Sayings
Issue #74 Posted November 2011
"I swear by my life and my love of it that I will not live for the sake of another man, nor ask another man to live for mine." -- The Creed of the Producers in Atlas Shrugged, by Ayan Rand (which scarily predicts the current situation)
The most important inquiry conservatives must posit in every policy debate: "What does our Constitution authorize and mandate?" -- Mark Alexander
"The problems we face today are because the people who work for a living are outnumbered by those who vote for a living." -- Annon
"Never miss a good chance to shut up." -- Will Rogers
"I am for doing good to the poor, but I differ in opinion of the means. I think the best way of doing good to the poor, is not making them easy in poverty, but leading or driving them out of it." -- Benjamin Franklin
"The moment the idea is admitted into society that property is not as sacred as the laws of God, and that there is not a force of law and public justice to protect it, anarchy and tyranny commence. If 'Thou shalt not covet' and 'Thou shalt not steal' were not commandments of Heaven, they must be made inviolable precepts in every society before it can be civilized or made free." -- John Adams, 1787
"Man will occasionally stumble over the truth, but usually manages to pick himself up, walk over or around it, and carry on." -- Benjamin Frankl
"However, with charity as with everything else, it cannot simply be assumed that more is always better. A 'safety net' can easily become a hammock. 'Social justice' can easily become class warfare that polarizes a nation, while leading those at the bottom into the blind alley of resentments, no matter how many broad avenues of achievement may be available to them." -- Thomas Sowell
"People who haven't been in a fight seem to have difficulty understanding what it means to be in a fight." -- Unk
"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
"[W]hen the resolution of enslaving America was formed in Great Britain, the British Parliament was advised by an artful man, who was governor of Pennsylvania, to disarm the people; that it was the best and most effectual way to enslave them; but that they should not do it openly, but weaken them, and let them sink gradually." -- George Mason
"In America, we rarely punish criminals. Instead, we punish everyone who hasn't committed a crime." -- John Farnam
"Don't be more of an idiot than God compels you to be." -- The character Adrienne Rolfe in Conquistador
"Ideas are more powerful than guns. We would not let our enemies have guns, why should we let them have ideas." -- Joseph Stalin
"Nothing is going to be stopped anywhere that there is any money in." -- American humorist Will Rogers (1879-1935)
"Hello. My name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die." -- Inigo Montoya, The Princess Bride
Vizzini: "He didn’t fall, Inconceivable!" Inigo Montoya: "You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means." -- The Princess Bride
"The ultimate determinate in the struggle now going on for the world will not be bombs and rockets but a test of wills and ideas - a trial of spiritual resolve; the values we hold, the beliefs we cherish and the ideas to which we are dedicated." -- Ronald Reagan
"Armed men offer negotiations. Unarmed men beg for mercy." - Scottish Jacobite leader, after being offered "terms" in exchange for surrendering all arms to the English, March, 1746
"When plunder becomes a way of life for a group of men, they predictably create for themselves (1) a legal system that protects it, (2) a political party that enshrines it, and (3) a 'moral' code that justifies it." -- Frederic Bastiat
"Justice being taken away, then, what are kingdoms but great robberies? For what are robberies themselves, but little kingdoms? The band itself is made up of men; it is ruled by the authority of a prince, it is knit together by the pact of the confederacy; the booty is divided by the law agreed on. If, by the admittance of abandoned men, this evil increases to such a degree that it holds places, fixes abodes, takes possession of cities, and subdues peoples, it assumes the more plainly the name of a kingdom, because the reality is now manifestly conferred on it, not by the removal of covetousness, but by the addition of impunity. Indeed, that was an apt and true reply which was given to Alexander the Great by a pirate who had been seized. For when that king had asked the man what he meant by keeping hostile possession of the sea, he answered with bold pride, 'What thou meanest by seizing the whole earth; but because I do it with a petty ship, I am called a robber, whilst thou who dost it with a great fleet art styled emperor.'" -- St. Augustine of Hippo (354-430), in "The City of God"
"A Constitution is not the act of a Government, but of a people constituting a government, and a government without a constitution is a power without right." -- Thomas Paine
"One must bear in mind that the expansion of federal activity is a form of eating for politicians." -- American author and commentator William F. Buckley (1925-2008)
"Your attitude about who you are and what you have is a very little thing that makes a very big difference." -- president Theodore Roosevelt (1858-1919)
"Of all tyrannies, a tyranny 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 busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes 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." -- .S. Lewis
"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
"Political language is designed to make lies sound truthful, and murder respectable and to give the appearance of solidity to pure wind." -George Orwell
"When you have made evil the means of survival, do not expect men to remain good. Do not expect them to stay moral and lose their lives for the purpose of becoming the fodder of the immoral. Do not expect them to produce, when production is punished and looting rewarded. Do not ask, 'Who is destroying the world?' You are." -- Ayn Rand
"Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity." -- Often attributed to Napoleon, but never sourced.
