Sayings
Issue #57 Posted January, 2009

"If you don't read the newspaper you are uninformed, if you do read the newspaper you are misinformed." -- Mark Twain

Suppose you were an idiot. And suppose you were a member of Congress.... But then I repeat myself. -- Mark Twain

"I do not believe in a fate that will fall on us no matter what we do. I do believe in a fate that will fall on us if we do nothing." -- Ronald Reagan, First Inaugural Address, Jan. 20, 1981

I contend that for a nation to try to tax itself into prosperity is like a man standing in a bucket and trying to lift himself up by the handle. -- Winston Churchill

A government which robs Peter to pay Paul can always depend on the support of Paul. --.George Bernard Shaw

A liberal is someone who feels a great debt to his fellow man, which debt he proposes to pay off with your money. -- G Gordon Liddy

Democracy must be something more than two wolves and a sheep voting on what to have for dinner. -- James Bovard, Civil Libertarian (1994)

Foreign aid might be defined as a transfer of money from poor people in rich countries to rich people in poor countries. -- Douglas Casey, Classmate of Bill Clinton at Georgetown University

Giving money and power to government is like giving whiskey and car keys to teenage boys. -- P.J. O'Rourke, Civil Libertarian

Government is the great fiction, through which everybody endeavors to live at the expense of everybody else. -- Frederic Bastiat, French Economist (1801-1850)

Government's view of the economy could be summed up in a few short phrases: If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. And if it stops moving, subsidize it. -- Ronald Reagan (1986)

I don't make jokes. I just watch the government and report the facts. -- Will Rogers

If you think health care is expensive now, wait until you see what it costs when it's free! -- P.J. O'Rourke

In general, the art of government consists of taking as much money as possible from one party of the citizens to give to the other. -- Voltaire (1764)

Just because you do not take an interest in politics doesn't mean politics won't take an interest in you! -- Pericles (430 B.C.)

"But I don't want comfort. I want God, I want poetry, I want real danger, I want freedom, I want goodness. I want sin." -- Aldous Huxley ("...and a faster reload with retention. Welcome to a Brave New World." -- Sean Collinsworth)

No man's life, liberty, or property is safe while the legislature is in session. -- Mark Twain (1866)

Talk is cheap... except when Congress does it. -- Unknown

The government is like a baby's alimentary canal, with a happy appetite at one end and no responsibility at the other. -- Ronald Reagan

The inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of the blessings. The inherent blessing of socialism is the equal sharing of misery. -- Winston Churchill

The only difference between a tax man and a taxidermist is that the taxidermist leaves the skin. -- Mark Twain

The ultimate result of shielding men from the effects of folly is to fill the world with fools.-- Herbert Spencer, English Philosopher (1820-1903)

There is no distinctly Native American criminal class... save Congress. -- Mark Twain

What this country needs are more unemployed politicians. -- Edward Langley, Artist (1928 - 1995)

A government big enough to give you everything you want, is strong enough to take everything you have. -- Thomas Jefferson

The following discourse was written by Alexander Tyler, a Scottish history professor at the University of Edinburgh, 1787.

"A democracy is always temporary in nature; it simply cannot exist as a permanent form of government. A democracy will continue to exist up until the time that voters discover that they can vote themselves generous gifts from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates who promise the most benefits from the public treasury, with the result that every democracy will finally collapse due to loose fiscal policy, which is always followed by a dictatorship. The average age of the worlds greatest civilizations from the beginning of history, has been about 200 years. During those 200 years, these Nations always progressed through the following sequence:

1. From bondage to spiritual faith;
2. From spiritual faith to great courage;
3. From courage to liberty;
4. From liberty to abundance;
5. From abundance to complacency;
6. From complacency to apathy;
7. From apathy to dependence;
8. From dependence back into bondage."

