Sayings
Issue #51 Posted Jan. 1, 2008

"Those who 'abjure' violence can only do so because others are committing violence on their behalf." -- George Orwell’s "Notes on Nationalism," 1945

"It is not necessary that whilst I live I live happily; but it is necessary that so long as I live I should live honourably." -- Immanuel Kant

"To the distinguished character of patriot, it should be our highest glory to add the more distinguished character of Christian." -- George Washington

When it is not necessary to change, it is necessary NOT to change." -- Lord Cary, Viscount Falkland

"If it is not right do not do it; if it is not true do not say it." -- Marcus Aurelius

"An unarmed man can only flee from evil, and evil is not overcome by fleeing from it." -- Jeff Cooper

Gold is for the mistress-- silver for the maid--
Copper for the craftsman, cunning at his trade.
'Good!' said the Baron, sitting in his hall,
'But iron--cold iron--is ruler of them. -- Rudyard Kipling - Cold Iron

"A Constitution of Government once changed from Freedom, can never be restored. Liberty, once lost, is lost forever." -- John Adams

"There are a lot of guys who say they have 20 years’ experience doing X, when in reality what they have is about 5 years experience repeated four times." -- Terry Farley

"The ideal form of government is democracy tempered with assassination." -- Voltaire

Improvise, Adapt and Overcome...

"There are those in America today who have come to depend absolutely on government for their security. And when government fails they seek to rectify that failure in the form of granting government more power. So, as government has failed to control crime and violence with the means given it by the Constitution, they seek to give it more power at the expense of the Constitution. But in doing so, in their willingness to give up their arms in the name of safety, they are really giving up their protection from what has always been the chief source of despotism­government. Lord Acton said 'power corrupts.' Surely then, if this is true, the more power we give the government the more corrupt it will become. And if we give it the power to confiscate our arms we also give up the ultimate means to combat that corrupt power. In doing so we can only assure that we will eventually be totally subject to it." -- Ronald Reagan

"For those who are in sovereign control of arms are in a sovereign position to decide whether the constitution is to continue or not." -- Aristotle, The Politics page 416, Penguin Books, revised edition 1981

"Do things worth writing about and write about things worth doing." -- Jeff Cooper

"The supreme power in America cannot enforce unjust laws by the sword; because the whole body of the people are armed, and constitute a force superior to any band of regular troops that can be, on any pretence, raised in the United States." -- Noah Webster

"The gun has been called the great equalizer, meaning that a small person with a gun is equal to a large person, but it is a great equalizer in another way, too. It insures that the people are the equal of their government whenever that government forgets that it is servant and not master of the governed. When the British forgot that they got a revolution. And, as a result, we Americans got a Constitution; a Constitution that, as those who wrote it were determined, would keep men free. If we give up part of that Constitution we give up part of our freedom and increase the chance that we will lose it all. I am not ready to take that risk. I believe that the right of the citizen to keep and bear arms must not be infringed if liberty in America is to survive." -- Ronald Reagan

"Most of the work of government does not need to be done. And, if you can remember that, if we could all remember that, this country would be better off." -- Lyn Nofziger

"We have grasped the mystery of the atom and rejected the Sermon on the Mount... The world has achieved brilliance without wisdom, power without conscience. Ours is a world of nuclear giants and ethical infants." -- Omar Bradley

"Everyone wants to vote for the best and most qualified man, but he never runs for office." -- Will Rogers

"People grow old only by deserting their ideals. Years may wrinkle the skin, but to give up interest wrinkles the soul....You are as young as your faith, as old as your doubt; as young as your self-confidence, as old as your fear; as young as your hope, as old as your despair. In the central place of every heart there is a recording chamber; so long as it receives messages of beauty, hope, cheer and courage, so long you are young. When your heart is covered with the snows of pessimism and the ice of cynicism, then and then only are you grown old - and then, indeed, as the ballad says, you just fade away." -- General Douglas MacArthur

"Trust no one, admit nothing, deny everything, demand proof, make counter accusation."

"I see stupid people, their everywhere and they don't know their stupid!" -- Jailor John

"It is not honorable to take mere legal advantage, when it happens to be contrary to justice." -- Thomas Jefferson

"We must remember that one man is much the same as another, and that he is best who trained in the severest school." -- Thucydides, The History of the Pelopnnesian War, I, c. 404BC

"You leave out God, and you substitute the devil." -- Winston Churchill

"Apathy can be overcome by enthusiasm, and enthusiasm can be aroused by two things: first, an idea which takes the imagination by storm; and second, a definite, intelligible plan for carrying that idea into action." -- Arnold Toynbee

"It is dangerous to be right when the government is wrong." -- Voltaire

"The legacy of nobility... is the great cause of all men who are friends of liberty, of truth, of civilization." -- Bonnie Prince Charlie

"Where else but in America could the women's liberation movement take off their bras, then go on TV to complain about their lack of support?" -- Bob Hope

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

"The resolution to avoid an evil is seldom framed till the evil is so far advanced as to make avoidance impossible." -- Thomas Hardy

Artificial intelligence is no match for natural stupidity.