"If it can not be adequately explained by stupidity, you really should consider malice as a likely cause." -- Tim Burke
"Of all tyrannies, a tyranny 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 busybodies. The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes 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
"We laugh at honor and are shocked to find traitors in our midst." -- Irish novelist C. S. Lewis
"You can easily judge the character of a man by how he treats those who can do nothing for him." -- James D. Miles quotes
"Watch your thoughts, for they become words. Watch your words, for they become actions. Watch your actions, for they become habits. Watch your habits, for they become character. Watch your character, for it becomes your destiny." -- Unk
"The forbearing use of power does not only form a touchstone, but the manner in which an individual enjoys certain advantages over others is a test of a true gentleman. The power which the strong have over the weak, the employer over the employed, the educated over the unlettered, the experienced over the confiding, even the clever over the silly -- the forbearing or inoffensive use of all of this power or authority, or a total abstinence from it when the case admits it, will show the gentleman in a plain light." -- Robert E Lee:
"The gentleman does not needlessly and unnecessarily remind an offender of a wrong he may have committed against him. He cannot only forgive, he can forget; and he strives for that nobleness of self and mildness of character which impart sufficient strength to let the past be but the past. A true man of honor feels humbled when he cannot help humbling others." -- Robert E Lee:
"Political tags - such as royalist, communist, democrat, populist, fascist, liberal, conservative, and so forth - are never basic criteria. The human race divides politically into those who want people to be controlled and those who have no such desire." -- Robert Heinlein
"You can have peace. Or you can have freedom. Don't ever count on having both at once."-- Robert Heinlein
"The right to bear arms is the most valued right of the free citizen." -- Aristotle, teacher to Alexander the Great 384 BC
"I love the man that can smile in trouble, that can gather strength from distress, and grow brave by reflection. 'Tis the business of little minds to shrink; but he whose heart is firm, and whose conscience approves his conduct, will pursue his principles unto death." -- Thomas Paine
"I have only two men out of my company and 20 out of some other company. We need support, but it is almost suicide to try to get it here as we are swept by machine gun fire and a constant barrage is on us. I have no one on my left and only a few on my right. I will hold." -- 1st. Lt. Clifton B. Cates, Navy Cross, 2 Distinguished Service Crosses, (later Commandant), USMC, July 19, 1918 commanding 96 Company, 6th Marines, near the French town of Soissons
"Casualties: many, Percentage of dead: not known, Combat efficiency: we are winning." -- Colonel David M. Shoup, USMC, MOH, (later Commandant) Tarawa, Nov. 21, 1943
"We fight not for glory, nor for riches, nor for honor, but only and alone for Freedom, which no good man lays down but with his life." -- Declaration of Arbroath, Scotland, 1320
"War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things; the decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks nothing worth a war, is worse. A man who has nothing which he cares more about than he does about his personal safety is a miserable creature who has no chance at being free, unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself." -- British philosopher John Stuart Mill
"Our debt to the heroic men and valiant women in the service of our country can never be repaid. They have earned our undying gratitude; American will never forget their sacrifice." -- President Harry S. Truman
"They fought together as brothers-in-arms, they died together, and now they sleep side by side. To them we have a solemn obligation." -- Admiral Chester Nimitz
"Our conflict is not likely to cease so soon as every good man would wish. The measure of iniquity is not yet filled; and unless we can return a little more to first principles, and act a little more upon patriotic ground, I do not know when it will." -- George Washington
"The Constitution was made to guard the people against the dangers of good intentions." -- American statesman Daniel Webster (1782-1852)
