QUOTES ARCHIVE

Updated Constantly

My Three Favorite Quotes of All Time

One: “Nothing in this world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful people with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent. The slogan "press on" has solved and always will solve the problems of the human race”

More Calvin Coolidge Quotes

Two: "It is not the critic who counts, not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly...who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, who spends himself in a worthy cause, who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who have never known neither victory nor defeat."

Teddy Roosevelt

Three: Common Man

I do not choose to be a common man. It is my right to be uncommon—if I can. I seek opportunity—not security. I do not wish to be a kept citizen, humbled and dulled by having the state look after me. I want to take the calculated risk; to dream and to build, to fail and to succeed. I refuse to barter incentive for a dole. I prefer the challenges of life to the guaranteed existence; the thrill of fulfillment to the stale calm of utopia. I will not trade freedom for beneficence nor my dignity for a handout. I will never cower before any master nor bend to any threat. It is my heritage to stand erect, proud and unafraid; to think and act for myself, enjoy the benefit of my creations, and to face the world boldly and say, this I have done. All this is what it means to be an American.    - Dean Alfange

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"Americans sleep peacefully in their beds at night because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf" - George Orwell

Click her right on the lips!

Below is one of my favorites. It's from Alexander Tyler, and no, he wasn't writing about the United States. This quote is well over one hundred years old. Tyler was writing about the fall of the Athenian Republic.

"A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves money from the public treasure. From that moment on the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most money from the public treasury, with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy followed by a dictatorship. The average age of the world's great civilizations has been two hundred years. These nations have progressed through the following sequence: from bondage to spiritual faith, from spiritual faith to great courage, from courage to liberty, from liberty to abundance, from abundance to selfishness, from selfishness to complacency from complacency to apathy, from apathy to dependency, from dependency back to bondage."

"Promote then as an object of primary importance, Institutions for the general diffusion of knowledge. In proportion as the structure of a government gives force to public opinion, it is essential that public opinion should be enlightened."    - George Washington, Farewell Address, September 19, 1796

"Politicians never accuse you of 'greed' for wanting other people's money --- only for wanting to keep your own money." [Joseph Sobran]



 
Sir Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill (1874-1965)

Here is a man who understood the Manly virtue of "Peace through Strength." He flew in the face of the weakness that had previously prevailed in dealing with Hitler. Of course, that weakness is the thing that allowed Hitler to grow to global proportions. But Sir Winston knew that is was FAR more perilous to allow evil to go unopposed than it is to be willing to wage all-out war. Without Sir Churchill, the entire world would likely have fallen to the Nazis. That very nearly happened even with his stalwart refusal to let Hitler prevail. We would all do well to learn from his example in the face of the current threats we now face. Bullies are a constant; how we cope with them is the only variable in that equation.

In addition, he has a lot of great commentary on economic and social policy too...wielded with a wit that makes him entertaining enough for even the pop culture crowd - who need entertainment more than they seem to need Wisdom.

Churchill Quotes:

We make a living by what we get, but we make a life by what we give.

There is no such thing as a good tax.

Some see private enterprise as a predatory target to be shot, others as a cow to be milked, but few are those who see it as a sturdy horse pulling the wagon.

The inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of blessings; the inherent virtue of socialism is the equal sharing of miseries.

We contend that for a nation to tax itself into prosperity is like a man standing in a bucket and trying to lift himself up by the handle.

An appeaser is one who feeds a crocodile—hoping it will eat him last.

The problems of victory are more agreeable than the problems of defeat, but they are no less difficult.

From now on, ending a sentence with a preposition is something up with which I shall not put.

A fanatic is one who can’t change his mind and won’t change the subject.

Bessie Braddock: “Sir, you are drunk.” 
Churchill: “Madam, you are ugly. In the morning, I shall be sober.”

Nancy Astor: “Sir, if you were my husband, I would give you poison.”
Churchill: “If I were your husband I would take it.”

A lie gets halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to get its pants on.

Once in a while you will stumble upon the truth but most of us manage to pick ourselves up and hurry along as if nothing had happened.

If you are going to go through hell, keep going.

It is a good thing for an uneducated man to read books of quotations.

You have enemies? Good. That means you’ve stood up for something, sometime in your life.

If you have ten thousand regulations, you destroy all respect for the law.

You can always count on Americans to do the right thing—after they’ve tried everything else.

History will be kind to me for I intend to write it.

Writing a book is an adventure. To begin with, it is a toy and an amusement; then it becomes a mistress, and then it becomes a master, and then a tyrant. The last phase is that just as you are about to be reconciled to your servitude, you kill the monster, and fling him out to the public.

The farther backward you can look, the farther forward you are likely to see.

A sheep in sheep’s clothing. (On Clement Atlee)

A modest man, who has much to be modest about. (On Clement Atlee)

I am ready to meet my Maker. Whether my Maker is prepared for the ordeal of meeting me is another matter.

The truth is incontrovertible, malice may attack it, ignorance may deride it, but in the end; there it is.

A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty.

To improve is to change; to be perfect is to change often.

Politics is the ability to foretell what is going to happen tomorrow, next week, next month and next year. And to have the ability afterwards to explain why it didn’t happen.

