Sayings
Issue #18 Posted April 1, 2001

"Which government is best? That which teaches us to govern ourselves." -- Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

"Tolerance is the virtue of people with no virtues." - Unk

"Altering the Constitution has become the daily business of the Federal Government the document is supposed to guide and limit. Both Congress and the judiciary assume, and exercise, countless powers they aren't entitled to." --Joseph Sobran

"The cry of racism has become an excuse for not looking at reality and real problems." -- Former leftist David Horowitz.

"Real patriots who may resist the intrigues of the favorite are liable to become suspected and odious, while its tools and dupes usurp the applause and confidence of the people to surrender their interests." -- George Washington

"Every citizen should be a soldier. This was the case with the Greeks and Romans, and must be that of every free state." -- Thomas Jefferson

"There exist only three beings worthy of respect: the priest, the soldier, the poet. To know, to kill, to create." -- Charles Baudelaire

"While there's life, there's hope." --Marcus Tullius Cicero

"The great man does not think beforehand of his words that they may be sincere, nor of his actions that they may be resolute -- he simply speaks and does what is right." -- Menciu

"I love everything that's old: old friends, old times, old manners, old books, old wines." -- Oliver Goldsmith

"Avoid shame, but do not seek glory -- nothing so expensive as glory." -- Sydney Smith

"Every reform, however necessary, will by weak minds be carried to an excess, that itself will need reforming." -- Samuel Taylor Coleridge

"Humans can survive war, but cannot survive peace; because in peace, the unfit contribute almost equally to the gene pool, and breeds their own group down to the point of non-survival." -- Iben Browning & Evelyn M. Garriss, Past and Future History: A Planner's Guide

When they call roll in the Senate, the senators do not know whether to answer ‘present’ or ‘not guilty.’" -- Theodore Roosevelt

"The disappearance of any overarching religious vision in our time accounts more than anything else for the present indifference to virtue: indeed, for our attempt to localize virtue in acquisition; in getting and spending and wearing out and throwing away, then restarting the process." -- William Murchison

The following principles were found written next to I Kings 22 in the Bible of former Georgia State Senator Edwin Gochenour (1953-1999). "It is better to be united in truth than to be united in error. It is better to tell the truth that hurts then heals than to tell a lie that heals then kills. It is better to be hated for telling the truth than to be loved for telling a lie. It is better to stand alone with the truth than to be wrong with the multitudes. It is better to ultimately win with the truth than to temporarily succeed with a lie."

"Virtue is not always amiable." -- John Adams

"So long as we love we serve; so long as we are loved by others, I would almost say that we are indispensable; and no man is useless while he has a friend." -- Robert Louis Stevenson

"Advice is seldom welcome; and those who want it the most always like it the least." -- Philip Dormer Stanhope, Earl of Chesterfield

"Iron rusts from disuse; stagnant water loses its purity and in cold weather becomes frozen; even so does inaction sap the vigor of the mind." -- Leonardo da Vinci

"Justice without strength is helpless, strength without justice is tyrannical.... Unable to make what is just strong, we have [unfortunately] made what is strong just." -- Blaise Pascal

" "In general, the art of government consists in taking as much money as possible from one class of citizens to give to the other." -- Voltaire

"You are a king by your own fireside, as much as any monarch in his throne." -- Miguel de Cervantes

"Defer not till tomorrow to be wise, Tomorrow's sun to thee may never rise." -- William Congress

They tell us we are weak -- unable to cope with so formidable an adversary. But when shall we be stronger? Will it be next week, or the next year? Will it be when we are totally disarmed? Shall we acquire the means of effectual resistance by lying supinely on our backs and hugging the delusive phantom of hope, until our enemies have bound us hand and foot? We are not weak if we make a proper use of the means which the Gods of nature has placed in our power. Millions of people armed in the holy cause of Liberty, and in such a country as that which we possesses, are invincible. Besides, we shall not fight our battles alone. There is a just God who presides over the destinies of nations, who will raise up friends to fight our battles for us. The battle, is not to the strong alone, it is to the vigilant, the active, the brave. Many cry 'peace, peace' -- but there is no peace! . The war is actually begun! Why stand we here idle? Is life so dear or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it almighty God! I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me Liberty or give me death! -- Patrick Henry, Addressing the Virginia House of Burgesses, March 23, 1775

Without independent study, one can easily become indoctrinated rather than educated.

