really means! The
so-called isolationism of the United States in past decades is pure
myth. What isolationism? Long before the current trend of revoking our
Declaration of Independence under the guise of international
cooperation, American influence and trade was felt in every region of
the globe. Individuals and private groups spread knowledge, business,
prosperity, religion, good will and, above all, respect throughout
every foreign continent.
It was not necessary then for America to give up her independence to
have contact and influence with other countries. It is not necessary
now. Yet, many Americans have been led to believe that our country is
so strong that will can defend, feed and subsidize half the world,
while at the same time believing that we are so weak and
"inter-dependent" that we cannot survive without pooling our resources
and sovereignty with those we subsidize. If wanting no part of this
kind of "logic" is isolationism, then it is time we brought it back
into vogue."
- former Secretary of Agriculture, Ezra Taft Benson, 1969
Ambition drove many men to become false; to have one thought locked in the breast, another ready on the tongue.
- Gaius Sallustius Crispus (86-34 BCE), "The War with Catiline"
America is a land not of mere religious toleration, it is a land of religious freedom. There is a tremendous difference, as our founding fathers understood it. Today, government at every level has the duty not only to tolerate religious beliefs and convictions but to protect the right and liberty to exercise them.
- Statement from MCHE web site
Americans have the will to resist because you have weapons. If you don't have a gun, freedom of speech has no power.
- Yoshimi Ishikawa
Among the elementary measures the American Soviet government will adopt to further the cultural revolution are... [a] National Department of Education...the studies will be revolutionized, being cleansed of religious, patriotic, and other features of the bourgeois ideology. The students will be taught the basis of Marxian dialectical materialism, internationalism and the general ethics of the new Socialist society.
- "Toward a Soviet America," William J. Foster, 1932. (Foster was the head of the American Communist Party.)
Among the many misdeeds of the British rule in India, history will look upon the act of depriving a whole nation of arms, as the blackest.
- Mahatma Gandhi
An elective despotism was not the government we fought for; but one in which the powers of government should be so divided and balanced among the several bodies of magistracy as that no one could transcend their legal limits without being effectually checked and restrained by the others.
- James Madison, Federalist No. 58, February 20, 1788
And we do each of us... promise and engage to keep a good Fire-lock in proper Order, & to furnish Ourselves as soon as possible with, & always keep by us, one Pound of Gunpowder, four Pounds of Lead, one Dozen Gun-Flints ...
- George Mason, Fairfax County Militia Plan, 1775
Any man who is under 30, and is not a liberal, has not heart; and any man who is over 30, and is not a conservative, has no brains.
- Sir Winston Churchill (1874-1965)
As a man is said to have a right to his property, he may be equally said to have a property in his rights.
- James Madison, National Gazette, March 29, 1792
Basic objective of Sophists: win all arguments by any means available. Truth, logical coherence and argument transparency did not matter to Sophists.
- unknown
Before the formation of this Constitution... [t]his Declaration of Independence was received and ratified by all the States in the Union and has never been disanulled.
- Samuel Adams to the Massachusetts legislature 17 Jan 1794, "The Writings of Samuel Adams," Harry Cushing, editor, vol. IV, p. 357
Beneficium accipere libertatem est vendere.
To accept a favour is to sell freedom.- Publilius Syrus
Bitterness I understand, but let us not rail about justice while as long as we have arms and the freedom to use them.
- Duke Leto Atreides "Dune" (Frank Herbert)
But I need to warn all of you: regulation takes that choice away because those in control feel they know more about you than you do. We need to work to support the right to choose rather than our right to practice.
- Ollie Anne Hamilton, CPM, DEM July 2000 M-T e-news
But our rulers can have no authority over such natural rights, only as we have submitted to them. The rights of conscience we never submitted, we could not submit. We are answerable for them to our God. The legitimate powers of government extend to such acts as are injurious to others.
- Thomas Jefferson in "Notes on Virginia".
But the most grievous innovation of all, is the alarming extension of the power of courts of admiralty. In these courts, one judge presides alone! No juries have any concern there! The law and the fact are both to be decided by the same single judge.
- John Adams
Centralization is the death-blow of public freedom.
- Benjamin Disraeli
Cogitationis poenam nemo patitur.
Nobody should be punished for his thoughts.- Corpus Iuris Civilis.
Consensus is the absence of leadership.
- Margret Thatcher
Control the coinage and the courts -- let the rabble have the rest. If you want profits you must rule.
- Padishah Emperor Shaddam IV, "Dune" (Frank Herbert)
Copyright, while authorized by the Constitution, is essentially a statutory right. On the other hand, due process is a constitutional right of the first order.
- Amicus Curiae, Veeck vs. SBCCI
Courts over the past half-century have steadily divorced the Constitution from the transcendent values of the Declaration [of Independence], replacing them instead with their own contrivances. The results have been reprehensible -- a series of vacillating and unpredictable standards incapable of providing national stability.
- David Barton, "Original Intent," p. 251
Cures were developed for which there were no known diseases.
- President Ronald Reagan, Commenting on Congress and the federal budget, 1981
Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch. Liberty is a well-armed lamb contesting the vote.
- Benjamin Franklin
Discourage self-help, and loyal subjects become the slaves of ruffians.
- A. V. Dicey, English jurist
Each individual is the only competent judge of the most advantageous use of his lands and of his labor.
- Anne Robert Jacques Turgot (1727-1781)
Educate and inform the mass of the people. Enable them to see that it is their interest to preserve peace and order, and they will preserve them. Enlighten the people generally, and tyranny and oppression of the body and mind will vanish like evil spirits at the dawn of day.
- Thomas Jefferson to James Madison, December 20, 1787 (first two sentences);
- Thomas Jefferson to P.S. Dupont de Nemours, April 24, 1816 (last sentence).
Enslave the liberty of but one human being and the liberties of the world are put in peril.
- William Garrison (1805-1879)
Equal laws protecting equal rights are the best guarantee of loyalty & love of country.
- James Madison to Jacob de la Motta, August, 1820
Even though work stops, expenses run on.
- Cato the Elder (234BCE-149BCE), "On Agriculture"
Every government degenerates when trusted to the rulers of the people alone. The people themselves are its only safe depositories.
- Thomas Jefferson, Notes on The State of Virginia, #19, 1781
Every politically controlled educational system will inculcate the doctrine of state supremacy sooner or later.... Once that doctrine has been accepted, it becomes an almost superhuman task to break the stranglehold of the political power over the life of the citizen. It has had his body, property and mind in its clutches from infancy. ... A tax-supported, compulsory educational system is the complete model of the toltalitarian state.
- Isabel Paterson, "The God of the Machine" 1943
Every time government is forced to act, we lose something in self-reliance, character and initiative.
- Herbert Hoover, speech, 1929
Experience hath shewn, that Mankind are more disposed to suffer, while Evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the Forms to which they are accustomed.
- Declaration of Independence (1776)
Extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice... moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue.
- Barry Goldwater
Few men desire liberty; most men wish only for a just master.
- Gaius Sallustius Crispus (86-34 BCE)
First, they came for the Communists, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Communist. Then, they came for the Jews, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Jew. Then, they came for the trade unionists, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a trade unionist. Then, they came for Catholics, and I didn't speak up because I was a Protestant. Then, they came for me, and by that time no one was left to speak up.
- Reverend Martin Neimoler, a German Lutheran pastor arrested by Hitler's Gestapo in 1937.
For depriving us in many cases of the benefits of Trial by Jury.
- Declaration of Independence, 1776
For somehow this is tyranny's disease, to trust no friends.
- Aeschylus (525 BCE - 456 BCE), "Prometheus Bound"
Free republics don't attack each other.
- Gene Kirkpatrick
God forbid we should ever be twenty years without such a rebellion. The people cannot be all, and always, well informed. The part which is wrong will be discontented, in proportion to the importance of the facts they misconceive. If they remain quiet under such misconceptions, it is lethargy, the forerunner of death to the public liberty ... And what country can preserve its liberties if its rulers are not warned from time to time, that this people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms. The remedy is to set them right as to the facts,
pardon and pacify them. What signify a few lives lost in a century or two? The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure.
- Thomas Jefferson. Nov. 13. 1787, letter to William S. Smith.
God grants liberty only to those who love it and are always ready to guard and defend it.
