This page includes all of the quotes that appear, randomly selected, at the bottom right corner of the site. There are all kinds of quotes—funny, thought provoking, political, and any combination of the above. They are from theologians, authors, politicians, pundits, friends, family, and . . . me. I usually agree with these quotes, or—if I don’t—I think they’re otherwise thought provoking and useful. Please report any errors (or submit new quotes) using the contact page.
Success is simple. Do what’s right, the right way, at the right time.—
To disarm the people is the best and most effectual way to enslave them.—
You’ll notice our fancy dolphin gate motif . . . that indicates that we eat dolphins.—
You can call me a fat, balding, talentless old queen who can’t sing . . . but you can’t tell lies about me.—
Good judgement comes from experience; experience comes from bad judgement.—
An appeaser is one who feeds a crocodile, hoping it will eat him last.—
The mystery of government is not how it works, but how to make it stop.—
I think the American people want a solemn ass as a President, and I think I’ll go along with them.—
The words of a President have an enormous weight, and ought not to be used indiscriminately.—
It is human nature to think wisely and act in an absurd fashion.—
Important principles may, and must, be inflexible.—
We sleep safely in our beds because rough men stand ready in the night to visit violence upon those who would do us harm.—
This is the precept by which I have lived: Prepare for the worst; expect the best; and take what comes.—
America’s high schools are obsolete. By obsolete, I don’t just mean that they’re broken, flawed, or underfunded, though a case could be made for every one of those points. By obsolete, I mean our high schools—even when they’re working as designed—cannot teach all our students what they need to know today.—
So, let us not be blind to our differences—but let us also direct attention to our common interests and to the means by which those differences can be resolved.—
The darkest places in hell are reserved for those who maintain their neutrality in times of moral crisis.—
To be a poet is a condition, not a profession.—
Asking an artist to talk about his work is like asking a plant to discuss horticulture.—
I hate flowers—I paint them because they’re cheaper than models and they don’t move.—
If only people knew as much about painting as I do, they would never buy my pictures.—
Experience is simply the name we give our mistakes.—
Some people say that I must be a terrible person, but it’s not true. I have the heart of a young boy…in a jar on my desk.—
History will be kind to me for I intend to write it.—
Democracy is a device that insures we shall be governed no better than we deserve.—
Writing, is not necessarily something to be ashamed of—but do it in private and wash your hands afterwards.—
Driving a Porsche in London is like bringing a Ming vase to a football game.—
Writing is easy. You only need to stare at a piece of blank paper until your forehead bleeds.—
Creative thinkers make many false starts, and continually waver between unmanageable fantasies and systematic attack.—
Once I conquer Finland, I’ll head south through the Baltics and on to Belarus. Soon, all the world will find me mildly amusing.—
Your love is your own private possession, but marriage is more than something personal—it is a status, an office. Just as it is the crown, and not merely the will to rule, that makes the king, so it is marriage, and not merely your love for each other, that joins you together in the sight of God and man. . . . It is not your love that sustains the marriage, but from now on, the marriage that sustains your love.—
It has been said that politics is the second oldest profession. I have learned that it bears a striking resemblance to the first.—
The first of April is the day we remember what we are the other 364 days of the year.—
Love is not everything, it is merely one piece among many pieces that go into a functional relationship. Trust, respect, an ability to compromise, and compatibility with respect to goals, family, and finances are all equally important. Love, without those other factors, is nothing worth hanging on to.—
Chronic wrongdoing, or an impotence which results in a general loosening of the ties of civilized society, may ultimately require intervention by some civilized nation—
Students will not be prepared for work in an economy that demands higher-order skills if their schools focus exclusively on the basics. Students will not learn to think for themselves if their schools expect them just to stay in line and keep quiet.— , The Washington Post
I don’t want to achieve immortality through my work . . . I want to achieve it through not dying.—
Are introverts arrogant? Hardly. I suppose this common misconception has to do with our being more intelligent, more reflective, more independent, more level-headed, more refined, and more sensitive than extroverts.—
Animal rescue personnel now believe the sea lion may have been disoriented because of the bullet in the back of its skull.—
But eventually I came to accept the truth: I am overweight. This is not my fault. My body, without consulting me, has been converting the food I eat into fat, as opposed to something I can actually use, such as toothpaste.—
This Universe never did make sense; I suspect that it was built on government contract.— , The Number of the Beast