"Think of all the beauty still left around you and be happy" -- Anne Frank

"One of these days they are going to remove so much of the 'hooey' and the thousands of things the schools have become clogged up with, and we will find that we can educate our broods for about one-tenth of the price and learn 'em something that they might accidentally use after they escape." -- Will Rogers

"There is no question that we have failed to live up to the dreams of the founding fathers many times and in many places. Sometimes we do better than others. But all in all, the one thing we must be on guard against is thinking that because of this, the system has failed. The system has not failed. Some human beings have failed the system." -- Ronald Reagan

"The Sun never shined on a cause of greater worth." -- Thomas Paine, (1776)

"I am well aware of the Toil and Blood and Treasure, that it will cost Us to maintain this Declaration, and support and defend these States. Yet through all the Gloom I can see the Rays of ravishing Light and Glory. I can see that the End is more than worth all the Means. And that Posterity will tryumph in that Days Transaction, even altho We should rue it, which I trust in God We shall not." -- John Adams (1776)

"Our cause is noble; it is the cause of mankind!" -- George Washington (1779)

"[T]he flames kindled on the 4 of July 1776, have spread over too much of the globe to be extinguished by the feeble engines of despotism; on the contrary, they will consume these engines and all who work them." -- Thomas Jefferson (1821)

"If we wish to be free; if we mean to preserve inviolate those inestimable privileges for which we have been so long contending; if we mean not basely to abandon the noble struggle in which we have been so long engaged, and which we have pledged ourselves never to abandon until the glorious object of our contest shall be obtained--we must fight! I repeat it, sir, we must fight! An appeal to arms, and to the God of hosts, is all that is left us." -- Patrick Henry (1775)

"Every man who loves peace, every man who loves his country, every man who loves liberty ought to have it ever before his eyes that he may cherish in his heart a due attachment to the Union of America." -- James Madison

"[In war], there is no alternative than to apply every available means to bring it to a swift end. War's very object is victory, not prolonged indecision. In war there is no substitute for victory." -- General Douglas MacArthur

"Only mediocrity can be trusted to be always at its best." -- Sir Max Beerbohm

"Waste not fresh tears over old griefs." -- Euripides

"Whatever you may be sure of, be sure of this: That you are dreadfully like other people." -- James Russell Lowell

"It seems now that the place where you see the most obvious censorship is on college campuses--the precise place where you would expect to see the least." -- Alan Charles Kors

"You can't hardly find a law school in the country that don't, through some inherent weakness, turn out a senator or congressman from time to time...if their rating is real low, even a president." -- Will Rogers

"Either find a way, or make one" -- Hannibal, Carthaginian general (c. 247 BC)

"Our peculiar security is in the possession of a written Constitution. Let us not make it a blank paper by construction." -- Thomas Jefferson

"It is almost a miracle that modern teaching methods have not yet entirely strangled the holy curiosity of inquiry." -- Albert Einstein

"Anybody who is any good is different from anybody else." -- Felix Frankfurter

"If you pursue evil with pleasure, the pleasure passes away and the evil remains; if you pursue good with labor, the labor passes away but the good remains." -- Cicero

"True courage is not the brutal force of vulgar heroes, but the firm resolve of virtue and reason." -- Alfred North Whitehead

"The unforgivable crime is soft hitting. Do not hit at all if it can be avoided; but never hit softly." -- Theodore Roosevelt

"The idea that all men are created equal, and endowed with the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness is, indeed, an understanding that should be celebrated universally. That governments are instituted to secure these rights, empowered by the consent of the governed, is no less profound." -- Henry Lamb

"I envision an America so overflowing with handguns in the homes (and cars and holsters) of law-abiding citizens that the UN ceases its futile efforts to subvert our Second Amendment rights." -- Mike Adams

"Nothing has yet been offered to invalidate the doctrine that the meaning of the Constitution may as well be ascertained by the Legislative as by the Judicial authority." -- James Madison

"As nightfall does not come at once, neither does oppression. In both instances, there's a twilight where everything remains seemingly unchanged, and it is in such twilight that we must be aware of change in the air, however slight, lest we become unwitting victims of the darkness." -- Supreme Court Justice William Douglas

"If men of wisdom and knowledge, of moderation and temperance, of patience, fortitude and perseverance, of sobriety and true republican simplicity of manners, of zeal for the honor of the Supreme Being...are chosen to fill the seats of government, we may expect that our affairs will rest on a solid and permanent foundation." -- Samuel Adams

"The world is a dangerous place to live--not because of the people who are evil, but because of the people who don't do anything about it." -- Albert Einstein

