Sayings
Issue #93 Posted  Jan, 2015

The king was told that the enemy was coming but he had plenty of time to prepare. He denied it. Much later he was told the enemy is closer and they still had time to arm themselves, but he said he didn't believe it. The enemy overran his castle and killed him. His final words were, "I didn't think they were serious." -- Source not known

"During times of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act." - George Orwell

"The most important fight is against the enemy within." -- Sun Tzu, Art of War

"I wish to preach, not the doctrine of ignoble ease, but the doctrine of the strenuous life; the life of toil and effort; of labor and strife; to preach that highest form of success which comes, not to the man who desires mere easy peace, but to the man who does not shrink from danger, from hardship, nor from bitter toil, and who, out of these, wins the splendid ultimate triumph. A life of ignoble ease, a life of 'peace,' which springs merely from lack either of desire or of power to strive after great things, is as little worthy of a nation as of an individual." -- Theodore Roosevelt

If competition (even if it's just with yourself) isn't important, then why is it called the human "race?" -- Jeff T.

"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. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered, yet we have this consolation with us that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph." -- Thomas Paine."

"The are men running the government who shouldn't be allowed to play with matches." -- Will Rogers

"An American who is to amount to anything must rely upon himself, and not upon the State; he must take pride in his own work, instead of sitting idle to envy the luck of others. He must face life with resolute courage, win victory when he can, and accept defeat when he must, without seeking to place on his fellow man a responsibility which is not theirs." -- Theodore Roosevelt

"If they tell me I have to wear a star, it's going on my plate carrier." -- Bill J.

"I believe that liberty is the only genuinely valuable thing that men have invented, at least in the field of government, in a thousand years. I believe that it is better to be free than to be not free, even when the former is dangerous and the latter safe. I believe that the finest qualities of man can flourish only in free air—that progress made under the shadow of the policeman's club is false progress, and of no permanent value. I believe that any man who takes the liberty of another into his keeping is bound to become a tyrant, and that any man who yields up his liberty, in however slight the measure, is bound to become a slave. . . .In any dispute between a citizen and the government, it is my instinct to side with the citizen . . . I am against all efforts to make men virtuous by law." -- H.L. Mencken

"Patriotism is supporting you country all the time, and the government when it deserves it." -- Mark Twain

"Work hard, do your best, and keep your word. Never get too big for your britches. Trust in God, have no fear, and never forget a friend." -- Harry Truman

"If Satan ever laughs, it must be at hypocrites. They are his greatest dupes. They serve him better than any other, and receive no wages." -- C Caleb Colton

"In my many years I have come to a conclusion that one useless man is a shame, two is a law firm, and three or more is a congress."-- John Adams

"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

"The good man need not think beforehand of his words, that they may be sincere, nor of his actions that they may be honorable... he simply speaks and does what is right." -- Mencius, 372-289 BC

"I'm at the point were I believe damn near everything coming from the government is a lie, until proven otherwise." -- Anonymous citizen

"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

"You only have power over people so long as you don't take everything away from them. But when you've robbed a man of everything, he's no longer in your power - he's free again." -- Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

"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 Case, 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)

"Orders or no, every man is responsible for his own actions, and the consequences or rewards they may bring." -- CPT Jason Burke, Omega Force: Soldiers of Fortune

"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.)

"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." -- Anonymous

"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

"We hang the petty thieves and appoint the great ones to public office." -- Aesop

Valar morghulis, Valar dohaeris "Fear of death will not prevent dying - but it may prevent living."

"The larger the mob, the harder the test. In small areas, before small electorates, a first-rate man occasionally fights his way through, carrying even the mob with him by force of his personality. But when the field is nationwide, and the fight must be waged chiefly at second and third hand, and the force of personality cannot so readily make itself felt, then all the odds are on the man who is, intrinsically, the most devious and mediocre - the man who can most easily adeptly disperse the notion that his mind is a virtual vacuum. The Presidency tends, year by year, to go to such men. As democracy is perfected, the office represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. We move toward a lofty ideal. On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart's desire at last, and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron." -- H.L. Mencken

Given power over their fellow men, most discover within themselves evil impulses, of which they had been previously unaware." -- Arthur Custance

"Doctrine of 'original sin,' of the innate depravity of man... appear to me to be vastly nearer the truth than literal, popular illusions that babies are all born good, and that the example of a corrupt society is responsible for their failure to remain so... and other optimistic figments." -- TH Huxley

"Why shouldn't free people enjoy the fruits of their labor? Envy is the deadliest of sins in a Republic -- as it leads to democracy and mob rule." -- Jack B.

