General
The most foolish mistake we could possibly make would be to allow the subject races to possess arms. History shows that all conquerors who have allowed their subject races to carry arms have prepared their own downfall by so doing. Indeed, I would go so far as to say that the supply of arms to the underdogs is a sine qua non for the overthrow of any sovereignty.
-Adolf Hitler
What, sir, is the use of militia? It is to prevent the establishment of a standing army, the bane of liberty.... Whenever Government mean to invade the rights and liberties of the people, they always attempt to destroy the militia, in order to raise an army upon their ruins.
-Elbridge Gerry
(Delegate to the Constitutional Convention from Massachusetts)
This may be considered as the true palladium of liberty ... The right of self defence is the first law of nature:in most governments it has been the study of rulers to confine this right within the narrowest limits possible.Wherever standing armies are kept up, and the right of the people to keep and bear arms, is under any colour or pretext whatsoever, prohibited, liberty, if not already annihilated, is on the brink of destruction. In England, the people have been disarmed, generally, under the specious pretext of preserving the game:a never failing lure to bring over the landed aristocracy to support any measure, under that mask, though calculated for very different purposes.True it is, their bill of rights seems at first view to counteract this policy:but the right of bearing arms is confined to protestants, and the words suitable to their condition and degree, have been interpreted to authorise the prohibition of keeping a gun or other engine for the destruction of game, to any farmer, or inferior tradesman, or other person not qualified to kill game.So that not one man in five hundred can keep a gun in his house without being subject to a penalty.
-St. George Tucker
1803
Who are the militia? Are they not ourselves? Is it feared, then, that we shall turn our arms each man against his own bosom. Congress have no power to disarm the militia. Their swords, and every other terrible implement of the soldier, are the birthright of an American...[T]he unlimited power of the sword is not in the hands of either the federal or state governments, but, where I trust in God it will ever remain, in the hands of the people.
-Tenche Coxe
(The Pennsylvania Gazette)
February 20, 1788
The Nation that makes a great distinction between its scholars and its warriors will have its thinking done by cowards and its fighting done by fools.
-Thucydides
The greatest mistake you can make in this life is to be constantly fearful you will make one.
-Unknown
"Every man dies. Not every man really lives."
-William Wallace
(From the movie 'Braveheart')
When an opponent declares, "I will not come over to your side," I calmly say, "Your child belongs to us already. What are you? You will pass on. Your descendants, however, now stand in the new camp. In a short time they will know nothing else but this new community.
-Adolf Hitler
What, Sir, is the use of a militia? It is to prevent the establishment of a standing army, the bane of liberty .... Whenever Governments mean to invade the rights and liberties of the people, they always attempt to destroy the militia, in order to raise an army upon their ruins.
-Elbridge Gerry
(Rep. of Massachusetts, spoken during floor debate over the Second Amendment)
August 17, 1789
Tell a lie loud enough and long enough and the people will believe it.
-Adolf Hitler
Not until I went into the churches of America and heard her pulpits flame with righteousness did I understand the secret of her genius and power... America is great because America is good, and if America ever ceases to be good, America will cease to be great.
-Alexis de Tocqueville
Bible reading is an education in itself.
-Alfred Lord Tennyson
God alone knows the future, but only a historian can alter the past.
-Ambrose Bierce
The Bible is the Rock on which this Republic rests.
-Andrew Jackson
If you want to build a ship, don't drum up people together to collect wood and don't assign them tasks and work, but rather teach them to long for the endless immensity of the sea.
-Antoine de Saint-Exupery
Let the children...be carefully instructed in the principles and obligations of the Christian religion. This is the most essential part of education. The great enemy of the salvation of man, in my opinion, never invented a more effectual means of extirpating Christianity from the world than by persuading mankind that it was improper to read the Bible at schools.
-Benjamin Rush
This is the sole end for which God has ordained that magistrates should be appointed - that they may carry on his benevolent purposes in promoting the good and happiness of human society;and hence their power is said to be from God;that is, it is so while they employ it according to his will. But when they act against the good of society, they cannot be said to act by authority from God, any more than a servant can be said to act by his master's authority while he acts directly contrary to his will.
