Sayings
Issue #80 Posted November, 2012
"Each of us has a natural right, from God, to defend his person, his liberty and his property." -- Claude Frederic Bastiat
"These are the times that try men's souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of his country; but he that stands it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman." -- Thomas Paine, The American Crisis, No. 1, 1776
"Liberty cannot be preserved without a general knowledge among the people, who have a right, from the frame of their nature, to knowledge, as their great Creator, who does nothing in vain, has given them understandings, and a desire to know; but besides this, they have a right, an indisputable, unalienable, indefeasible, divine right to that most dreaded and envied kind of knowledge; I mean, of the characters and conduct of their rulers." -- John Adams, Dissertation on Canon and Feudal Law, 1765
The following seven quotes are all from Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged.
"There's only one form of human depravity--the man without a purpose."
"There's nothing of any importance in life--except how well you do your work. Only That. Whatever else you are comes from that."
"An honest man is one who knows that he cannot consume more than he produces."
"On does not bargain about inches of evil."
"Thanksgiving was a holiday established by productive men to celebrate the success of their work."
"There is no surer way to destroy a man than to force him into a spot where he has to aim at not doing his best, where he has to struggle to do a bad job, day after day."
"No one's happiness but [your] own is in [your] power to achieve or destroy."
"Today we need a nation of minute men; citizens who are not only prepared to take up arms, but citizens who regard the preservation of freedom as a basic purpose of their daily life and who are willing to consciously work and sacrifice for that freedom. The cause of liberty, the cause of America, cannot succeed with any lesser effort." -- President John F. Kennedy, 1961
"No people will tamely surrender their liberties, nor can any be easily subdued, when knowledge is diffusd and virtue is preserved. On the contrary, when people are universally ignorant, and debauched in their manners, they will sink under their own weight without the aid of foreign invaders." -- Samuel Adams, letter to James Warren, 1775
"It makes no difference what men think of war. War endures. War was always here. Before man was, war waited for him. The ultimate Trade, awaiting its ultimate practitioner!" -- Cormac McCarthy
"Democracy is a form of religion. It is the worship of jackals by jack asses." -- H. L. Mencken
"Socialism is a philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance, and the gospel of envy; its inherent virtue is the equal sharing of misery." -- Winston Churchill
"The power of the sword, say the minority..., is in the hands of Congress. My friends and countrymen, it is not so, for The powers of the sword are in the hands of the yeomanry of America from sixteen to sixty. The militia of these free commonwealths, entitled and accustomed to their arms, when compared with any possible army, must be tremendous and irresistible. Who are the militia? Are they not ourselves? Is it feared, then, that we shall turn our arms each man against his own bosom. Congress has no power to disarm the militia. Their swords and every terrible implement of the soldier are the birthright of Americans. The unlimited power of the sword is not in the hands of either the federal or state governments but where, I trust in God, it will always remain, in the hands of the people." -- The Pennsylvania Gazette, Feb. 20, 1788, Tench Coxe
"If guns kill people, then cameras cause pornography, pencils cause mis-spelled words, cars make people drive drunk, and spoons made Rosie O'Donnel fat." -- Unk
"Public affairs go on pretty much as usual: perpetual chicanery and rather more personal abuse than there used to be." -- John Adams
"There are still people in my party who believe in consensus politics. I regard them as Quislings, as traitors... I mean it." -- Margaret Thatcher
"Nothing is more certain than that a general profligacy and corruption of manners make a people ripe for destruction." -- John Witherspoon
"The whole of that Bill [of Rights] is a declaration of the right of the people at large or considered as individuals... [I]t establishes some rights of the individual as unalienable and which consequently, no majority has a right to deprive them of." -- Albert Gallatin, letter to Alexander Addison, 1789
"Besides the advantage of being armed, which the Americans possess over the people of almost every other nation, the existence of subordinate governments, to which the people are attached and by which the militia officers are appointed, forms a barrier against the enterprises of ambition, more insurmountable than any which a simple government of any form can admit of." -- James Madison, Federalist No. 46, 1788
"Much of the social history of the Western world over the past three decades has involved replacing what worked with what sounded good." -- Thomas Sowell
"I sought for the key to the greatness and genius of America in her harbors...; in her fertile fields and boundless forests; in her rich mines and vast world commerce; in her public school system and institutions of learning. I sought for it in her democratic Congress and in her matchless Constitution. Not until I went into the churches of America and heard her pulpits flame with righteousness did I understand the secret of her genius and power. America is great because America is good, and if America ever ceases to be good, America will cease to be great." -- 19th Century French historian Alexis de Tocqueville
