Sayings
Issue #107 Posted  May 2017

"Fulfillment in life is loving a good woman and killing a bad man." -- Robert Heinlein

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

"Conscience is the most sacred of all property." -- James Madison (1792)

"What motivates most leftists is their profound resentment of those whose work ethic, self-reliance and commitment to abiding by the law have proven to produce success. In other words, envy." -- Anon

"Gun control is like trying to reduce drunk driving by making it tougher for sober people to own cars." -- Unknown

"At least once, everyone should have to run for his life, so he will know and understand that eggs don't come from stores, that safety does not come from police, and that "news" is not something that happens to other people." -- Robert Heinlein

"Where an excess of power prevails, property of no sort is duly respected. No man is safe in his opinions, his person, his faculties, or his possessions." -- James Madison (1792)

"So, if someone asks you what the main difference is between most of the Liberal supporters, and Conservative supporters, instead of stammering, and stuttering, and looking for an answer, just tell them that the Conservative supporters sign their checks on the front, and the Liberal supporters sign their checks on the back." -- Anon

"Torture your data enough it will confess to anything." -- Unknown statistician

"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." -- Mercy Warren (1805

"In the present case it is a little inaccurate to say I hate everything. I am strongly in favor of common sense, common honesty and common decency. This makes me forever ineligible to any public office of trust or profit in the Republic. But I do not repine, for I am a subject of it only by force of arms." -- H.L. Mencken. As quoted in LIFE magazine, Vol. 21, No. 6, (5 August 1946), p. 52/

"No man can well doubt the propriety of placing a president of the United States under the most solemn obligations to preserve, protect, and defend the constitution." -- Justice Joseph Story (1833)

"Facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclination, or the dictates of our passions, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence." -- John Adams (1770)

"It is the duty of parents to maintain their children decently, and according to their circumstances; to protect them according to the dictates of prudence; and to educate them according to the suggestions of a judicious and zealous regard for their usefulness, their respectability and happiness." -- James Wilson (1791)

"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 (1776)

"As there is a degree of depravity in mankind which requires a certain degree of circumspection and distrust: So there are other qualities in human nature, which justify a certain portion of esteem and confidence." -- James Madison (1788)

"[I]f 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 (1811)

"[J]udges, therefore, 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 (1776)

"A judiciary independent of a king or executive alone, is a good thing; but independence of the will of the nation is a solecism, at least in a republican government." -- Thomas Jefferson (1820)

"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 (1788)

"The love of justice and the love of country plead equally the cause of these people, and it is a moral reproach to us that they should have pleaded it so long in vain." -- Thomas Jefferson (1814)

"The duty of an upright administration is to pursue its course steadily, to know nothing of these family dissentions, and to cherish the good principles of both parties." -- Thomas Jefferson (1805)

"The best and only safe road to honor, glory, and true dignity is justice." -- George Washington (1779)

"Newspapers ... serve as chimneys to carry off noxious vapors and smoke." -- Thomas Jefferson (1802)

"[T]he government of the United States is a definite government, confined to specified objects. It is not like the state governments, whose powers are more general. Charity is no part of the legislative duty of the government." -- James Madison (1794)

"Our obligations to our country never cease but with our lives." -- John Adams (1808)

"The essence of Government is power; and power, lodged as it must be in human hands, will ever be liable to abuse." -- James Madison (1829)

"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)

"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." -- Thomas Jefferson (1775)

"Illustrious examples are displayed to our view, that we may imitate as well as admire. Before we can be distinguished by the same honors, we must be distinguished by the same virtues." -- James Wilson (1790)

"The interest of the man must be connected with the constitutional rights of the place. It may be a reflection on human nature that such devices should be necessary to control the abuses of government." -- James Madison (1788)

"A universal peace, it is to be feared, is in the catalogue of events, which will never exist but in the imaginations of visionary philosophers, or in the breasts of benevolent enthusiasts." -- James Madison (1792)