Socialism is a philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance, and the gospel of envy.

Solitary trees, if they grow at all, grow strong.

Success consists of going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm.

The best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter.

It has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all the others that have been tried.

Everyone has his day and some days last longer than others.

The whole history of the world is summed up in the fact that, when nations are strong, they are not always just, and when they wish to be just, they are no longer strong.

From Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic, an iron curtain has descended across the Continent.

-“The Sinews of Peace” speech, Westminster College, Fulton, Missouri, March 5, 1945

If Hitler invaded hell I would make at least a favorable reference to the devil in the House of Commons.

Those who can win a war well can rarely make a good peace and those who could make a good peace would never have won the war.

Courage is the first of human qualities because it is the quality that guarantees all the others.

The problems of victory are more agreeable than those of defeat, but they are no less difficult.

If you will not fight for right when you can easily win without blood shed; if you will not fight when your victory is sure and not too costly; you may come to the moment when you will have to fight with all the odds against you and only a precarious chance of survival. There may even be a worse case. You may have to fight when there is no hope of victory, because it is better to perish than to live as slaves.

You ask, What is our policy? I will say; “It is to wage war, by sea, land and air, with all our might and with all the strength that God can give us: to wage war against a monstrous tyranny, never surpassed in the dark lamentable catalogue of human crime. That is our policy.” You ask, What is our aim? I can answer with one word: Victory—victory at all costs, victory in spite of all terror, victory however long and hard the road may be; for without victory there is no survival.

We shall not flag or fail. We shall go on to the end. We shall fight in France, we shall fight on the seas and the oceans, we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air, we shall defend our island, whatever the cost may be. We shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender.

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The grass is only greener on the other side because somebody over there has done the watering and fertilizing that you could do where you are    - Marc Heileman

"The wise man will want to be ever with him who is better than himself."
- Plato

The aim of public education is not to spread enlightenment at all; it is simply to reduce as many individuals as possible to the same safe level, to breed and train a standardized citizenry, to put down dissent and originality. That is its aim in the United States, whatever pretensions of politicians, pedagogues other such mountebanks, and that is its aim everywhere else. --- H. L. Mencken from "The American Mercury"

To be a liberal, you have to believe that ….

1. The AIDS virus is spread by a lack of funding.
2. Trial lawyers are selfless heroes and that doctors are overpaid.
3. Global temperatures are affected more by a suburban soccer mom driving an SUV than by documented, cyclical variations in the brightness and intensity of the sun.
4. Guns in the hands of law-abiding Americans are more of a threat than nuclear, chemical and biological weapons in the hands of Saddam Hussein.
5. Businesses create oppression and government creates prosperity.
6. Self-esteem is more important than doing anything to earn it.
7. There was no art before federal funding.
8. The NRA is a bad organization because it stands up for certain parts of the Constitution, but the ACLU is a good organization because it stands up for certain parts of the Constitution.
9. Taxes are too low but ATM fees are too high.
10. Standardized tests are racist, but racial quotas are not.
11. ANY change in the weather is proof of global warming.
12. National wealth is determined by what we consume, not by what we produce.
13. The only wars in which America should become involved are those in which our national security is not at risk.
14. Perjury and obstruction of justice are impeachable if a Republican president commits them but a harmless, private matter if a Democrat president commits them.
15. America can have a strong military without spending money on it.
16. The way to improve public school is to give more money and power to the very people who have misused that power and money to destroy the public schools.
17. Hunters and fishermen do not care about the environment but pasty-faced activists that rarely venture out-of-doors do.
18. A bureaucrat living in Washington, D.C. can make better decisions about how to spend the money that you earn than you can.
19. From Tom Dashcel’s most recent outburst, we know: that Rush Limbaugh is “just an entertainer” but Barbara Streisdand, Whoopi, and Richard Gere are qualified to comment on public policy.
20. Hillary Clinton is a wonderful example for young women of feminine independence even though she has never accomplished anything worthwhile without riding on the coat tails of her husband.
21. A handful of religious whackos living in rural Texas are more of a threat to public safety than Islamic terrorists who wish to plant bombs in major American cities.
22. Passing new laws are a much better way to curb crime than enforcing the existing ones.
23. Tax cuts are for people who don’t actually pay income taxes.

Conservative Truisms:

1.      *A government which robs Peter to pay Paul can always depend on the support of Paul. --George Bernard Shaw

2.      * A liberal is someone who feels a great debt to his fellow man, which debt he proposes to pay off with your money. --G. Gordon Liddy

3.      Democracy must be something more than two wolves and a sheep voting on what to have for dinner. --James Bovard (1994)

4.      Foreign aid might be defined as a transfer from poor people in rich countries to rich people in poor countries. - -Douglas Casey (1992)

5.      Giving money and power to government is like giving whiskey and car keys to teenage boys. --P.J. O'Rourke

6.      Government is the great fiction, through which everybody endeavors to live at the expense of everybody else. --Frederic Bastiat

7.      Government's view of the economy could be summed up in a few short phrases: If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. And if it stops moving, subsidize it. -- Ronald Reagan (1986)

8.      I don't make jokes. I just watch the government and report the facts. --Will Rogers

9.      If you think health care is expensive now, wait until you see what it costs when it's free. --P.J. O'Rourke

10.  If you want government to intervene domestically, you're a liberal. If you want government to intervene overseas, you're a conservative. If you want government to intervene everywhere, you're a moderate. If you don't want government to intervene anywhere, you're an extremist. --Joseph Sobran (1995)

11.  In general, the art of government consists in taking as much money as possible from one party of the citizens to give to the other. (see also, truism # 1) --Voltaire (1764)

12.  Just because you do not take an interest in politics doesn't mean politics won't take an interest in you. --Pericles (430 B.C.)