- Daniel Webster
God who gave us life gave us liberty. Can the liberties of a nation be secure when we have removed a conviction that these liberties are the gift of God?
- Thomas Jefferson, personal letter to George Washington; 1786; engraven on the Jefferson Memorial.
God who gave us life gave us liberty. Can the liberties of a nation be secure when we have removed a conviction that these liberties are the gift of God?
- Thomas Jefferson, A Summary View of the Rights of British America, and Notes on the State of Virginia
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
Government exists to protect us from each other. Where government has gone beyond its limits is in deciding to protect us from ourselves.
- Ronald Reagan, New York Times, April 13, 1980
Government is a broker in pillage and every election is a sort of advance auction of stolen goods.
- H. L. Mencken in _The Baltimore Sun_
Government is not reason, it is not eloquence, it is force; like fire, a troublesome servant and a fearful master. Never for a moment should it be left to irresponsible action.
- George Washington, in a speech of January 7, 1790
Government is the only business uniquely authorized the use of deadly force to sell its product.
Government was intended to suppress injustice, but its effect has been to embody and perpetuate it.
- William Godwin, An Inquiry Concerning Political Justice, 1793
Gun bans don't disarm criminals, gun bans attract them.
- Walter Mondale
Gun control is a prelude to totalitarian rule.
- Theodore Haas, former prisoner of the Dachau Nazi concentration camp
Gun owners are the new niggers... of society.
- John Aquilino (Used as example under the word "nigger" at http://www.Dictionary.com)
Hoc tempore obsequium amicos veritas odium parit.
In these days friends are won through flattery; the truth gives birth to hate.- Publius Terentius Afer, Roman comedian, "Andria"
I am a democrat because I believe in the Fall of Man ... Mankind is so fallen that no man can be trusted with unchecked power over his fellows.
- C. S. Lewis (1898-1963)
I am also amazed how many American journalists dislike America, and openly work against this country.
- 14 Sept 2001 comments of Col. Stanislav Lunev, highest-ranking military spy ever to defect from Russia.
I consider trial by jury as the only anchor ever yet imagined by man, by which a government can be held to the principles of its constitution.
- Thomas Jefferson, letter to Thomas Paine, 1789
I have described [the BATF] properly as jack-booted American fascists. They have shown no concern over the rights of ordinary citizens or their property. They intrude without the slightest regard or concern.
- Rep. John Dingell (D-16th/MI), Congressional Record, 02/08/1995
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 to A. L. C. Destutt de Tracy, 1811.
I have sworn on the altar of God, eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man.
- Thomas Jefferson (1800)
I have sworn upon the altar of God eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man.
- Thomas Jefferson, taken from a letter to Dr. Benjamin Rush, September 23, 1800.
I know no safe depository of the ultimate powers of the society but the people themselves; and if we think them not enlightened enough to exercise their control with a wholesome discretion, the remedy is not to take it from them, but to inform their discretion by education. This is the true corrective of abuses of constitutional power.
- Thomas Jefferson, letter to William Charles Jarvis, September 28, 1820
I must tell you that a socialist policy is abhorrent to British ideas on freedom. There is to be one State, to which all are to be obedient in every act of their lives. This State, once in power, will prescribe for everyone: where they are to work, what they are to work at, where they may go and what they may say, what views they are to hold, where their wives are to queue up for the State ration, and what education their children are to receive. A socialist state could not afford to suffer opposition - no socialist system can be established without a political police. They (the Labour government) would have to fall back on some form of Gestapo.
- Winston Churchill, election broadcast 1945
I place economy among the first and most important virtues, and public debt as the greatest of dangers to be feared. To preserve our independence, we must not let our rulers load us with perpetual debt. If we run into such debts, we must be taxed in our meat and drink, in our necessities and in our comforts, in our labor, and in our amusements. If we can prevent the government from wasting the labor of the people, under the pretense of caring for them, they will be happy.
- Thomas Jefferson
I should regret it if there are any such in this House, who think that a public debt is a public blessing, and that heavy taxation is expedient in order to produce industry;
- De Witt Clinton, speech in the Senate, February 23, 1803.
I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too much liberty than those attending too small a degree of it.
- Thomas Jefferson (1791)
If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, it expects something it cannot be.
- Thomas Jefferson
If a nation values anything more than freedom it will lose its freedom; and the irony of it is that if it is comfort or money that it values more, it will lose that too.
- William Somerset Maugham
If ever this vast country is brought under a single government, it will be one of the most extensive corruption.
- Thomas Jefferson, letter to William T. Barry, 1822
If history was any indication, unarmed populations generally fared very poorly in the face of any adversity.
- Former Soviet citizen
If life, liberty, and property could be enjoyed in as great perfection in solitude as in society, there would be no need of government.
- James Otis, "The Rights of the British Colonies Asserted & Proved," 1764
If men, through fear, fraud, or mistake, should in terms renounce or give up any natural right, the eternal law of reason and the grand end of society would absolutely vacate such renunciation. The right to freedom being a gift from God, it is not in the power of man to alienate this gift and voluntarily become a slave.
- Samuel Adams
If revenues are available, one should not do what popular leaders today do--make a free distribution of the surplus
- Aristotle, Politics, Bk. VI, c.334-23 b.c.
If there is any fixed star in our constitutional constellation, it is that no official ... can prescribe what shall be orthodox in politics, nationalism, religion, or other matters of opinion or force citizens to confess by word or act their faith therein.
- Justice Jackson, West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette
If you are free only when others think you are right, then you are not free at all.
- Dr. Thomas Sowell
In all history there is no war which was not hatched by the governments, the governments alone, independent of the interests of the people, to whom war is always pernicious even when successful.
- Leo Tolstoy
In an age of militant mediocrity, an "extremist" is anyone who takes a position.
- John Loeffler
In coming months, politicians will flail about looking for freedoms to eliminate to "curb the terrorist threat." They will see an opportunity to grandstand and enhance their careers.... We must remember throughout that you cannot preserve freedom by eliminating it.
- Perry Metzger, president of Wasabi Systems of New York City
In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.
- Declaration of Independence, 1776
In general, the art of government consists in taking as much money as possible from one class of citizens to give it to the other.
- Voltaire, A Philosophical Dictionary, 1764
In short, it is a paradoxical truth that tax rates are too high today and tax revenues are too low, and the soundest way to raise the revenues in the long run is to cut the rates now... The purpose of cutting taxes now is not to incur a budget deficit, but to achieve the more prosperous, expanding economy which can bring a budget surplus.
- John F. Kennedy
Economic Club of New York
December 14, 1962
In the beginning of a change, the patriot is a scarce and brave man, hated and scorned. When his cause succeeds however, the timid join him, for then it costs nothing to be a patriot.
- Mark Twain
In the payment of the interest of the public debt, it has been said, it is the right hand which pays the left.
- Adam Smith, The Wealth of Nations, Bk.V, Ch.3, 1776
Income tax: Capital punishment.
It ain't charity if you are using someone else's money.
- Will Rogers
It does not require a majority to prevail, but rather an irate, tireless minority keen to set brush fires in people's minds.
- Samuel Adams
It is an axiom in my mind that our liberty can never be safe but in the hands of the people themselves, that, too, of the people with a certain degree of instruction.
- Thomas Jefferson to George Washington, January 4, 1786
It is from the power of taxation being in the hands of those who can throw so great a part of it from their own shoulders, that it has raged without a check.
- Thomas Paine, The Rights of Man, Pt.II, 1792.
It is not only his [the juror’s] right, but his duty... to find the verdict according to his own best understanding, judgment, and conscience, though in direct opposition to the direction of the court.
- John Adams, 1771
It is not the function of the House of Lords to govern the people but to make sure that the people have the right to govern themselves.
- Winston Churchill, House of Commons, November 16, 1949
It may not be amiss, here, Gentlemen, to remind you of the good old rule, that on questions of fact, it is the province of the jury, on questions of law, it is the province of the court to decide. But it must be observed that by the same law, which recognizes this reasonable distribution of jurisdiction, you have nevertheless a right to take upon yourselves to judge of both, and to determine the law as well as the fact in controversy. On this, and on every other occasion, however, we have no doubt, you will pay that respect, which is due to the opinion of the court: For, as on the one hand, it is presumed, that juries are the best judges of fact; it is, on the other hand, presumable, that the court are the best judges of the law. But still both objects are lawfully within your power of decision.
