Sayings
Issue #68 Posted November, 2010
"Today, when a concerted effort is made to obliterate this point, it cannot be repeated too often that the Constitution is a limitation on the government, not on private individuals--that it does not prescribe the conduct of private individuals, only the conduct of the government--that it is not a charter for government power, but a charter of the citizens’ protection against the government." -- Ayn Rand
"The people of the U.S. owe their independence & their liberty, to the wisdom of descrying in the minute tax of 3 pence on tea, the magnitude of the evil comprised in the precedent. Let them exert the same wisdom, in watching against every evil lurking under plausible disguises, and growing up from small beginnings." -- James Madison
"A well regulated militia, composed of the body of the people, trained in arms, is the best most natural defense of a free country." -- James Madison
"Being in politics is just like playing golf: you are trapped in one bad lie after another" -- unknown
"Superior people talk about ideas, average people talk about events, and inferior people talk about other people?" -- Jeff Cooper
"[N]either the wisest constitution nor the wisest laws will secure the liberty and happiness of a people whose manners are universally corrupt." -- Samuel Adams
"We are IN a Total War. The problem is that we are the side that has not figured that out yet." -- Bill Jeans
"Laws are for the guidance of wise men, and the blind obedience of fools!" -- Solan the lawmaker of Athens.
"No matter what happens, if it is not written down it will shortly vanish as if it had never happened." -- Jeff Cooper
Caption under John Wayne's picture that reads: "Now why in the HELL do I have to press "one" for English?"
"I am not so much concerned with who my grandfather was, as I am with whom his grandson will be." -- attributed to Abraham Lincoln
"When we get piled upon one another in large cities, as in Europe, we shall become as corrupt as Europe." -- Thomas Jefferson
"The democracy will cease to exist when you take away from those who are willing to work and give to those who would not." -- Thomas Jefferson
"It is incumbent on every generation to pay its own debts as it goes. A principle which if acted on would save one-half the wars of the world." -- Thomas Jefferson
"I predict future happiness for Americans if they can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them." -- Thomas Jefferson
"My reading of history convinces me that most bad government results from too much government." -- Thomas Jefferson
"No free man shall ever be debarred the use of arms." -- Thomas Jefferson
"The strongest reason for the people to retain the right to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in government." -- Thomas Jefferson
"The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants." -- Thomas Jefferson
"To compel a man to subsidize with his taxes the propagation of ideas which he disbelieves and abhors is sinful and tyrannical." -- Thomas Jefferson
"I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies. If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their currency, first by inflation, then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around the banks will deprive the people of all property until their children wake-up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered." -- Thomas Jefferson, 1802
"There is danger from all men. The only maxim of a free government ought to be to trust no man living with power to endanger the public liberty." -- John Adams
Common sense. So rare it should be a super power.
"Security is mostly a superstition. Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. Life is either a daring adventure or nothing." -- Helen Keller (1880-1968), The Open Door
Government rules and regulations are seen to absolve one of a need for personal ethics and morality. Of course, they don't ... but they are seen to do so.
"The danger to America is not Barack Obama, but a citizenry capable of entrusting a man like him with the Presidency. It will be far easier to limit and undo the follies of an Obama presidency than to restore the necessary common sense and good judgment to a depraved electorate willing to have such a man for their president. The problem is much deeper and far more serious than Mr. Obama, who is a mere symptom of what ails America . Blaming the prince of the fools should not blind anyone to the vast confederacy of fools that made him their prince. The Republic can survive a Barack Obama, who is, after all, merely a fool. It is less likely to survive a multitude of fools such as those who made him their president."
