Many favorite quotes:

Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn't pass it to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same, or one day we will spend our sunset years telling our children and our children's children what it was once like in the United States where men were free. - Ronald Reagan

In a world older and more complete than ours, animals move finished and complete, gifted with extensions of the senses we have lost or never attained, living by voices we shall never hear. They are not underlings; they are other nations, caught with ourselves in the net of life and time, fellow prisoners of the splendor and travail of the earth. - Henry Beston

There may be times when we are powerless to prevent injustice, but there must never be a time when we fail to protest. - Elie Wiesel

* A good politician is quite as unthinkable as an honest burglar.
* For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong.
* The most dangerous man to any government is the man who is able to think things out...without regard to the prevailing superstitions and taboos. Almost inevitably he comes to the conclusion that the government he lives under is dishonest, insane, intolerable.
* The fact that I have no remedy for all the sorrows of the world is no reason for my accepting yours. It simply supports the strong probability that yours is a fake.
* The New Deal began, like the Salvation Army, by promising to save humanity. It ended, again like the Salvation Army, by running flop-houses and disturbing the peace.
* It is the fundamental theory of all the more recent American law...that the average citizen is half-witted, and hence not to be trusted to either his own devices or his own thoughts.
* Creator - A comedian whose audience is afraid to laugh.
* Truth would quickly cease to become stranger than fiction, once we got as used to it.
* We must respect the other fellow's religion, but only in the sense and to the extent that we respect his theory that his wife is beautiful and his children smart.
* I confess I enjoy democracy immensely. It is incomparably idiotic, and hence incomparably amusing.
* Life is a constant oscillation between the sharp horns of dilemmas.
* Liberals have many tails and chase them all.
* Every normal man must be tempted at times to spit upon his hands, hoist the black flag, and begin slitting throats.
* Hanging one scoundrel, it appears, does not deter the next. Well, what of it? The first one is at least disposed of.
* Puritanism: The haunting fear that someone, somewhere, may be happy.
* Say what you will about the Ten Commandments, you must always come back to the pleasant fact that there are only ten of them.
* Unquestionably, there is progress. The average American now pays twice as much in taxes as he formerly got in wages.
- H.L. Mencken

For this reason I say to you, do not be worried about your life, as to what you will eat or what you will drink; nor for your body, as to what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air, that they do not sow, nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not worth much more than they? And who of you by being worried can add a single hour to his life? And why are you worried about clothing? Observe how the lilies of the field grow; they do not toil nor do they spin, yet I say to you that not even Solomon in all his glory clothed himself like one of these. But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which is alive today and tomorrow is thrown into the furnace, will He not much more clothe you? You of little faith! Do not worry then, saying, "What will we eat?' or "What will we drink?' or "What will we wear for clothing?' For the Gentiles eagerly seek all these things; for your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. But seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things will be added to you. So do not worry about tomorrow; for tomorrow will care for itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.
- Matthew 6:25-34

* All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.
* Better be despised for too anxious apprehensions, than ruined by too confident security.
* It is the nature of all greatness not to be exact.
* Nobody makes a greater mistake than he who does nothing because he could only do a little.
* Those who have been once intoxicated with power, and have derived any kind of emolument from it, even though but for one year, never can willingly abandon it. They may be distressed in the midst of all their power; but they will never look to anything but power for their relief.
* Depend on it that the lovers of freedom will be free.
* They defend their errors as if they were defending their inheritance.
* It is a general popular error to suppose the loudest complainers for the public to be the most anxious for its welfare.
* Example is the school of mankind, and they will learn at no other.
* The true danger is when liberty is nibbled away, for expedience, and by parts.
* There never was a bad man that had ability for good service.
* There is no safety for honest men except by believing all possible evil of evil men.
* No government ought to exist for the purpose of checking the prosperity of its people or to allow such a principle in its policy.
-Edmund Burke

* To grasp the true meaning of socialism, imagine a world where everything is designed by the post office, even the sleaze.
* Everybody wants to save the earth; nobody wants to help Mom do the dishes.
* Politics is the business of getting power and privilege without possessing merit. A politician is anyone who asks individuals to surrender part of their liberty - their power and privilege - to State, Masses, Mankind, Planet Earth, or whatever. This state, those masses, that mankind, and the planet will then be run by ... politicians.
* Human problems are complex. If something isn't complex it doesn't qualify as problematic. Very simple bad things are not worth troubling ourselves about.
* Fretting about overpopulation, is a perfect guilt-free - indeed, sanctimonious - way for "progressives" to be racists.
* When a thing defies physical law, there's usually politics involved.
* Anyone who thinks he has a better idea of what's good for people than people do is a swine.
* I guess the argument of contextuality is that anything is okay as long as it's done by people who are sufficiently unlike you.
* Idealism is based on big ideas. And, as anybody who has ever been asked "What's the big idea?" knows, most big ideas are bad ones.
* In a society where commonweal does not exist, there are no duties, only exactations to be avoided, and no freedoms, only privileges to be grabbed. There can be no such thing as "public services" because nothing in the country is truly public. Everything is somebody's fief. And every fief must be exploited if the exploiter cares to survive.
* Bureaucrats want bigger bueraus. Special interests are interested in whatever's special to them. These two groups bring great pressure to bear upon politicians who have another agenda yet: to cater to the temporary whims and fads of the public and the press.
* Government subsidies can be critically analyzed according to a simple principle: You are smarter than the government, so when the government pays you to do something you wouldn't do on your own, it is almost always paying you to do something stupid.
* Schneider has made a career of telling the public that the climate is going to change drastically any time now, and indeed every spring and fall he's been right.
* When government does, occasionally, work, it works in an elitist fashion. That is, government is most easily manipulated by people who have money and power already. This is why government benefits usually go to people who don't need benefits from government. Government may make some environmental improvements, but these will be improvements for rich bird-watchers. And no one in government will remember that when poor people go bird-watching they do it at Kentucky Fried Chicken.
* The observers had a logbook recording the assaults, bombings, and artillery attacks on the area. Each page was ruled in vertical columns: DATE, TIME, LOCATION, DAMAGE, CASUALTIES. The columns headed ACTION TAKEN BY THE UN were completely empty.
* When a private entity does not produce the desired results, it is (certain body parts excepted) done away with. But a public entity gets bigger.
* Never fight an inanimate object.
* When buying and selling are controlled by legislation, the first things to be bought and sold are legislators.
- P.J. O'Rourke

