Sayings
Issue #71 Posted May 1, 2011

"This is perhaps the assembly of the most intelligence ever to gather at one time in the White House with the exception of when Thomas Jefferson dined alone." -- John F. Kennedy at a dinner in the White House

"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

"Much of the social history of the Western world over the past three decades has involved replacing what worked with what sounded good." -- Thomas Sowell

"If men of wisdom and knowledge, of moderation and temperance, of patience, fortitude and perseverance, of sobriety and true republican simplicity of manners, of zeal for the honour of the Supreme Being and the welfare of the commonwealth; if men possessed of these other excellent qualities are chosen to fill the seats of government, we may expect that our affairs will rest on a solid and permanent foundation." -- Samuel Adams

"The great enemy of truth is very often not the lie, deliberate, contrived, and dishonest. It is rather the myth, persistent, persuasive, appealing.   Too often we naively hold fast to such hollow cliches" --  J. F. Kennedy

"There is no such thing as a lousy job--only lousy men who don’t care to do it." -- The character Ellis Wyatt, in Atlas Shrugged.

"When the time comes you are either ready or you're not. Nobody will care but you." -- John Farnam.

"When an honest person who is mistaken learns the truth at that exact moment they either cease to be mistaken or they cease to be honest." - Unknown

"I just don't want to train for a lower degree of effectiveness. I can fail to be effective often enough without practice." -- Jim Higginbotham

"A gun's only job is to shoot, it doesn't care who or what." -- Clint Smith

The following are all Thomas Jefferson quotes from www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/t/

"When we get piled upon one another in large cities, as in Europe, we shall become as corrupt as Europe."

"The democracy will cease to exist when you take away from those who are willing to work and give to those who would not."

"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."

"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."

"My reading of history convinces me that most bad government results from too much government."

"No free man shall ever be debarred the use of arms."

"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."

"The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants."

"To compel a man to subsidize with his taxes the propagation of ideas which he disbelieves and abhors is sinful and tyrannical."

"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."

"I cannot undertake to lay my finger on that article of the Constitution which granted a right to Congress of expending, on objects of benevolence, the money of their constituents." -- James Madison

"Then I saw what was wrong with the world, I saw what destroyed men and nations, and where the battle for life had to be fought. I saw that the enemy was an inverted morality—and that my sanction was its only power. I saw that evil was impotent—that evil was the irrational, the blind, the anti-real—and that the only weapon of its triumph was the willingness of the good to serve it. Just as the parasites around me were proclaiming their helpless dependence on my mind and were expecting me voluntarily to accept a slavery they had no power to enforce, just as they were counting on my self-immolation to provide them with the means of their plan—so throughout the world and throughout men’s history, in every version and form, from the extortions of loafing relatives to the atrocities of collectivized countries, it is the good, the able, the men of reason, who act as their own destroyers, who transfuse to evil the blood of their virtue and let evil transmit to them the poison of destruction, thus gaining for evil the power of survival, and for their own values—the impotence of death. I saw that there comes a point, in the defeat of any man of virtue, when his own consent is needed for evil to win—and that no manner of injury done to him by others can succeed if he chooses to withhold his consent. I saw that I could put an end to your outrages by pronouncing a single word in my mind. I pronounced it. The word was "No." -- John Galt, Atlas Shrugged

"To ban guns because criminals use them is to tell the innocent and law-abiding that their rights and liberties depend not on their own conduct, but on the conduct of the guilty and the lawless, and that the law will permit them to have only such rights and liberties as the lawless will allow... For society does not control crime, ever, by forcing the law-abiding to accommodate themselves to the expected behavior of criminals. Society controls crime by forcing the criminals to accommodate themselves to the expected behavior of the law-abiding." -- Jeff Snyder

"Learning is not compulsory... neither is survival." -- Deming

"To take from one, because it is thought his own industry and that of his fathers has acquired too much, in order to spare to others, who, or whose fathers, have not exercised equal industry and skill, is to violate arbitrarily the first principle of association, the guarantee to everyone the free exercise of his industry and the fruits acquired by it." --Thomas Jefferson

"What's the difference between the passengers on the Titanic and the citizens of California? The passengers on the Titanic didn't vote to crash into the iceberg."