- America’s first Chief Justice, John Jay, Georgia v. Brailsford, 3 U.S. (3 Dall.) 1 (1794)
It must be remembered that there is nothing more difficult to plan, more doubtful of success, nor more dangerous to manage, than the creation of a new system. For the initiator has the enmity of all who would profit by the preservation of the old institutions and merely lukewarm defenders in those who would gain by the new ones.
- Niccolo Machiavelli, 1513
It takes a village to raise a police snitch.
- Ann Coulter
It was necessary that the [English] constitution should guard the rights of the subject, in the executive as well as the legislative part of government: And no mode of trial would so effectually do this, be so unexceptionable, by reason of their equality, and the impartial manner in which they are taken and impanelled; so advantageous, on account of their knowledge of the parties, the credibility of the witnesses, and what weight ought to be given to their testimony, as that by our peers, a jury of the vicinity: For very good and wholesome laws may be perniciously executed. Wherefore it is expresly provided and ordained, in the Great Charter, chap. 29, ‘That no freeman shall be taken or disseised of his freehold, or liberties, or free customs, or be outlawed, or exiled, or any otherwise destroyed; and we will not pass sentence upon him, nor condemn him, but by lawful judgment of his peers; or by the laws of the land.’ By this no freeman might be molested in his person, liberty or estate, but according to the laws of the land, by lawful warrant, granted by lawful authority, expressing the cause for which, the time when, and place where he is to answer or be imprisoned, with the terms of his enlargement; nor have sentence passed upon him in any case, but by lawful judgment of his peers; who, in the instance of giving their verdict, do unanimously declare and announce the law, with respect to themselves, in like circumstances.
- Moses Mather, America’s Appeal to the Impartial World, 1775
It's discouraging how hard it is for a President to slice away large chunks from a $305 billion budget.
- Gerald Ford, A Time to Heal, 1979
It's time we reduced the Federal Budget and left the family budget alone.
- Ronald Reagan, State of the Union Address, February 2, 1986
L'homme est né libre et partout il est dans les fers;
Man was born free, and everywhere he is kept in chains....
- Jean-Jaques Rousseau (1712-1778), "Emile"
Latter-day Saints should be reminded how and why they voted as they did in heaven. If some have decided to change their vote they should repent -- throw their support on the side of freedom.
- Ezra Taft Benson, Conference, Oct '61
Let the General Government be reduced to foreign concerns only, and let our affairs be disentangled from those of other nations, except as to commerce, which the merchants will manage the better, the more they are left free to manage for themselves, and our General Government may be reduced to a very simple organization and a very inexpensive one; a few plain duties to be performed by a few servants.
- Thomas Jefferson, to Gideon Granger, 1800
Liberalism: the gentle art of getting votes from the poor and campaign funds from the rich by promising to protect each from the other.
- unknown
Liberty enables us to do our duty unhindered by the state, by society, by ignorance and error. We are free in proportion as we are safe from these impediments to fight the battle of life and the conflict with temptation.
- Lord Acton (1834-1902)
Liberty is not the power of doing what we like, but the right of being able to do what we ought.
- Lord Acton (1834-1902)
Liberty is one of the most precious gifts which heaven has bestowed on man; with it we cannot compare the treasures which the earth contains or the sea conceals; for liberty, as for honor, we can and ought to risk our lives; and, on the other hand, captivity is the greatest evil that can befall man.
- Miguel de Cervantes (1547-1616)
Liberty is the prevention of control by others. This requires self-control and, therefore, religious and spiritual influences; education, knowledge, well-being.
- Lord Acton (1834-1902)
Liberty means responsibility. That is why most men dread it.
- George Bernard Shaw
Liberty not only means that the individual has both the opportunity and the burden of choice; it also means that he must bear the consequences of his actions and will receive praise or blame for them.
- F. A. Hayek
Live free or die.
- New Hampshire motto
Madness is rare in individuals, but in groups, parties, nations, and ages it is the rule.
- Friedrich Nietzsche
Magistracy is not to intrude itself into the office and proper concerns of Christ's inward government and rule in the conscience, but it is to content itself with the outward man.
- Sir Henry Vane (1613-1662)
Make yourselves sheep, and the wolves will eat you.
- Italian proverb
Mandating human rights commissions and other state authorities to try to achieve perfection [in human affairs] is a formula for tyranny.
- Rory Leishman, London Free Press
Men are not against you; they are merely for themselves.
- Gene Fowler
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)
Neither walls, theatres, porches, nor senseless equipage, make states, but men who are able to rely upon themselves.
- Aristides, Orations
No dictator, no invader can hold an imprisoned population by force of arms forever. There is no greater power in the universe than the need for freedom. Against that power tyrants and dictators cannot stand.
- G'Kar ("Babylon 5")
No man's life, liberty, or property are safe while the legislature is in session.
- Mark Twain
No matter how noble the objectives of a government, if it blurs decency and kindness, cheapens human life, and breeds ill will and suspicion--it is an evil government.
- Eric Hoffer
No State shall convert a liberty into a privilege, license it, and charge a fee therefore.
- Murdock v. Pennsylvania, 319 US 105, US Supreme Court, 1943.
None are more hopelessly enslaved, as those who falsely believe they are free.
- unknown
Not until I went into the churches of America and heard her pulpits flame with righteousness did I understand that secret of her genius and power. America is great because America is good, and if America ever ceases to be good, America will cease to be great.
- Alexis de Tocqueville
Nothing is more certain than that a general profligacy and corruption of manners make a people ripe for destruction. A good form of government may hold the rotten materials together for some time, but beyond a certain pitch, even the best constitution will be ineffectual, and slavery must ensue.
- John Witherspoon (1723-1794)
Nothing is more certainly written in the book of fate than these people are to be free.
- Thomas Jefferson, autobiography
Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busy bodies. The robber baron's cruelty may some-times sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.
- C. S. Lewis
Of liberty I would say that, in the whole plenitude of its extent, it is unobstructed action according to our will. But rightful liberty is unobstructed action according to our will within limits drawn around us by the equal rights of others. I do not add 'within the limits of the law,' because law is often but the tyrant's will, and always so when it violates the right of an individual.
- Thomas Jefferson to Isaac H. Tiffany, 1819.
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)
Our task of creating a socialist America can only succeed when those who would resist us have been totally disarmed.
- Sara Brady, Chairman, Handgun Control Inc, The National Educator, January 1994, Page 3.
Parents have a natural and inalienable right to educate their children, publicly and privately as they see fit, and that right should be recognized and encouraged.
- Ronald Reagan
Parents should choose the form of education they want for their children.
- William Bennett, Secretary of Education
Pity for the guilty is treason to the innocent.
- unknown
Political correctness is just tyranny with manners.
- Charlton Heston
Political correctness, at its core, is intimidation. Terrorism, of course, is the ultimate in intimidation.
- David Kupelian, Politically Correct Terrorism
Politicians are the same all over. They promise to build a bridge even where there is no river.
- Nikita Khrushchev
Private reward to the owner of a copyright is "a secondary consideration" to the ultimate aim of the copyright law -- the public benefit. United States v. Paramount Pictures, Inc., 334 U.S. 131, 158 (1948).
- Amicus Curiae, Veeck vs. SBCCI
Public servants say, always with the best of intentions, "What greater service we could render if only we had a little more money and a little more power." But the truth is that outside of its legitimate function, government does nothing as well or as economically as the private sector.
- President Ronald Reagan, October 27, 1964
Pulling together is the aim of despotism and tyranny. Free men pull in all kinds of directions.
- Terry Pratchett, The Truth
Realizing that, since people will never cease trying to interfere with the liberties of others in pursuing their own, the state can never wither away.
- Wystan H. Auden
Republics are created by the virtue, public spirit, and intelligence of the citizens. They fall, when the wise are banished from the public councils, because they dare to be honest, and the profligate are rewarded, because they flatter the people, in order to betray them.
- U.S. Supreme Court Justice Joseph Story (1779-1845), Father of American Jurisprudence
Republics come to an end through luxury; monarchies through poverty.
- Montesquieu
Reread that pesky first clause of the Second Amendment. It doesn't say
what
any of us thought it said. What it says is that infringing the
right of the people to keep and bears arms is
treason. What else do
you call an act that endangers "the security of a free state"? And if
it's treason,then it's punishable by death.