"If you are afraid to speak against tyranny, then you are already a slave." -- John "Birdman" Bryant
"The malice of the wicked is reinforced by the weakness of the virtuous" -- Winston Churchill
"[A] wise and frugal government ... shall restrain men from injuring one another, shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned. This is the sum of good government." -- Thomas Jefferson
"People unfit for freedom -- who cannot do much with it -- are hungry for power. The desire for freedom is an attribute of a 'have' type of self. It says: leave me alone and I shall grow, learn, and realize my capacities. The desire for power is basically an attribute of a 'have not' type of self." -- American writer and philosopher Eric Hoffer (1902-1983)
"The welfare of the people in particular has always been the alibi of tyrants, and it provides the further advantage of giving the servants of tyranny a good conscience." -- French Algerian
"We the people are the rightful masters of both Congress & the courts, not to overthrow the Constitution, but overthrow the men who pervert the Constitution." -- Abraham Lincoln
"No country upon earth ever had it more in its power to attain these blessings than United America. Wondrously strange, then, and much to be regretted indeed would it be, were we to neglect the means and to depart from the road which Providence has pointed us to so plainly; I cannot believe it will ever come to pass." -- George Washington
"But a Constitution of Government once changed from Freedom, can never be restored. Liberty, once lost, is lost forever." -- John Adams
"History affords us many instances of the ruin of states, by the prosecution of measures ill suited to the temper and genius of their people. The ordaining of laws in favor of one part of the nation, to the prejudice and oppression of another, is certainly the most erroneous and mistaken policy. An equal dispensation of protection, rights, privileges, and advantages, is what every part is entitled to, and ought to enjoy." -- Benjamin Franklin
"These are the times that try men's souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of his country; but he that stands it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman." -- Thomas Paine
"Time and money spent in helping men do more for themselves is far better than mere giving." -- American industrialist Henry Ford (1863-1947)
"The world is moved not only by the mighty shoves of the heroes, but also by the aggregate of the tiny pushes of each honest worker." -- American writer Helen Keller (1880-1968)
"All history is one long story to this effect: men have struggled for power over their fellow men in order that they might win the joys of earth at the expense of others, might shift the burdens of life from their own shoulders upon those of others." -- American professor William Graham Sumner (1840-1910)
"No man in his senses can hesitate in choosing to be free, rather than a slave." -- Alexander Hamilton
"In questions of power, then, let no more be heard of confidence in man, but bind him down from mischief by the chains of the Constitution." -- Thomas Jefferson
"It is natural to man to indulge in the illusions of hope. We are apt to shut our eyes against a painful truth -- and listen to the song of that syren, till she transforms us into beasts. ... Are we disposed to be of the number of those, who having eyes, see not, and having ears, hear not?" -- Patrick Henry
"The Hand of providence has been so conspicuous in all this, that he must be worse than an infidel that lacks faith, and more than wicked, that has not gratitude enough to acknowledge his obligations." -- George Washington
"National defense is one of the cardinal duties of a statesman." -- John Adams
"Resolve to perform what you ought. Perform without fail what you resolve." -- Benjamin Franklin
"The public cannot be too curious concerning the characters of public men." -- Samuel Adams
"We owe these blessings, under Heaven, to the Constitution and Government ... bequeathed to us by our fathers, and which it is our sacred duty to transmit ... to our children." -- President Millard Fillmore (1800-1874)
"Failure is the opportunity to begin again more intelligently." -- American industrialist Henry Ford (1863-1947)
"If at first you don't succeed, then quit! There's no use being a stupid fool about it!" -- American comedian and writer W. C. Fields (1880-1946)
"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
"I have sworn upon the altar of God, eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man." -- Thomas Jefferson
"Nothing is more essential to the establishment of manners in a State than that all persons employed in places of power and trust must be men of unexceptionable characters." -- Samuel Adams
"It is to me a new and consolatory proof that wherever the people are well-informed they can be trusted with their own government; that whenever things get so far wrong as to attract their notice, they may be relied on to set them to rights." -- Thomas Jefferson
"To say that the United States should be answerable for twenty-five millions of dollars without knowing whether the ways and means can be provided, and without knowing whether those who are to succeed us will think with us on the subject, would be rash and unjustifiable." -- James Madison
"Man, once surrendering his reason, has no remaining guard against absurdities the most monstrous, and like a ship without rudder, is the sport of every wind." -- Thomas Jefferson
"Amplification is the vice of modern oratory." -- Thomas Jefferson
"Virtue is harder to be got than a knowledge of the world; and, if lost in a young man, is seldom recovered." -- English philosopher and political theorist John Locke (1632-1704)
"Politics is the best show in America. I love animals and I love politicians, and I like to watch both of 'em play, either back home in their native state or after they've been captured and sent to a zoo--or Washington." -- American humorist Will Rogers (1879-1935)
"A universal peace ... is in the catalogue of events, which will never exist but in the imaginations of visionary philosophers, or in the breasts of benevolent enthusiasts." -- James Madison
"Whensoever the General Government assumes undelegated powers, its acts are unauthoritative, void, and of no force." -- Thomas Jefferson
"The Constitution, which at any time exists 'till changed by an explicit and authentic act of the whole People, is sacredly obligatory upon all." -- George Washington
"There is a certain enthusiasm in liberty, that makes human nature rise above itself, in acts of bravery and heroism." -- Alexander Hamilton
"The right of the citizens to keep and bear arms has justly been considered as the palladium of the liberties of a republic." -- Justice Joseph Story
2010-6