"He shot at me and missed. I shot at him and hit. The results were not altogether unexpected but, in the end, were eminently satisfying." -- Jeff Cooper

"Laws are for the guidance of wise men, and the blind obedience of fools!" -- Solan the Law-maker of Athens, d. 559 BC

"It should be your care, therefore, and mine, to elevate the minds of our children and exalt their courage; to accelerate and animate their industry and activity; to excite in them an habitual contempt of meanness, abhorrence of injustice and inhumanity, and an ambition to excel in every capacity, faculty, and virtue." -- John Adams

"Fight back! Whenever you are offered violence, fight back! The aggressor does not fear the law, so he must be taught to fear you. Whatever the risk, and at whatever the cost, fight back!" -- Col. Jeff Cooper

" I do not love the bright sword for its sharpness, nor the arrow for its swiftness, nor the warrior for his glory. I love only that which they defend." -- ( J.R.R. Tolkien )

"Advanced is being able to do the basics while your leg is on fire." -- Bill Jeans

"No man who is not willing to bear arms and to fight for his rights can give a good reason why he should be entitled to the privilege of living in a free community." -- Theodore Roosevelt

If you are going to shoot at the messenger, make sure the first shot counts.

"If the government gets into business on any large scale, we soon find that the beneficiaries attempt to play a large part in the control. While in theory it is to serve the public, in practice it will be very largely serving private interests." -- Calvin Coolidge

"We should never despair, our Situation before has been unpromising and has changed for the better, so I trust, it will again. If new difficulties arise, we must only put forth new Exertions and proportion our Efforts to the exigency of the times." -- George Washington

"No man in his senses can hesitate in choosing to be free, rather than a slave." -- Alexander Hamilton

"There are no persons capable of stooping so low as those who desire to rise in the world." -- Lady Marguerite Blessington

"A patriot must always be ready to defend his country against its government." --Edward Abbey

"If you are desirous to prevent the overrunning of a state by any sect, show it toleration." -- Voltaire

"You can't stop a politician, even by defeating him." -- Will Rogers

"You can ignore reality. You cannot ignore the consequences of ignoring reality." -- Ayn Rand said

"I am apt to believe that it will be celebrated by succeeding generations as the great anniversary festival. It ought to be commemorated as the day of deliverance, by solemn acts of devotion to God Almighty. It ought to be solemnized with pomp and parade, with shows, games, sports, guns, bells, bonfires, and illuminations, from one end of this continent to the other, from this time forward for eve more." -- John Adams, letter to Abigail Adams, July 3, 1776

"Contemplate the mangled bodies of your countrymen, and then say, 'What should be the reward of such sacrifices?' Bid us and our posterity bow the knee, supplicate the friendship, and plough, and sow, and reap, to glut the avarice of the men who have let loose on us the dogs of war to riot in our blood and hunt us from the face of the earth? If ye love wealth better than liberty, the tranquillity of servitude than the animating contest of freedom, go from us in peace. We ask not your counsels or arms. Crouch down and lick the hands which feed you. May your chains sit lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that ye were our countrymen!" -- Samuel Adams

"Before a standing army can rule, the people must be disarmed; as they are in almost every kingdom of Europe." -- Noah Webster

"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 despotism--government. 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

"Clearly, there remains to this day a horrible, condescending attitude toward armed American citizens. Haven't the British yet gotten over the fact that a ragtag, often disorganized force of American colonials, wielding their own arms, was able to defeat what at the time was the most powerful armed force in the world? Our forefathers, armed with their own flintlock rifles and pistols, and an assortment of muskets--the 'assault weapons' of their era--threw off the yoke of oppression under which they were forced to live. When British broadcasters today demand to know just what it is about gun ownership that Americans defend so vigorously, the answer is too simple for them to comprehend. Simply put, we defend this individual civil right because without our own guns two centuries ago, we would still... likely be British subjects..." -- Alan Gottlieb

"In its proper constitutional sense, the term [militia] means all the able-bodied people who can be trained and disciplined to act in the community's defense when it's attacked. Since it encompasses every able-bodied person, it does not refer to those--such as the police, the military, or even the National Guard--who formally compose the official defense forces of the nation. Every citizen able and willing to act in an emergency becomes a potential defender against attacks aimed at the general population. Unfortunately, because of the anti-gun folly of the leftist

media and politicians, we have lost sight of this vital element of our defense... The anti-gun crowd seeks to establish a modern version of [the medieval era], a kind of bureaucratic feudalism, in place of the republican self-government established by our Constitution... The answer is not gun control, but self-government, self-defense, and self-control. We must act to live as free people, else like sheep for the slaughter, we will die, and freedom with us." -- Alan Keyes