"Justice being taken away, then, what are kingdoms but great robberies? For what are robberies themselves, but little kingdoms? The band itself is made up of men; it is ruled by the authority of a prince, it is knit together by the pact of the confederacy; the booty is divided by the law agreed on. If, by the admittance of abandoned men, this evil increases to such a degree that it holds places, fixes abodes, takes possession of cities, and subdues peoples, it assumes the more plainly the name of a kingdom, because the reality is now manifestly conferred on it, not by the removal of covetousness, but by the addition of impunity. Indeed, that was an apt and true reply which was given to Alexander the Great by a pirate who had been seized. For when that king had asked the man what he meant by keeping hostile possession of the sea, he answered with bold pride, 'What thou meanest by seizing the whole earth; but because I do it with a petty ship, I am called a robber, whilst thou who dost it with a great fleet art styled emperor.'" -- St. Augustine of Hippo (354-430), in "The City of God"
"Violence, naked force has settled more issues in history than has any other factor, and the contrary opinion is wishful thinking at its worst. Breeds that forget this basic truth have always paid for it with their lives and freedoms." - Robert Heinlein
"What country can preserve its liberties if its rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms. The remedy is to set them right as to facts, pardon and pacify them." -- Thomas Jefferson to William Stephens Smith, 1787. ME 6:373, Papers 12:356
"Overkill never fails." -- Motto of Wilderness Tactical Products
"Only a virtuous people are capable of freedom. As nations become corrupt and vicious, they have more need of masters." -- Benjamin Franklin
"The spirit of resistance to government is so valuable on certain occasions, that I wish it to be always kept alive. It will often be exercised when wrong, but better so than not to be exercised at all. I like a little rebellion now and then. It is like a storm in the atmosphere." -- Thomas Jefferson to Abigail Adams, 1787.
"Whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends [i.e., securing inherent and inalienable rights, with powers derived from the consent of the governed], it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles, and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness." -- Thomas Jefferson: Declaration of Independence, 1776. ME 1:29, Papers 1:315
"We think experience has proved it safer for the mass of individuals composing the society to reserve to themselves personally the exercise of all rightful powers to which they are competent and to delegate those to which they are not competent to deputies named and removable for unfaithful conduct by themselves immediately." -- Thomas Jefferson to Pierre Samuel Dupont de Nemours, 1816. ME 14:487
"I wish it were possible to obtain a single amendment to our Constitution ... taking from the federal government their power of borrowing." -- Thomas Jefferson (Letter of November 26th, 1798)
"Society in every state is a blessing, but government, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil; in its worst state an intolerable one." -- Thomas Paine
"[T]he duty imposed upon [the president] to take care, that the laws be faithfully executed, follows out the strong injunctions of his oath of office, that he will 'preserve, protect, and defend the constitution.' The great object of the executive department is to accomplish this purpose." -- Joseph Story
"The Constitution, which at any time exists, 'till changed by an explicit and authentic act of the whole People, is sacredly obligatory upon all." -- George Washington
"[W]ith respect to future debt; would it not be wise and just for that nation to declare in the constitution they are forming that neither the legislature, nor the nation itself can validly contract more debt, than they may pay within their own age." -- Thomas Jefferson
"No pecuniary consideration is more urgent, than the regular redemption and discharge of the public debt: on none can delay be more injurious, or an economy of time more valuable. ... Cherish public credit. One method of preserving it is to use it as sparingly as possible: avoiding occasions of expence [and] avoiding likewise the accumulation of debt ... not ungenerously throwing upon posterity the burthen which we ourselves ought to bear." -- George Washington, December 3, 1793
"No government is respectable which is not just. Without unspotted purity of public faith, without sacred public principle, fidelity, and honor, no machinery of laws, can give dignity to political society." -- U.S. senator Daniel Webster (1782-1852)
"If you are afraid to speak against tyranny, then you are already a slave." -- author John "Birdman" Bryant (1943-2009)
"The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants." -- Thomas Jefferson
It should, of course, be the highest aspiration of every Patriot to restore our Constitution's Rule of Law, a fundamental principle of which is the separation of economy and state. But is there still time, and are we sufficiently resolute? -- Mark Alexander
"I hold it that a little rebellion now and then is a good thing, and as necessary in the political world as storms in the physical. ... An observation of this truth should render honest republican governors so mild in their punishment of rebellions, as not to discourage them too much. It is a medicine necessary for the sound health of government." -- Thomas Jeffersonin a letter to James Madison dated January 30, 1787