I suggest due process, speedy trials, and public hangings.
- L. Neil Smith
Salus populi suprema lex esto. (Let the safety of people be the supreme law.)
- Cicero, The Twelve Tables
So the tactic of the Big Lie is still in use: If one's propaganda is sufficiently outrageous, an honest hearer who allows any "benefit of doubt" will have swallowed a lesser falsehood entire. Gromyko has learned well from Goebbels.
- unknown
Social balance has evolved into a war of the metaphor -- neurolinguistic programming meets George Orwell.
- Alan Korwin
Socialism in general has a record of failure so blatant that only an intellectual could ignore or evade it.
- Dr. Thomas Sowell
That rifle on the wall of the labourer's cottage or working class flat is the symbol of democracy. It is our job to see that it stays there.
- George Orwell
The accounts of the United States ought to be, and may be made, as simple as those of a common farmer, and capable of being understood by a common farmer.
- Thomas Jefferson, letter to James Madison, 1796
The American Republic will endure, until politicians realize they can bribe the people with their own money.
- Alexis de Tocqueville
The American Republic will endure, until politicians realize they can bribe the people with their own money.
- Alexis de Tocqueville
Bribes are dangerous; they have a way of growing larger and larger.
- Lady Jessica, "Dune" (Frank Herbert)
The best of all governments is that which teaches us to govern ourselves.
- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
The budget should be balanced, the treasury should be refilled and the pubic debt should be reduced. The arrogance of public officialdom should be tempered and controlled. And the assistance to foreign lands should be curtailed, lest we become bankrupt.
- Cicero, 63 B.C.
The care of souls cannot belong to the civil magistrate, because his power consists only in outward force; but true and saving religion consists in the inward persuasion of the mind, without which nothing can be acceptable to God.
- John Locke (1632-1704)
The Chief Justice misdirected the jury, in saying they had no right to judge of the intent and of the law. In criminal cases, the defendant does not spread upon the record the merits of the defence, but consolidates the whole in the plea of not guilty. This plea embraces the whole matter of law and fact involved in the charge, and the jury have an undoubted right to give a general verdict, which decides both law and fact... All the cases agree that the jury have the power to decide the law as well as the fact; and if the law gives them the power, it gives them the right also. Power and right are convertible terms, when the law authorizes the doing of an act which shall be final, and for the doing of which the agent is not responsible...
It is admitted to be the duty of the court to direct the jury as to the law, and it is advisable for the jury in most cases, to receive the law from the court; and in all cases, they ought to pay respectful attention to the opinion of the court. But, it is also their duty to exercise their judgments upon the law, as well as the fact; and if they have a clear conviction that the law is different from what is stated to be by the court, the jury are bound, in such cases, by the superior obligations of conscience, to follow their own convictions. It is essential to the security of personal rights and public liberty, that the jury should have and exercise the power to judge both of the law and of the criminal intent.
- Alexander Hamilton, People against Croswell, 3 Johns. Cas. 336. (1804):, id at 345, 346
The Constitution neither abolished nor replaced what the Declaration [of Independence] had established; it only provided the specific details of how American government would operate under the principles set forth in the Declaration.
- David Barton, "Original Intent," p. 248
The copyright privileges accorded an owner "are neither unlimited nor primarily designed to provide a special private benefit," but rather to motivate artists and inventors "and to allow the public access to the products of their genius after the limited period of exclusive control has expired." Sony Corp. of America v. Universal City Studios, Inc., 464 U.S. 417, 429 (1984).
- Amicus Curiae, Veeck vs. SBCCI
The end of government is the good of mankind; and which is best for mankind, that the people should be always exposed to the boundless will of tyranny, or that the rulers should be sometimes liable to be opposed when they grow exorbitant in the use of their power, and employ it for the destruction, and not the preservation, of the properties of the people?
- John Locke, The True End of Civil Government, 1690
The essence of government is power; and power, lodged as it must be in human hands, will ever be liable to abuse.
- James Madison, speech before the Virginia State Constitutional Convention, December 1 1829; engraven on the Madison Memorial
The fact is, that I am the watchman, the man on the tower, who can be neither coaxed, nor wheedled, nor bullied; and I have expressed my determination never to quit my post until I obtain a cheap government for the country, and, by doing away with the places and pensions, prevent the peoples pockets from being picked. ... and therefore they are resolved to get rid of me by some means or other.
- William Cobbett, Defense against charges of libel before the Court of The King's Bench, July 1831.
The fear of the next election is the beginning of bad government.
- unknown
The free system of government we have established is so congenial with reason, with common sense, and with a universal feeling that it must produce approbation and a desire of imitation, as avenues may be found for truth to the knowledge of nations.
- James Madison to Pierre E. Duponceau, January 23, 1826
The God who gave us life gave us liberty at the same time....
- Thomas Jefferson in "A Bill for Establishing Religious Freedom" (1779)
The 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, 15 August 1986
The great and chief end therefore, of men's unity into commonwealths, and putting themselves under government, is the preservation of their property
- John Locke, The True End of Civil Government, 1690
The greatest dangers to liberty lurk in insidious encroachment by men of zeal, well-meaning but without understanding.
- U.S. Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis
The ground of liberty is to be gained by inches. We must be contented to secure what we can get from time to time and eternally press forward for what is yet to get. It takes time to persuade men to do even what is for their own good.
- Thomas Jefferson to Rev. Charles Clay, January 27, 1790
The idea that the more helpless one is the safer they are is so irrational it defies words.
- Patricia Lawson
The ideal condition would be, I admit, that men should be right by instinct; but since we are all likely to go astray, The reasonable thing is to learn from those who can teach.
- Sophocles
The instinct of nearly all societies is to lock up anybody who is truly free. First, society begins by trying to beat you up. If this fails, they try to poison you. If this fails too, the finish by loading honors on your head.
- unknown
The jury has an] unreviewable and irreversible power... to acquit in disregard of the instructions on the law given by the trial judge... The pages of history shine on instances of the jury’s exercise of its prerogative to disregard uncontradicted evidence and instructions of the judge; for example, acquittals under the fugitive slave law.
- U.S. v. Dougherty, D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, 1972, 473 F.2d at 1130 and 1132
The larger the State, the less the liberty.
- Jean Jacques Rousseau, The Social Contract, 1762
The law is not meant to protect the idiots.
- anonymous French judge
The Law often allows what Honour forbids.
- Bernard Saurin, French dramatist
The laws of nature are the laws of God, whose authority can be superseded by no power on earth. A legislature must not obstruct our obedience to Him from whose punishment they cannot protect us. All human laws which contradict His laws we are in conscience bound to disobey.
- George Mason (1725-1792), Father of the Bill of Rights
The less government we have the better--the fewer laws and the less confided power....
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
The liberties of England cannot but subsist so long as this palladium remains sacred and inviolate, not only from all open attacks, (which none will be so hardy as to make) but also from all secret machinations, which may sap and undermine it; by introducing new and arbitrary methods of trial, by justices of the peace, commissioners of the revenue and courts of conscience. And however convenient these may appear at first, (as doubtless all arbitrary powers, well executed, are the most convenient) yet let it be again remembered, that delays, and little inconveniences in the forms of justice, are the price that all free nations must pay for their liberty in more substantial matters; that these inroads upon the sacred bulwark of the nation are fundamentally opposite to the spirit of our constitution; and that, though begun in trifles, the precedent may gradually increase and spread, to the utter disuse of juries in questions of the most momentous concern.
- Sir William Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England (Oxford, 1765-1769) Book IV, Ch. 27, Para. V
The liberties of our country, the freedom of our civil constitution, are worth defending at all hazards; and it is our duty to defend them against all attacks. We have received them as a fair inheritance from our worthy ancestors; they purchased them for us with toil and danger and expense of treasure and blood. It will bring an everlasting mark of infamy on the present generation, enlightened as it is, if we should suffer them to be wrested from us by violence without a struggle, or be cheated out of them by the artifices of false and designing men.
- Samuel Adams, article published in 1771
The lust for power, for dominating others, inflames the heart more than any other passion.
- Tacitus
The marvel of all history is the patience with which men and women submit to burdens unnecessarily laid upon them by their governments.
- William E. Borah, former U.S. Senator from Idaho
The mass of men serve the state thus, not as men mainly, but as machines, with their bodies... they put themselves on a level with wood and earth and stones; and wooden men can perhaps be manufactured that will serve the purpose as well.