You can blow thousands of people’s heads off with a semi-automatic machine gun [in American movies] but you can’t show a picture of my willy.—
On the other hand, if you’re just starting out as a writer, you could do worse than strip your television’s electric plug-wire, wrap a spike around it, and then stick it back into the wall. See what blows, and how far. Just an idea.—
I may have invented it [Ctrl-Alt-Del], but Microsoft made it popular.—
‘Who Let the Dogs Out’ is better than all the songs Ms. [Celine] Dion has recorded, put together.—
I am the whitest man in America. No rhythm whatsoever. If I were going to be a rapper, my name would be DW Toast—Dry White Toast.—
Hell is other people.—
You know, in China they say, ‘The thinner the chopsticks, the higher the social status.’ Of course, I got the thinnest I could find. That’s why people hate me.—
Build a man a fire, and he’ll be warm for a day. Set a man on fire, and he’ll be warm for the rest of his life.—
I love California. I practically grew up in Phoenix.—
What right does Congress have to go around making laws just because they deem it necessary?—
640 K[ilobytes] ought to be enough for anybody.—
Tragedy is when I cut my finger. Comedy is when you walk into an open sewer and die.—
There is more stupidity than hydrogen in the universe, and it has a longer shelf life.—
I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.—
Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I’m not sure about the former.—
I could just hear the swirling through the windows going . . . pheioooi pghoowo [sic].— , WSET.com
When you sit with a nice girl for two hours, it seems like two minutes. When you sit on a hot stove for two minutes, it seems like two hours. That’s relativity.—
A successful person is one who can lay a firm foundation with the bricks that others throw at him.—
You will find as you look back upon your life that the moments when you have truly lived are the moments when you have done things in the spirit of love.—
Self-reliance is the only road to true freedom, and being one’s own person is its ultimate reward.—
All the great things are simple, and many can be expressed in a single word: freedom; justice; honor; duty; mercy; hope.—
The world is divided into people who do things and people who get the credit. Try, if you can, to belong to the first class. There’s far less competition.—
The best way to predict the future is to create it.—
Don’t bother just to be better than your contemporaries or predecessors. Try to be better than yourself.—
Nobody succeeds beyond his or her wildest expectations unless he or she begins with some wild expectations.—
Logic will get you from A to B. Imagination will take you everywhere.—
To cultivate kindness is a valuable part of the business of life.—
First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.—
A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze new problems, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects.— , Time Enough for Love
Society often forgives the criminal; it never forgives the dreamer.—
The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, but wiser people so full of doubts.—
We all sit around in a circle and suppose, while the secret sits in the center and knows.—
To love and win is the best thing. To love and lose, the next best.—
Destiny is no matter of chance. It is a matter of choice. It is not a thing to be waited for, it is a thing to be achieved.—
Even a fool who keeps silent is considered wise; when he closes his lips, he is deemed intelligent.— , Proverbs 17:28 (RSV-CE)
Absence is to love what wind is to fire; it extinguishes the small, it enkindles the great.—
Great opportunities to help others seldom come, but small ones surround us every day.—
The difference between fiction and reality? Fiction has to make sense.—
I have never let my schooling interfere with my education.—
The true measure of a man is how he treats someone who can do him absolutely no good.—
All are lunatics, but he who can analyze his delusion is called a philosopher.—
The power of accurate observation is frequently called cynicism by those who don’t have it.—
The artist is nothing without the gift, but the gift is nothing without work.—
He is no fool that gives up what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose.—
Imagination is more important than knowledge.—
Do not take life too seriously, you will never get out of it alive.—
Too much democracy leads to tyranny. . . . Tyranny of the majority need not be institutionalized by law. Public opinion, when regarded too highly, also exercises tyranny.—
A man is said to have a right to his property, he may be equally said to have a property in his rights. Where an excess of power prevails, property of no sort is duly respected. No man is safe in his opinions, his person, his faculties, or his possessions.—
But let us never forget . . . beyond Europe’s borders, in a world where oppression and violence are very real, liberation is still a moral goal, and freedom and security still need defenders.—
After two years in Washington, I often long for the realism and sincerity of Hollywood.—
A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largess from the public treasury.—
Let us never negotiate out of fear, but let us never fear to negotiate.—
The middle of the road is all of the usable surface. The extremes, right and left, are in the gutters.—