"Now it doesn't require expropriation or confiscation of private property or business to impose socialism on a people. What does it mean whether you hold the deed or the title to your business or property if the government holds the power of life and death over that business or property? And such machinery already exists. The government can find some charge to bring against any concern it chooses to prosecute. Every businessman has his own tale of harassment. Somewhere a perversion has taken place. Our natural, unalienable rights are now considered to be a dispensation of government, and freedom has never been so fragile, so close to slipping from our grasp as it is at this moment." -- Ronald Reagan
"The power to determine the quantity of money ... is too important, too pervasive, to be exercised by a few people, however public-spirited, if there is any feasible alternative. There is no need for such arbitrary power. ... Any system which gives so much power and so much discretion to a few men, [so] that mistakes -- excusable or not -- can have such far reaching effects, is a bad system. It is a bad system to believers in freedom just because it gives a few men such power without any effective check by the body politic -- this is the key political argument against an independent central bank.'' -- economist Milton Friedman (1912-2006)
"I love the man that can smile in trouble, that can gather strength from distress, and grow brave by reflection." -- Thomas Paine
"... government derives its 'just powers from the consent of the governed' (and) 'whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it and to institute new Government." -- The Declaration of Independence
"In selecting men for office, let principle be your guide. Regard not the particular sect or denomination of the candidate -- look to his character." -- Noah Webster
"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
"Our Founders warned us that all republics have eventually fallen into tyranny -- the only difference being the relative timeline of each republic's descent. ... From the summer of 1787 when our Framers deliberated over their magnificent Constitution, we have recognized that the clear statement and equal application of the Law is among the most critical duties of any government. If we allow ourselves to lose this, we may as well be back in ancient Rome, subject to the whim of every petty tyrant in the taxing bureau or the zoning board. For it doesn't matter whether the regulator's foot is shod in a jack boot or a Roman sandal; if he can hold you down with that boot upon your neck, then we are no longer free."
"A society that puts equality ... ahead of freedom will end up with neither equality nor freedom." -- economist Milton Friedman (1912-2006)
"Private capitalism makes a steam engine; State capitalism makes pyramids." -- American author Frank Chodorov (1887-1966)
"Drudgery, calamity, exasperation and want are instructors in eloquence and wisdom." -- Ralph Waldo Emerson
"A morsel of genuine history is a thing so rare as to be always valuable." -- Thomas Jefferson
"When a business or an individual spends more than it makes, it goes bankrupt. When government does it, it sends you the bill. And when government does it for 40 years, the bill comes in two ways: higher taxes and inflation. Make no mistake about it, inflation is a tax and not by accident." -- Ronald Reagan
"[Tyrannical] power is absolute, minute, regular, provident and mild. It would be like the authority of a parent if, like that authority, its object was to prepare men for manhood; but it seeks, on the contrary, to keep them in perpetual childhood: it is well content that the people should rejoice, provided they think of nothing but rejoicing. For their happiness such a government willingly labors, but it chooses to be the sole agent and the only arbiter of that happiness; it provides for their security, foresees and supplies their necessities, facilitates their pleasures, manages their principal concerns, directs their industry, regulates the descent of property, and subdivides their inheritances: what remains, but to spare them all the care of thinking and all the trouble of living?" -- French historian Alexis de Tocqueville (1805-1859)
"Justice being taken away, then, what are kingdoms but great robberies? For what are robberies themselves, but little kingdoms? The band itself is made up of men; it is ruled by the authority of a prince, it is knit together by the pact of the confederacy; the booty is divided by the law agreed on. If, by the admittance of abandoned men, this evil increases to such a degree that it holds places, fixes abodes, takes possession of cities, and subdues peoples, it assumes the more plainly the name of a kingdom, because the reality is now manifestly conferred on it, not by the removal of covetousness, but by the addition of impunity. Indeed, that was an apt and true reply which was given to Alexander the Great by a pirate who had been seized. For when that king had asked the man what he meant by keeping hostile possession of the sea, he answered with bold pride, 'What thou meanest by seizing the whole earth; but because I do it with a petty ship, I am called a robber, whilst thou who dost it with a great fleet art styled emperor.'" -- St. Augustine of Hippo (354-430), in "The City of God"
"Duty is ours; consequences are God's." -Thomas Jackson
"It is enough that the people know there was an election. The people who cast the votes decide nothing. The people who count the votes decide everything." -- Joseph Stalin
"[T]he problem to be solved is, not what form of Government is perfect, but which of the forms is least imperfect." -- James Madison
"The civilized man has a moral obligation to be skeptical, to demand the credentials of all statements that claim to be facts." -- English professor Bergan Evans (1904-1978)
"Collecting more taxes than is absolutely necessary is legalized robbery." -- President Calvin Coolidge (1872-1933)
