TranceAddict Forums (www.tranceaddict.com/forums)
- Political Discussion / Debate
-- Patriotic and Noteworthy Quotes for our Time of Disarray
Patriotic and Noteworthy Quotes for our Time of Disarray
"The two enemies of the people are criminals and government, so let us tie the second down with the chains of the Constitution so the second will not become the legalized version of the first."
- Thomas Jefferson
"I believe that liberty is the only genuinely valuable thing that men have invented, at least in the field of government, in a thousand years. I believe that it is better to be free than to be not free, even when the former is dangerous and the latter safe. I believe that the finest qualities of man can flourish only in free air � that progress made under the shadow of the policeman�s club is false progress, and of no permanent value. I believe that any man who takes the liberty of another into his keeping is bound to become a tyrant, and that any man who yields up his liberty, in however slight the measure, is bound to become a slave.�
- H. L. Mencken
"The greatest menace to freedom is an inert people."
- Supreme Court Justice Louis D. Brandeis
"Thought control is a copyright of totalitarianism, and we have no claim to it. It is not the function of our Government to keep the citizen from falling into error; it is the function of the citizen to keep the Government from falling into error."
- Supreme Court of the United States, stated in the case of American Communications Asso. v. Douds (1950) 339 US 382, 439, 94 L Ed 925, 965, 70 S Ct 674
"I have sworn upon the altar of God, eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man."
- Thomas Jefferson (September 23, 1800) inscribed on the Jefferson Memorial
"It is to secure our rights that we resort to government at all."
- Thomas Jefferson
"Man is not free unless government is limited."
- Ronald Reagan (Farewell Speech, 1988)
"I believe there are more instances of the abridgement of freedoms of the people by gradual and silent encroachment of those in power than by violent and sudden usurpations."
- James Madison
"Find out just what people will submit to, and you have found out the exact amount of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them; and these will continue until they are resisted with either words or blows, or both. The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress."
- Frederick Douglas
"But you must remember, my fellow-citizens, that eternal vigilance by the people is the price of liberty, and that you must pay the price if you wish to secure the blessing. It behooves you, therefore, to be watchful in your States as well as in the Federal Government."
- Andrew Jackson (Farewell Address - March 4, 1837)
"One of the penalties for refusing to participate in politics is that you end up being governed by your inferiors."
-Plato
"If liberty and equality, as is thought by some, are chiefly to be found in democracy, they will be best attained when all persons alike share in government to the utmost."
- Aristotle
Those who expect to reap the blessings of freedom must, like men, undergo the fatigue of supporting it."
- Thomas Paine
"History does not long entrust the care of freedom to the weak or the timid."
- Dwight Eisenhower
"The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing."
- Edmund Burke
"The price of freedom is eternal vigilance."
- Thomas Jefferson
Excerpts from Eisenhowers Farewell Address
| quote: |
| A vital element in keeping the peace is our military establishment. Our arms must be mighty, ready for instant action, so that no potential aggressor may be tempted to risk his own destruction. Our military organization today bears little relation to that known by any of my predecessors in peacetime, or indeed by the fighting men of World War II or Korea. Until the latest of our world conflicts, the United States had no armaments industry. American makers of plowshares could, with time and as required, make swords as well. But now we can no longer risk emergency improvisation of national defense; we have been compelled to create a permanent armaments industry of vast proportions. Added to this, three and a half million men and women are directly engaged in the defense establishment. We annually spend on military security more than the net income of all United States corporations. |
| quote: |