13.  No man's life, liberty, or property are safe while the legislature is in session. --Mark Twain (1866)

14.  Suppose you were an idiot - And suppose you were a member of Congress...but I repeat myself. --Mark Twain

15.  Talk is cheap-except when Congress does it.

16.  The government is like a baby's alimentary canal, with a happy appetite at one end and no responsibility at the other.--Ronald Reagan

17.  ! * The inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of the blessings. The inherent blessing of socialism is the equal sharing of misery. -Winston Churchill

18.  The only difference between a tax man and a taxidermist is that the taxidermist leaves the skin. --Mark Twain

19.  The ultimate result of shielding men from the effects of folly is to fill the world with fools. --Herbert Spencer (1891)

20.  There is no distinctly native American criminal class save Congress. --Mark Twain

21.  There is only one basic human right, the right to do as you damn well please. And with it comes the only basic human duty, the duty to take the consequences. --P.J. O'Rourke (1993)

22.  We contend that for a nation to try to tax itself into prosperity is like a man standing in a bucket and trying to lift himself up by the handle.--Winston Churchill

23.  What this country needs is more unemployed politicians. --Edward Langley

24.  When buying and selling are controlled by legislation, the first things to be bought and sold are legislators. --P.J. O'Rourke

More Quotes from Neal Boortz's website...http://boortz.com/more/quotes.html

I was (instructed by my father to) always to be both decent and manly, and that if I were manly nobody would laugh at my being decent. - Teddy Roosevelt

"Every government interference in the economy consists of giving an unearned benefit, extorted by force, to some men at the expense of others."   - Ayn Rand

JUST DO IT!    - Nike

"America's abundance was created not by public sacrifices to 'the common good,' but by the productive genius of free men who pursued their own personal interests and the making of their own private fortunes. They did not starve the people to pay for America's industrialization. They gave the people better jobs, higher wages and cheaper goods with every new machine they invented, with every scientific discovery or technological advance -- and thus the whole country was moving forward and profiting, not suffering, every step of the way." [Ayn Rand]


“The world is a dangerous place to live; not because of the people who are evil, but because of the people who don’t do anything about it” --Albert Einstein

"Am I not destroying my enemies when I make friends of them?" - Abraham Lincoln

I learned what I know about criminals, terrorists, and dictators from dogs. Some go friendly when you show them friendship (diplomacy); some will only stop threatening you when you loudly face them down (show of force); and some will keep at your throat after you have tried the other two deterrents. These last dogs can only be 'put down' (war). A fool chooses to believe they can all be dealt with the same way. - Marc Heileman

 "You’re stupid if you get frightened because it interferes with you working your way out of the situation. That’s the way I’ve lived." - Chuck Yeager

REGARDING GOVERNMENT

I agree with George Washington that political parties are among the biggest threats to a country - and to politics. Too many people shallowly oppose or agree with others solely on the basis of their alignment or their (perceived) group identity - and don't think deeply enough to support or oppose ideas based on the idea's innate merit ... or complete lack of it.   - Marc Heileman Heileman

How to Catch Pigs

"Beware the leader who bangs the drums of war in order to whip the citizenry into a patriotic fervor, for patriotism is indeed a double-edged sword. It both emboldens the blood, just as it narrows the mind. And when the drums of war have reached a fever pitch and the blood boils with hate and the mind has closed, the leader will have no need in seizing the rights of the citizenry. Rather, the citizenry, infused with fear and blinded by patriotism, will offer up all of their rights unto the leader and gladly so. How do I know? For this is what I have done. And I am Caesar." [Ask Barbra Streisand who said this. (She incorrectly attributed it to Shakespeare after she saw as much on the internet) I don't know. I think it was Don Knotts.]


"In general the art of government consists in taking as much money as possible from one class of citizens to give to the other." [Voltaire]
 

The urge to save humanity is almost always only a false-face for the urge to rule it. [H.L. Mencken]  This is Michael Chichton's main point in his book State of Fear

 

"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

"The government consists of a gang of men exactly like you and me. They have, taking one with another, no special talent for the business of government; they have only a talent for getting and holding office. Their principal device to that end is to search out groups who pant and pine for something they can't get and to promise to give it to them. Nine times out of ten that promise is worth nothing. The tenth time is made good by looting A to satisfy B. In other words, government is a broker in pillage, and every election is sort of an advance auction sale of stolen goods." [H. L. Mencken]


"The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary." [H. L. Mencken]


Does "Global Warming" come to mind? --- oh, and Hillary says there is a "hidden" child care crisis. Could she have meant to say "imaginary" child care crisis?


