Liberty - Select Quotes
July 4, 2008
There is danger from all men. The only maxim of a free government ought to be to trust no man living with power to endanger the public liberty.
~ John Adams
It is no dishonor to be in a minority in the cause of liberty and virtue.
~ Samuel Adams
Power Corrupts - Select Quotes
June 15, 2008
~ Edward Abbey
Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men.
~ Lord Acton
Because power corrupts, society’s demands for moral authority and character increase as the importance of the position increases.
~ John Adams
Mark Twain (Samuel Langhorne Clemons) - Select Quotes
June 15, 2008
I am quite sure that (bar one) I have no race prejudices, and I think I have no color prejudices or caste prejudices nor creed prejudices. Indeed I know it. I can stand any society. All that I care to know is that a man is a human being–that is enough for me; he can’t be any worse.
~ in Harper Magazine, Sept. 1899
There are times when one would like to hang the whole human race, and finish the farce.
~ in the New York Tribune, Sept. 27, 1871
Man is a marvelous curiosity. When he is at his very, very best he is a sort of low-grade nickel-plated angel; at his worst he is unspeakable, unimaginable; and first and last and all the time his is a sarcasm. Yet he blandly and in all sincerity calls himself the “noblest work of God.”
~ in Letters from the Earth
It is by the goodness of God that in our country we have those three unspeakably precious things: freedom of speech, freedom of conscience, and the prudence never to practice either of them.
~ in Following the Equator
It takes your enemy and your friend, working together, to hurt you: the one to slander you, and the other to get the news to you.
~ in Following the Equator
Thomas Jefferson - Select Quotes
June 15, 2008
The Christian god can easily be pictured as virtually the same god as the many ancient gods of past civilizations. The Christian god is a three-headed monster; cruel, vengeful and capricious. If one wishes to know more of this raging, three-headed beast-like god, one only needs to look at the caliber of people who say they serve him. They are always of two classes: fools and hypocrites.
~ in a letter to his nephew Peter Carr
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 no to be exercised at all. I like a little rebellion now and then. It is like a storm in the atmosphere.
~ in a letter to Abigail Adams, 1787)
Who Was Jesus Of Nazareth? - Select Quotes
June 15, 2008
The most important questions that will ever be asked in this world are those regarding the identity of Jesus of Nazareth. Who was he? What was his mission? Why did he die? Was he resurrected?
Jesus, himself, asked his disciples, “Who do men say that I am?” Below you will find some of the answers that have been offered;
* * *
Aldous Huxley - Select Quotes
June 9, 2008
That we do not learn very much from the lessons of history is the most important of all the lessons of history.
~ in Collected Essays
Under favorable conditions, practically everybody can be converted to practically anything.
~ in Brave New World Revisited
Honesty - Select Quotes
June 8, 2008
One lie will destroy a whole reputation for integrity.
~ Baltasar Gracian, in The Art of Worldly Wisdom
It’s discouraging to think how many people are shocked by honesty and how few by deceit.
~ Noel Coward
An honest man is the noblest work of God.
~ Alexander Pope
Truth - Select Quotes
June 8, 2008
Seek the truth
Listen to the truth
Teach the truth
Love the truth
Abide by the truth
And defend the truth
Unto death.
~ John Hus
Government - Select Quotes
June 6, 2008
The worst thing in the world next to anarchy, is government.
~ Henry Ward Beecher, in Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit, 1867
In its reality, the state is always organized selfishness.
~ Emil Brunner, in The Divine Imperative (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1947) page 460
What can be more noble than the government of the state by virtue? For then the man who rules others is not himself a slave to any passion, but has already acquired for himself all those qualities to which he is training and summoning his fellows. such a man imposes no laws upon th epopple that he does not obey himself, but puts his own life before his fellow-citizens as their law.
~ Cicero, in Republic
A government big enough to give you everything you want is a government big enough to take from you everything you have.
~ Gerald R. Ford, in Time magazine November 8, 1976
Thomas Paine - Select Quotes
June 6, 2008
Time makes more Converts than Reason.
~ in Common Sense
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 their country; but he that stands it now deserves the love and thanks of men and women.
~ in The American Crisis