- Henry David Thoreau "On Civil Disobedience"
The meaning of economic freedom is this: that the individual is in a position to choose the way in which he wants to integrate himself into the totality of society.
- Ludwig von Mises
The measure of the menace of a man is not what hardware he carries, but what ideas he believes.
- Hunter's Seventy Seventh Rule
The more numerous public instrumentalities become, the more is there generated in citizens the notion that everything is to be done for them ... eventually, governmental agencies come to be thought of as the only available agencies.
- Herbert Spencer, The Man versus the State (Caldwell, Idaho: Caxton, 1960), p. 37.
The most foolish mistake we could possibly make would be to allow the subject races to possess arms. History shows that all conquerors who have allowed their subject races to carry arms have prepared their own downfall by so doing.
- Adolph Hitler (Hitler's Secret Conversations, trans. Norman Cameron and R. H. Stevens (New York: Signet Books, 1961), 403.)
The notion of individual liberty - taken for granted in certain quarters of the Net - is a relatively new idea in the world. Some Enlightenment philosophers and American patriots came up with it, but it's still very much a work-in-progress. The United States, which loves to describe itself as the birthplace of liberty, has lots of problems with the idea. America is one of the most censorious countries in the world, blocking open discussion of many religious and political issues and increasingly deploying a whole industry of censorship technologies - blocking and filtering programs, V-Chips, insanely quixotic and unworkable ratings systems - to try and curb the very freedom it celebrates.
- unknown
The office of government is not to confer happiness, but to give men the opportunity to work out happiness for themselves.
- William Ellery Channing
The only proper, moral purpose of a government is to protect man's rights, which means: to protect him from physical violence ? to protect his right to his own life, to his own liberty, to his own property and to the pursuit of his own happiness. Without property rights, no other rights are possible.
- Ayn Rand, "The Objectivist Ethics," symposium, Madison, WI, February 9, 1961
The Padishah Emperor turned against House Atreides because the Duke's Warmasters .. had trained a fighting force -- a small fighting force -- to within a hair as good as the Sardaukar. Some were even better.
- Thufir Hawat, "Dune" (Frank Herbert)
The people of every country are the only safe guardians of their own rights, and are the only instruments which can be used for their destruction.
- Thomas Jefferson to John Wyche, May 19, 1809
The price of peace is righteousness. Men and nations may loudly proclaim, "Peace, peace," but there shall be no peace until individuals nurture in their souls those principles of personal purity, integrity, and character which foster the development of peace. Peace cannot be imposed. It must come from the lives and hearts of men. There is no other way.
- Ezra Taft Benson, "Purposeful Living," Listen, A Journal of Better Living, Jan.-Mar. 1955, p. 19.
The problem is to find a form of association which will defend and protect with the whole common force the person and goods of each associate, and in which each, while uniting himself with all, may still obey himself alone, and remain as free as before.
- Jean Jacques Rousseau. The Social Contract, 1762
The pursuit of happiness...it's an active verb. Not happiness stamps, not a department of happiness, not therapy for happiness. Pursuit.
- Newt Gingrich
The real destroyer of the liberties of the people is he who spreads among them bounties, donations and benefits.
- Plutarch
The right of freely examining public characters and measures, and of free communication among the people thereon... has ever been justly deemed the only effectual guardian of every other right.
- James Madison, Virginia Resolutions, December 21, 1798
The right of self-defense is the first law of nature: in most governments it has been the study of rulers to confine this right within the narrowest limits possible. Wherever standing armies are kept up, and when the right of the people to keep and bear arms is, under any color or pretext whatsoever, prohibited, liberty, if not already annihilated, is on the brink of destruction.
- Henry St. George Tucker (in Blackstone's Commentaries)
The safety and happiness of society are the objects at which all political institutions aim, and to which all such institutions must be sacrificed.
- James Madison, Federalist, No. 43, January 1788
The size of the federal budget is not an appropriate barometer of social conscience or charitable concern.
- President Ronald Reagan, Address to the National Alliance of Business, October 5, 1981
The state, it cannot be too often repeated, does nothing and can give nothing which it does not take from somebody.
- William Graham Sumner, address, "The Forgotten Man," 1883
The strength and power of despotism consists wholly in the fear of resistance.
- Thomas Paine
The true danger is, when liberty is nibbled away, for expedients, and by parts.
- Edmund Burke
The truth is not always the same as the majority decision.
- Pope John Paul
The U.S. Supreme Court broadly and unequivocally held that requiring licensing or registration of any constitutional right is itself unconstitutional.
- Follett vs. Town of McCormick, S.C., 321 U.S. 573 [1944]
The want of parsimony in time of peace imposes the necessity of contracting debt in time of war.
- Adam Smith, The Wealth of Nations, Bk.V, Ch.3, 1776
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
The [Elian] raid... was almost worth it, if only to watch Jesse Jackson... defending an armed pre-dawn raid by the US government on a minority household.
- Rich Galen
There are no dangerous weapons; there are only dangerous people.
- unknown
There aren't many times when a weapon is appropriate.
When it is, nothing else will really do.
- tellner, post 15-08-2005
www.martialartsplanet.com
There is always more that is benevolent, I perceive, than just, manifested toward us. What I ask for the Negro is not benevolence, not pity, not sympathy, but simply justice.
- Frederick Douglass
They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.
- Benjamin Franklin, Historical Review of Pennsylvania, 1759
This country has come to feel the same when Congress is in session as we do when the baby gets hold of a hammer.
- Will Rogers
This is what extremely grieves us, that a man who never fought
Should contrive our fees to pilfer, on who for his native land
Never to this day had oar, or lance, or blister in his hand.
- Aristophanes, "Wasps," 422 B.C.
This year will go down in history. For the first time, a civilized nation has full gun registration. Our streets will be safer, our police more efficient, and the world will follow our lead into the future.
- Adolph Hitler 1938
Those who beat their swords into plowshares usually end up plowing for those who didn't.
- Ben Franklin
Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.
- George Santayana (1863-1952)
Those who cast the votes decide nothing. Those who count the votes decide everything.
- Josef Stalin
Though the people support the government, the government should not support the people.
- Grover Cleveland, veto of the Texas Seed Bill, 16 February, 1887
To be civilized is to restrain the ability to commit mayhem. To be incapable of committing mayhem is not the mark of the civilized, merely the domesticated.
- unknown
To compel a man to furnish contributions of money for the propagations of opinions which he disbelieves and abhors is sinful and tyrannical.
- Thomas Jefferson (1777)
Today, we need a nation of Minutemen, citizens who are not only prepared to take arms, but citizens who regard the preservation of freedom as the basic purpose of their daily life and who are willing to consciously work and sacrifice for that freedom.
- John F. Kennedy
Trust in the jury is, after all, one of the cornerstones of our entire criminal jurisprudence, and if that trust is without foundation we must re-examine a great deal more than just the nullification doctrine.
- Chief Judge David L. Bazelon, Dissent in U.S v. Dougherty, 473 F.2d 1113, 1142 (D.C. Cir. 1972
Tyranny is the perversion of kingship; oligarchy of aristocracy; and democracy of constitutional government. Tyranny is a monarchy ruling in the monarch's best interest; oligarchy governs in the interest of the well-to-do; democracy governs in the interest of the poorer classes. None of the three govern to the advantage of the whole body of citizens.
- Aristotle "Politics", vol. III, c. 334-23BC
Ubi solitudinem faciunt, pacem appellant.
Where they create desolation, they call it peace.- unknown
Under every stone lurks a politician.
- Aristophanes, "Thesmophoriazusae," 410 B.C.
Vote early and vote often.
- Al Capone (1899-1947)
War contains much folly, as well as wickedness, that much is to be hoped from the progress of reason; and if anything is to be hoped, every thing ought to be tried.
- James Madison, National Gazette, February 2, 1792
War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest... the decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks nothing is
worth a war, is worse.
- John Stuart Mill, English philosopher
We as a society will never begin to cure our social ills until we realize that a government check or a child support check can never take the place of a father, and that a hefty divorce settlement can never heal the wounds of marital infidelity.
- Dan Quayle
We base all our experiments on the capacity of mankind for self-government.
- James Madison
We can pay of his [Hamilton's] debt in fifteen years, but we can never get rid of his financial system.