"[I]t is not by the consolidation, or concentration of powers, but by their distribution, that good government is effected. Were not this great country already divided into states, that division must be made, that each might do for itself what concerns itself directly, and what it can so much better do than a distant authority." -- Thomas Jefferson, Autobiography, 1821

"The first and governing maxim in the interpretation of a statute is to discover the meaning of those who made it." -- James Wilson, Of the Study of Law in the United States, 1790

"He who permits himself to tell a lie once, finds it much easier to do it a second and a third time, till at length it becomes habitual; he tells lies without attending to it, and truths without the world's believing him. This falsehood of the tongue leads to that of the heart, and in time depraves all its good disposition." -- Thomas Jefferson (1785)

"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; for when we suffer or are exposed to the same miseries by a government, which we might expect in a country without government, our calamity is heightened by reflecting that we furnish the means by which we suffer." -- Thomas Paine, Common Sense, 1776

"Under all those disadvantages no men ever show more spirit or prudence than ours. In my opinion nothing but virtue has kept our army together through this campaign." -- Colonel John Brooks, 1778

"The foundation of our Empire was not laid in the gloomy age of Ignorance and Superstition, but at an Epoch  when the rights of mankind were better understood and more clearly defined, than at any former period." -- George Washington, Circular to the States, 1783

"Those gentlemen, who will be elected senators, will fix themselves in the federal town, and become citizens of that town more than of your state." -- George Mason, speech in the Virginia Ratifying Convention, 1788

"We are either a United people, or we are not. If the former, let us, in all matters of general concern act as a nation, which have national objects to promote, and a national character to support. If we are not, let us no longer act a farce by pretending to it." -- George Washington, letter to James Madison, 1785

"How prone all human institutions have been to decay; how subject the best-formed and most wisely organized governments have been to lose their check and totally dissolve; how difficult it has been for mankind, in all ages and countries, to preserve their dearest rights and best privileges, impelled as it were by an irresistible fate of despotism." -- James Monroe, speech in the Virginia Ratifying Convention, 1788

"An unlimited power to tax involves, necessarily, a power to destroy; because there is a limit beyond which no institution and no property can bear taxation." -- John Marshall, McCullough v. Maryland, 1819

"Liberty is a word which, according as it is used, comprehends the most good and the most evil of any in the world. Justly understood it is sacred next to those which we appropriate in divine adoration; but in the mouths of some it means anything, which enervate a necessary government; excite a jealousy of the rulers who are our own choice, and keep society in confusion for want of a power sufficiently concentrated to promote good." -- Oliver Ellsworth, A Landholder, No. III, 1787

"Human nature itself is ever more an advocate for liberty. There is also in human nature a resentment of injury, and indignation against wrong. A love of truth and a veneration of virtue. These amiable passions, are the 'latent spark'... If the people are capable of understanding, seeing and feeling the differences between true and false, right and wrong, virtue and vice, to what better principle can the friends of mankind apply than to the sense of this difference?" -- John Adams, the Novanglus, 1775

"It is error alone which needs the support of government. Truth can stand by itself." -- Thomas Jefferson

"The ordaining of laws in favor of one part of the nation, to the prejudice and oppression of another, is certainly the most erroneous and mistaken policy. An equal dispensation of protection, rights, privileges, and advantages, is what every part is entitled to, and ought to enjoy." -- Benjamin Franklin, Emblematical Representations, 1774

"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 (1789)

"Dependence begets subservience and venality, suffocates the germ of virtue, and prepares fit tools for the designs of ambition." -- Thomas Jefferson, Notes on Virginia, Query 19, 1781

"The same prudence which in private life would forbid our paying our own money for unexplained projects, forbids it in the dispensation of the public moneys." -- Thomas Jefferson

"We fight not to enslave, but to set a country free, and to make room upon the earth for honest men to live in." -- Thomas Paine, The Crisis, no. 4, 1777

"There is a certain enthusiasm in liberty, that makes human nature rise above itself, in acts of bravery and heroism." -- Alexander Hamilton

"Patriotism is as much a virtue as justice, and is as necessary for the support of societies as natural affection is for the support of families." --Benjamin Rush, letter to His Fellow Countrymen: On Patriotism, 1773

"The republican is the only form of government which is not eternally at open or secret war with the rights of mankind." -- Thomas Jefferson, Letter to William Hunter, 1790

"[A] wise and frugal government ... shall restrain men from injuring one another, shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned. This is the sum of good government." -- Thomas Jefferson

"What is to be the consequence, in case the Congress shall misconstrue this part [the necessary and proper clause] of the Constitution and exercise powers not warranted by its true meaning, I answer the same as if they should misconstrue or enlarge any other power vested in them ... the success of the usurpation will depend on the executive and judiciary departments, which are to expound and give effect to the legislative acts; and in a last resort a remedy must be obtained from the people, who can by the elections of more faithful representatives, annul the acts of the usurpers." -- James Madison, Federalist No. 44, 1788

