Sayings
Issue #105 Posted  Jan 2017

"Christmas is a state of mind. It is found throughout the year whenever faith overcomes doubt, hope conquers despair, and love triumphs over hate." -- Ronald Reagan 1981

Thought for the day. "You can buy a standard chicken raised on grain and mash, or you can pay a premium price for a healthful free range chicken that gobbled down bugs and worms. I never figured that out." -- Lymon L.

"Teach your kids to love shooting and they'll never have money for drugs or alcohol." -- John H.

"Liberalism is the philosophy of sniveling brats!" -- PJ O'Rourke

"Your love of liberty — your respect for the laws — your habits of industry — and your practice of the moral and relligious obligations, are the strongest claims to national and individual happiness." -- George Washington (1789)

"I'd rather be King of the Assholes than an asshole for the King." -- Un-named German officer

"Liberals claim they want to give a hearing to other views, but then they are shocked and offended that there are other views." -- William F. Buckley

"If I have learned anything over the years, it is that there is still so much to learn." -- Steve S.

And last... "Have we reached the ultimate stage of absurdity where some people are held responsible for things that happened before they were born, while other people are not held responsible for what they themselves are doing today?" -- Thomas Sowell

" Die first , then quit" -- Norm S.

"A fondness for power is implanted, in most men, and it is natural to abuse it, when acquired." -- Alexander Hamilton, 1775

"I happen to be of the Scalia point of view, where the original intent [of a statement] is the deciding factor. Unless there is Amendment changing the definition to include other than what was the accepted definition at the time the time the Constitution was written, the laws don't matter. Of course most politicians and most of the remaining Supreme Court Justices don't share that point of view and they will do whatever they damn well please original intent be damned." -- Barry N.

"Empires are forged by people believing in a common identity that serves to unite and endow them a sense of cultural superiority. Lose that, and death-bells begin to toll!" -- Francis Nwaolisa Ogomegbunam,

"When you are carrying it nothing is small enough. When you NEED it nothing is big enough." -- Clint Smith

"I suppose, indeed, that in public life, a man whose political principles have any decided character and who has energy enough to give them effect must always expect to encounter political hostility from those of adverse principles." -- Thomas Jefferson, 1808

"It is necessary for every American, with becoming energy to endeavor to stop the dissemination of principles evidently destructive of the cause for which they have bled. It must be the combined virtue of the rulers and of the people to do this, and 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

"I should consider the speeches of Livy, Sallust, and Tacitus, as preeminent specimens of logic, taste and that sententious brevity which, using not a word to spare, leaves not a moment for inattention to the hearer. Amplification is the vice of modern oratory." -- Thomas Jefferson,, 1824

"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." -- John Adams, 1776

"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, 1823

"In selecting men for office, let principle be your guide. Regard not the particular sect or denomination of the candidate -- look to his character." -- Noah Webster, 1789

"A free people [claim] their rights as derived from the laws of nature, and not as the gift of their chief magistrate." -- Thomas Jefferson, 1774

"The most sacred of the duties of a government [is] to do equal and impartial justice to all citizens." -- Thomas Jefferson, 1816

"[W]here there is no law, there is no liberty; and nothing deserves the name of law but that which is certain and universal in its operation upon all the members of the community." -- Benjamin Rush, 1788

"Labor to keep alive in your breast that little spark of celestial fire called conscience." -- George Washington, 1748

"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, 1775

"An unlimited power to tax involves, necessarily, a power to destroy; because there is a limit beyond which no institution and no property can bear taxation." -- John Marshall, 1819

"The ultimate authority ... resides in the people alone. ... [T]he advantage of being armed, which the Americans possess over the people of almost every other nation ... forms a barrier against the enterprises of ambition, more insurmountable than any..." -- James Madison, 1788

"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, 1776

"If by the liberty of the press were understood merely the liberty of discussing the propriety of public measures and political opinions, let us have as much of it as you please: But if it means the liberty of affronting, calumniating and defaming one another, I, for my part, own myself willing to part with my share of it, whenever our legislators shall please so to alter the law and shall cheerfully consent to exchange my liberty of abusing others for the privilege of not being abused myself." -- "Benjamin Franklin, 1789

What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly: it is dearness only that gives every thing its value." -- Thomas Paine, 1776

"The Bible is the best of all books, for it is the word of God and teaches us the way to be happy in this world and in the next. Continue therefore to read it and to regulate your life by its precepts." -- John Jay, 1784

"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 siren till she transforms us into beasts." -- Patrick Henry, 1775

"In reality there is perhaps no one of our natural passions so hard to subdue as pride. Disguise it, struggle with it, beat it down, stifle it, mortify it as much as one pleases, it is still alive, and will now and then peek out and show itself." -- Benjamin Franklin, 1771

"Let each citizen remember at the moment he is offering his vote that he is not making a present or a compliment to please an individual  or at least that he ought not so to do; but that he is executing one of the most solemn trusts in human society for which he is accountable to God and his country." -- Samuel Adams, 1781

"[T]he mild voice of reason, pleading the cause of an enlarged and permanent interest, is but too often drowned, before public bodies as well as individuals, by the clamors of an impatient avidity for immediate and immoderate gain." -- James Madison, 1788

"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, 1823

"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, 1776

"[T]here exists in the economy and course of nature, an indissoluble union between virtue and happiness; between duty and advantage; between the genuine maxims of an honest and magnanimous policy, and the solid rewards of public prosperity and felicity." -- George Washington, 1789

"His integrity was most pure, his justice the most inflexible I have ever known, no motives of interest or consanguinity, of friendship or hatred, being able to bias his decision. He was indeed, in every sense of the words, a wise, a good, and a great man." -- Thomas Jefferson, 18144

"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 tranquillity would be to calculate on the weaker springs of human character." -- Alexander Hamilton, 1788

"Be not intimidated ... nor suffer yourselves to be wheedled out of your liberties by any pretense of politeness, delicacy, or decency. These, as they are often used, are but three different names for hypocrisy, chicanery and cowardice." -- John Adams, 1765

"[N]ever suppose that in any possible situation, or under any circumstances, it is best for you to do a dishonorable thing, however slightly so it may appear to you." -- Thomas Jefferson, 1785

"The whole art of government consists in the art of being honest. Only aim to do your duty, and mankind will give you credit where you fail." -- Thomas Jefferson, 1775

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

"The fundamental source of all your errors, sophisms and false reasoning is a total ignorance of the natural rights of mankind. Were you once to become acquainted with these, you could never entertain a thought, that all men are not, by nature, entitled to a parity of privileges." -- Alexander Hamilton, 1775

"There is a time for all things, a time to preach and a time to pray, but those times have passed away. There is a time to fight, and that time has now come." -- Peter Muhlenberg, 1776

"We should be unfaithful to ourselves if we should ever lose sight of the danger to our liberties if anything partial or extraneous should infect the purity of our free, fair, virtuous, and independent elections." -- John Adams, 1797

"[I]t is a common observation here that our cause is the cause of all mankind, and that we are fighting for their liberty in defending our own." -- Benjamin Franklin, 1777

"[H]e whose heart is firm, and whose conscience approves his conduct, will pursue his principles unto death." -- Thomas Paine 1776

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

"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 siren till she transforms us into beasts." -- Patrick Henry (1775)<

"The aim of every political constitution is, or ought to be, first to obtain for rulers men who possess most wisdom to discern, and most virtue to pursue, the common good of the society; and in the next place, to take the most effectual precautions for keeping them virtuous whilst they continue to hold their public trust." -- James Madison (1788)

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