Important Quotes - A Short Collection

FreeRepublic ^ | 04/24/2009 | Various

[Loud Mime]

If thought corrupts language, language can also corrupt thought.
George Orwell

"In a prison they may torture your body; but they do not torture your brains; and they protect you against outrage and violence from your fellow prisoners. In a school you have none of these advantages."
George Bernard Shaw

“It is not because the truth is too difficult to see that we make mistakes... we make mistakes because the easiest and most comfortable course for us is to seek insight where it accords with our emotions - especially selfish ones.
Alexander Solzhenitsyn

“Violence can only be concealed by a lie, and the lie can only be maintained by violence. Any man who has once proclaimed violence as his method is inevitably forced to take the lie as his principle.”
Alexander Solzhenitsyn

“For us in Russia communism is a dead dog. For many people in the West, it is still a living lion.”
Alexander Solzhenitsyn

The Hand of providence has been so conspicuous in all this, that he must be worse than an infidel that lacks faith, and more than wicked, that has not gratitude enough to acknowledge his obligations.”
George Washington

No political truth is certainly of greater intrinsic value, or is stamped with the authority of more enlightened patrons of liberty than that on which the objection is founded. The accumulation of all powers, legislative, executive, and judiciary, in the same hands, whether of one, a few, or many, and whether hereditary, self-appointed, or elective, may justly be pronounced the very definition of tyranny.
James Madison (Federalist No. 48, 1 February 1788)

A Man may, if he know not how to save, keep his Nose to the Grindstone, and die not wirth a Groat at last.
Benjamin Franklin (Poor Richard's Almanack, 1742)

“Against the insidious wiles of foreign influence... the jealousy of a free people ought to be constantly awake.”
George Washington

We have therefore to resolve to conquer or die: Our won Country's Honor, all call upon us for vigorous and manly exertion, and if we now shamefully fail, we shall become infamous to the whole world. Let us therefore rely upon the goodness of the Cause, and the aid of the supreme Being, in whose hands Victory is, to animate and encourage us to great and noble Actions.
George Washington (General Orders, 2 July 1776)

“Newspapers... serve as chimnies to carry off noxious vapors and smoke.”
Thomas Jefferson

“Our problems are both acute and chronic, yet all we hear from those in positions of leadership are the same tired proposals for more government tinkering, more meddling and more control—all of which led us to this state in the first place... We must have the clarity of vision to see the difference between what is essential and what is merely desirable, and then the courage to bring our government back under control and make it acceptable to the people.”
Ronald Reagan

“There are two races of men in this world, but only these two—the ‘race’ of the decent man and the ‘race’ of the indecent man.”
Viktor Frankl

“[T]he Constitution does not say Government shall decree the right to keep and bear arms. The Constitution says ‘The right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed’.”
Ronald Reagan

“The punishment of wise men who refuse to take part in the government is to live under the government of worse men.”
Plato

“What can be added to the happiness of a man who is in health, out of debt, and has a clear conscience?”
Adam Smith

The State governments possess inherent advantages, which will ever give them an influence and ascendancy over the National Government, and will for ever preclude the possibility of federal encroachments. That their liberties, indeed, can be subverted by the federal head, is repugnant to every rule of political calculation.
Alexander Hamilton (speech to the New York Ratifying Convention, 17 June 1788

I now make it my earnest prayer, that God would have you, and the State over which you preside, in his holy protection, that he would incline the hearts of the Citizens to cultivate a spirit of subordination and obedience to Government, to entertain a brotherly affection and love for one another, for their fellow Citizens of the United States at large, and particularly for their brethren who have served in the Field, and finally, that he would most graciously be pleased to dispose us all, to do Justice, to love mercy, and to demean ourselves with that Charity, humility and pacific temper of mind, which were the Characteristicks of the Divine Author of our blessed Religion, and without an humble imitation of whose example in these things, we can never hope to be a happy Nation.
George Washington (circular letter of farewell to the Army, 8 June 1783)

Every man who loves peace, every man who loves his country, every man who loves liberty ought to have it ever before his eyes that he may cherish in his heart a due attachment to the Union of America and be able to set a due value on the means of preserving it.
James Madison (Federalist No. 41.)