"Unionism seldom, if ever, uses such power as it has to insure better work; almost always it devotes a large part of that power to safeguarding bad work." -- American writer H.L. Mencken (1880-1956)
"The ultimate result of shielding men from the effects of folly is to fill the orld with fools." -- Herbert
"Lord, the money we do spend on Government and it's not one bit better than the government we got for one-third the money twenty years ago." — Will Rogers
"Honor, justice, and humanity, forbid us tamely to surrender that freedom which we received from our gallant ancestors, and which our innocent posterity have a right to receive from us. We cannot endure the infamy and guilt of resigning succeeding generations to that wretchedness which inevitably awaits them if we basely entail hereditary bondage on them." -- Thomas Jefferson
The 3 below are from Greatness: Reagan, Churchill, and the Making of Extraordinary Leaders by Steven F. Hayward.
"Churchill’s central insight might be said to be that the distinction between liberty and tyranny is real and substantial.
"If the distinction between and liberty and tyranny is real and substantial, it follows that compromise with tyrannical evil is not possible.
"Reagan’s central idea was a variation of Churchill’s, and can be summarized as the view that unlimited government is inimical to liberty, in its vicious forms, such as Communism or socialism, but also in its supposedly benign forms, such as bureaucracy. "
"Think of how stupid the average person is, and realize half of the people are stupider than that." -- George Carlin
"Government is the great fiction, through which everybody endeavors to live at the expense of everybody else." -- Frederic Bastiat
"Organizations are composed of two types of people, those who believe in the mission and those who believe in the organization. Over time the latter people control the organization." -- Jerry Pournelle
"The longer I live, the more convincing proofs I see of this truth—that God governs in the affairs of men.... Man will ultimately be governed by God or by tyrants."...Benjamin Franklin
"When there is no justice in the land, a nation's administrators are little more than a gang of criminals." -- Augustine
"When someone has a gun and is trying to kill you, it would be reasonable to shoot back with your own gun." -- The Dalai Lama,
Victory goes to the one who makes the next-to-the-last mistake! -- John Farnam
"I'd rather see a sermon than hear one, any day. I'd rather you walk with me than merely 'tell the way'. The eye is a better student, and more willing, than the ear. I find your council confusing, but your example is always clear!" -- Anon
"Socialism of any type leads to a total destruction of the human spirit." - Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
"Socialist liberals celebrate diversity. Their definition of diversity is bringing people onto projects based on their race and sexual orientation, regardless of their ability to produce. Entrepreneur capitalists celebrate exceptionalism. Their definition of exceptionalism is to bring people onto projects based on their ability to produce, regardless of their race or sexual orientation." -- Annon
"If you are afraid to speak against tyranny, then you are already a slave." -- John "Birdman" Bryant
"Who never compares his notions with those of others... often thinks himself in autarkic possession of the Truth, when he is only fondling an ever-putrefying error, long-since exploded!" -- Samuel Johnson
"Killers who are not deterred by laws against murder are not going to be deterred by laws against guns." -- Robert A. Levy
"There is but one straight course, and that is to seek truth and pursue it steadily." -- George Washington
"Our liberty is at stake and we know there are many willing to take our liberty if we let them. They have already seized a good portion, and keep in mind, every dollar they seize is a dollar's worth of our liberty. Every law that they pass causes a greater or lesser injury to our liberty. When is the last time a law was passed that increased your liberty?" -- columnist Gary Aldrich
"I am not influenced by the expectation of promotion or pecuniary reward. I wish to be useful, and every kind of service necessary for the public good, become honorable by being necessary." -- Nathan Hale
2011-5