Body

Sayings
Issue #101 Posted May 2016

"Posterity, you will never know how much it cost the present generation to preserve your freedom. I hope you will make good use of it. If you do not, I shall repent in heaven that ever I took half the pains to preserve it." -- John Adams

"There is no such thing as "over-kill". Kill is an absolute. There IS, however, such a thing as "under-kill" which should be avoided." -- Bill Jeans

"You are a den of vipers and thieves. I intend to rout you out, and by the eternal God I will rout you out." -- Andrew Jackson

Definition of "racist" - Anyone winning an argument with a liberal. -- Unknown

"To judge from the history of mankind, we shall be compelled to conclude that the fiery and destructive passions of war reign in the human breast with much more powerful sway than the mild and beneficent sentiments of peace; and that to model our political systems upon speculations of lasting tranquility would be to calculate on the weaker springs of human character." -- Alexander Hamilton, Federalist No. 34 -- 1788

"Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you mad." -- Aldous Huxley

"Arguing that you don't care about privacy because you 'have nothing to hide', is no different than saying you don't care about free speech because you have nothing to say." -- Unknown

"If we move in mass, be it ever so circuitously, we shall attain our object; but if we break into squads, everyone pursuing the path he thinks most direct, we become an easy conquest to those who can now barely hold us in check." -- Thomas Jefferson, letter to William Duane, 1811

"Excesses and conceits have caused every democracy throughout history to destroy itself. -- Taussig

"The fall to death rarely begins with a great leap. More often than not, it begins with a slight slip!" -- Robert Troi

"When in a tug-of-war with a tiger, and losing, give him rope before he gets to your arm. You can always buy a new rope!" -- Max Gunther

"In proportion as the structure of a government gives force to public opinion, it is essential that public opinion should be enlightened." -- George Washington, Farewell Address, 1796

"Foreign influence is truly the Grecian horse to a republic. We cannot be too careful to exclude its influence." -- Alexander Hamilton, Pacificus, No. 6, 1793

"Guard against the impostures of pretended patriotism." -- George Washington (1796)

"What will the "end" be like? When privacy is no longer respected. When the idle person has a "right" to live off his betters. When science becomes subordinate to "feelings". When we muster armies through the screen of political correctness. When philanthropy ("giving back") is demanded but not admired. When theory is valued more than practice. When adults find it necessary to be "friends" with adolescents, rather than role models. When husbands and fathers delegate the safety of their family to bureaucrats. When social justice warriors qualify for welfare. When little league coaches require liability insurance." -- Gary C.

"To take a single step beyond the boundaries thus specially drawn around the powers of Congress, is to take possession of a boundless field of power, not longer susceptible of any definition." -- Thomas Jefferson, Opinion on the Constitutionality of a National Bank, 1791

"The difference between genius and stupidity is genius has it's limits." -- Albert Einstein

"How prone all human institutions have been to decay; how subject the best-formed and most wisely organized governments have been to lose their check and totally dissolve; how difficult it has been for mankind, in all ages and countries, to preserve their dearest rights and best privileges, impelled as it were by an irresistible fate of despotism." -- Jaames Monroe, speech in the Virginia Ratifying Convention, 1788

"The Constitution ... is a mere thing of wax in the hands of the judiciary which they may twist and shape into any form they please." -- Thomas Jefferson, letter to Judge Spencer Roane, 1819

"The instrument by which [the government] must act are either the AUTHORITY of the laws or FORCE. If the first be destroyed, the last must be substituted; and where this becomes the ordinary instrument of government there is an end to liberty!" -- Alexander Hamilton, Tully, No. 3, 1794

"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." -- George Washington, Farewell Address, 1796

"The foundations of our national policy will be laid in the pure and immutable principles of private morality, and the preeminence of free government be exemplified by all the attributes which can win the affections of its citizens, and command the respect of the world." -- George Washington, First Inaugural Address, 1789

"[T]here are particular moments in public affairs, when the people stimulated by some irregular passion, or some illicit advantage, or misled by the artful misrepresentations of interested men, may call for measures which they themselves will afterwards be the most ready to lament and condemn." -- James Madison, Federalist No. 63, 1788

"Public virtue cannot exist in a nation without private, and public virtue is the only foundation of republics. There must be a positive passion for the public good, the public interest, honor, power and glory, established in the minds of the people, or there can be no republican government, nor any real liberty: and this public passion must be superior to all private passions." -- John Adams, letter to Mercy Warren,

"The known propensity of a democracy is to licentiousness which the ambitious call, and ignorant believe to be liberty." -- Fisher Ames, speech in the Massachusetts Ratifying Convention, 1788

"At the establishment of our constitutions, the judiciary bodies were supposed to be the most helpless and harmless members of the government. Experience, however, soon showed in what way they were to become the most dangerous." -- Thomas Jefferson, letter to Monsieur A. Coray, 18233

"No compact among men ... can be pronounced everlasting and inviolable, and if I may so express myself, that no wall of words, that no mound of parchment can be so formed as to stand against the sweeping torrent of boundless ambition on the one side, aided by the sapping current of corrupted morals on the other." -- George Washington, draft of first Inauugural Address, 1789