“They define a republic to be a government of laws, and not of men.”
John Adams

A good government implies two things; first, fidelity to the objects of the government; secondly, a knowledge of the means, by which those objects can be best attained.
Joseph Story (Commentaries on the Constitution, 1833)

“I consider the foundation of the Constitution as laid on this ground that ‘all powers not delegated to the United States, by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states or to the people.’ To take a single step beyond the boundaries thus specially drawn around the powers of Congress, is to take possession of a boundless field of power, not longer susceptible of any definition.”
Thomas Jefferson

I only regret that I have but one life to lose for my country.
Nathan Hale (before being hanged by the British, 22 September 1776)

[Loud Mime]

PING

[Tax-chick]

"In a prison they may torture your body; but they do not torture your brains; and they protect you against outrage and violence from your fellow prisoners. In a school you have none of these advantages."

Wasn't true in Shaw's day, and it isn't true now. Other than that ...

[ontap]

Wonderful post!!!

[RC2]

This statement alone tells us to control our State governments and we will control the Federal Government.

“The State governments possess inherent advantages, which will ever give them an influence and ascendancy over the National Government, and will for ever preclude the possibility of federal encroachments. That their liberties, indeed, can be subverted by the federal head, is repugnant to every rule of political calculation.
Alexander Hamilton (speech to the New York Ratifying Convention, 17 June 1788 “

[LearsFool]

If thought corrupts language, language can also corrupt thought.
George Orwell

Keep that quote in mind, and listen to people talking. It's an eye-opener.

[AggieMom x 3]

bump

[zeugma]

More Quotes from my homepage.

[ClearCase_guy]

The lack of fluency in their own native language dooms a good many of our population to lower-class existence. You simply can't think clearly with the thought processes evidenced in the vocalizations of some of these people.

I don't believe it's an inability to express themselves well, I believe it's a vapid, low-quality way of thinking, held back by an inability to form a thought inside your own head that you yourself can actually understand.

[wastedyears]

My favorite: In the course of human events...

[LearsFool]

Exactly.

Someone described words as “thought capsules”. Without good words, or words well-defined, one’s very thoughts are limited. This is why language has come to be recognized as a socio-political battlefield - by the progressive-left, anyway. We on the conservative-right seem instead to cede most every linguistic battle without a fight. Then we marvel at the fact that Americans can’t think rationally, and instead fall victim to soundbite-itis and “blurry” speech.

Orwell warned us of the power of language and of its use, in the wrong hands, as a weapon of tyrants.

[MamaTexan]

“Our problems are both acute and chronic, yet all we hear from those in positions of leadership are the same tired proposals for more government tinkering, more meddling and more control—all of which led us to this state in the first place... We must have the clarity of vision to see the difference between what is essential and what is merely desirable, and then the courage to bring our government back under control and make it acceptable to the people.” Ronald Reagan

[sigh] We could sure use a big dose of Reagan about now.

Thanks for the PING!

[saveliberty]

“Of all tyrannies, a tyranny exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their consciences.” –C.S. Lewis”

h/t The Anchoress

[Loud Mime]

Well, each to varying points. But I like how Shaw described schools.

In SUPERMAX they are quite well protected from each other. But in the Cumberland Penitentiary Riot in New Mexico, the degree of outrage and violence surprised the most hardened of the LE types.

[Loud Mime]

Thank You! Quite a collection!

[Tax-chick]

In SUPERMAX they are quite well protected from each other.

I suppose that's true, but that is far from the usual conditions of incarceration. He was right about schools, though!

[mick]

Good stuff !

[philled]

Another from George Bernard Shaw:

A government that robs Peter to pay Paul can always depend on the support of Paul.

[sauropod]

Good post.

[Kent C]

This statement alone tells us to control our State governments and we will control the Federal Government.

I agree. And that, from a Federalist! ;-)

Thanks Loud Mind.

[zeugma]

You’re quite welcome. Been building that for years.

[Skooz]

I may have to add some of these to the collection on my profile page.

Thanks.

[Rapscallion]

“If you want a vision of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face — forever.” George Orwell