Sayings
Issue #108 Posted  July 2017

"Is there no virtue among us? If there be not, we are in a wretched situation. No theoretical checks-no form of government can render us secure. To suppose that any form of government will secure liberty or happiness without any virtue in the people, is a chimerical idea." -- James Madison (1788)

"There is no worse tyranny than to force a man to pay for what he does not want merely because you think it would be good for him." -- Robert A. Heinlein, The Moon is a Harsh Mistress

"Loyalty to the country always. Loyalty to 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." -- President Harry Truman

"The greatest good we can do our country is to heal its party divisions and make them one people." -- Thomas Jefferson (1801)

"While I'm willing to accept war famine plague and pestilence I intend to ask God "Why liberals?" -- Jack B.

"A drug is not bad. A drug is a chemical compound. The problem comes in when people who take drugs treat them like a license to behave like an asshole." Frank Zappa (who, surprising to many people, neither drank nor did drugs of any kind)

"I always tell my students that non-violence protest only works if your oppressor is civilized." -- Tom G.

"In selecting men for office, let principle be your guide. Regard not the particular sect or denomination of the candidate -- look to hiis character." -- Noah Webster (1789)

"The mobs of the great cities add just so much to the support of pure government as sores do to the strength of the human body. It is the manners and spirit of a people, which preserve a republic in vigor. A degeneracy in these is a canker which soon eats to the heart of its laws and constitution." -- Thomas Jefferson (1787)

"Government is the natural enemy of freedom and must always be carefully controlled." -- Tom G.

"The authority, the interests, and the affections of the people at large are the only foundation, on which a superstructure proposed to be at once durable and magnificent, can be rationally erected." -- James Wilson

"In these modern times, many are wounded for not having weapons, nor knowledge of their use." Achille Marozzo, 1536

"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 (1788)

"[T]he happiness of man, as well as his dignity, consists in virtue." -- John Adams (1776)

"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 (1808)

"I expect that a just, dispassionate and steady conduct, will at length rally to a proper system the great body of our country. 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 (1801)

"It is an unquestionable truth, that the body of the people in every country desire sincerely its prosperity. But it is equally unquestionable that they do not possess the discernment and stability necessary for systematic government. To deny that they are frequently led into the grossest of errors, by misinformation and passion, would be a flattery which their own good sense must despise." -- Alexander Hamilton (1788)

"The ingredients which constitute safety in the republican sense are, first, a due dependence on the people, secondly, a due responsibility." -- Alexander Hamilton (1788)

"It has been a source of great pain to me to have met with so many among [my] opponents who had not the liberality to distinguish between political and social opposition; who transferred at once to the person, the hatred they bore to his political opinions." -- Thomas Jefferson (1808)

"Nothing is so contagious as opinion, especially on questions which, being susceptible of very different glosses, beget in the mind a distrust of itself." -- James Madison (1790)

"In proportion as the structure of a government gives force to public opinion, it is essential that public opinion should be enlightened." -- George Washington (1796)

"In the midst of these pleasing ideas we should be unfaithful to ourselves if we should ever lose sight of the danger to our liberties if anything partial or extraneous should infect the purity of our free, fair, virtuous, and independent elections." -- John Adams (1797)

"There is no maxim in my opinion which is more liable to be misapplied, and which therefore needs elucidation than the current one that the interest of the majority is the political standard of right and wrong." -- James Madison (1786)

"It is necessary for every American, with becoming energy to endeavor to stop the dissemination of principles evidently destructive of the cause for which they have bled." -- Mercy Warren (1805)

"He that would make his own liberty secure, must guard even his enemy from oppression; for if he violates this duty, he establishes a precedent that will reach to himself." -- Thomas Paine (1791)

"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 (1773)

"It is the madness of folly, to expect mercy from those who have refused to do justice; and even mercy, where conquest is the object, is only a trick of war; the cunning of the fox is as murderous as the violence of the wolf." -- Thomas Paine (1776)

"In politics, as in religion, it is equally absurd to aim at making proselytes by fire and sword. Heresies in either can rarely be cured by persecution." -- Alexander Hamilton (1787)

"In reality there is perhaps no one of our natural Passions so hard to subdue as Pride. Disguise it, struggle with it, beat it down, stifle it, mortify it as much as one pleases, it is still alive, and will now and then peek out and show itself." -- Benjamin Franklin (1771)

"National defense is one of the cardinal duties of a statesman." -- John Adams (1815)

"[W]hen all government, domestic and foreign, in little as in great things, shall be drawn to Washington as the center of all power, it will render powerless the checks provided of one government on another." -- "Thomas Jefferson (1821)

"[T]he first transactions of a nation ... are to form the leading traits in its character." -- George Washington (1788)

"Man, once surrendering his reason, has no remaining guard against absurdities the most monstrous, and like a ship without rudder, is the spot of every wind. With such persons, gullability takes the helm from the hand of reason and the mind becomes a wreck." -- Thomas Jefferson (18222)