"I suppose, indeed, that in public life, a man whose political principles have any decided character and who has energy enough to give them effect must always expect to encounter political hostility from those of adverse principles." -- Thomas Jefferson

"But what do we mean by the American Revolution? Do we mean the American war? The Revolution was effected before the war commenced. The Revolution was in the minds and hearts of the people; a change in their religious sentiments, of their duties and obligations... This radical change in the principles, opinions, sentiments, and affections of the people was the real American Revolution." --John Adams, letter to H. Niles, 1818

"Unequivocal in principle, reasonable in manner, we shall be able I hope to do a great deal of good to the cause of freedom & harmony." --Thomas Jefferson

"With hearts fortified with these animating reflections, we most solemnly, before God and the world, declare, that, exerting the utmost energy of those powers, which our beneficent Creator hath graciously bestowed upon us, the arms we have compelled by our enemies to assume, we will, in defiance of every hazard, with unabating firmness and perseverance employ for the preservation of our liberties; being with one mind resolved to die freemen rather than to live as slaves." --John Dickinson and Thomas Jefferson, Declaration of the Cause and Necessity of Taking up Arms, 1775

"Work as if you were to live 100 Years, Pray as if you were to die To-morrow." --Benjamin Franklin

"[D]emocracy will soon degenerate into an anarchy, such an anarchy that every man will do what is right in his own eyes and no man's life or property or reputation or liberty will be secure, and every one of these will soon mold itself into a system of subordination of all the moral virtues and intellectual abilities, all the powers of wealth, beauty, wit and science, to the wanton pleasures, the capricious will, and the execrable cruelty of one or a very few." --John Adams, An Essay on Man's Lust for Power, 1763

"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

"Upon this, one has to remark that men ought either to be well treated or crushed, because they can avenge themselves of lighter injuries, of more serious ones they cannot; therefore the injury that is to be done to a man ought to be of such a kind that one does not stand in fear of revenge. A man who has a small injury will want revenge, yet a man who is dead will not. Therefore it is better to do a big injury to someone than a small one."-- Niccolò Machiavelli, The Prince: Chapter 3

"The question isn't who is going to let me; it's who is going to stop me." -- Ayn Rand

"History by apprising [citizens] of the past will enable them to judge of the future; it will avail them of the experience of other times and other nations; it will qualify them as judges of the actions and designs of men; it will enable them to know ambition under every disguise it may assume; and knowing it, to defeat its views." -- Thomas Jefferson, Notes on the State of Virginia, Query 14, 1781

"Public affairs go on pretty much as usual: perpetual chicanery and rather more personal abuse than there used to be." -- John Adams

"We can and must write in a language which sows among the masses hate, revulsion and scorn toward those who disagree with us." -- Soviet dictator Vladimir Ilyich Lenin (1870-1924)

"The timid civilized world has found nothing with which to oppose the onslaught of a sudden revival of barefaced barbarity, other than concessions and smiles." -- Russian dissident and author Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn (1918-2008)

"Nothing is more certain than that a general profligacy and corruption of manners make a people ripe for destruction. A good form of government may hold the rotten materials together for some time, but beyond a certain pitch, even the best constitution will be ineffectual, and slavery must ensue." -- John Witherspoon, The Dominion of Providence Over the Passions of Men, 1776

"Government is instituted for the common good; for the protection, safety, prosperity, and happiness of the people; and not for profit, honor, or private interest of any one man, family, or class of men; therefore, the people alone have an incontestable, unalienable, and indefeasible right to institute government; and to reform, alter, or totally change the same, when their protection, safety, prosperity, and happiness require it." -- John Adams, Thoughts on Government, 1776

"Dependence begets subservience and venality, suffocates the germ of virtue, and prepares fit tools for the designs of ambition." -- Thomas Jefferson

"Our present financial condition is without a parallel in history. No nation has ever before been embarrassed from too large a surplus in its treasury. This almost necessarily gives birth to extravagant legislation. It produces wild schemes of expenditure and begets a race of speculators and jobbers, whose ingenuity is exerted in contriving and promoting expedients to obtain public money. The purity of official agents, whether rightfully or wrongfully, is suspected, and the character of the government suffers in the estimation of the people. This is in itself a very great evil." -- President James Buchanan (1791-1868)

"There is not a single instance in history in which civil liberty was lost, and religious liberty preserved entire. If therefore we yield up our temporal property, we at the same time deliver the conscience into bondage." -- John Witherspoon, The Dominion of Providence Over the Passions of Men, 1776

"Socialism of any type leads to a total destruction of the human spirit." -- Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