"Laws that forbid the carrying of arms... disarm only those who are neither inclined nor determined to commit crimes." -- Cesare Beccariaa, quoted by Thomas Jefferson in Commonplace Book

"In disquisitions of every kind there are certain primary truths, or first principles, upon which all subsequent reasoning must depend."-- Alexander Hamilton, Federalist No. 31

"Pacifism is merely cowardice, masquerading as piety." -- Anon

"We have therefore to resolve to conquer or die. ... Let us therefore rely upon the goodness of the Cause, and the aid of the supreme Being, in whose hands Victory is, to animate and encourage us to great and noble actions." -- George Washington (1776)

"Of those men who have overturned the liberties of republics, the greatest number have begun their career by paying an obsequious court to the people, commencing demagogues and ending tyrants." -- Alexander Hamilton, Federalist No. 1

"[A]rms like laws discourage and keep the invader and the plunderer in awe, and preserve order in the world as well as property. The balance of power is the scale of peace."  The same balance would be preserved were all the world destitute of arms, for all would be alike; but since some will not, others dare not lay them aside." -- Thomas Paine (1775)

"Let justice be done though the heavens should fall." -- John Adams, 1777

"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 (1775)

"Guard with jealous attention the public liberty. Suspect every one who approaches that jewel. Unfortunately, nothing will preserve it but downright force. Whenever you give up that force, you are inevitably ruined." -- Patrick Henry (1788)

"The ultimate authority ... resides in the people alone. ... [T]he advantage of being armed ... forms a barrier against the enterprises of ambition, more insurmountable than any..." -- James Madison (1788)

"[T]he right to freedom being the gift of God Almighty, it is not in the power of Man to alienate this gift, and voluntarily become a slave." â€"Samuel Adams (1772)

"Every government degenerates when trusted to the rulers of the people alone. The people themselves, therefore, are its only safe depositories." -- Thomas Jefferson (1781)

"The Army (considering the irritable state it is in, its suffering and composition) is a dangerous instrument to play with." -- George Washington (1783)

"Willingness is a state of mind. Readiness is a statement of fact!" -- USMC

"The definition of security is: Whatever you have with you at the moment, and how smoothly and incisively you can put it all into action it to make things go your way." -- Evan Marshall

"I think all the world would gain by setting commerce at perfect liberty." -- Thomas Jefferson (1785)

"[H]e who permits himself to tell a lie once, finds it much easier to do it a second and a third time, till at length it becomes habitual." â€"Thomas Jefferson (1785)

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

"But what do we mean by the American Revolution? Do we mean the American war? The Revolution was effected before the war commenced. The Revolution was in the minds and hearts of the people; a change in their religious sentiments, of their duties and obligations. ... This radical change in the principles, opinions, sentiments, and affections of the people was the real American Revolution." -- John Adams (1818)

"If the federal government should overpass the just bounds of its authority and make a tyrannical use of its powers, the people, whose creature it is, must appeal to the standard they have formed, and take such measures to redress the injury done to the Constitution as the exigency may suggest and prudence justify." -- Alexander Hamilton (1788)

"Laws are made for men of ordinary understanding and should, therefore, be construed by the ordinary rules of common sense. Their meaning is not to be sought for in metaphysical subtleties which may make anything mean everything or nothing at pleasure." -- Thomas Jefferson (1823)

"It is of great importance to set a resolution, not to be shaken, never to tell an untruth. There is no vice so mean, so pitiful, so contemptible; and he who permits himself to tell a lie once, finds it much easier to do it a second and a third time, till at length it becomes habitual; he tells lies without attending to it, and truths without the world's believing him. This falsehood of the tongue leads to that of the heart, and in time depraves all its good disposition." -- Thomas Jefferson (17855)

"It is error alone which needs the support of government. Truth can stand by itself. Subject opinion to coercion: whom will you make your inquisitors?" -- Thomas Jefferson (1781)

"[W]ithout virtue there can be no liberty, and liberty is the object and life of all republican governments." -- Benjamin Rush (1806)

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