"I have little interest in streamlining government or in making it more efficient, for I mean to reduce its size. I do not undertake to promote welfare, for I propose to extend freedom. My aim is not to pass laws, but to repeal them. It is not to inaugurate new programs, but to cancel old ones that do violence to the Constitution or that have failed their purpose, or that impose on the people an unwarranted financial burden. I will not attempt to discover whether legislation is "needed" before I have first determined whether it is constitutionally permissible. And if I should later be attacked for neglecting my constituents "interests, " I shall reply that I was informed that their main interest is liberty and that in that cause I am doing the very best I can." [Barry Goldwater]


"In the end they will lay their freedom at our feet and say to us, 'Make us your slaves, but feed us.'" [Dosteovsky's 'Grand Inquisitor']


This is a perfect illustration of the current state of political affairs in America.


"If you love wealth more than liberty, the tranquility of servitude better than the animating contest of freedom, depart from us in peace. We ask not your counsel nor your arms. Crouch down and lick the hand that feeds you. May your chains rest lightly upon you and may posterity forget that you were our countrymen." [Samuel Adams]

"Part of getting a second chance is taking responsibility for the mess you made in the first place."   

- Jack Bauer, Season One 12-1pm

HONESTY IN GOVERNMENT


 

"Honesty is not so much a credit as an absolute prerequisite to efficient service to the public. Unless a man is honest, we have no right to keep him in public life; it matters not how brilliant his capacity."

...Hello, Bill Clinton
 

"We can afford to differ on the currency, the tariff, and foreign policy; but we cannot afford to differ on the question of honesty if we expect our republic permanently to endure ...

"A life spent making mistakes is not only more honorable but more useful than a life spent doing nothing." - George Bernard Shaw

"The weakling and the coward cannot be saved by honesty alone; but without honesty, the brave and able man is merely a civic wild beast who should be hunted down by every lover of righteousness.


"No man who is corrupt, no man who condones corruption in others, can possibly do his duty by the community...


"'Liar' is just as ugly a word as 'thief,' because it implies the presence of just as ugly a sin in one case as in the other. If a man lies under oath or procures the lie of another under oath, if he perjures himself or suborns perjury, he is guilty under the statute law.


"Under the higher law, under the great law of morality and righteousness, he is precisely as guilty if, instead of lying in a court, he lies in a newspaper or on the stump; and in all probability, the evil effects of his conduct are infinitely more widespread and more pernicious."


HYPHENATED AMERICANISM


"There is no room in this country for hyphenated Americanism. The one absolutely certain way of bringing this nation to ruin, of preventing all possibility of its continuing to be a nation of all, would be to permit it to become a tangle of squabbling nationalities." [Teddy Roosevelt in a speech before the Knights of Columbus]


WHY I THINK VOTING SHOULD BE RESTRICTED


This is one of my favorites. From Alexander Tyler. No, he wasn't writing about the United States. This quote is well over one hundred years old. Tyler was writing about the fall of the Athenian Republic.


"A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves money from the public treasure. From that moment on the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most money from the public treasury, with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy followed by a dictatorship. The average age of the world's great civilizations has been two hundred years. These nations have progressed through the following sequence: from bondage to spiritual faith, from spiritual faith to great courage, from courage to liberty, from liberty to abundance, from abundance to selfishness, from selfishness to complacency from complacency to apathy, from apathy to dependency, from dependency back to bondage."


INDIVIDUALISM


"The main plank in the National Socialist program is to abolish the liberalistic concept of the individual and the Marxist concept of humanity and to substitute for them the folk community, rooted in the soil and bound together by the bond of its common blood." [Adolph Hitler, quoted in Hitler, A Study in Tyranny, by Alan Bullock (Harper Collins, NY)]


"It is thus necessary that the individual should come to realize that his own ego is of no importance in comparison with the existence of his nation; that the position of the individual ego is conditioned solely by the interests of the nation as a whole ... that above all the unity of a nation's spirit and will are worth far more than the freedom of the spirit and will of an individual. .... This state of mind, which subordinates the interests of the ego to the conservation of the community, is really the first premise for every truly human culture .... we understand only the individual's capacity to make sacrifices for the community, for his fellow man." [Adolph Hitler, 1933]


There is the great, silent, continuous struggle: the struggle between the State and the Individual; between the State which demands and the individual who attempts to evade such demands. Because the individual, left to himself, unless he be a saint or hero, always refuses to pay taxes, obey laws, or go to war. [Benito Mussolini]


Fascist ethics begin ... with the acknowledgment that it is not the individual who confers a meaning upon society, but it is, instead, the existence of a human society which determines the human character of the individual. According to Fascism, a true, a great spiritual life cannot take place unless the State has risen to a position of pre-eminence in the world of man. The curtailment of liberty thus becomes justified at once, and this need of rising the State to its rightful position. [Mario Palmieri, "The Philosophy of Fascism" 1936]


"Comrades! We must abolish the cult of the individual decisively, once and for all." [Nikita Khrushchev , February 25, 1956 20th Congress of the Communist Party]


"All our lives we fought against exalting the individual, against the elevation of the single person, and long ago we were over and done with the business of a hero, and here it comes up again: the glorification of one personality. This is not good at all." [Vladimir Lenin, as quoted in Not by Politics Alone]


"We must stop thinking of the individual and start thinking about what is best for society." [Hillary Clinton, 1993]


"We can't be so fixated on our desire to preserve the rights of ordinary Americans ..." [President Bill Clinton, 'USA Today' March 11, 1993: Page 2A]


"The smallest minority on earth is the individual. Those who deny individual rights cannot claim to be defenders of minorities." [Ayn Rand]


When will the world learn that a million men are of no importance compared with one man? [Henry David Thoreau]


HILLARY DOESN'T KNOW WHO IS PRESIDENT ---- AND WHO IS NOT.