"Republics are created by the virtue, public spirit, and intelligence of the citizens. They fall, when the wise are banished from the public councils, because they dare to be honest, and the profligate are rewarded, because they flatter the people, in order to betray them." -- Joseph Story, Commentaries on the Constitution, 1833

"No people will tamely surrender their Liberties, nor can any be easily subdued, when knowledge is diffused 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

"Dependence begets subservience and venality, suffocates the germ of virtue, and prepares fit tools for the designs of ambition." -- Thomas Jefferson

"Let us recollect that peace or war will not always be left to our option; that however moderate or unambitious we may be, we cannot count upon the moderation, or hope to extinguish the ambition of others." -- Alexander Hamilton

"We are firmly convinced, and we act on that conviction, that with nations as with individuals our interests soundly calculated will ever be found inseparable from our moral duties, and history bears witness to the fact that a just nation is trusted on its word when recourse is had to armaments and wars to bridle others." -- Thomas Jefferson, Second Inaugural Address, 180

"Is it not the glory of the people of America, that whilst they have paid a decent regard to the opinions of former times and other nations, they have not suffered a blind veneration for antiquity, for custom, or for names, to overrule the suggestions of their own good sense, the knowledge of their own situation, and the lessons of their own experience? To this manly spirit, posterity will be indebted for the possession, and the world for the example of the numerous innovations displayed on the American theatre, in favor of private rights and public happiness." -- James Madison, Federalist No. 14, 1787

"Conscience is the most sacred of all property." -- James Madison

"They are not to do anything they please to provide for the general welfare, but only to lay taxes for that purpose. To consider the latter phrase not as describing the purpose of the first, but as giving a distinct and independent power to do any act they please which may be good for the Union, would render all the preceding and subsequent enumerations of power completely useless. It would reduce the whole instrument to a single phrase, that of instituting a Congress with power to do whatever would be for the good of the United States; and as they would be the sole judges of the good or evil, it would be also a power to do whatever evil they please...Certainly no such universal power was meant to be given them. It was intended to lace them up straightly within the enumerated powers and those without which, as means, these powers could not be carried into effect." -- Thomas Jefferson, Opinion on a National Bank, 1791

"There can be no greater error than to expect, or calculate upon real favours from Nation to Nation." -- George Washington

"The era of procrastination, of half-measures, of soothing and baffling expedients, of delays, is coming to a close. In its place we are entering a period of consequences…" ­ Winston Churchill -

"There can be no proper relationship between one who is armed and one who is not; nor is it reasonable to expect that one who is armed will voluntarily obey one who is not, nor that the latter will ever feel secure among servants (slaves) who are armed." -- Machiavelli

"The democracy will cease to exist when you take away from those who are willing to work and give to those who would not." -- Thomas Jefferson

"[N]either the wisest constitution nor the wisest laws will secure the liberty and happiness of a people whose manners are universally corrupt." -- Samuel Adams (1749)

"The foundations of our national policy will be laid in the pure and immutable principles of private morality, and the preeminence of free government be exemplified by all the attributes which can win the affections of its citizens, and command the respect of the world." -- George Washington, First Inaugural Address, 1789

"I have sworn upon the altar of God, eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man." -- Thomas Jefferson

"I am commonly opposed to those who modestly assume the rank of champions of liberty, and make a very patriotic noise about the people. It is the stale artifice which has duped the world a thousand times, and yet, though detected, it is still successful. I love liberty as well as anybody. I am proud of it, as the true title of our people to distinction above others; but... I would guard it by making the laws strong enough to protect it." -- Fisher Ames, letter to George Richard Minot, 1789

"When a scientist tells you that "the science is settled" he's ceased to be a scientist, and he's become an evangelist for one cult or another. The entire history of science is that nothing in science is ever settled. New discoveries are continuously made, and they upend old certainties." --.Lamar Woolsey physicist and mathematician, in Dean Koontz's Brerathless

"A few short weeks will determine the political fate of America for the present generation, and probably produce no small influence on the happiness of society through a long succession of ages to come." -- George Washington (1788)

"Honor, justice, and humanity, forbid us tamely to surrender that freedom which we received from our gallant ancestors, and which our innocent posterity have a right to receive from us. We cannot endure the infamy and guilt of resigning succeeding generations to that wretchedness which inevitably awaits them if we basely entail hereditary bondage on them." -- Thomas Jefferson (Declaration of Causes and Necessity of Taking up Arms, July 6, 1775)

"The preservation of the sacred fire of liberty, and the destiny of the republican model of government, are justly considered deeply, perhaps as finally, staked on the experiment entrusted to the hands of the American people." --George Washington, First Inaugural Address, 1789

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