- Thomas Jefferson, to Dupont, 1802
We can't be so fixated on our desire to preserve the rights of ordinary Americans.
- Bill Clinton (USA Today 3/11/1993, p. 2a)
We fight not to enslave, but to set a country free, and to make room upon the earth for honest men to live in... Those who expect to reap the blessings of freedom, must, like men, undergo the fatigues of supporting it.
- Thomas Paine
We hold these truths to be self evident: that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by there creator with certain unalienable rights, among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, that to secure these rights governments are instituted among men. We... solem publish and declare, that these colonies are and of a right ought to be to be free and independent states.... And for the support
of this declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine providence, we mutually pledge our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor.
- Declaration of Independence, 1776; engraven on the Jefferson Memorial.
We must never cease to proclaim in fearless tones the great principles of freedom and the rights of man which are the joint inheritance of the English-speaking world and which through Magna Carta, the Bill of Rights, the Habeas Corpus, trial by jury, and the English common law find their most famous expression in the American Declaration of Independence.
- Sir Winston Churchill, "The Sinews of Peace," address at Westminster College, Fulton, Missouri, March 5, 1946.
What spectacle can be more edifying or more seasonable, than that of liberty & learning, each leaning on the other for their mutual & surest support?
- James Madison, personal letter to W.T. Barry, 4 August 1822; engraven on the Madison Memorial
When all government, domestic and foreign, in little as in great things, shall be drawn to Washington as the center of all power, it will render powerless the checks provided of one government on another, and will become as venal and oppressive as the government from which we separated.
- Thomas Jefferson, letter to C. Hammond, 1821
When bad men combine, the good must associate; else they will fall one by one, an unpitied sacrifice in a contemptible struggle.
- Edmund Burke 1729-1797
When you disarm your subjects you offend them by showing that either from cowardliness or lack of faith, you distrust them; and either conclusion will induce them to hate you.
- Niccolo Machiavelli "The Prince"
Where an excess of power prevails, property of no sort is duly respected. No man is safe in his opinions, his person, his faculties, or his possessions.
- James Madison, essay in the National Gazette, 27 March 1792
Who are the militia? Are they not ourselves.... Congress [has] no power to disarm the militia. Their swords, and every other terrible implement of the soldier, are the birth-right of an American....
- Tenche Coxe, 20 February 1788 edition of The Pennsylvania Gazette
Whoever controls the image and information of the past determines what and how future generations will think; whoever controls the information and images of the present determines how those same people will view the past.
- George Orwell, "1984" (1949)
Why be politically correct when you can be RIGHT?
- unknown
With the arrest of Dimitry Sklyarov it has become apparent that it is not safe for non US software engineers to visit the United States.
- Alan Cox
With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censored, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably.
- Judge Aaron Satie
You are English-men, mind your Privilege, give not away your Right.
- Wm. Penn, to jurors being coerced to change their not guily verdict, 5 September 1670
You can only protect your liberties in this world by protecting the other man's freedom. You can only be free if I am free.
- Clarence Darrow (1857-1938)
You cannot avoid the ... politics in an orthodox [system]. This power struggle permeates the training, educating, and disciplining of the ... community. [Leaders must] succumb to complete opportunism as the price of maintaining their rule or risk sacrificing themselves.
- Paul "Muad'Dib" Atreides, "Dune" (Frank Herbert)
You contend that I am wrong to teach my son science and philosophy; I believe you are wrong to teach yours Greek and Latin. Let us both follow the dictate of our conscience. Let us allow the law of responsibility to operate for our families. It will punish the one who is wrong. Let us not call in human law; it could well punish the one who is not wrong.
- Frederic Bastiat
You do not examine legislation in light of the benefits it will convey if properly administered, but in light of the wrongs it would do and the harms it would cause if improperly administered.
- Lyndon B. Johnson
You forgot the first rule of a fanatic. When you become obsessed with the enemy, you become the enemy."
- Commander Sinclair, Babylon 5, "Infection"
You have all the characteristics of a popular politician: a horrible voice, bad breeding, and a vulgar manner.
- Aristophanes, "Knights," 424 B.C.
You have rights antecedent to all earthly governments; rights that cannot be repealed or restrained by human laws; rights derived from the Great Legislator of the Universe.
- John Adams
[A] desirable end cannot be promoted by prohibited means.
- Supreme Court Justice James C. McReynolds, Meyer v. Nebraska, 1923
[Government] would be like the authority of a parent, if, like that authority, its object was to prepare men for manhood; but it seeks, on the contrary, to keep them in perpetual childhood
- Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America, 1835
[I]t is the new journalistic responsibility not just to report the news but to influence opinion.
- Time, 1986
[Knowledge is neither good nor evil, but takes its character from how it is used.] In like manner, weapons defend the lives of those who wish to live peacefully, and they also, on many occasions kill men, not because of any wickedness inherent in them but because those who wield them do so in an evil way.
- Boccaccio, The Decameron 686 (Mus & P. Bondanella trans., Mentor-New American Library 1982).
[L]iberty is an acknowledgment of faith in God and His works.
- Frederic Bastiat, "The Law" 1850
[P]olitical correctness, that bizarre self-censorship that currently makes us afraid even to name the enemy, let alone fight it.
- David Kupelian, Politically Correct Terrorism
[Trial by jury]… is, says Dr. Blackstone, the most transcendant privilege which ‘any subject can enjoy or wish for, that he cannot be affected in his property, his liberty or person, but by the unanimous consent of twelve of his neighbors and equals: And when a celebrated French writer concludes, that because Rome, Sparta, and Carthage, lost their liberties, therefore England must in time lose theirs, he should have recollected, that Rome, Sparta, and Carthage were strangers to trial by jury; and that it is a duty which every man owes to his country, his friends, his posterity and himself, to maintain, to the utmost of his power, this valuable constitution in all its parts, to restore it to its antient dignity, if at all impaired, or deviated from its first institutions, &c. and above all, to guard with the most jealous circumspection, against the introduction of new and arbitrary methods of trial, which, under a variety of plausible pretences, may in time, imperceptably undermine this best preservative of English liberties.
- Moses Mather, America’s Appeal to the Impartial World, 1775
[We paid the price that] men have always paid for achieving a paradise in this life -- we went soft, we lost our edge.
- Princess Irulan, "Muad'Dib: Conversations"
Life
If one's words are no better than silence, one should remain silent.
- Kwai Chang Caine, Kung Fu (movie)
Science is facts; just as houses are made of stones, so is science made of facts; but a pile of stones is not a house and a collection of facts is not necessarily science.
- Henri Poincaré
If ever the pleasure of one has to be bought by the pain of the other, there better be no trade. A trade by which one gains and the other loses is a fraud.
- Dagny Taggart, Atlas Shrugged, Ayn Rand
"Hard tasks need hard ways," someone shouted.
"Do you smash your knife before a battle?" Paul demanded.
- "Dune" (Frank Herbert)
"Why do you test for humans?" he asked.
"To set you free."
- Paul Atreides and the Reverend Mother Gaius Helen Mohiam ("Dune")
"You have seen the future, Paul," Jessica said. "Will you say what you've seen?"
"Not the future," he said. "I've seen the Now."
- "Dune" (Frank Herbert)
Londo Mollari: He was a great man.
Lady Morella: Yes. Yes, he was. But greatness is never appreciated in youth; called pride in mid-life; dismissed in old age; and reconsidered in death. Because we cannot tolerate greatness in our midst, we do all we can to destroy it.
- "Point of No Return", Babylon 5 (Season 3, Episode 9)
Sakai: Just one question. Why?
G'Kar: Why not?
Sakai: It's not an answer.
G'Kar: Oh, yes it is. It's simply not an answer you like or the answer you expect. There's a difference.
- Babylon 5, "Mind War"
A financial investment will yield returns beyond your hopes.
- Fortune cookie
A great many people think they are thinking when they are merely rearranging their prejudices.
- William James
A hero is no braver than an ordinary man, but he is brave five minutes longer.
- Ralph Waldo Emmerson
A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion,
butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance
accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders,
give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new
problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight
efficiently, die gallantly.
Specialization is for insects.
- Robert A. Heinlein
A leader...is one of the things that distinguishes a mob from a people. He maintains the level of individuals. Too few individuals, and a people reverts to a mob.