A liberal is a conservative who hasn’t been mugged yet.—
The most successful politician is he who says what everybody is thinking most often and in the loudest voice.—
The things Congress does best are nothing and overreacting.—
Government doesn’t solve problems, it subsidizes them.—
One way to make sure crime doesn’t pay would be to let the government run it.—
The only thing that saves us from the bureaucracy is its inefficiency.—
Unlike presidential administrations, problems rarely have terminal dates.—
A statesman is a politician who’s been dead for ten or fifteen years.—
The more you read and observe about this politics thing, you’ve got to admit that each party is worse than the other.—
If you think too much about being reelected, it is very difficult to be worth reelecting.—
The last time I spoke for only twelve minutes was when I said hello to my mother.—
The sound of tireless voices is the price we pay for the right to hear the music of our own opinions.—
The wisest thing to do with a fool is encourage him to hire a hall and discourse to his fellow citizens. Nothing chills nonsense like exposure to air.—
[President Bill Clinton (D)] has kept all of the promises he intended to keep.—
I’m not a member of any organized political party, I’m a Democrat!—
In America, anybody can be president. That’s one of the risks you take.—
University politics are vicious precisely because the stakes are so small.—
I would have made a good Pope.—
People demand freedom of speech to make up for the freedom of thought which they avoid.—
A monarch’s neck should always have a noose around it. It keeps him upright.—
Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable.—
People who live their lives selfishly and at the detriment of others are often the ones who complain loudest about how badly they think they’ve been mistreated.—
I hate it when reality steals my plots.—
The United States has lasted well more than 200 years, but it is still young in the grand scheme of things. The apathy of the people can still be its downfall.—
Yes, college is still hell, only separated from High School by the middle-level of Wisdom Tooth Removal (which is not as fun as college, but MUCH more fun than High School).—
When I say ‘follow your heart,’ it’s actually shorthand for ‘follow your heart unless your brain makes a reasonable objection.’—
It is sad that we live in a society where the haphazard money-driven PR stunt of a huge corporation is permitted to substitute for a life lesson.—
I was walking around one day trying to figure out what the meaning of life was. I figured it was something that would come to me easily while walking around, but I didn’t actually figure it out until I sat down.—
With the return of school I’ve gotten back into my stressed-out cycle. In this cycle I go back and forth between ‘OH MY GOD I HAVE A MILLION THINGS TO DO!’ and ‘Ah, screw it.’—
Never expect the worst, but always be ready for it anyway.—
It seems not many of them have changed their stripes, they remain the same twisted squiggles they’ve always been.—
It’s always good to break ice that you’re not standing on.—
[Virginia Tech] only gets any attention because of its flocks of jocks without educational qualification slamming into similar bunches from other schools (this process is known in the United States as ‘Football’).—
So I’m just sayin’ to BREATHE while you go along in this relationship, because if two people leave each other breathless too long somebody’s gonna lose consciousness.—
The laws that forbid the carrying of arms are laws . . . [that] disarm only those who are neither inclined nor determined to commit crimes.— , “On Crimes and Punishments”, 1764
If you want to build a ship, then don’t drum up men to gather wood, give orders, and divide the work. Rather, teach them to yearn for the far and the endless sea.—
Some seem to believe that we should negotiate with the terrorists and radicals, as if some ingenious argument will persuade them they have been wrong all along…. We have an obligation to call this what it is: the false comfort of appeasement, which has been repeatedly discredited by history.—
Gun control historically serves as a gateway to tyranny. Tyrants from Hitler to Mao to Stalin have sought to disarm their own citizens, for the simple reason that unarmed people are easier to control.—
Our Founders, having just expelled the British army, knew that the right to bear arms serves as the guardian of every other right. This is the principle so often ignored by both sides in the gun control debate. Only armed citizens can resist tyrannical government.—
I do believe that where there is a choice only between cowardice and violence, I would advise violence.—
Always do right; this will gratify some people and astonish the rest.—
When a true genius appears in the world, you may know him by this sign, that the dunces are all in confederacy against him.— , Thoughts on Various Subjects, Moral and Diverting
It’s really hard to design products by focus groups. A lot of times, people don’t know what they want until you show it to them.—
A free people ought not only to be armed and disciplined, but they should have sufficient arms and ammunition to maintain a status of independence from any who might attempt to abuse them, which would include their own government.—
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.—
Si vis pacem, para bellum.— (If you seek peace, prepare for war.)