"[W]hereas, to preserve liberty, it is essential that the whole body of the people always possess arms, and be taught alike, especially when young, how to use them." -- Federal Farmer (1787)

"To judge from the history of mankind, we shall be compelled to conclude that the fiery and destructive passions of war reign in the human breast with much more powerful sway than the mild and beneficent sentiments of peace; and that to model our political systems upon speculations of lasting tranquillity would be to calculate on the weaker springs of human character." -- Alexander Hamilton (1788)

"The power of accurate observation is commonly called cynicism by those who don't have it." -- George Bernard Shaw

"Lectures you deliver may be wise and true, Yet, I'd rather get my lesson by observing what you do. For I may misunderstand you, and the high advice you give, But, there's no misunderstanding the way you act and live. -- Edgar A Guest

"[N]o wall of words, [and] no mound of parchment can be so formed as to stand against the sweeping torrent of boundless ambition on the one side, aided by the sapping current of corrupted morals on the other." â€"George Washington (1789)

"There is a rank due to the United States, among nations, which will be withheld, if not absolutely lost, by the reputation of weakness. If we desire to avoid insult, we must be able to repel it; if we desire to secure peace, one of the most powerful instruments of our rising prosperity, it must be known that we are at all times ready for war." -- Georgee Washington (1793)

"I think the best way of doing good to the poor, is not making them easy in poverty, but leading or driving them out of it. In my youth I travelled much, and I observed in different countries, that the more public provisions were made for the poor, the less they provided for themselves, and of course became poorer. And, on the contrary, the less was done for them, the more they did for themselves, and became richer." -- Benjamin Franklin (1766)

"If liberty of the press ... means the liberty of affronting, calumniating and defaming one another, I, for my part, own myself willing to part with my share of it..." -- Benjamin Franklin (1789)

"The fundamental source of all your errors, sophisms and false reasonings is a total ignorance of the natural rights of mankind. Were you once to become acquainted with these, you could never entertain a thought, that all men are not, by nature, entitled to a parity of privileges. You would be convinced, that natural liberty is a gift of the beneficent Creator to the whole human race, and that civil liberty is founded in that; and cannot be wrested from any people, without the most manifest violation of justice." -- Alexander Hamilton (1775)

"[A] good moral character is the first essential in a man, and that the habits contracted at your age are generally indelible, and your conduct here may stamp your character through life. It is therefore highly important that you should endeavor not only to be learned but virtuous." -- George Washington (1790)

"A sad commentary. We buy stuff we used to build and waste our resources feeding the unproductive." -- Chuck B.

"To every man upon this earth death cometh soon or late. And how can man die better than facing fearful odds, for the ashes of his fathers and the temples of his gods" -- Horatius at the Bridge, Thomas Babington, Lord Macaulay

"[A] good moral character is the first essential in a man, and that the habits contracted at your age are generally indelible, and your conduct here may stamp your character through life. It is therefore highly important that you should endeavor not only to be learned but virtuous." -- George Washington (1790)

"Give up money, give up fame, give up science, give the earth itself and all it contains rather than do an immoral act. And never suppose that in any possible situation, or under any circumstances, it is best for you to do a dishonorable thing, however slightly so it may appear to you." -- Thomas Jefferson (1785)

"Gentlemen, you will permit me to put on my spectacles, for I have grown not only gray, but almost blind in the service of my country." -- George Washington (1783)

"Society owes equal opportunity. It does not owe equal results." -- Gary C.

"A lie stands on one leg, a truth on two." -- Benjamin Franklin (1735)

"If you come here legally you are an "IMMIGRANT. If you here illegally, then you may be more accurately described as a "FOREIGN INVADER" or "CRIMINAL INFILTRATER." -- Mike B.

"[T]he policy or advantage of [immigration] taking place in a body (I mean the settling of them in a body) may be much questioned; for, by so doing, they retain the Language, habits and principles (good or bad) which they bring with them." -- George Washington (1794)

"In a society under the forms of which the stronger faction can readily unite and oppress the weaker, anarchy may as truly be said to reign as in a state of nature." -- James Madison (1788)

"A fondness for power is implanted, in most men, and it is natural to abuse it, when acquired." -- Alexander Hamilton (1775)

"Resolve to perform what you ought. Perform without fail what you resolve." -- Benjamin Franklin (1771)

"No government ought to be without censors & where the press is free, no one ever will." -- Thomas Jefferson (1792)

"But the mild voice of reason, pleading the cause of an enlarged and permanent interest, is but too often drowned, before public bodies as well as individuals, by the clamors of an impatient avidity for immediate and immoderate gain." -- James Madison (1788)

"A dying culture invariably exhibits personal rudeness. Bad manners. Lack of consideration for others in minor matters. A loss of politeness, of gentle manners, is more significant than is a riot." -- Robert A. Heinlein, Friday

"Man, once surrendering his reason, has no remaining guard against absurdities the most monstrous, and like a ship without rudder, is the sport of every wind. With such persons, gullibility, which they call faith, takes the helm from the hand of reason and the mind becomes a wreck." -- Thomas Jefferson (1822)

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