"I'm not going to have some reporters pawing through our papers. We are the president." [Hillary Clinton commenting on the release of subpoenaed documents ]


VOLUNTEERISM


We must organize all labor, no matter how dirty and arduous it may be, so that every (citizen) may regard himself as part of that great army of free labor.... The generation that is now fifteen years old .. must arrange all their tasks of education in such a way that every day, and in every city, the young people shall engage in the practical solution of the problems of common labor, even the smallest, most simple kind. [Vladimir Lenin]


Does this remind you of the compulsory volunteerism movement endorsed by Clinton in our public schools? N.B.


"Fascism finds it necessary, at the outset, to take away from the ordinary human being what he has been taught and has grown to cherish the most; personal liberty. And it can be affirmed, without falling into exaggeration, that a curtailment of personal liberty not only has proved to be, but necessarily must be, a fundamental condition of the triumph of Fascism." [Mario Palmeiri]


"I am here because I want to redefine the meaning of citizenship in America... If you're asked in school 'What does it mean to be a good citizen?' I want the answer to be, 'Well, to be a good citizen, you have to obey the law, you've got to go to work or be in school, you've got to pay your taxes and --- oh, yes, you have to serve..." [Bill Clinton at Volunteerism Summit]


"All the people I know who are driving for a form of national service, primarily want it to be compulsory. They realize that's a terrible problem politically, so they're not willing to say it. It is endangerment of freedom and the potential for indoctrination that skeptics do not like in the national service concept. However benign the program, some think it will not succeed on any meaningful scale unless is is compulsory." [Martin Anderson, Senior Fellow of the Hoover Institution]


"In his April 5 radio address outlining the goals of the summit, the President endorsed compulsory volunteerism -- and even called for extending it to middle schools. In other words, the man who so famously avoided the dangerous duty of fighting in Vietnam as a young man now proposes drafting a new generation of young people to perform a different set of difficult tasks." [Editorial, New York Post, April 27, 1997]


Aviation Quotes

Bruce Lee

"Have no way as Way; have no limitation as limitation."

More Bruce Lee Quotes

MISC.

"I have lived such a rich and blessed life...I only wish I had realized it earlier."    - T.S. Elliot

How do you      with     ?

"Most people can't think, most of the remainder won't think, the small fraction who do think mostly can't do it very well. The extremely tiny fraction who think regularly, accurately, creatively, and without self-delusion- in the long run, these are the only people who count." [Robert Heinlein] My response: I don't know if I go that far, but they are certainly the only people who contribute understanding, and all the rest (who don't get it) certainly do make a mess of things.


"In general the art of government consists in taking as much money as possible from one class of citizens to give to the other." [Voltaire]


"Do we really think that a government-dominated education is going to produce citizens capable of dominating their government, as the education of a truly vigilant self-governing people requires?" [Alan Keyes]
 

Regarding the Welfare State's love of Security over Liberty

Btw: True Freedom means the freedom to fail

"If you love wealth more than liberty, the tranquility of servitude better than the animating contest of freedom, depart from us in peace. We ask not your counsel nor your arms. Crouch down and lick the hand that feeds you. May your chains rest lightly upon you and may posterity forget that you were our countrymen." [Samuel Adams]

"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."         - Benjamin Franklin

"Everywhere there rises before our eyes the specter of a society where security, if it is attained at all, will be attained at the expense of freedom, where the security that is attained will be the security of fed beasts in a stable, and where all the high aspirations of humanity will have been crushed by an all-powerful state."           - J. Gresham Machen (1881-1936)

MISC

"Your accomplishments speak for themselves; and if they do not - are they really worth talking about?"    - Marc Heileman

"Congressmen who willfully take actions during wartime that damage
morale and undermine the military are saboteurs and should be arrested,
exiled, or hanged".       — President Abraham Lincoln

Click Here for an exchange between John Glenn and Howard Metzenbaum n 1974 that sums up what it means to serve in the military

"If my life is fruitless, it doesn't mater who praises me; and if my life is fruitful, it doesn't matter who criticizes me."     -- John Bunyan

"We are now near the point where there is almost one gun for every American. Good. America is also one of the freest nations in the world. Coincidence?"