In matters of style, swim with the current; in matters of principle, stand like a rock.—
Neither the United States of America nor the world community of nations can tolerate deliberate deception and offensive threats on the part of any nation. . . . We no longer live in a world where only the actual firing of weapons represents an efficient challenge to a nation’s security to constitute maximum peril.—
The death of democracy is not likely to be an assassination from ambush. It will be a slow extinction from apathy, indifference, and undernourishment.—
Among the many misdeeds of the British rule in India, history will look upon the act of depriving a whole nation of arms as the blackest.—
Are we at last brought to such humiliating and debasing degradation that we cannot be trusted with arms for our defense? . . . If our defense be the real object of having those arms, in whose hands can they be trusted with more propriety, or equal safety to us, as in our own hands?—
Human beings, who are almost unique in having the ability to learn from the experience of others, are also remarkable for their apparent disinclination to do so.—
We must reject the idea that every time a law’s broken, society is guilty rather than the lawbreaker. It is time to restore the American precept that each individual is accountable for his actions.—
Fallacies do not cease to be fallacies because they become fashions.—
The real conflict is the inner conflict…. [T]here are two irreconcilable enemies in the depth of every soul: good and evil, sin and love. And what use are the victories on the battlefield if we ourselves are defeated in our innermost personal selves?—
The most deadly poison of our times is indifference. And this happens, although the praise of God should know no limits. Let us strive, therefore, to praise Him to the greatest extent of our powers.—
I don’t make jokes. I just watch the government and report the facts.—
So this is how liberty dies . . . with thunderous applause.— , Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith
Hearing nuns’ confessions is like being stoned to death with popcorn.—
There are not over a hundred people in the United States who hate the Catholic Church. There are millions, however, who hate what they wrongly believe to be the Catholic Church. . . . If we Catholics believed all of the untruths and lies which were said against the Church, we probably would hate the Church a thousand times more than they do.—
A government big enough to give you everything you want is a government big enough to take from you everything you have.—
Today’s various forms of dissolution of marriage, free unions, trial marriages[, and] the pseudo-matrimonies between people of the same sex are . . . anarchic freedom which falsely tries to pass itself off as the true liberation of man.—
The freedom to kill is not true freedom, but a tyranny that reduces the human being to slavery.—
Having a computer doesn’t make you a hacker. Having a lighter doesn’t make you an arsonist. And having a gun doesn’t make you a killer.— , The Chattanoogan, 7/7/2009
The course of history shows that as the government grows, liberty decreases.—
The right of self-defense never ceases. It is among the most sacred, and alike necessary to nations and to individuals.—
The inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of blessings; the inherent virtue of socialism is the equal sharing of miseries.—
The most dangerous man, to any government, is the man who is able to think things out for himself, without regard to the prevailing superstitions and taboos. Almost invariably he comes to the conclusion that the government he lives under is dishonest, insane[,] and intolerable, and so, if he is romantic, he tries to change it. And if he is not romantic personally, he is apt to spread discontent among those who are.—
I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.— , The Friends of Voltaire
It is better to deserve honors and not have them than to have them and not deserve them.—
It isn’t that liberals are ignorant. It’s just that they know so much that isn’t so.—
The most incomprehensible thing about the world is that it is comprehensible.—
Never do anything against conscience even if the state demands it.—
Everything should be made as simple as possible, but no simpler.—
It is to me a new and consolatory proof that wherever the people are well-informed they can be trusted with their own government; that whenever things get so far wrong as to attract their notice, they may be relied on to set them to rights.—
I believe America’s greatest problem is not un-godliness. It is not spiritual darkness. It is an un-repentant church who has decided that it is more important to be politically correct than it is to proclaim the principles of the Word.—
For those who believe, no explanation is necessary; for those who do not believe, no explanation will suffice.—
It’s disingenuous to call something a ‘right’ if you simultaneously demand that people take advantage of their ‘right’ whether they want to or not. That’s not a right, it’s a command. Republics have rights; tyrants have commands.—
One of the traditional methods of imposing statism or socialism on a people has been by way of medicine. It’s very easy to disguise a medical program as a humanitarian project. Most people are a little reluctant to oppose anything that suggests medical care for people who possibly can’t afford it.—
In three months I’ve gone from network television to Twitter to performing live in theaters, and now I’m headed to basic cable. My plan is working perfectly.—
Good evening, ladies and gentlemen…. We’ve got a small problem in that all four engines [on this plane] have failed. We’re doing our utmost to get them going, and I trust you’re not in too much distress.—
There’s an old saying in Tennessee…I know it’s in Texas, probably in Tennessee…that says, fool me once, shame on…shame on you. Fool me…you can’t get fooled again.—
Our citizens have been always free to make, vend, and export arms…the benefits of them will be left equally free and open to all.—
Okay, so I lost The Tonight Show, but I’ll show them…I’ll stop shaving.—
Can the liberties of a nation be thought secure, when we’ve removed their only firm basis, a conviction in the minds of people that these liberties are the gifts of God?—
Only the Catholic Church protested against the Hitlerian [Nazi] onslaught on liberty. Up ’til then I had not been interested in the Church, but today I feel a great admiration for the Church, which alone has had the courage to struggle for spiritual truth and moral liberty.—
It is only right, however, that at all times and in all places, the Church should have true freedom to preach the faith, to teach her social doctrine, to exercise her role freely among men, and also to pass moral judgment in those matters which regard public order when the fundamental rights of a person or the salvation of souls require it.— Gaudium et Spes: Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World
It is a fact, too—although a curious one—that the sale of small arms to gun enthusiasts or sportsmen produces a greater sense of moral outrage in western society than is produced by the sale to psychotic despots of weaponry capable of killing thousands.—
Quemadmoeum gladis nemeinum occidit, occidentis telum est.— , (A sword is never a killer, it is a tool in the killer’s hands.)