"The clock of life is wound but once, and no man has the power to tell just when the hands will stop, at late or early hour. Now is the only time you own. Live, love, toil with a will. Place no faith in time. For the clock may soon be still." -- Unknown

"No taxes can be devised which are not more or less inconvenient and unpleasant." -- George Washington

"Any good plan should look like nonsense to those facing off against it." -- Unknown

"The lion cannot protect himself from traps, and the fox cannot defend himself from wolves. One must therefore be a fox to recognize traps, and a lion to frighten wolves." -- Niccolo Machiavelli

"The freedom and happiness of man ... [are] the sole objects of all legitimate government." -- Thomas Jefferson

"A good moral character is the first essential in a man..." --George Washington

"It might be demonstrated that the most productive system of finance will always be the least burdensome." -- Alexander Hamilton

"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 probable one in which it was passed." -- Thomas Jefferson

"It is the duty of all Nations to acknowledge the providence of Almighty God, to obey his will, to be grateful for his benefits, and humbly to implore his protection and favors." -- George Washington

"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

"Human beings will generally exercise power when they can get it, and they will exercise it most undoubtedly in popular governments under pretense of public safety." -- former U.S. Senator Daniel Webster (1782-1852)

"I didn't know before I got there and they told me all this -- that Rome had Senators. Now I know why it declined." -- American humorist Will Rogers (1879-1935)

"On every unauthoritative exercise of power by the legislature must the people rise in rebellion or their silence be construed into a surrender of that power to them? If so, how many rebellions should we have had already?" -- Thomas Jefferson

"Don't fire unless fired upon. But if they want a war let it begin here." -- Captain John Parker, commander of the militiamen at Lexington, Massachusetts, on sighting British Troops

"I think we have more machinery of government than is necessary, too many parasites living on the labor of the industrious." -- Thomas Jefferson

"There is always an easy solution to every human problem -- neat, plausible and wrong." -- journalist H.L. Mencken (1880-1956)

"Freedom in economic arrangements is itself a component of freedom broadly understood, so economic freedom is an end in itself. ... Economic freedom is also an indispensable means toward the achievement of political freedom." -- economist Milton Friedman (1912-2006)

"It's awful hard to get people interested in corruption unless they can get some of it." -- humorist Will Rogers (1879-1935)

"By exclusive property, the productions of the earth and the means of subsistence are secured and preserved, as well as multiplied. What belongs to no one is wasted by every one. What belongs to one man in particular is the object of his economy and care." -- James Wilson

"The spirit of encroachment tends to consolidate the powers of all the departments in one, and thus to create whatever the form of government, a real despotism. A just estimate of that love of power, and proneness to abuse it, which predominates in the human heart is sufficient to satisfy us of the truth of this position." -- George Washington

"The bosom of America is open to receive not only the Opulent and respectable Stranger, but the oppressed and persecuted of all Nations and Religions; whom we shall welcome to a participation of all our rights and privileges, if by decency and propriety of conduct they appear to merit the enjoyment." -- George Washington

"We can't solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them." -- theoretical physicist Albert Einstein (1879-1955)

"The greater the power the more dangerous the abuse." -- British statesman Edmund Burke (1729-1797)

"Born in other countries, yet believing you could be happy in this, our laws acknowledge, as they should do, your right to join us in society, conforming, as I doubt not you will do, to our established rules. That these rules shall be as equal as prudential considerations will admit, will certainly be the aim of our legislatures, general and particular." -- Thomas Jefferson

"Let the American youth never forget, that they possess a noble inheritance, bought by the toils, and sufferings, and blood of their ancestors." -- Joseph Story

"The [U.S.] Constitution is a limitation on the government, not on private individuals ... it does not prescribe the conduct of private individuals, only the conduct of the government ... it is not a charter for government power, but a charter of the citizen's protection against the government." -- philosopher and novelist Ayn Rand (1905-1982)

"To the distinguished Character of Patriot, it should be our highest Glory to add the more distinguished Character of Christian. The signal Instances of providential Goodness which we have experienced and which have now almost crowned our labours with complete Success, demand from us in a peculiar manner the warmest returns of Gratitude and Piety to the Supreme Author of all Good." -- George Washington

"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

"The multiplication of public offices, increase of expense beyond income, growth and entailment of a public debt, are indications soliciting the employment of the pruning knife." -- Thomas Jefferson

"[J]udges ... should be always men of learning and experience in the laws, of exemplary morals, great patience, calmness, coolness, and attention. Their minds should not be distracted with jarring interests; they should not be dependent upon any man, or body of men." --  John Adams

2011-3