-Beza
(Calvin's student)
I love to go to Washington - if only to be near my money.
-Bob Hope
Be more concerned with your character than with your reputation. Your character is what you really are while your reputation is merely what others think you are.
-Dale Carnegie
All you need for happiness is a good gun, a good horse, and a good wife.
-Daniel Boone
Even a broken clock is right twice a day.
-Doug Phillips
There is nothing so absurd but that if you repeat it often enough people will believe it.
-Dr. William James
Should not the Bible regain the place it once held as a school book? Its morals are pure, its examples, captivating and noble. In no book is there so good English, so pure and so elegant;and by teaching all the same book, they will speak alike, and the Bible will justly remain the standard of language as well as of faith.
-Fisher Ames
(Author of the First Amendment)
The patriot who feels himself in the service of God, who acknowledges Him in all his ways, has the promise of Almighty direction, and will find His Word in his greatest darkness, a lantern to his feet and a lamp unto his paths.' He will therefore seek to establish for his country in the eyes of the world, such a character as shall make her not unworthy of the name of a Christian nation.
-Francis Scott Key
A human life, I think, should be well rooted in some area of native land where it may get the love of tender kinship from the earth, for the labors men go forth to, for the sounds and accents that haunt it, for whatever will give that early home a familiar unmistakable difference amidst the future widening of knowledge. The best introduction to astronomy is to think of the nightly heavens as a little lot of stars belonging to one's own homestead.
-George Eliot
[W]hen the resolution of enslaving America was formed in Great Britain, the British Parliament was advised by an artful man, who was governor of Pennsylvania, to disarm the people;that it was the best and most effectual way to enslave them;but that they should not do it openly, but weaken them, and let them sink gradually... I ask, who are the militia? They consist of now of the whole people, except a few public officers. But I cannot say who will be the militia of the future day. If that paper on the table gets no alteration, the militia of the future day may not consist of all classes, high and low, and rich and poor...
-George Mason
I ask, sir, what is the militia? It is the whole people, except for a few public officials.
-George Mason
June 16, 1788
That rifle on the wall of the labourer's cottage or working class flat is the symbol of democracy. It is our job to see that it stays there.
-George Orwell
Religion is the only solid basis of good morals;therefore education should teach the precepts of religion, and the duties of man toward God.
-Gouverneur Morris
Americans need never fear their government because of the advantage of being armed, which the Americans possess over the people of almost every other nation.
-Gouverneur Morris
If you don't know where you're going, any train will get you there.
-Howard Phillips
Human law must rest its authority ultimately upon the authority of that law which is Divine. Far from being rivals or enemies, religion and law are twin sisters. Indeed, these two sciences run into each other. The Divine law... forms an essential part of both.
-James Wilson
A large proportion ... were unmarried. A few of them drank intoxicating liquors. Still, it was a company of sober and brave men. They knew their duty and they did it. While in a town they made no braggadocio demonstration. They did not gallop through the streets, shoot, and yell. They had a specie of moral discipline which developed moral courage. They did right because it was right.
-John Ford
(About the Texas Rangers)
True it is that God hath commanded kings to be obeyed, but like true it is, that in things which they commit against His glory or when cruelly without cause they rage against their brethren, the members of Christ's body, He hath commanded no obedience. Rather, He hath approved, yea, and greatly rewarded such as have opposed themselves to their ungodly commandments and blind rage.
-John Knox
The American population is entirely Christian, and with us Christianity and Religion are identified. It would be strange indeed, if with such a people, our institutions did not presuppose Christianity, and did not often refer to it, and exhibit relations with it.
-John Marshall
(Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court from 1801-1835, in a letter to Jasper Adams)
War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things. The decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks that nothing is worth war is much worse. The person 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.
