Sayings
Issue #48 Posted July 1, 2007

"To speak his thoughts is every free man’s right, in peace, in war, in counsel, and in fight." -- Homer

"The American Indians found out what happens when you don't control immigration." -- Annon.

"At least once every human being should have to run for his life, to teach him that milk does not come from the supermarket, that safety does not come for policemen and that news is not something that happens to other people."-- From The Number of the Beast" by Robert Heinlen

"If guns cause homicides, then one may, by logical extension, draw the following conclusions about causal factors for the top US mortality groups: golden arches cause heart disease, cigarette lighters cause cancer, sex causes abortions, steering wheels cause car accidents, toxic-warning labels cause poisonings, ladders cause falls and bottles cause deaths associated with alcohol abuse."

"I no doubt deserved my enemies, but I do not believe I deserve my friends." -- Walt Whitman

"Anyway, no drug, not even alcohol, causes the fundamental ills of society. If we're looking for the source of our troubles, we shouldn't test people for drugs, we should test them for stupidity, ignorance, greed and love of power." -- P.J. O'Rourke

"We are a nation that has a government--not the other way around. And this makes us special among the nations of the earth. Our government has no power except that granted to it by the people. It is time to check and reverse the growth of government which shows signs of having grown beyond the consent of the governed." -- Ronald Reagan

We could save the planet if the Vegetarians would stop eating it.

"Violence has resolved more conflicts than anything else. The contrary opinion that violence doesn't solve anything is merely wishful thinking at its worst." -- The Character, Jean Rasczak, from the film, Starship Troopers, base on the novel of the same title by Robert Heinlein).

What ever else statistics do for us, they provide a welcome "Illusion of certainly."

"Sometimes doing your best is not enough, you must do what is required." -- Winston Churchill

"Guard with jealous attention the public liberty. Suspect every one who approaches that jewel. Unfortunately, nothing will preserve it but downright force. Whenever you give up that force, you are inevitably ruined." -- Patrick Henry

"Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn't pass it to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same, or one day we will spend our sunset years telling our children and our children's children what it was once like in the United States where men were free." -- Ronald Reagan

"Science progresses by asking interesting questions, not by avoiding questions whose answers might not be helpful in achieving a political agenda." -- Dr. Robert Spitzer, Professor of Psychiatry, Columbia University

"Those who see their lives as spoiled and wasted crave equality and fraternity more than they do freedom. If they clamor for freedom, it is but freedom to establish equality and uniformity. The passion for equality is partly a passion for anonymity: to be one thread of the many which make up a tunic; one thread not distinguishable from the others. No one can then point us out, measure us against others and expose our inferiority." -- Eric Hoffer

"If it is not right do not do it; if it is not true do not say it." -- Marcus Aurelius

"For my part, whatever anguish of spirit it might cost, I am willing to know the whole truth; to know the worst, and to provide for it." -- Patrick Henry

"Did you exchange a walk-on part in the war for a lead role in a cage?" -- Pink Floyd

"The secret of good Govenment is to let men alone" -- Lau Tzu, China, 270A.D.

"Before a standing army can rule, the people must be disarmed; as they are in almost every kingdom of Europe." -- Noah Webster

"There are those in America today who have come to depend absolutely on government for their security. And when government fails they seek to rectify that failure in the form of granting government more power. So, as government has failed to control crime and violence with the means given it by the Constitution, they seek to give it more power at the expense of the Constitution. But in doing so, in their willingness to give up their arms in the name of safety, they are really giving up their protection from what has always been the chief source of despotism--government. Lord Acton said power corrupts. Surely then, if this is true, the more power we give the government the more corrupt it will become. And if we give it the power to confiscate our arms we also give up the ultimate means to combat that corrupt power. In doing so we can only assure that we will eventually be totally subject to it." -- Ronald Reagan

"Clearly, there remains to this day a horrible, condescending attitude toward armed American citizens. Haven't the British yet gotten over the fact that a ragtag, often disorganized force of American colonials, wielding their own arms, was able to defeat what at the time was the most powerful armed force in the world? Our forefathers, armed with their own flintlock rifles and pistols, and an assortment of muskets--the 'assault weapons' of their era--threw off the yoke of oppression under which they were forced to live. When British broadcasters today demand to know just what it is about gun ownership that Americans defend so vigorously, the answer is too simple for them to comprehend. Simply put, we defend this individual civil right because without our own guns two centuries ago, we would still... likely be British subjects..." -- Alan Gottlieb

"In its proper constitutional sense, the term [militia] means all the able-bodied people who can be trained and disciplined to act in the community's defense when it's attacked. Since it encompasses every able-bodied person, it does not refer to those--such as the police, the military, or even the National Guard--who formally compose the official defense forces of the nation. Every citizen able and willing to act in an emergency becomes a potential defender against attacks aimed at the general population. Unfortunately, because of the anti-gun folly of the leftist media and politicians, we have lost sight of this vital element of our defense... The anti-gun crowd seeks to establish a modern version of [the medieval era], a kind of bureaucratic feudalism, in place of the republican self-government established by our Constitution... The answer is not gun control, but self-government, self-defense, and self-control. We must act to live as free people, else like sheep for the slaughter, we will die, and freedom with us." -- Alan Keyes

"One ought never to turn one's back on a threatened danger and try to run away from it. If you do that, you will double the danger. But if you meet it promptly and without flinching, you will reduce the danger by half." -- Sir Winston Churchill

The only acceptable response to the threat of lethal violence is immediate and savage counterattack. If you resist, you just may get killed. If you don't resist you almost certainly will get killed. It is a tough choice, but there is only one right answer."-- Jeff Cooper

Security is a process, not a product.

