Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Comment on this quoteShare via Email Print this Page Daily Quotes Archives2004-03-05 Mar 5, 2004Ideas are indeed the most dangerous weapons in the world. Our ideas of freedom are the most powerful political weapons man has ever forged.~ William O. DouglasFreedom of the mind requires not only, or not even especially, the absence of legal constraints but the presence of alternative thoughts. The most successful tyranny is not the one that uses force to assure uniformity, but the one that removes awareness of other possibilities.~ Alan BloomBut, sir, the people themselves have it in their power effectually to resist usurpation, without being driven to an appeal of arms. An act of usurpation is not obligatory; it is not law; and any man may be justified in his resistance. Let him be considered as a criminal by the general government, yet only his fellow-citizens can convict him; they are his jury, and if they pronounce him innocent, not all the powers of Congress can hurt him; and innocent they certainly will pronounce him, if the supposed law he resisted was an act of usurpation.~ Theophilus Parsons Mar 4, 2004Precisely in proportion to our own intellectual weakness will be our credulity as to those mysterious powers assumed by others.~ Charles Caleb ColtonThe mortalist enemy unto knowledge, and that which hath done the greatest execution unto truth, has been a preemptory adhesion unto authority.~ Sir Thomas BrowneA nation can survive its fools, and even the ambitious. But it cannot survive treason from within. An enemy at the gates is less formidable, for he is known and carries his banner openly. But the traitor moves amongst those within the gate freely, his sly whispers rustling through all the alleys, heard in the very halls of government itself. For the traitor appears not a traitor; he speaks in accents familiar to his victims, and he wears their face and their arguments, he appeals to the baseness that lies deep in the hearts of all men. He rots the soul of a nation, he works secretly and unknown in the night to undermine the pillars of the city, he infects the body politic so that it can no longer resist. A murderer is less to fear. The traitor is the plague.~ Marcus Tullius Cicero Mar 3, 2004To judge from the history of mankind, we shall be compelled to conclude, that the fiery and destructive passions of war, reign in the human breast, with much more powerful sway, than the mild and beneficent sentiments of peace; and, that to model our political systems upon speculations of lasting tranquility, is to calculate on the weaker springs of the human character.~ Alexander HamiltonI 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' (10th Amendment). To take a single step beyond the boundaries thus specifically drawn around the powers of Congress, is to take possession of a boundless field of power, no longer susceptible to any definition.~ Thomas JeffersonDuring war, the laws are silent.~ Quintus Tullius Cicero Mar 2, 2004No matter how noble the original intentions, the seductions of power can turn any movement from one seeking equal rights to one that would deny them to others.~ Tammy BruceMany now believe that with the rise of the totalitarian State the world has entered upon a new era of barbarism. It has not. The totalitarian State is only the State; the kind of thing it does is only what the State has always done with unfailing regularity, if it had the power to do it, wherever and whenever its own aggrandizement made that kind of thing expedient. Give any State like power hereafter, and put it in like circumstances, and it will do precisely the same kind of thing. The State will unfailingly aggrandize itself, if only it has the power, first at the expense of its own citizens, and then at the expense of anyone else in sight. It has always done so, and always will.~ Albert Jay NockCourage without conscience is a wild beast.~ Robert G. Ingersoll Mar 1, 2004Take calculated risks. That is quite different from being rash.~ General George S. Patton, Jr.One of the things that bothers me most is the growing belief in the country that security is more important than freedom. It ain't.~ Lyn NofzigerI have the highest veneration of those Gentleman, -- but, Sir, give me leave to demand, what right had they to say, We, the People? My political curiosity, exclusive of my anxious solicitude for the public welfare, leads me to ask who authorized them to speak the language of, We, the People, instead of We, the States? States are the characteristics, and the soul of the confederation. If the States be not the agents of this compact, it must be one of great consolidated National Government of the people of all the States.~ Patrick HenryCourage is rightly esteemed the first of human qualities because it has been said it is the quality which guarantees all others.~ Sir Winston Churchill Previous week's quotes Next week's quotes Share on Facebook Tweet Email Print