"It is the highest impertinence and presumption, therefore, in kings and ministers, to pretend to watch over the economy of private people..." -- Adam Smith

"To laugh often and much; To win respect of intelligent people and the affection of children. To leave the world a better place. To know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived. This is to have succeeded." -- Ralph Waldo Emerson

"Evil is powerless if the good are unafraid. That's why the Marxist vision of man without God must eventually be seen as an empty and a false faith-- the second oldest in the world-- first proclaimed in the Garden of Eden with whispered words of temptation: 'Ye shall be as gods.' The crisis of the Western world, Whittaker Chambers reminded us, exists to the degree in which it is indifferent to God... This is the real task before us: to reassert our commitment as a nation to a law higher than our own, to renew our spiritual strength. Only by building a wall of such spiritual resolve can we, as a free people, hope to protect our own heritage and make it someday the birthright of all men." -- Ronald Reagan

"It is the duty of parents to maintain their children decently... 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

"The emasculation of society by the smothering effects of modern uniformity has precipitated a severely over-managed, sadly under-led, and passionately un-principled culture from top to bottom. The great cry for the renewal of our civilization is for men to arise and be men." -- Tristan Gylberd

"Sadly, the tentacles of radical feminist thought are poisoning the image of groups of males in different ways. If you watch a few commercials or sit-coms, you'll see that dads are sloppy dolts who are always the last to know anything. Where's the outrage? If you listen to the often foul and violent rap and hip-hop music of today, you'll hear that young black and Hispanic men are hate-filled, selfish bigots who degrade women for fun. Where's the outrage? If you're a father-to-be, your pre-born baby can be legally killed without your knowledge, much less your consent. For crying out loud, where is the outrage?... There are consequences when we, as a society, tolerate the constant images of males of any race as knuckle-dragging Neanderthals. When the media portrays fathers and grown men as sots, we rob our boys of the role models they need-- of the role models we all need... Please go out of your way to validate the value of the decent fathers, husbands and young men in your life. I think you'll be surprised, as I was, to find out how much they long for a little R-E-S-P-E-C-T." -- Rebecca Hagelin

"Families must continue to be the foundation of our nation. Families-- not government programs-- are the best way to make sure our children are properly nurtured, our elderly are cared for, our cultural and spiritual heritages are perpetuated, our laws are observed and our values are preserved. Thus it is imperative that our government's programs, actions, officials and social welfare institutions never be allowed to jeopardize the family. We fear the government may be powerful enough to destroy our families; we know that it is not powerful enough to replace them. The New Republican Party must be committed to working always in the interest of the American family." -- Ronald Reagan

"It does not take a majority to prevail... but rather an irate, tireless minority, keen on setting brushfires of freedom in the minds of men." -- Samuel Adams

"Without liberty, law loses its nature and its name, and becomes oppression. Without law, liberty also loses its nature and its name, and becomes licentiousness." -- James Wilson

"The little unremembered acts of kindness and love are the best parts of a person's life." -- William Wordsworth

"The influence of each human being on others in this life is a kind of immortality." -- John Quincy Adams

"We are face to face with our destiny and we must meet it with a high and resolute courage." -- Theodore Roosevelt

"We are reluctant to admit that we owe our liberties to men of a type that today we hate and fear-- unruly men, disturbers of the peace, men who resent and denounce what Whitman called 'the insolence of elected persons' -- in a word, free men." -- Gerald Johnson

"I have looked politics and movies both over, and while they have much in common, I believe politics is the most common. So I will stay with the movies." -- Will Rogers

"It does not take a majority to prevail ... but rather an irate, tireless minority, keen on setting brushfires of freedom in the minds of men." ­- Samuel Adams

"The urge to save humanity is almost always only a false-face for the urge to rule it." -- H. L. Mencken

"Objects of the most stupendous magnitude, and measure in which the lives and liberties of millions yet unborn are intimately interested, are now before us. We are in the very midst of a revolution the most complete, unexpected and remarkable of any in the history of nations." -- John Adams

"Patriotism is easy to understand in America. It means looking out for yourself by looking out for your country." -- Calvin Coolidge

2009-1