Favorite Quotes

[JMJones0424]

The fundamental cause of the trouble is that in the modern world the stupid are cocksure while the intelligent are full of doubt.

- Bertrand Russell

[Turtle]

We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

...

~ done in Convention by the Unanimous Consent of the States present the Seventeenth Day of September in the Year of our Lord one thousand seven hundred and Eighty seven and of the Independence of the United States of America the Twelfth In witness whereof We have hereunto subscribed our Names, ...

[JMJones0424]

"We the people of the United States, to secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this constitution for the United States of America." Here is a better recognition of popular rights than volumes of those aphorisms which make the principal figure in several of our state bills of rights, and which would sound much better in a treatise of ethics than in a constitution of government....

-Alexander Hamilton (as Publius) Federalist Number 84

[coldcreation]

"Oh! thus be it ever, when freemen shall stand

Between their loved home and the war's desolation!

Blest with victory and peace, may the heav'n rescued land

Praise the Power that hath made and preserved us a nation.

Then conquer we must, when our cause it is just"

 

(Francis Scott Key 1814, The Star Spangled Banner)

[Turtle]

give me the liberty to know, to utter, and to argue freely according to conscience, above all liberties. ~ john milton

[Turtle]

if men were angels, no government would be necessary.

~ james madison (as Publius) federalist #51

[Turtle]

people who wish to know about the world must learn about it in its particular details. ~ heraclitus

[coldcreation]

"For my part I know nothing with any certainty, but the sight of the stars makes me dream."

~Vincent Van Gogh

[Turtle]

now I think I know what you tried to say to me,

how you suffered for your sanity,

how you tried to set them free.

they would not listen, they're not listening still.

perhaps they never will...

~ don mclean

[coldcreation]

"The problem with quotes from the internet is that it's hard to verify their authenticity. "

~Abraham Lincoln

[Turtle]

there was always an ambivalence in mr. lincoln's relationships with preachers, whom he was in the habit of imitating as a young boy. "i don't like to hear cut-and-dried sermons," mr. lincoln told sculptor henry volk. "no - when I hear a man preach, i like to see him act as if he were fighting bees!" preachers were among the favorite protagonists of mr. lincoln's stories.

~ rufus rockwell wilson, editor, intimate memories of lincoln, p. 243 (leonard wells volk, century magazine, december 1881)

[coldcreation]

Allow the president to invade a neighboring nation, whenever he shall deem it necessary to repel an invasion, and you allow him to do so whenever he may choose to say he deems it necessary for such a purpose - and you allow him to make war at pleasure. :rolleyes:

~Abraham Lincoln

[geko]

The true and equitable law of humanity is the free exchange of service for service.

 

Spoliation consists in destroying by force or by trickery the freedom of exchange, in order to receive a service without rendering one.

 

Forcible spoliation is exercised thus: Wait till a man has produced something; then take it away from him by violence.

 

When practiced by one individual on another, it is called robbery, and leads to the prison; when practiced among nations, it takes the name of conquest, and leads to glory.

 

~Bastiat

[geko]

A tyrant is fond of making wars as a means of keeping his subjects in employment and in continual need of a commander.

 

~Aristotle

 

 

War, armed conflict between organised political groups, has been the universal norm in human history.

 

~Sir Michael Howard.

[geko]

Everyone carries a part of society on his shoulders; no one is relieved of his or her responsibility by others, and no one can find a safe way out if society is sweeping towards destruction. Whether he chooses or not, every man is drawn into the historical struggle, the decisive battle into which our epoch has plunged us.

 

~Ludwig Von Mises

[Turtle]

in this and like communities, public sentiment is everything. with public sentiment, nothing can fail; without it nothing can succeed. consequently he who moulds public sentiment, goes deeper than he who enacts statutes or pronounces decisions. he makes statutes and decisions possible or impossible to be executed.

~ a. lincoln @ douglas debate in ottawa il 1858

[Turtle]

facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, or the dictates of our passion, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence. ~ john adams