"Not the owner of many possessions will you be right to call happy: he more rightly deserves the name of happy who knows how to use the Gods' gifts wisely and to put up with rough poverty, and who fears dishonor more than death." -- Horace

"My kind of loyalty was loyalty to one's country, not to its institutions or its officeholders." -- Mark Twain

"When we consider that women are treated as property, it is degrading to women that we should treat our children as property to be disposed of as we see fit." -- Elizabeth Cady Stanton

"Few men have the natural strength to honor a friend's success without envy." -- Aeschylus

"Any excuse will serve a tyrant." -- Aesop

"There is a rank due to the United States, among nations, which will be withheld, if not absolutely lost, by the reputation of weakness." -- George Washington

"[E]very man, conducting himself as a good citizen, and being accountable to God alone for his religious opinions, ought to be protected in worshipping the Deity according to the dictates of his own conscience." -- George Washington

"I am rather tired of hearing about our rights and privileges as American citizens. The time is come... when we ought to hear about the duties and responsibilities of our citizenship. America's future depends upon her accepting and demonstrating God's government." -- Peter Marshall

"The natural cure for an ill-administration... is a change of men." -- Alexander Hamilton

"We all know our duty better than we discharge it." -- John Randolph

"The punishment of wise men who refuse to take part in the government is to live under the government of worse men." -- Plato

"If there is one thing upon this earth that mankind love and admire better than another, it is a brave man,-- it is the man who dares to look the devil in the face and tell him he is a devil." -- James Garfield

"He who in his own house is virtuous will also be just in civic affairs." -- Sophocles

"It's tough to make predictions, especially about the future." -- Yogi Berra

"The name of American, which belongs to you, in your national capacity, must always exalt the just pride of Patriotism, more than any appellation derived from local discriminations." -- George Washington

"Our enemies may be irrational, even outright insane, driven by nationalism, religion, ethnicity or ideology. They do not fear the United States for its diplomatic skills or the number of automobiles and software programs it produces. They respect only the firepower of our tanks, planes and helicopter gunships." -- Ronald Reagan

"The churches of America do not exist by the grace of the state; the churches of America are not mere citizens of the state. The churches of America exist apart; they have their own vantage point, their own authority. Religion is its own realm; it makes its own claims. We establish no religion in this country, nor will we ever. We command no worship. We mandate no belief. But we poison our society when we remove its theological underpinnings. We court corruption when we leave it bereft of belief." -- Ronald Reagan

"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 he carries his banners openly against the city. But the traitor moves among those within the gates freely, his sly whispers rustling through all alleys, heard in the very halls of government itself. For the traitor appears no traitor; he speaks in the accents familiar to his victim, and he wears their face and their garments and 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 a city; he infects the body politic so that it can no longer resist. A murderer is less to be feared. The traitor is the plague." -- Cicero

"You vote yourselves salaries out of the public funds and care only for your own personal interests; hence the state limps along." -- Aristophanes

"The deterioration of every government begins with the decay of the principles on which it was founded." -- Charles-Louis De Secondat

"A man's liberties are none the less aggressed upon because those who coerce him do so in the belief that he will be benefited." -- Herbert Spencer

"Liberty of conscience is nowadays only understood to be the liberty of believing what men please, but also of endeavoring to propagate that belief as much as they can." -- Jonathan Swift

"Half the work that is done in this world is to make things appear what they are not." -- Elias Root Beadle

"Government cannot achieve the efficiencies of a business. Trying to get government to be as efficient as business is as hopeless as trying to teach cats to bark and dogs to meow." -- Walter Williams

"Washington is the only place where people break the law and then call for changing the law." -- Senator Norm Coleman

"Christians, Jews, Buddhists, [and] Mormons...don't lash out in violence when their religious sensibilities are offended. They certainly don't expect their beliefs to be immune from criticism, mockery, or dissent. But radical Muslims do." -- Jeff Jacoby

"On every question of construction carry ourselves back to the time when the Constitution was adopted, recollect the spirit manifested in the debates and instead of trying what meaning may be squeezed out of the text or invented against it, conform to the one in which it was passed." -- Thomas Jefferson

"A man should hear a little music, read a little poetry, and see a fine picture every day of his life, in order that worldly cares may not obliterate the sense of the beautiful which God has implanted in the human soul." -- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

"[L]et there be no change [in Constitutional powers] by usurpation; for though this, in one instance, may be the instrument of good, it is the customary weapon by which free governments are destroyed." -- George Washington