"Justice, sir, is the great interest of man on earth." -- Daniel Webster

"Truth is the cry of all, but the game of the few." -- George Berkeley

"There is no road or ready way to virtue." -- Sir Thomas Browne

"Men of genius do not excel in any profession because they labor in it, but they labor in it because they excel." -- William Hazlitt

"Let every eye negotiate for itself and trust no agent." -- William Shakespeare

"While the people are virtuous, they cannot be subdued; but when they lose their virtue they will be ready to surrender their liberties to the first external or internal invader." -- Samuel Adams

"As he brews, so shall he drink." -- Ben Jonson

"To be a well-favoured man is the gift of fortune; but to write and read comes by nature." -- William Shakespeare

"Second thoughts are ever wiser." -- Euripides

"The only reward of virtue is virtue; the only way to have a friend is to be one." -- Ralph Waldo Emerso

"It is good to be children sometimes, and never better than at Christmas, when its Mighty Founder was a child Himself." -- Charles Dickens

"We can afford to differ on the currency, the tariff, and foreign policy; but we cannot afford to differ on the question of honesty if we expect our republic permanently to endure. ... Honesty is not so much a credit as an absolute prerequisite to efficient service to the public. Unless a man is honest, we have no right to keep him in public life; it matters not how brilliant his capacity.... The weakling and the coward cannot be saved by honesty alone; but without honesty, the brave and able man is merely a civic wild beast who should be hunted down by every lover of righteousness. No man who is corrupt, no man who condones corruption in others, can possibly do his duty by the community." -- Theodore Roosevelt

"I am confident and sad that, when future historians write about the decline and fall of the United States, the failure of the press to inform the people will be counted as a principle cause." -- Charley Reese

"He who is void of virtuous attachments in private life is, or very soon will be, void of all regard for his country." -- Samuel Adams

Never volunteer. Trust no one. Expect sabotage.

"An investment in knowledge always pays the best interest." -- Benjamin Franklin

"Be not careless in deeds, nor confused in words, nor rambling in thought." -- Marcus Aurelius Antoninus

"In adversity remember to keep an even mind." -- Horace

"In charity there is no excess." -- Francis Bacon

"Education has for its object the formation of character." -- Herbert Spencer

"Misfortune tests the sincerity of friends." -- Robert E. Lee

"Blest the man who possesses a keen intelligent mind." -- Aristophanes

"Truth is a torch that gleams through the fog without dispelling it." --Claude Adrien Helvétius

It is a distressing human tendency to rationalize one's personal feelings toward people, rather than judging on the facts.

"The most formidable weapon against errors of every kind is reason." -- Thomas Paine

"Love truth, but pardon error." --Voltaire

"First keep the peace within yourself, then you can also bring peace to others." -- Thomas à Kempis

"In the country of the blind the one-eyed man is king." -- Desiderius Erasmus

"Treat your friends like family and your family like friends." -- Cotton Mather

"...democracies have ever been spectacles of turbulence and contention; have ever been found incompatible with personal security or the rights of property; and have in general been as short in their lives as they have been violent in their deaths." -- James Madison, in "Essay # 10" of the Federalist Papers.

"It has been said that mankind is always one generation from barbarism. If we fail to transmit our heritage, our understanding, our concept of right and wrong, our faith in God and country, then the outcome will be barbarism. This is how, metaphorically speaking, we have crucified God. This is how we have murdered our country, betraying the legacy of Washington and the Founding Fathers. Apostasy and treason have appeared in our midst." -- J.R. Nyquist

"No man who is corrupt, no man who condones corruption in others, can possibly do his duty by the community." -- Theodore Roosevelt

"Very few established institutions, governments and constitutions...are ever destroyed by their enemies until they have been corrupted and weakened by their friends." --alter Lippmann

"The life of the nation is secure only while the nation is honest, truthful, and virtuous." -- Frederick Douglass

"All that the South has ever desired was that the Union as established by our forefathers should be preserved and that the government as originally organized should be administered in purity and truth." -- Robert E. Lee


| Back to Fr. Frog's Home Page |


Updated 2001-04-02 @ 1900 - Fr. Frog