Some Interesting War Statistics

"Never tell the Platoon Sergeant you have nothing to do."
- Unknown Marine Recruit

"America's abundance was created not by public sacrifices to 'the common good,' but by the productive genius of free men who pursued their own personal interests and the making of their own private fortunes. They did not starve the people to pay for America's industrialization. They gave the people better jobs, higher wages and cheaper goods with every new machine they invented, with every scientific discovery or technological advance -- and thus the whole country was moving forward and profiting, not suffering, every step of the way." -- Ayn Rand

"Don't draw fire; it irritates the people around you."
- Your Buddies

Regarding Individualism vs. Collectivism. Read these if you think it's selfish to think of yourself and your family first:

"It is thus necessary that the individual should come to realize that his own ego is of no importance in comparison with the existence of his nation; that the position of the individual ego is conditioned solely by the interests of the nation as a whole ... that above all the unity of a nation's spirit and will are worth far more than the freedom of the spirit and will of an individual. .... This state of mind, which subordinates the interests of the ego to the conservation of the community, is really the first premise for every truly human culture .... we understand only the individual's capacity to make sacrifices for the community, for his fellow man." [Adolph Hitler, 1933]


There is the great, silent, continuous struggle: the struggle between the State and the Individual; between the State which demands and the individual who attempts to evade such demands. Because the individual, left to himself, unless he be a saint or hero, always refuses to pay taxes, obey laws, or go to war. [Benito Mussolini]


Fascist ethics begin ... with the acknowledgment that it is not the individual who confers a meaning upon society, but it is, instead, the existence of a human society which determines the human character of the individual. According to Fascism, a true, a great spiritual life cannot take place unless the State has risen to a position of pre-eminence in the world of man. The curtailment of liberty thus becomes justified at once, and this need of rising the State to its rightful position. [Mario Palmieri, "The Philosophy of Fascism" 1936]


"Comrades! We must abolish the cult of the individual decisively, once and for all." [Nikita Khrushchev , February 25, 1956 20th Congress of the Communist Party]


"All our lives we fought against exalting the individual, against the elevation of the single person, and long ago we were over and done with the business of a hero, and here it comes up again: the glorification of one personality. This is not good at all." [Vladimir Lenin, as quoted in Not by Politics Alone]


"We must stop thinking of the individual and start thinking about what is best for society." [Hillary Clinton, 1993]


"We can't be so fixated on our desire to preserve the rights of ordinary Americans ..." [President Bill Clinton, 'USA Today' March 11, 1993: Page 2A]


“Cowardice asks the question, ‘Is it safe?’ Expediency asks the question, ‘Is it politic?’ Vanity asks the question, ‘Is it popular? But, conscience asks the question, ‘Is it right?’ And there comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular but one must take it because one’s conscience tells one that it is right.”

—Martin Luther King, Jr
 

"The smallest minority on earth is the individual. Those who deny individual rights cannot claim to be defenders of minorities." [Ayn Rand]


When will the world learn that a million men are of no importance compared with one man? [Henry David Thoreau]
 

Fill in the blanks...

Okay.....on to other things....

"When you win you hear from everyone. When you lose you hear from your friends.

"One man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter." That's a catchy phrase, but also misleading. Freedom fighters do not need to terrorize a population into submission. Freedom fighters target the military forces and the organized instruments of repression keeping dictatorial regimes in power. Freedom fighters struggle to liberate their citizens from oppression and to establish a form of government that reflects the will of the people. Now, this is not to say that those who are fighting for freedom are perfect or that we should ignore problems arising from passion and conflict. Nevertheless, one has to be blind, ignorant, or simply unwilling to see the truth if he or she is unable to distinguish between those I just described and terrorists. Terrorists intentionally kill or maim unarmed civilians, often women and children, often third parties who are not in any way part of a dictatorial regime. Terrorists are always the enemies of democracy."    - Ronald Reagan May 31, 1986

Liberty means responsibility.  That is why most men dread it.  ~George Bernard

"(Oh) Yesterday's over my shoulder, and I can't look back for too long. There's just too much to see waiting in front of me..."               - Jimmy Buffet, "Changes in Latitude"

Patton's complete and unedited speech (you know, the one from the movie with that big ol' flag behind him.

"Americans [have] the right and advantage of being armed -- unlike citizens of other countries whose governments are afraid to trust people with arms." -James Madison
 

"This year will go down in history. For the first time, a civilized nation has full gun registration! Our streets will be safer, our police more efficient, and the world will follow our lead into the future."  - Adolf Hitler, 1935

"If two people agree on everything, then one of them is unnecessary."

 - Neal Boortz

“A tyrant must put on the appearance of uncommon devotion to religion. Subjects are less apprehensive of illegal treatment from a ruler whom they consider god-fearing and pious. On the other hand, they do less easily move against him, believing that he has the gods on his side.”       - Aristotle

“There are times in history when being opposed to war is as sensible as being opposed to firefighting.”   - Marc Heileman Heileman

"Life is hard. It's even harder if you're stupid."     John Wayne. The photo left and this quote adorns the wall of nearly every U.S. Green Beret

"The five most important words in the English language are: I am proud of you." - Dale Carnegie

"Except for abolishing nazism, fascism, communism, and slavery; war has never solved anything."