"Mercy, detached from justice, grows unmerciful." -- C.S. Lewis

"Virtue will have nought to do with ease... It demands a rough and thorny path." -- Montaigne

"All that is necessary for the forces of evil to win in the world is for enough good men to do nothing." -- Edmund Burke

"Make yourself an honest man, and then you may be sure that there is one less scoundrel in the world." -- Thomas Carlyle

"The ruling class has the schools and press under its thumb. This enables it to sway the emotions of the masses." -- Albert Einstein

"The most important service rendered by the press and the magazines is that of educating people to approach printed matter with distrust." -- Samuel Butler

"Let's not just limit special projects earmarked for specific congressional districts. Make porkbarrel illegal, period. Let the federal government deal only with things that have national import, as defined by the enumerated powers in the Constitution." -- Paul Jacob

"Today's left quotes the text of the Constitution as if it means what it says on searches and seizures, though when it comes to behavior the left wishes to condone, the Constitution morphs into a 'living document' in constant need of updating to suit the times. Which is it?" -- Cal Thomas

"In politics, as in religion, it is equally absurd to aim at making proselytes by fire and sword. Heresies in either can rarely be cured by persecution." -- Alexander Hamilton

"It is to be regretted that the rich and powerful too often bend the acts of government to their selfish purposes." -- Andrew Jackson

"If your ship doesn't come in, swim out to it." -- Andy Tant

"Learn all you can, but learn to do something, or your learning will be useless and your vision will depart." -- Booker T. Washington

"Things just don't turn up in this world until someone turns them up." -- James Garfield

"A man always has two reasons for doing anything: a good reason and the real reason. Let us...always reveal with utmost honesty our real reasons for all that we do." -- J.P. Morgan

"We are... living in a free society without the faith that built that society-- and without the conviction and dedication needed to sustain it... We still have the cathedral of freedom but how long will it last without the faith?" -- Thomas Sowell

"Anyone who's ever filed a tax return or visited the Department of Motor Vehicles understands that government does two things well: spend our money and waste our time." -- Ed Fuelner

"America united with a handful of troops, or without a single soldier, exhibits a more forbidding posture to foreign ambition than America disunited, with a hundred thousand veterans ready for combat." -- James Madison

"When language in common use in any country becomes irregular and depraved, it is followed by their ruin and degradation." -- John Milton

"The first duty of a newspaper is to be accurate. If it is accurate, it follows that it is fair." -- Herbert Swope

"Knowledge is proud that he has learned so much; Wisdom is humble that he knows no more." -- William Cowper

"He has not learned the lesson of life who does not every day surmount a fear." -- Ralph Waldo Emerson

"There is too much power in Washington and too much power in government, and not enough power at the grassroots and not enough power with the average American." -- Newt Gingrich

"To the extent that government is pursuing policies that restrict free people and erode free markets, the government is, indeed, headed in the wrong direction. The right direction for government is always in policies that advance the principles of freedom." -- Henry Lamb

"[T]he necessity of any Government is a misfortune. This necessity however exists; and the problem to be solved is, not what form of Government is perfect, but which of the forms is least imperfect." -- James Madison

"I have learned this at least by my experiment: if one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours." -- Henry David Thoreau

"'One man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter.' That's a catchy phrase but also misleading. Freedom fighters do not need to terrorize a population into submission. Freedom fighters target the military forces and the organized instruments of repression keeping dictatorial regimes in power. Freedom fighters struggle to liberate their citizens from oppression and to establish a form of government that reflects the will of the people... [O]ne has to be blind, ignorant, or simply unwilling to see the truth if he or she is unable to distinguish between those I just described and terrorists." -- Ronald Reagan

"[T]he right to freedom being the gift of God Almighty, it is not in the power of Man to alienate this gift, and voluntarily become a slave." -- John Adams

"The best things are nearest: breath in your nostrils, light in your eyes, flowers at your feet, duties at your hand, the path of God just before you." -- Robert Louis Stevenson

"It is impossible for that man to despair who remembers that his Helper is omnipotent." -- Jeremy Taylor

"The man who carries a .25 automatic, finds himself in the precarious position of being unarmed with a deadly weapon." -- Jeff Cooper

"I submit to you that if a man hasn’t discovered something he will die for, he isn’t fit to live." -- Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

"There's something kind of homey about a sawed-off shotgun in the corner." -- Lucky Sparky

"The day may come when the lion and the lamb lie down together, but if it does, we'd better damn sure be the lion." - Unknown

"On the battlefield, when surrounded and cheered by pomp, excitement, and admiration of devoted comrades, and inspired by strains of martial music and the hope of future reward, it is comparatively easy to be a hero, to do heroic deeds. But to uphold honor in ordinary circumstances, to be a hero in common life, that is genuine achievement meriting our highest admiration." -- Booker T. Washinton

"The world is a dangerous place to live, not because of the people who are evil, but because of the people who do nothing about them." -- Albert Einstein

"War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things: the decayed and degraded state of moral and patriot feeling which things nothing worth a war, is worse." -- John Stuart Mill

2007-4