| In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist. We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together. Akin to, and largely responsible for the sweeping changes in our industrial-military posture, has been the technological revolution during recent decades. In this revolution, research has become central, it also becomes more formalized, complex, and costly. A steadily increasing share is conducted for, by, or at the direction of, the Federal government. Today, the solitary inventor, tinkering in his shop, has been overshadowed by task forces of scientists in laboratories and testing fields. In the same fashion, the free university, historically the fountainhead of free ideas and scientific discovery, has experienced a revolution in the conduct of research. Partly because of the huge costs involved, a government contract becomes virtually a substitute for intellectual curiosity. For every old blackboard there are now hundreds of new electronic computers. The prospect of domination of the nation's scholars by Federal employment, project allocations, and the power of money is ever present � and is gravely to be regarded. Yet, in holding scientific research and discovery in respect, as we should, we must also be alert to the equal and opposite danger that public policy could itself become the captive of a scientific-technological elite. It is the task of statesmanship to mold, to balance, and to integrate these and other forces, new and old, within the principles of our democratic system � ever aiming toward the supreme goals of our free society. |
| quote: |
| Another factor in maintaining balance involves the element of time. As we peer into society's future, we � you and I, and our government � must avoid the impulse to live only for today, plundering for, for our own ease and convenience, the precious resources of tomorrow. We cannot mortgage the material assets of our grandchildren without asking the loss also of their political and spiritual heritage. We want democracy to survive for all generations to come, not to become the insolvent phantom of tomorrow. Down the long lane of the history yet to be written America knows that this world of ours, ever growing smaller, must avoid becoming a community of dreadful fear and hate, and be, instead, a proud confederation of mutual trust and respect. Such a confederation must be one of equals. The weakest must come to the conference table with the same confidence as do we, protected as we are by our moral, economic, and military strength. That table, though scarred by many past frustrations, cannot be abandoned for the certain agony of the battlefield. Disarmament, with mutual honor and confidence, is a continuing imperative. Together we must learn how to compose differences, not with arms, but with intellect and decent purpose. Because this need is so sharp and apparent I confess that I lay down my official responsibilities in this field with a definite sense of disappointment. As one who has witnessed the horror and the lingering sadness of war � as one who knows that another war could utterly destroy this civilization which has been so slowly and painfully built over thousands of years � I wish I could say tonight that a lasting peace is in sight. |
noteworthy
"You know I could run for Governor but I'm basically a media creation. I've never done anything. I've worked for my dad. I worked in the oil business. But that's not the kind of profile you have to have to get elected to public office."
- George W. Bush (Houston Chronicle, 1989)
the founding fathers had it all right...they were truly great men.
| quote: |
| Originally posted by DR86 the founding fathers had it all right...they were truly great men. |
"The best way to get the news is from objective sources - And the most objective sources I have are the people on my staff who tell me what's happening in the world."
- George W. Bush
Are we playing search google for famous quotes?
Wheres the proof they said that? Thomas Jefferson must be the most misquoted person in the history of quotes.
| quote: |
| Originally posted by josh4 Are we playing search google for famous quotes? Wheres the proof they said that? Thomas Jefferson must be the most misquoted person in the history of quotes. |
"Next the statesmen will invent cheap lies, putting the blame upon the nation that is attacked, and every man will be glad of those conscience-soothing falsities, and will diligently study them, and refuse to examine any refutations of them; and thus he will by and by convince himself that the war is just, and will thank God for the better sleep he enjoys after this process of grotesque self-deception."
- Mark Twain (1916)
"A society of sheep must in time beget a government of wolves."
- Bertrand de Jouvenal
"It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies."
C.S. Lewis
The Humanitarian Theory of Punishment
"Our government has kept us in a perpetual state of fear -- kept us in a continuous stampede of patriotic fervor -- with the cry of grave national emergency ... Always there has been some terrible evil to gobble us up if we did not blindly rally behind it by furnishing the exorbitant sums demanded. Yet, in retrospect, these disasters seem never to have happened, seem never to have been quite real."
General Douglas MacArthur, 1957
This is my favorite quote regarding patriotism. Sorry for quoting Lewis all the time, but it seems no one else does.
"Of course [healthy] patriotism... is not in the least bit aggressive. It asks only to be let alone. It becomes militant only to protect what it loves. In any mind which has a pennyworth of imagination it produces a good attitude towards foreigners. How can I love my home without coming to realize that other men, no less rightly, love theirs?"
C.S. Lewis
The Four Loves
Powered by: vBulletin
Copyright © 2000-2021, Jelsoft Enterprises Ltd.