"The shortest and surest way to live with honor in the world is to be in reality what we would appear to be." -- Socrates

"Right actions for the future are the best apologies for wrong ones in the past." -- Tyron Edwards

"It is dangerous to be right in matters on which the established authorities are wrong." -- Voltaire

"No written law has ever been more binding than unwritten custom supported by popular opinion." -- Carrie Chapman Catt

"There is a terrible lot of us who don't think that we come from a monkey, but if there are some people who think that they do, why, it's not our business to rob them of what little pleasure they might get out of imagining it." -- Will Rogers

"There are many fronts in our struggle against Islamic terrorists from the 7th century. The American people must be reminded of our challenges constantly in lieu of platitudes about the inevitable triumph of freedom and democracy. In short, our government should provide much more explanation of this complex war and far less simple declarations about it." -- Victor Davis Hanson

"Everything our leaders do must be judged by whether it helps or hurts us in defeating terrorists and their state sponsors." -- Newt Gingrich

"It would be dangerous to be in a world without partners. But it would be more dangerous to see friendship where none exists." -- Tony Blankley

"Whatever enables us to go to war, secures our peace." -- Thomas Jefferson

"The rights of neutrality will only be respected when they are defended by an adequate power. A nation, despicable by its weakness, forfeits even the privilege of being neutral." -- Alexander Hamilton

"The third-rate mind is only happy when it is thinking with the majority. The second-rate mind is only happy when it is thinking with the minority. The first-rate mind is only happy when it is thinking." -- A.A. Milne

"I have a dream that some day, every child will be conceived from an act of true love between parents who love each other, are married to each other, and eagerly welcome him. I have a dream that every child will spend his childhood with those parents who brought him into being. Parents see the value of the small society they have created between themselves and their children, and do everything humanly possible to sustain that society. I have a dream that children can be children, take joy in their childhood innocence, and not become sexualized before puberty... I have a dream that the market accommodates the needs of the family, rather than the family adapting itself to the needs of the market. We create an economy in which people are prepared to earn a living before the age of twenty-five or thirty. Young people graduate from college without crushing debt, and without the prospect of unmanageable housing costs and tax burdens. Families can support themselves on one income, at least for a while... I want us to...become what we should have been from the beginning." -- Jennifer Roback Morse

"Against the machinations of your enemies you can take defense but against the stupidity of fools the very gods themselves fight in vain." -- Unknown (This MAY be from the German Playwright Schiller. This sounds VERY similar to a line of his: "Mit der dummheit kampfen Gotter selbst vergebens" (i.e. "with stupidity the Gods themselves struggle in vain).

"There is nothing so exhilarating as being shot at without effect." -- Winston Churchill

"Nothing is more certain than that a general profligacy and corruption of manners make a people ripe for destruction." -- John Witherspoon

"You can preach a better sermon with your life than with your lips." -- Oliver Goldsmith

"The world is governed by very different personages from what is imagined by those who are not behind the scenes." -- Benjamin Disraeli

"The whole aim 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

"We are perpetually being told that what is wanted is a strong man who will do things. What is really wanted is a strong man who will undo things; and that will be the real test of strength." -- G.K. Chesterton

"Government is not reason, it is not eloquence, it is force; like fire, a troublesome servant and a fearful master. Never for a moment should it be left to irresponsible action." -- George Washington

"In every person who comes near you look for what is good and strong; honor that; try to imitate it, and your faults will drop off like dead leaves when their time comes." -- John Ruskin

"Because just as good morals, if they are to be maintained, have need of the laws, so the laws, if they are to be observed, have need of good morals." -- Niccolo Machiavelli

"The laws of man may bind him in chains or may put him to death, but they never can make him wise, virtuous, or happy." -- John Quincy Adams

"No one ever heard of the truth being enforced by law. When the secular is called in to sustain an idea, whether new or old, it is always a bad idea, and not infrequently it is downright idiotic." -- H. L. Mencken

"If you have 10,000 regulations, you destroy all respect for the law." -- Sir Winston Churchill

"State control is fundamentally bad because it denies people the power to choose and the opportunity to bear responsibility for their own actions. Conversely, privatization shrinks the

power of the state and free enterprise enlarges the power of the people." -- Former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher

"It has been a source of great pain to me to have met with so many among opponents who...transferred at once to the person, the hatred they bore to his political opinions." -- Thomas Jefferson

"If ever a time should come, when vain and aspiring men shall possess the highest seats in Government, our country will stand in need of its experienced patriots to prevent its ruin." -- Adams

"It is not the business of government to make men virtuous or religious, or to preserve the fool from the consequences of his own folly. Government should be repressive no further than is necessary to secure liberty by protecting the equal rights of each from aggression on the part of others, and the moment governmental prohibitions extend beyond this line they are in danger of defeating the very ends they are intended to serve." -- Henry George

Fighting advice -- Go ugly early.

2008-1