"To be prepared for war is one of the most effectual means of preserving peace."
- George Washington in the first State of the Union address on Jan 8, 1790

"...And once you have tasted flight, you will walk the Earth with your eyes turned skyward, for there you have been and there you long to return."      - Leonardo DaVinci
 

"I wish to preach, not the doctrine of ignoble ease, but the doctrine of the strenuous life, the life of toil and effort, of labor and strife; to preach that highest form of success which comes, not to the man who desires mere easy peace, but to the man who does not shrink from danger, from hardship, or from bitter toil, and who out of these wins the splendid ultimate triumph."    --Teddy Roosevelt (Full Speech here)

"Trusting in the restraint and sanity of Saddam Hussein is not a strategy..."
- George W. Bush

"I don't know the key to success, but the key to failure is to try to please everyone."
- Bill Cosby

“To the world you may be one person, but to one person you may be the world.”    - Unknown

"Those who dare not offend cannot be honest"         - Thomas Paine

"A ship in a harbor is safe - but that is not what ships are for."          - John A. Shedd

"Nature is a beautiful church, but a fool’s God."         - Marc Heileman

"If you are not a socialist at age twenty, you have no heart. If you are still a socialist at age forty, you have no head."             - Anonymous

"We cannot direct the wind, but we can adjust the sails."     - Unknown

Entitlement programs undermine the belief in human capability. They are disparaging and, thus…uncompassionate."      - Marc Heileman

"Creativity is so delicate a flower that praise tends to make it bloom, while discouragement often nips it in the bud. Any of us will put out more and better ideas if our efforts are appreciated." – Alexander Osburn

 "An open mind is only as good as its foundation of logic."    - Marc Heileman

"Money is society's way of expressing appreciation for one's accomplishments, and for the livelihood that one's work provides to others. The only other incentive for such contributions is force."               - Marc Heileman

"When one engine fails on a twin-engine airplane you always have
enough power left to get you to the scene of the crash."
 

"The remedy for excessive governmental beauracracy does not lie in creating a government department to handle the problem."   - Marc Heileman

"I (may) "disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it."     

- Voltaire

“Some say it is unfair to hold disadvantaged children to rigorous standards. I say it is discrimination to require anything less. I refuse to condemn children to the soft bigotry of low expectations.”           

- George W. Bush

"97% of all statistics are made up on the spot"          - Unknown

"It is better to work well than to work hard."  - Marc Heileman

 “The fearful build walls, the confident tear them down.”        - George W. Bush

"The only thing relative about Truth is the willingness of people to find it, and apply it."       

 Marc Heileman

" .. pain and suffering are to be fought and thrown aside - Not to be accepted as part of one's soul and as a permanent scar across one's view of existence..." Atlas Shrugged by Aynn Rand.

"Things may come to those who wait, but only the things that are left by those who hustle."

- Abraham Lincoln

"The real measure of a person is how he responds to bad news."   - George W. Bush

"Whatever the struggle, continue the climb, it may be only one more step to the summit."

- Diane Westlake

Advice given to RAF pilots during WWII: "When a prang (crash) seems
inevitable, endeavor to strike the softest, cheapest object in the
vicinity as slow and gently as possible."
 

"Beware of people who ask for your trust. Those who are worthy of it need never ask."     

- Marc Heileman

 "The world needs dreamers and the world needs doers. But above all, the world needs dreamers who do."         - Sarah Ban Breathnach

 "There can be no peace where evil and violence go unopposed."     - Marc Heileman

 "Freedom is not free; and we did not become free by living in fear of what might happen if we act."           - Marc Heileman

 "Taking the path of least resistance is what makes rivers and men crooked."         - Unknown

 "Pay attention to data and to facts - not headlines."   - Marc Heileman

"Blue water Navy truism: There are more planes in the ocean than
submarines in the sky."
From an old carrier sailor
 

"It has been said that war is evil. Better to say that 'starting' a war is evil, but fighting one to defend against those who start them…is noble."     - Marc Heileman

 "Jesus said we are to be born again, not cloned."     - Marc Heileman

 "The kind of person who is capable of utilizing an opportunity, will not wait until he is given one."

        - Marc Heileman

 "The only thing worse than a man you can't control is a man you can."

-- Margo Kaufman

 Success to the strongest who are always, at last, the wisest and the best. -Emerson

 There is no more fatal blunder than he who consumes the greater part of his life getting his living. -Thoreau

 "If your attack is going too well, you're walking into an ambush."
- Infantry Journal
 

If I must worship God, then I will do so in the temple that He created. -John Muir

 I have yet to see any problem, however complicated which, when you looked at it in the right way did not become more complicated. -Poul Anderson 

  "...Arms, like laws discourage and keep the invader and the plunderer in awe, and preserve order in the world as well as property. The balance of power is the scale of peace." -Thomas Paine

"Truth is more of a stranger than fiction."

-- Mark Twain (1835 - 1910)

 "The terms 'wisdom' and 'intelligence' are not interchangeable."      - Marc Heileman

 "Television news is like a lightning flash. It makes a loud noise, lights up everything around it, leaves everything else in darkness and then is suddenly gone."

-- Hodding Carter

 "The murals in restaurants are on par with the food in museums."

-- Peter De Vries

"A key indicator that a culture is on the decline is when it begins to measure a person's commitment to diversity by how well he tolerates foolishness."                - Marc Heileman

"You can't shake hands with a clenched fist."

-- Indira Gandhi

 "Boys will be boys, and so will a lot of middle-aged men."

-- Kin Hubbard (1868 - 1930)

 "Happiness makes up in height for what it lacks in length."

-- Robert Frost (1874 - 1963)

 "Some things have to be believed to be seen."