"[T]he longer I live, the more convincing proofs I see of this truth, that God governs in the affairs of men. And if a sparrow cannot fall to the ground without his notice, is it probable that an empire can rise without his aid?" -- Benjamin Franklin, to Colleagues at the Constitutional Convention, 1787

"Government is instituted for the common good; for the protection, safety, prosperity, and happiness of the people; and not for profit, honor, or private interest of any one man, family, or class of men." -- Joohn Adams, Thoughts on Government, 1776

"They that can give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety." -- Benjamin Franklin, Historical Review of Pennsylvania, 1759

"How could a readiness for war in time of peace be safely prohibited, unless we could prohibit, in like manner, the preparations and establishments of every hostile nation?" -- James Madison, Federalist No. 41,, 1788

"No government, any more than an individual, will long be respected without being truly respectable; nor be truly respectable, without possessing a certain portion of order and stability." -- James Madison, Federalist No. 62, 1788

"Dost thou love life? Then do not squander time; for that's the stuff life is made of." -- Benjamin Franklin, Poor Richard's Almanac, 17446

"[She] who permits [herself] to tell a lie once, finds it much easier to do it a second and a third time, till at length it becomes habitual; [she] tells lies without attending to it, and truths without the world's believing [her]. This falsehood of the tongue leads to that of the heart, and in time depraves all its good disposition." -- Thomas Jefferson (1785)

"Nothing is more certain than that a general profligacy and corruption of manners make a people ripe for destruction. A good form of government may hold the rotten materials together for some time, but beyond a certain pitch, even the best constitution will be ineffectual, and slavery must ensue." -- John Witherspoon, The Dominion of Providence Over the Passions of Men, 1776

"[T]he opinion which gives to the judges the right to decide what laws are constitutional and what not, not only for themselves, in their, own sphere of action, but for the Legislature and Executive also in their spheres, would make the Judiciary a despotic branch." -- Thomas Jefferson, letter to Abigail Adams, 1804

"There is not a more important and fundamental principle in legislation, than that the ways and means ought always to face the public engagements; that our appropriations should ever go hand in hand with our promises. 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, Speech in Congress, 1790

"It is an object of vast magnitude that systems of education should be adopted and pursued which may not only diffuse a knowledge of the sciences but may implant in the minds of the American youth the principles of virtue and of liberty and inspire them with just and liberal ideas of government and with an inviolable attachment to their own country." -- Noah Webster, On Education of Youth in America, 1788

"I think we have more machinery of government than is necessary, too many parasites living on the labor of the industrious." -- Thomas Jefferson, 1824

"Men, to act with vigor and effect, must have time to mature measures, and judgment and experience, as to the best method of applying them. They must not be hurried on to their conclusions by the passions, or the fears of the multitude. They must deliberate, as well as resolve." -- Joseph Story, Commentaries on the Constitution, 1833

"When we are planning for posterity, we ought to remember that virtue is not hereditary." -- Thomas Paine, Common Sense, 1776

"A feeble executive implies a feeble execution of the government. A feeble execution is but another phrase for a bad execution; and a government ill executed, whatever may be its theory, must be, in practice, a bad government." -- Alexander Hamilton in Federalist 69 (1787)

"[I]t may be laid down as a general rule that [the People's] confidence in and obedience to a government will commonly be proportioned to the goodness or badness of its administration." -- Alexander Hamilton, Federalist No. 27, 1787

"There was never a slave who did not choose to be a slave. The choice may be between bondage or death but the choice is always there." -- Tyrion Lannister - Game Of Thrones

"The only foundation of a free Constitution, is pure virtue, and if this cannot be inspired into our People, in a greater measure than they have it now, they may change their rulers, and the forms of government, but they will not obtain a lasting liberty." -- John Adams, letter to Zabdiel Adams, 1776

"Let the American youth never forget, that they possess a noble inheritance, bought by the toils, and sufferings, and blood of their ancestors; and capacity, if wisely improved, and faithfully guarded, of transmitting to their latest posterity all the substantial blessings of life, the peaceful enjoyment of liberty, property, religion, and independence." -- Joseph Story, Commentaries on the Constitution, 1833

"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." -- Thomas Jefferson (1801)

"Speak seldom, but to important subjects, except such as particularly relate to your constituents, and, in the former case, make yourself perfectly master of the subject." -- George Washington, Public Speaking,, 1787

"[L]et principle be your guide. Regard not the particular sect or denomination of the candidate -- look to his character." -- Noah Webster, Letters to a Young Gentleman Commencing His Education, 1789

"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. Is this the part of wise men, engaged in a great and arduous struggle for liberty? Are we disposed to be of the number of those, who having eyes, see not, and having ears, hear not, the things which so nearly concern their temporal salvation?" -- Patrick Henry, speech in the Virginia Convention, 1775

"The greatest good we can do our country is to heal its party divisions and make them one people." -- Thomas Jefferson, 1801

"[I]f the citizens neglect their duty and place unprincipled men in office, the government will soon be corrupted..." -- Noah Webster (18823)

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