-John Stuart Mill
The militia is the natural defense of a free country against sudden foreign invasions, domestic insurrections, and domestic usurpation of power by rulers. The right of the citizens to keep and bear arms has justly been considered, as the palladium of the liberties of the republic;since it offers a strong moral check against the usurpation and arbitrary power of rulers;and will generally ... enable the people to resist and triumph over them.
-Joseph Story
(Supreme Court Justice, Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States, p. 3:746-7)
1833
From the commencement of the titanic American strife the workingmen of Europe felt instinctively that the star-spangled banner carried the destiny of their class.. Lincoln is the single-minded son of the working class, who has lead his country to the matchless struggle for the rescue of the communist revolution and the reconstruction of the social order.
-Marx
(Excerpt from his letter to Lincoln)
Look well to the characters and qualifications of those you elect and raise to office and places of trust.
-Matthias Burnett
(Pastor of the First Baptist Church in Norwalk, An Election Sermon, Preached at Hartford, on the Day of the Anniversary Election,)
May 12, 1803
Never ascribe to malice that which is adequately explained by incompetence.
-Napoleon
Law is inseparable from sovereignty;every word from a sovereign power is a binding word. Logically, there can only be one sovereign, and He is the Lord God of Scripture. ...To deny His laws in favor of another set of laws is to deny His doctrine in favor of a rival system. It is also a denial of His sovereignty in favor of another.
-R.J. Rushdoony
Art is the making well, or properly arranging, of anything whatever that needs to be arranged.
-R.J. Rushdoony
Whereas, to preserve liberty, it is essential that the whole body of the people always possess arms, and be taught alike, especially when young, how to use them;nor does it follow from this, that all promiscuously must go into actual service on every occasion. The mind that aims at a select militia, must be influenced by a truly anti-republican principle;and when we see many men disposed to practice upon it, whenever they can prevail, no wonder true republicans are for carefully guarding against it.
-Richard Henry Lee
I believe that there is only one living and true God - That the scriptures of the old and new testaments are a revelation from God and a complete rule to direct us how we may glorify and enjoy Him.
-Roger Sherman
It is, in a way, an odd thing to honor those who died in defense of our country, in defense of us, in wars far away. The imagination plays a trick. We see these soldiers in our mind as old and wise. We see them as something like the Founding Fathers, grave and gray-haired. But most of them were boys when they died, and they gave up two lives-the one they were living and the one they would have lived. When they died, they gave up their chance to be husbands and fathers and grandfathers. They gave up their chance to be revered old men. They gave up everything for our country, for us. And all we can do is remember.
-Ronald Reagan
By our form of government, the Christian religion is the established religion;and all sects and denominations of Christians are placed upon the same equal footing, and are equally entitled to protection in their religious liberty.
-Samuel Chase
Rulers are appointed for this very end - to be ministers of God for good. The people have a right to expect this from them and to require it, not as an act of grace, but as their reasonable due. It is the express of implicit condition upon which they were chosen and continued in public office, that they attend continually upon this very thing. Their time, their abilities, their authority-by their acceptance of the public trust-are consecrated to the community, and cannot in justice be withheld...In justice to the people, and in faithfulness to God, they must either sustain it with fidelity, or resign the office.
-Samuel Cooke
(A.M. of Cambridge, Mass, Election Sermon)
1770
As Sir Walter Scott was dying, he said to his friend "Read the Book," his friend said "Which book?" He answered, "There is but one."
-Sir Walter Scott
Within that awful Volume lies The mystery of mysteries! Happiest they of human race, To whom God has given grace To read, to fear, to hope, to pray, To lift the latch and force the way; And better had they Ne'er been born Who read to doubt, or read to scorn.
-Sir Walter Scott
Do not judge those that try and fail,but judge those who fail to try.
-Unknown
(life)
England has two books, the Bible and Shakespeare. England made Shakespeare, but the Bible made England.
-Victor Hugo
Diplomacy is the art of saying, "Nice doggie," until you can find a rock.
-Will Rogers
Even if you're on the right track, you'll get run over if you just sit there.