Sayings
Issue #15 Posted August 27, 2000
"A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves money from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most money from the public treasury, with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policies followed by a dictatorship. The average age of the world's great civilizations has been 200 years. These nations have progressed through the following sequence:
From bondage to spiritual faith;
From spiritual faith to great courage;
From courage to liberty;
From to liberty to abundance;
From abundance to selfishness;
From selfishness to complacency;
From complacency to apathy;
From apathy to dependency; and,
From dependency back to bondage.
Professor Alexander Tyler, on the fall of the Athenian Republic
"Nothing in life is so exhilarating as to be shot at without result." -- Winston Churchill
"War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things: the decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks nothing worth a war, is worse. A man who has nothing for which he is willing to fight for, nothing which he cares about more than he does about his personal safety is a miserable creature who has no chance of being free, unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself. -- British author John Stuart Mill. "The Contest in America".
" A little government and a little luck are necessary in life, but only a fool trusts either of them -- P.J. O'Rourke.
[Regarding "gun control."] "There is no more outrageous insult or bigger example of stupidity than a government that is such a gross failure at preventing criminal, armed attacks on the population that it would take the position." -- Charlie Reese
"Some people's idea of free speech is that they are free to say anything they like, but if anyone says anything back, that is an outrage." -- Winston Churchill
"The whole purpose of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary." -- H.L. Mencken
Seven National Crimes:
1. I don't think.
2. I don't know.
3. I don't care.
4. I am too busy.
5. Leave well enough alone.
6. I have no time to read and find out.
7. I am not interested.
"As the family goes, so goes the nation and so goes the whole world in which we live." -- Pope John Paul II
"Freedom is the recognition that no single person, no single authority of government has a monopoly on the truth, but that every individual life is infinitely precious, that every one of us put on this world has been put there for a reason and has something to offer." -- Ronald Reagan.
The right to be let alone -- the most comprehensive of rights and the right most valued by civilized men." -- Justice Louis Brandeis.
"Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide." -- John Adams, letter 1814
"It is easier to fight for one's principles than to live up to them." -- Alfred
"The great masses of people ... will more easily fall victims to a great lie than to a small one." -- Adolf Hitler.
"We often give our enemies the means of our own destruction." -- Aesop
"Outside of a dog, a book is Man's best friend. And inside of a dog, it is too dark to read." -- Groucho Marks.
Education is neither intelligence nor wisdom. An educated fool can always find a philosophy to justify his folly.
"If a Nation expects to be ignorant and free in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be.... If we are to guard against ignorance and remain free, it is the responsibility of every American to be informed." -- Thomas Jefferson
"God grants liberty only to those who love it, and are always ready to guard and defend it." -- Daniel Webster
"Courage is not the absence of fear, but rather the judgment that something else is more important than fear." -- Ambrose Redman
"The meaning I picked, the one that changed my life: Overcome fear, behold wonder." -- Richard Bach
"Arms are the only true badges of liberty. The possession of arms is the distinction of a free man from a slave." -- Andrew Fletcher, 1698
"I have often been afraid, but I wouldn't give in to it. I made myself act as though I was not afraid, and gradually my fear disappeared." --Theodore Roosevelt
"Just as courage imperils life, fear protects it." -- Leonardo DaVinci"Yes, we did produce a near perfect Republic. But will they keep it, or will they, in the enjoyment of plenty, lose the memory of freedom." -- Thomas Jefferson
"Men can never escape being governed. Either they must govern themselves or they must submit to being governed by others." -- Theodore Roosevelt at Jamestown, VA, April 26, 1907
"The person caught with his hand in the cookie jar is the person most likely to insist he wasn't looking for cookies." -- GOA's Guide to Grassroots Lobbying.
"Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants. It is the creed of slaves." -- William Pitt (Pitt the Younger), Speech to the House of Commons, 18 November, 1783
"He who is void of virtuous attachments in private life is, or very soon will be, void of all regard for his country." -- Samuel Adams
"A Man should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently and die gallantly. Specialization is for insects." -- Robert A. Heinlein"It's unwise to pay too much...but it's worse to pay too little. When you pay too much, you lose a little money.....that is all. When you pay too little, you sometimes lose everything, because the thing you bought was incapable of doing the thing it was bought to do. The common law of business balance prohibits paying a little and getting a lot. It can't be done. If you deal with the lowest bidder, it is well to add something for the risk you run. And if you do that, you will have enough to pay for something better." -- John Ruskin
"The freedom to own and carry the weapon of your choice is a natural, fundamental, and inalienable human, individual, civil, and Constitutional right -- subject neither to the democratic process nor to arguments grounded in social utility." -- L. Neil Smith, the infamous Libertarian Science Fiction author
"To be attacked by the enemy is not a bad thing but a good thing. It shows that we have not only not been idle, but that we have achieved a great deal in our work." -- Chairman Mao
"It is better to die on one's feet than to live on one's knees." -- Mordechai Anielewicz, 1920-1943, Warsaw, Poland
[referring to the Second Amendment] "This may be considered the true palladium of liberty... The right of self-defense is the first law of nature: in most governments it has been the study of rulers to confine this right within the narrowest limits possible. Whenever standing armies are kept up, and the right of the people to keep and bear arms is, under any colour or pretext whatsoever, prohibited, liberty, if not already annihilated, is on the brink of destruction." -- . George Tucker, Judge of the Virginia General Court, Blackstone's Commentaries p.300, 1803
"I do not assist, save, or enlighten anybody whose last name is not the same as mine."
"No writing can guarantee us anything. Only eternal vigilance and a willingness to fight can do that. And then only if we are lucky to boot." -- Pete Georgiades
"He who speaks does not know. He who knows does not speak."
"Any gun will do-- if YOU will do."
Intellectual - A person educated beyond his/her intelligence.
"Nobody can make you feel inferior without your permission." -- Eleanor Roosevelt.
"A hyphenated American is not an American at all. This is just as true of the man who puts 'Native' before the hyphen as of the man who puts German or Irish or French before the hyphen. Americanism is a matter of the spirit and of the soul. Our allegiance must be purely to the United States. We must unsparingly condemn any man who holds any other allegiance." -- Theodore Roosevelt, 12 October 1915
"Moderation, the noblest gift of Heaven." -- Euripides
"The ruling passion, be it what it will, The ruling passion conquers reason still." -- Alexander Pope
"Seize the day, put no trust in the morrow!" -- Horace
"Women and elephants never forget an injury." -- Saki
"Not by age but by capacity is wisdom acquired." -- Titus Maccius Plautus
"The human species, according to the best theory I can form of it, is composed of two distinct races, the men who borrow, and the men who lend." -- Charles Lamb
"Let us reform our schools, and we shall find little reform needed in our prisons." -- John Ruskin
"You can't hold a man down without staying down with him." -- Booker T. Washington
"No written law has ever been more binding than unwritten custom supported by popular opinion." -- Carrie Chapman Catt
"A politician...one that would circumvent God." --William Shakespeare
"Hold on to instruction, do not let it go; guard it well, for it is your life." (Proverbs 4:13)
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