- Stilgar "Dune" (Frank Herbert)
A man without decision of character can never be said to belong to himself. He belongs to whatever can make captive of him.
- John Foster
A pint of sweat will save a gallon of blood.
- George S. Patton
A species that changes with each new fad does not have a bright future.
- mattoleriver 6 Jan 2003
Adhere to your own act, and congratulate yourself if you have done something strange and extravagant, and broken the monotony of a decorous age.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
All change is not growth; all movement is not forward.
- Ellen Glasgow
All I have tried to do in my life is ask a few questions: "Could God have created the universe any other way, or had He any choice?" And, "How would I have made the universe, if I had the chance?"
- Albert Einstein, as presented in the Nova program Einstein Revealed
All that is gold does not glitter. Not all those who wander are lost.
- "The Lord of the Rings" J.R.R. Tolkien
Ambition drove many men to become false; to have one thought locked in the breast, another ready on the tongue.
- Gaius Sallustius Crispus (86-34 BCE), "The War with Catiline"
An adventure is the deliberate, volitional movement out of the comfort zone.
- James W. Newman
An army of sheep lead by a lion will defeat an army of lions lead by a sheep.
- Arab proverb
And together we stand at life's crossroads
And view what we think is the end,
But God has a much bigger vision
And He tells us it's only a bend;
For the road goes on and is smoother,
And the "pause in the song" is a "rest",
And the part that's unsung and unfinished
Is the sweetest and richest and best;
So rest and relax and grow stronger,
Let go and let God share your load,
Your work is not finished or ended,
You've just come to a bend in the road.
- Helen Steiner Rice, "A Bend in the Road"
Argue for your limitations, and sure enough, they're yours.
- Messiah's Handbook : Reminders for the Advanced Soul
Arrakis teaches the attitude of the knife -- chopping off what's incomplete and saying: "Now, it's complete because it's ended here."
- Paul "Muad'Dib" Atreides, "Dune" (Frank Herbert)
Ars longa, vita brevis.
- Horace
The lyf so short, the craft so long to lerne.
- Chaucer
As one lamp lights another, nor grows less, so nobleness enkindleth nobleness.
- Lowell, Yussouf
Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. The fearful are caught as often as the bold.
- Helen Keller
Be careful, you are easily tempted.
- Fortune cookie
Be not wise in thine own conceit, in thinking that thou hast learned all the skill which is to be learned already, farre deceived are thou if thou thinks so, for if thou live (til) thou art olde, yet thou mayest learne still.
Never leave studying and practicing till you come to the ground and until you have sounded into the depth of your Art.
- Swetnam, Joseph, Schoole of the Noble and Worthy Science of Defence, 1617
Beneficium accipere libertatem est vendere.
To accept a favour is to sell freedom.- Publilius Syrus
Bragging: The patter of tiny feats.
- unknown
Chance favours the trained mind.
- Louis Pasteur, "The Sciences"
Change can either challenge or threaten us. Your beliefs pave your way to success or block you.
- Marsha Sinetar
Change your thoughts and you change your world.
- Norman Vincent Peale
Command must always look confident. All that faith riding on your shoulders while you sit in the critical seat and never show it.
- Duke Leto Atreides, "Dune" (Frank Herbert)
Concordia parvae res crescunt, discordia maximae dilabuntur.
Through unity the small thing grows, through disunity the largest thing crumbles.- Gaius Sallustius Crispus (86-34 BCE), "Jugurtha"
Consensus is the absence of leadership.
- Margret Thatcher
Courage is fear plus action.
- unknown
Courage is what it takes to stand up and speak; courage is also what it takes to sit down and listen.
- Winston Churchill
Deep in the human unconscious is a pervasive need for a logical universe that makes sense. But the real universe is always one step beyond logic.
- Paul "Muad'Dib" Atreides, "Dune" (Frank Herbert)
Discourage self-help, and loyal subjects become the slaves of ruffians.
- A. V. Dicey, English jurist
Dixi verbu[m] sapiento satum est
I have said, "A word to the wise suffices."- Sir Philip Sydney, The Lady of May (1598 edition)
Do not count a human dead until you have seen his body. And even then you can make a mistake.
- Bene Gesserit saying
Do not worry about people not knowing your ability, but worry that you do not know your own.
- Confucius
Do or do not, there is no try.
- Yoda, _The Empire Strikes Back_
Do you think me stupid? Do you think I'll cut off my right arm and leave it bloody on the floor of this cavern just to provide you with a circus?
- Paul "Maud'Dib" Atreides, "Dune" (Frank Herbert)
Doing gets it done.
- unknown
Don't let them make you think you're weak. "Power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely." But weakness corrupts, too. And absolute weakness is everybit as corruptive.
Weakness can make you do the wrong thing, hold yourself in contempt, backdown when you need to stand up, fight your friends instead of your enemies. Only weakness can make you do something you know in your heart is wrong.
Power goes to the head, but weakness can go to the soul.
- 21st Century Fox, 19 February 2003
Each problem that I solved became a rule which served afterwards to solve other problems.
- René Descartes (1596-1650), Discours de la Méthode
Egotism is the anesthetic that dulls the pain of stupidity.
- J. Leahy
Even if you're on the right track, you'll get run over if you just sit there.
- Will Rogers
Facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, or the dictates of our passion, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence.
- John Adams, "Argument in Defense of the Soldiers in the Boston Massacre Trials," December 1770
Facts are the enemy of truth.
- Don Quixote (Man of la Mancha)
Fear of tomorrow and regrets over yesterday are the two twin thieves that rob us of today.
- Hastings
Few men desire liberty; most men wish only for a just master.
- Gaius Sallustius Crispus (86-34 BCE)
Forgive your enemies, but never forget their names.
- John F. Kennedy (1917-1963)
Fun is a good thing but only when it spoils nothing better.
- George Santayana (1863-1952), The Sense of Beauty (1896) "The Comic"
G'Quon wrote, "There is a greater darkness than the one we fight. It is the darkness of the soul that has lost its way. The war we fight is not against powers and principalities, it is against chaos and despair. Greater than the death of flesh is the death of hope, the death of dreams. Against this peril we can never surrender...."
- G'Kar ("Babylon 5")
General and abstract truth is the most precious of all goods. Without it, man is blind; truth is the eye of reason. Truth allows man to learn proper conduct, to be what he should be, to do what he should do, and to strive towards his true purpose.
- Jean-Jacques Rousseau, (1712-1778), fourth "Reverie"
Give as few orders as possible. Once you've given orders on a subject, you must always give orders on that subject.
- Duke Leto Atreides, "Dune" (Frank Herbert)
Give yourself time to succeed. You have to develop new habits, thinking, and knowledge.
- D. Yager
God created Arrakis to train the faithful.
- Paul "Muad'Dib" Atreides, "Dune" (Frank Herbert)
Having it all doesn't mean having it all at once.
- John C. Maxwell, _Developing the Leader Within You_
Hawat's a man who must serve others, and doesn't even know this about himself.
- Baron Vladimir Harkonnen, "Dune" (Frank Herbert)
He believes he can best me any time. Believing this, he is bested. For I direct his attention where I want it....
- Baron Vladimir Harkonnen, "Dune" (Frank Herbert)
He who waits for the sword to fall upon his neck will surely lose his head.
- Stephen R. Donaldson
Here is a pretty predicament. I do not want to pillory [those]...who were doing the best they knew; but I cannot be silent about what I think the actual tendency of their work.
- C.S. Lewis, "The Abolition of Man".
Honor only becomes relevent when character is challenged. Otherwise, anyone can sound "good."
- Dr. Laura Schlessinger
Hope clouds reason.
- Bene Gesserit saying
How often it is that the angry man rages denial of what his inner self is telling him.
- Paul "Muad'Dib" Atreides, "Dune" (Frank Herbert)
Human judgment is far more limited than we think.
- David Faust, "The Limits of Scientific Reasoning"
Humans are illogical, emotion-driven beings that use their logic to justify their nutty decisions.
- Dr. Laura Schlessinger
I am the master of my fate, I am the captain of my soul.
- William Ernest Henley, Invictus
I believe that "A double-minded man is unstable in all his ways." can be rephrased as "an unfocused man shoots for many things but never hits the target."
- unknown
I believe that every right implies a responsibility; every opportunity, an obligation; every possession, a duty.