"I entirely concur in the propriety of resorting to the sense in which the Constitution was accepted and ratified by the nation. In that sense alone it is the legitimate Constitution. And if that is not the guide in expounding it, there may be no security for a consistent and stable, more than for a faithful exercise of its powers. ... If Congress can do whatever in their discretion can be done by money, and will promote the General Welfare, the Government is no longer a limited one, possessing enumerated powers, but an indefinite one, subject to particular exceptions." -- James Madison
"Our peculiar security is in the possession of a written Constitution. Let us not make it a blank paper by construction. ... To consider the judges as the ultimate arbiters of all constitutional questions [is] a very dangerous doctrine indeed, and one which would place us under the despotism of an oligarchy. ... The Constitution has erected no such single tribunal, knowing that to whatever hands confided, with the corruptions of time and party, its members would become despots. ... The opinion which gives to the judges the right to decide what laws are constitutional and what not, not only for themselves in their own sphere of action but for the Legislature and Executive also in their spheres, would make the Judiciary a despotic branch. ... On every question of construction carry ourselves back to the time when the Constitution was adopted, recollect the spirit manifested in the debates and instead of trying what meaning may be squeezed out of the text or invented against it, conform to the probable one in which it was passed. ... [C]onfidence is every where the parent of despotism; free government is founded in jealousy and not in confidence; it is jealousy & not confidence which prescribes limited constitutions to bind down those whom we are obliged to trust with power ... in questions of power, then, let no more be heard of confidence in man, but bind him down from mischief by the chains of the constitution." -- Thomas Jefferson
"[T]here is not a syllable in the [Constitution] which directly empowers the national courts to construe the laws according to the spirit of the Constitution, or which gives them any greater latitude in this respect than may be claimed by the courts of every State. ... The Judiciary ... has no influence over either the sword or the purse; no direction either of the strength or of the wealth of the society, and can take no active resolution whatever. It may truly be said to have neither force nor will. ... If it be asked, 'What is the most sacred duty and the greatest source of our security in a Republic?' The answer would be, an inviolable respect for the Constitution and Laws -- the first growing out of the last. ... A sacred respect for the constitutional law is the vital principle, the sustaining energy of a free government. ... [T]he present Constitution is the standard to which we are to cling. Under its banners, bona fide must we combat our political foes -- rejecting all changes but through the channel itself provides for amendments." -- Alexander Hamilton
"Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other. ... The only foundation of a free Constitution is pure Virtue, and if this cannot be inspired into our People. ... [T]hey may change their Rulers, and the forms of Government, but they will not obtain a lasting Liberty. ... A Constitution of Government once changed from Freedom, can never be restored. Liberty, once lost, is lost forever." -- John Adams:
Article VI of our Constitution: "This Constitution ... shall be the supreme Law of the Land."
"To cherish and stimulate the activity of the human mind, by multiplying the objects of enterprise, is not among the least considerable of the expedients, by which the wealth of a nation may be promoted." -- Alexander Hamilton
"I want the people of America to be able to work less for the government and more for themselves. I want them to have the rewards of their own industry. This is the chief meaning of freedom. Until we can reestablish a condition under which the earnings of the people can be kept by the people, we are bound to suffer a very severe and distinct curtailment of our liberty." -- President Calvin Coolidge (1872-1933)
"America seems to be facing a pivotal moment: Do we move ahead by advancing or by receding -- by reaffirming the values that made us exceptional or by letting go of those values, so that a creeping mediocrity begins to spare us the burdens of greatness? As a president, Barack Obama has been a force for mediocrity. He has banked more on the hopeless interventions of government than on the exceptionalism of the people. His greatest weakness as a president is a limp confidence in his countrymen. He is afraid to ask difficult things of them. Like me, he is black, and it was the government that in part saved us from the ignorances of the people. So the concept of the exceptionalism -- the genius for freedom -- of the American people may still be a stretch for him. But in fact he was elected to make that stretch. It should be held against him that he has failed to do so." -- Hoover Institution's Shelby Steele
"Only when the human spirit is allowed to invent and create, only when individuals are given a personal stake in deciding economic policies and benefiting from their success -- only then can societies remain economically alive, dynamic, prosperous, progressive and free." -- Ronald Reagan
"Count it the greatest sin to prefer life to honor, and for the sake of living to lose what makes life worth having." -- ancient Roman poet Juvenal
"English experience indicates that when two political parties agree about something, it is generally wrong." -- English writer G.K. Chesterton (1874-1936)
"Political language is designed to make lies sound truthful, and murder respectable and to give the appearance of solidity to pure wind." -- George Orwell
2012-6