Sayings
Issue #103 Posted  Sept 2016

"Let us recollect that peace or war will not always be left to our option; that however moderate or unambitious we may be, we cannot count upon the moderation, or hope to extinguish the ambition of others." -- Alexander Hamilton, Federalist No. 34

"Whoever said the pen is mightier than the sword obviously never encountered automatic weapons." -- Gen. Douglas MacArthur

"When all you do is block attacks, you will eventually be hit. When you strike a killing blow, the fight is over!" -- Doc Gunn

"Critics are like eunuchs in a harem: They know how it's done, they've seen it done every day, but they're unable to do it themselves." -- (Brendan Behan)

"Don't mistake my kindness for weakness, I am kind to everyone, but when someone is unkind to me, weak is not what you are going to remember about me!" -- Al Capone

"If you tax and penalize work, you get less of it; it you subsidize sloth and stupidity you get more. Economics 101 again." -- Ken M.

"The are men running the government who shouldn't be allowed to play with matches." -- Will Rogers

"Wisdom is the result of experience....experience results from lack of wisdom." -- Jim H.

"Wasn't it Leona Helmsley who said "Laws are for the little people?" In any case, it would be a felony for one of us to lie to the FBI or any federal agent (which, by the way, is an excellent reason to decline to talk to any federal agent). But when national politicians, particularly Democrats, lie to the FBI, Congress, or us, it is simply business as usual and unremarkable." -- Bill E.

"It must be the combined virtue of the rulers and of the people to ... rescue and save their civil and religious rights from the outstretched arm of tyranny, which may appear under any mode or form of government." -- Mercy Warren, 1805

"Liberty must at all hazards be supported. We have a right to it, derived from our Maker. But if we had not, our fathers have earned and bought it for us, at the expense of their ease, their estates, their pleasure, and their blood." -- John Adams, 1765

"During the course of administration, and in order to disturb it, the artillery of the press has been leveled against us, charged with whatsoever its licentiousness could devise or dare. These abuses of an institution so important to freedom and science are deeply to be regretted, inasmuch as they tend to lessen its usefulness and to sap its safety." -- Thomas Jefferson, 1805

"[The people] are in truth the only legitimate proprietors of the soil and government." -- Thomas Jefferson, 1813

"The same prudence which in private life would forbid our paying our own money for unexplained projects, forbids it in the dispensation of the public moneys." —Thomas Jefferson, 1808

"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." —John Adams, 1787

"Every consideration that can influence the human mind, such as honor, oaths, reputation, conscience, the love of country, and family affections and attachments, afford security for their fidelity." —John Jay in Federalist No. 64, 1788

"Diplomacy begins with a full phaser bank." - Commander Montgomery Scott, Federation Starship Enterprise

"States, like individuals, who observe their engagements, are respected and trusted: while the reverse is the fate of those who pursue an opposite conduct." —Alexander Hamilton, 1790

"I think all the world would gain by setting commerce at perfect liberty." —Thomas Jefferson, 1785

"Having the MSM comment on weaponry is like having a plumber do your colonoscopy." -- Bill J.

"Man will occasionally stumble over the truth, but usually manages to pick himself up, walk over or around it, and carry on." -- Benjamin Franklin

"I’d like to help you out. Which way did you come in?" -- Amish Proverb

"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? 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, 1775

"The French hate the Germans. The Germans hate the Poles. Italians hate Yugoslavs. South Africans hate the Dutch and I don't like anybody very much!" -- Kingston Trio, The Merry Minuet

"The only reason to bitch about dying is to avoid doing something useful about it, like making one's life worth living." -- Lee W.

"In all very numerous assemblies, of whatever character composed, passion never fails to wrest the scepter from reason." —James Madison, Federalist No. 55

"I was summoned by my country, whose voice I can never hear but with veneration and love." —George Washington, 1789

"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 (1775)

"In our private pursuits it is a great advantage that every honest employment is deemed honorable. I am myself a nail-maker." —Thomas Jefferson, 1795

"It is an unquestionable truth, that the body of the people in every country desire sincerely its prosperity. But it is equally unquestionable that they do not possess the discernment and stability necessary for systematic government. To deny that they are frequently led into the grossest of errors, by misinformation and passion, would be a flattery which their own good sense must despise." —Alexander Hamlton, 1788

"It is a principle incorporated into the settled policy of America, that as peace is better than war, war is better than tribute." -- James Madison, 1816

"To render the justice of the war on our part the more conspicuous, the reluctance to commence it was followed by the earliest and strongest manifestations of a disposition to arrest its progress. The sword was scarcely out of the scabbard before the enemy was apprised of the reasonable terms on which it would be resheathed." —James Madison, 1813

"They're always getting ready to commence to begin." -- Col. Chinn

"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. With such persons, gullibility, which they call faith, takes the helm from the hand of reason and the mind becomes a wreck." -- Thomas Jefferson, 1822

"Liberals are like parrots who simply repeat the things that they have heard without substantially processing the information." -- Lee W.

"Nothing in the world can take the place of Persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and Determination alone are omnipotent." -- Calvin Coolidge

"This is grain, which any fool can eat, but for which the Lord intended a more divine means of consumption. Let us give praise to our maker and glory to his bounty by learning about... BEER." -- Friar Tuck:

"Since at least the days of Hurst "news" has been about propaganda and entrainment. It is usually best if they don't get caught outright lying, but it doesn't real matter if they do. They know that the people's memories and attention spans are short." -- Barry N.

The Maxims of Francois de La Rochefoucauld (A partial list)

"No one deserves to be praised for kindness if he does not have the strength to be bad; every other form of kindness is most often merely laziness or lack of willpower."

"A man is truly honorable if he is willing to be perpetually exposed to the scrutiny of honorable people."

"The person who lives without folly is not as wise as he thinks."

"We receive less gratitude than we expect when we are gracious, because the giver’s pride and the recipient’s pride cannot agree on the value of the favor."

"We often annoy other people when we think we could not possibly annoy them."

"Fortunate people rarely correct their faults; they always think they are right while fortune is favoring their evil conduct."

"Nothing is so contagious as example, and we never do very good deeds or very evil ones without producing imitations. We copy the good deeds in a spirit of emulation, and the bad ones because of the malignity of our nature ­ which shame used to hold under lock and key, but an example sets free."

"It is more often pride than lack of enlightenment that makes us oppose so stubbornly the generally accepted view of something. We find the front seats already taken on the correct side, and we do not want any of the back ones."

"Few things are impossible in themselves; we lack the diligence to make them succeed, rather than the means."

"There are some people whose faults become them well, while other people, with all their good qualities, are lacking in charm."

"Humility is often merely a pretense of submissiveness, which we use to make other people submit to us. It is an artifice by which pride debases itself in order to exalt itself; and though it can transform itself in thousands of ways, pride is never better disguised and more deceptive than when it is hidden behind the mask of humility."

"Good taste is due more to judgment than to intelligence."

"Politeness is a desire to receive it in return, and to be thought civil."

"Small-mindedness leads to stubbornness; it is hard for us to believe anything that goes beyond what we see."

 

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