Sayings
Issue #24 Posted August 11, 2002

"Sometimes I wonder whether the world is being run by smart people who are putting us on or by imbeciles who really mean it." – Mark Twain

"A government that is big enough to give you all you want is big enough to take it all away." – Barry Goldwater

"It is possible today for American students to pass through elementary school and high school, and obtain a university degree without gaining any appreciation for the men who founded their country." – Paul Craig Roberts

"The sole purpose of our Constitution is to define the limited role of government in order to guarantee individual rights." – Tom DeWeese

"This is the cardinal republican [small 'r'] virtue: People helping people. And while this has always been important, never has it been more important than in the wake of September 11. We must pull together as a nation--neighbors learning how to help neighbors." – Charles Colson

"The new laws passed by Congress in the name of fighting terrorism pose a greater danger to the civil liberties of American citizens than to the operations of terrorists. Powers once assumed are never relinquished, just as bureaucracies, once created, never die." -- Charley Reese

"According to the media elite's rulebook, when liberals rant it's called free speech; when conservatives rant it's called incitement to terrorism." – Bernard Goldberg

Faith points to a moral law beyond man's law and calls us to duties higher than material gain. Freedom of religion is not something to be feared, it's to be welcomed, because faith gives us a moral core and teaches us to hold ourselves to high standards, to love and to serve others, and to live responsible lives. America is a nation guided by faith." – G.W.Bush, II

"Campaign finance reform" -- the equivalent of condoms for politicians.

"For centuries, theologians and philosophers understood that conscience is the anvil of virtue and character. They took it for granted that God places his moral law in the heart, or conscience, of every person. Yet they were not naive. Individuals can know what is right, yet deliberately embrace what is evil. And when wickedness is chosen often enough, the moral senses become dulled, hardened, rendered useless." – Joseph Laconte

"I hold the maxim no less applicable to public than to private affairs, that honesty is the best policy." – George Washington

"You and I have the courage to say to our enemies, 'There is a price we will not pay.' There is a point beyond which they must not advance. This is the meaning of the phrase 'Peace through strength'." – Ronald Reagan

"A just fear of an imminent danger, though there be no blow given, is a lawful cause of war." – Sir Francis Bacon

"The biggest corporation, like the humblest private citizen, must be held to strict compliance with the will of the people as expressed in the fundamental law." – Theodore Roosevelt

"The firm basis of government is justice, not pity." – Woodrow Wilson

"I long to accomplish a great and noble task, but it is my chief duty to accomplish small tasks as if they were great and noble." – Helen Keller

"All armed prophets have been victorious, and all unarmed prophets have been destroyed." – Machiavelli

"Somehow strangely the vice of men gets well represented and protected but their virtue has none to plead its cause -- nor any charter of immunities and rights." – Henry David Thoreau

"There is good news from Washington today. The Congress is deadlocked and can't act." – Will Rogers

"If politicians don't respect the law, why should citizens respect politicians?" – Debra Saunders

"Big government and big campaign money go hand-in-hand." --Rep. Ron Paul

"Family life is the normal context in which we can learn that a life filled with thinking about others instead of ourselves is the sure road to the most fulfilling joys and satisfactions." – Alan Keyes

"One of the sad signs of our times is that we have demonized those who produce, subsidized those who refuse to produce, and canonized those who complain." – Thomas Sowell

"Government has ceased to mean upholding and reinforcing the traditional rights and morals of the governed; it now means compulsion in the service of social engineering." – Joseph Sobran

"Prosperity is only an instrument to be used, not a deity to be worshipped." – Calvin Coolidge

"We have never stopped sin by passing laws; and in the same way, we are not going to take a great moral ideal and achieve it merely by law." – Dwight D. Eisenhower

"You don't make the poor richer by making the rich poorer." – Sir Winston Churchill

"When bad men combine, the good must associate; else they will fall one by one, an unpitied sacrifice in a contemptible struggle." – Edmund Burke

"It is easy in the world to live after the world's opinion; it is easy in solitude to live after our own; but the great man is he who in the midst of the crowd keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude." – Ralph Waldo Emerson

"No one has a finer command of language than the person who keeps his mouth shut." – Sam Rayburn

"One has not only a legal but a moral responsibility to obey just laws, but conversely, one has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws." – Martin Luther King

"There is only one corner of the universe you can be certain of improving, and that's your own self." – Aldous Huxley

"Friendship was given by nature to be an assistant to virtue, not a companion to vice." – Cicero

"A Great Power should always keep its powder dry for the supreme fight. We are in one now. And no amount of casualties will deter us." -- Charles Krauthammer

"Before our very eyes, history is being transformed into politically correct fantasy." – Paul Craig Roberts

"What our country deserves from everyone who enjoys its fruits and freedoms is a little more gratitude and a lot less greed." – Michelle Malkin

"Why can't we honor brave men as individuals, rather than representatives of their tribe -- white, black or Hispanic. Race is an accident of birth, courage is a conscious choice.... While Americans come in all colors, patriotism has no special hue -- neither does duty or honor." – Don Feder


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