-- Ralph Hodgson

 A classic is something that everybody wants to have read and nobody has read.

            -- Mark Twain (1835 - 1910)

 "Life is like playing a violin in public and learning the instrument as one goes on."

-- Samuel Butler (1835 - 1902)

 "The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time, and still retain the ability to function."

-- F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896 - 1940)

 A painting in a museum hears more ridiculous opinions than anything else in the world.

-- Edmond de Concourt (1822 - 1896)

 We hang the petty thieves and appoint the great ones to public office.

            -- Aesop (~550 BC)

 Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man's character, give him power.

            -- Abraham Lincoln (1809 - 1865)

 "To invent, you need a good imagination and a pile of junk."

-- Thomas A. Edison (1847 - 1931)

 "Courage is the resistance to fear, the mastery of fear, not absence of fear."

- Mark Twain

 Half our life is spent trying to find something to do with the time we have rushed through life trying to save.

-- Will Rogers (1879 - 1935)

"The Piper Cub is the safest airplane in the world; it can just
barely kill you."
- Attributed to Max Stanley (Northrop test pilot)
 

"If you're not confused, you don't know what's going on."

- Irish saying

 Furious activity is no substitute for understanding.

"What is the similarity between air traffic controllers and pilots?
If a pilot screws up, the pilot dies;
If ATC screws up, .... the pilot dies."       -- H. H. Williams

Education is a progressive discovery of our own ignorance.

            -- Will Durant (1885 - 1981)

 Paradise is exactly like where you are right now...only much, much better

            -- Laurie Anderson

It is difficult to produce a television documentary that is both incisive and probing when every twelve minutes one is interrupted by twelve dancing rabbits singing about toilet paper.

            -- Rod Serling

 Under certain circumstances, profanity provides a relief denied even to prayer.

            -- Mark Twain (1835 - 1910)

 "Whenever you find that you are on the side of the majority, it is time to reform."

-- Mark Twain

 "Even if you're on the right track, you'll get run over if you just sit there."

-- Will Rogers (1879-1935)

 We forfeit three-fourths of ourselves to be like other people.

            -- Arthur Schopenhauer

Basic Flying Rules: "Try to stay in the middle of the air. Do not go
near the edges of it. The edges of the air can be recognized by the
appearance of ground, buildings, sea, trees and interstellar space. It is
much
more difficult to fly there."

"Before a standing army can rule, the people must be disarmed; as they are in almost every kingdom in Europe. The supreme power in America cannot enforce unjust laws by the sword because the whole body of people are armed and constitute a force superior to any band of regular troops that can be, on any pretense, raised in the United States..." -- Noah Webster

It's kind of fun to do the impossible.

            -- Walt Disney

"Some things have to be believed to be seen."    --I dunno who said that.

“If you find that your opinion is in the minority, don’t be discouraged. Wisdom always is, or they would call it something else that’s more common.”                      - Marc Heileman

 "Never fly in the same cockpit with someone braver than you."

I bought some batteries, but they weren't included.

            -- Steven Wright

 "It is said that power corrupts, but actually it's more true that power attracts the corruptible. The sane are usually attracted by other things than power."

-- David Brin

 "Flying the airplane is more important than radioing your plight to a
person on the ground incapable of understanding or doing anything about it."
 

"Truth is true - whether you believe it or not." - Marc Heileman

 "You have to know how to accept rejection and reject acceptance."

-- Ray Bradbury, advice to writers

 “In speech, strive first for substance - and only then for eloquence.”

- Marc Heileman

 You are not superior just because you see the world in an odious light.

            -- Vicomte de Chateaubriand

 "Man is the Only Animal that Blushes. Or needs to."

-- Mark Twain

 "Fortune does not change men, it unmasks them."

- Suzanne Necker

 It is easier to fight for one's principles than to live up to them.

-- Alfred Adler

 Outside of a dog, a book is man's best friend. Inside of a dog it's too dark to read.

            -- Groucho Marx

 "I remember when sex was safe and flying was dangerous."
 

A rumor without a leg to stand on will get around some other way.

            -- John Tudor

Two Wolves: A very inspiring tidbit of Cherokee wisdom

"It is amazing what you can accomplish if you do not care who gets the credit."

- Harry S. Truman

 "The squeaking wheel doesn't always get the grease. Sometimes it gets replaced."

- Vic Gold

 Politics is not a bad profession. If you succeed there are many rewards, if you disgrace yourself you can always write a book.

           -- Ronald Reagan

"When a flight is proceeding incredibly well, something was
forgotten."
 

"When a man tells you he's the boss at home, watch him. He'll lie about other things."

- From a placard in my Grandpa's office.

 No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.

            -- Elanor Roosevelt

 An honest politician is one who, when he is bought, will stay bought.

            -- Simon Cameron

The only thing that saves us from the bureaucracy is inefficiency. An efficient bureaucracy is the greatest threat to liberty.

            -- Eugene McCarthy

 If computers get too powerful, we can organize them into a committee -- that will do them in.

            -- Bradley's Bromide

 "Progress in airline flying: now a flight attendant can get a pilot
pregnant."
 

"When the going gets easy, you may be going downhill."     

 “Do, or do not. There is no try.”

- Yoda