- John D. Rockerfeller, Jr.
I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use.
- Galileo Galilei
I find the great thing in this world is not so much where we stand, as in what direction we are moving: To reach the port of heaven, we must sail sometimes with the wind and sometimes against it, but we must sail, and not drift, nor lie at anchor.
- Oliver Wendell Holmes
I have been amazed at the power and ubiquity of envy -- an age-old emotion so profound in Hesiod and Thucydides, but one whose strength I had underestimated and forgotten.
- David Victor Hanson
I have no help to send, therefore I must go myself.
- Aragorn, son of Arathorn "The Lord of the Rings" J.R.R. Tolkien
I like thinking big. If you're going to be thinking anything, you might as well think big.
- Donald Trump
I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me.
- Paul Atreides ("Dune")
I used to think it was awful that life was so unfair. Then I thought, wouldn't it be much worse if life were fair, and all the terrible things that happen to us come because we actually deserve them? So, now I take great comfort in the general hostility and unfairness of the universe.
- Marcus ("Babylon 5")
I want [my children] to realize that there is no such thing as a "free lunch," that life is not a gift -- it is an investment.
- John C. Maxwell, _Developing the Leader Within You_
I will speak ill of no man...and speak all the good I know of everybody.
- Benjamin Franklin
I will take the Ring, though I do not know the way.
- Frodo ("Lord of the Rings", J.R.R. Tolkien)
I'll miss the sea, but a person needs new experiences. They jar something deep inside, allowing him to grow. Without change something sleeps inside us, and seldom awakens. The sleeper must awaken.
- Duke Leto Atreides ("Dune" [movie])
If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away.
- Henry Thoreau
If ignorant both of your enemy and of yourself, you are certain in every battle to be in peril.
- Sun Tzu, _The Art of War_
If the tongue could cut as the sword, the dead would be infinite.
- Filippo Vadi of Pisa, Arte Gladiatoria Dimicandi (c. 1482-1487)
If there is nobody who would be glad to read your obituary, you're not doing anything worthwhile.
- unknown
If this is comfortable for you, you aren't pushing yourself hard enough.
- Lonnie Burton
If you are easily frightened you should not learn to fence, for a despondent heart will always be defeated, regardless of all skill.
- Sigmund Ringeck, 1440
If you are free only when others think you are right, then you are not free at all.
- Dr. Thomas Sowell
If you are going to kill me then do so. Otherwise, I have considerable work to do.
- Lennier, "Babylon 5"
If you are planning for one year, grow rice.
If you are planning for twenty years, grow trees.
If you are planning for centuries, grow men.
- Chinese proverb
If you attack expecting to prevail, do it in full strength, because a surplus of victory never caused any conqueror one pang of remorse.
- Xenophon
If you don't know what you want and where you are going, you will get next to nothing and end up nowhere.
- John C. Maxwell, _Developing the Leader Within You_
If you find yourself sitting in the hedgerow with nothing but weeds, there is no reason for shutting your eyes and seeing nothing, instead of finding what beauty you may in the weeds.
- Emily Post
If you rush a miracle, you get rotten miracles.
- Miracle Max, _The Princess Bride_
In a place of darkness, a dream of light lives.
The old order is trying to keep the curtains drawn,
to keep out tomorrow. but a new day is dawining.
The future is rushing in. Will you be there to meet it?
- Cirque du Soleil, Allegria
In a tight position, always leave yourself a secondary, someone to take the maker if you cannot. Remember that we work together. That way, we're certain.
- Stilgar, "Dune" (Frank Herbert)
In a world full of people, only some want to fly. Isn't that crazy?
- "Crazy" by Seal ("Seal")
In an age of militant mediocrity, an "extremist" is anyone who takes a position.
- John Loeffler
In prosperity, our friends know us; in adversity, we know our friends.
- John Churton
Intelligence is not the ability to store information, but to know where to find it.
- Albert Einstein
It is better to have a permanent income than to be fascinating.
- Oscar Wilde (1854-1900)
It is not enough that we do our best; sometimes we have to do what's required.
- Winston Churchill
It is perhaps insane to live with a dream, but it is madness to live without one.
- unknown
It is possible to see peril in the finding of ultimate perfection. It is clear that [it] contains its own fixity. In such perfection, all things move toward death.
- Paul "Muad'Dib" Atreides, "Dune" (Frank Herbert)
It is tempting, if the only tool you have is a hammer, to treat everything as if it were a nail.
- Abraham Maslow
It marks a big step in your development when you come to realize that other people can help you do a better job than you could do alone.
- Andrew Carnegie
It must be remembered that there is nothing more difficult to plan, more doubtful of success, nor more dangerous to manage, than the creation of a new system. For the initiator has the enmity of all who would profit by the preservation of the old institutions and merely lukewarm defenders in those who would gain by the new ones.
- Niccolo Machiavelli, 1513
It seems that nobody reads Santayana anymore.
- Susan Ivanova, "Babylon 5"
It's as easy to be overwhelmed by giving as by taking.
- Paul "Muad'Dib" Atreides, "Dune" (Frank Herbert)
It's difficult to recognize Satan when his hand is on your shoulder.
- Albert Speir, architect for Hitler's programs
It's easy to find something worth dying for. Do you have anything worth living for?
- Lorien ("Babylon 5")
It's not what we don't know that gets us into trouble, it's what we know that ain't so.
- Will Rogers
La vérité générale et abstraite est le plus
précieux de tous les biens. Sans elle l'homme est aveugle; elle
est l'oeil de la raison. C'est par elle que l'homme apprend à se
conduire, à être ce qu'il doit être, à faire
ce qu'il doit faire, à tendre à sa véritable fin.
- Jean-Jacques Rousseau, (1712-1778), fourth "Reverie"
Leave things better than you found them.
- Boy Scout axiom.
Lector, si monumentum requiris, circumspice.
Reader, if you seek a monument, look about you.- Enscribed on the dedication for the tomb of Sir Christopher Wren (1632-1723) in St. Paul's cathedral, provided by his son Christopher.
Let us discard any habit that hinders us.
- unknown
Liberty is not the power of doing what we like, but the right of being able to do what we ought.
- Lord Acton (1834-1902)
Liberty means responsibility. That is why most men dread it.
- George Bernard Shaw
Liberty not only means that the individual has both the opportunity and the burden of choice; it also means that he must bear the consequences of his actions and will receive praise or blame for them.
- F. A. Hayek
Life improves the capacity of the environment to sustain life.
- Dr. Kynes, "Dune" (Frank Herbert)
Life is like toilet paper; we panic as the end approaches.
- unknown
Life moves pretty fast. If you don't stop and look around once in awhile, you might miss it.
- Ferris Beuller's Day Off
Live every day as if it were your last, because one day you'll be right!
- unknown
Long-range planning does not deal with future decisions, but with the future of present decisions.
- Peter Drucker
Love makes us poets and the approach of death makes us philosophers.
- George Santayana (1863-1952)
Love may conquer everything, but it needs time as its field general.
- unknown
Madness is rare in individuals, but in groups, parties, nations, and ages it is the rule.
- Friedrich Nietzsche
Make time to do things right the first time around. If you don't have time to do things right, when will you ever have the time to go back and make the shortcuts right?
- unknown
Man proposes, but God disposes.
- Thomas Kempis
Many of the truths we cling to depend greatly upon our point of view.
- Obiwan Kenobi, "Return of the Jedi"
May I have the wisdom to accept what I cannot change,
The courage to change those things I can,
And the firepower to make the difference.
Men are not against you; they are merely for themselves.
- Gene Fowler
Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of them pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing had happened.
- unknown
Minds are like parachutes... they only function when open.
- Thomas Dewar
Mood? What has *mood* to do with it? You fight when the necessity arises -- no matter the mood!
- Gurney Halleck, ("Dune")
Most people pass up opportunity because it's wearing overalls and looks like work.
- unknown
Most people would sooner die than think; in fact, they do so.
- Bertrand Russell (1872-1970)
My interest is in the future because I am going to spend the rest of my life there.
- Charles F. Kettering, inventor of automobile self-starter and many industrial devices
Nam et ipsa scientia potestas est.
Knowledge is power.- Sir Francis Bacon, De Hoeresibus
Narns, Humans, Centauri .. we all do what we do for the same reason: because it seems like a good idea at the time.