* The vast majority of the race, whether savage or civilized, are secretly kind-hearted and shrink from inflicting pain, but in the presence of the aggressive and pitiless minority they don't dare to assert themselves.
* Life does not consist mainly, or even largely, of facts and happenings. It consists mainly of the storm of thought that is forever flowing through one's head.
* Always acknowledge a fault. This will throw those in authority off their guard and give you an opportunity to commit more.
* No man's life, liberty, or property is safe while the legislature is in session.
* God made the Idiot for practice, and then He made the School Board.
* If a man could be crossed with the cat, it would improve man, but it would deteriorate the cat.
* Heaven goes by favour. If it went by merit, you would stay out and your dog would go in.
* Get your facts first, and then you can distort them as much as you please.
* Whenever you find that you are on the side of the majority, it is time to reform.
* The rule is perfect: in all matters of opinion our adversaries are insane.
* Keep away from people who try to belittle your ambitions. Small people always do that, but the really great make you feel that you, too, can become great.
* One man alone can be pretty dumb sometimes, but for real bona fide stupidity there ain't nothing can beat teamwork.
* I've dealt with many crises in my life, but few will ever happen.
* Wrinkles should merely indicate where smiles have been.
* For in a Republic, who is "the country?" Is it the Government which is for the moment in the saddle? Why, the Government is merely a servant- merely a temporary servant; it cannot be its prerogative to determine what is right and what is wrong, and decide who is a patriot and who isn't. Its function is to obey orders, not originate them.
* Why is it that people rejoice at a birth and grieve at a funeral? It is because we are not the people involved.
* Loyalty to petrified opinion never yet broke a chain or freed a human soul.
* Nothing so needs reforming as other people's habits.
* If God had meant for us to be naked, we'd have been born that way.
* The man who sets out to carry a cat by its tail learns something that will always be useful and which never will grow dim or doubtful.
* It could probably be shown by facts and figures that there is no distinctly native American criminal class except Congress.
* The human race has one really effective weapon, and that is laughter.
- Mark Twain

Judge not, that you be not judged. For with what judgment you judge, you will be judged; and with the measure you use, it will be measured back to you. And why do you look at the speck in your brother's eye, but do not consider the plank in your own eye? Or how can you say to your brother, "Let me remove the speck from your eye'; and look, a plank is in your own eye? Hypocrite! First remove the plank from your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother's eye. - Matthew 7:1-5.

* If all mankind minus one were of one opinion, and only one person were of the contrary opinion, mankind would be no more justified in silencing that one person than he, if he had the power, would be justified in silencing mankind.
* Whatever crushes individuality is despotism, by whatever name it may be called.
* The individual is not accountable to society for his actions, insofar as these concern the interests of no person but himself.
* ... the only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized community against his will is to prevent harm to others. His own good, either physical or moral, is not a sufficient warrant. He cannot rightfully be compelled to do or to forbear because it will be better for him to do so, because it will make him happier, because in the opinions of others to do so would be wise or even right. These are good reasons for remonstrating with him , or reasoning with him, or persuading him, or entreating him, but not for compelling him, or visiting him with any evil in case he do otherwise. To justify that, the conduct from which it is desired to deter him must be calculated to produce evil to someone else.
* He who knows only his own side of the case, knows little of that.
* War is an ugly thing but not the ugliest of things; the decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feelings which thinks that nothing is worth war is much worse. A man who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself.
- On Liberty, John Stuart Mill

When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.
--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed,
--That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.
Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. - Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson

* Sometimes it is said that man cannot be trusted with the government of himself. Can he, then, be trusted with the government of others? Or have we found angels in the forms of kings to govern him?
* 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 not to be exercised at all.
* That government is best which governs the least, because its people discipline themselves.
* The care of every man's soul belongs to himself. But what if he neglect the care of it? Well what if he neglect the care of his health or his estate, which would more nearly relate to the state. Will the magistrate make a law that he not be poor or sick? Laws provide against injury from others; but not from ourselves. God himself will not save men against their wills.
In matters of style, swim with the current. In matters of principle, stand like a rock.
* I predict future happiness for Americans if they can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them.
* Of liberty I would say that, in the whole plentitude of its extent, it is unobstructed action according to our will. But rightful liberty is unobstructed action according to our will within limits drawn around us by the equal rights of others. I do not add 'within the limits of the law,' because law is often but the tyrant's will, and always so when it violates the right of an individual.
- Thomas Jefferson

If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames, but have not love I gain nothing. Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always perseveres. Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away...And now these things remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love. -1 Corinthians 13:1-8, 13