Where the people fear the government you have tyranny. Where the government fears the people you have liberty.— , Indictment of Socialism No. 3
It is a poverty to decide that a child must die so that you may live as you wish.—
As the family goes, so goes the nation and so goes the whole world in which we live.—
Freedom consists not in doing what we like, but in having the right to do what we ought.—
If you are what you should be, you will set the whole world ablaze!—
We always find that those who walked closest to Christ were those who had to bear the greatest trials.—
Give something, however small, to the one in need. For it is not small to one who has nothing. Neither is it small to God, if we have given what we could.—
You cannot be half a saint; you must be a whole saint or no saint at all.—
Apart from the cross, there is no other ladder by which we may get to heaven.—
Pray, hope, and don’t worry.—
Conscience has rights because it has duties.—
Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. Thus you will know them by their fruits. Not every one who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven.— , Matthew 7:19-21 (RSV-CE)
What does it profit, my brethren, if a man says he has faith but has not works? Can his faith save him? If a brother or sister is ill-clad and in lack of daily food, and one of you says to them, ‘Go in peace, be warmed and filled,’ without giving them the things needed for the body, what does it profit? So faith by itself, if it has no works, is dead.— , James 2:14-17 (RSV-CE)
But you must remember, beloved, the predictions of the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ; they said to you, ‘In the last time there will be scoffers, following their own ungodly passions.’ It is these who set up divisions, worldly people, devoid of the Spirit.— , Jude 1:17-19 (RSV-CE)
You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it, You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the law and the prophets.— , Matthew 22:37-40 (RSV-CE)
Jesus said to them again, ‘Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, even so I send you.’ And when he had said this, he breathed on them, and said to them, ‘Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.’— John 20:21-23 (RSV-CE)
I love deadlines. I like the whooshing sound they make as they fly by.—
Live free or die: Death is not the worst of evils.—
Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!—
Patriotism is supporting your country all the time, and your government when it deserves it.—
All the armies of Europe combined could not by force make a track upon the Blue Ridge, or take a drink from the Ohio. If we are to be destroyed, we must do it ourselves.—
In free government the rulers are the servants, and the people their superiors and sovereigns.—
God who gave us life gave us liberty.—
The only function of economic forecasting is to make astrology look respectable.—
…the [Catholic Church] has not merely told this truth or that truth, but has revealed itself as a truth-telling thing. All other philosophies say the things that plainly seem to be true; only this philosophy has again and again said the thing that does not seem to be true, but is true.—
Whatever may be conceded to the influence of refined education on minds of peculiar structure, reason and experience both forbid us to expect that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle.—
Civilization is an enormous improvement on the lack thereof.—
Earnestness is just stupidity sent to college.—
I like to do my principal research in bars, where people are more likely to tell the truth or, at least, lie less convincingly than they do in briefings and books.—
To grasp the true meaning of socialism, imagine a world where everything is designed by the post office, even the sleaze.—
The whole idea of our government is this: If enough people get together and act in concert, they can take something and not pay for it.—
You can’t get good Chinese takeout in China and Cuban cigars are rationed in Cuba. That’s all you need to know about communism.—
Your money does not cause my poverty. Refusal to believe this is at the bottom of most bad economic thinking.—
It will be of little avail to the people that the laws are made by men of their own choice if the laws be so voluminous that they cannot be read, or so incoherent that they cannot be understood.— , The Federalist #62
They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.—
Sell not virtue to purchase wealth, nor Liberty to purchase power.—
I’ve lived, Sir, a long time, and the longer I live, the more convincing Proofs I see of this Truth: That God governs in the Affairs of Men.—
…in this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes.—
If Men are so wicked as we now see them with Religion what would they be if without it?—
I hope to come to you soon, but I am writing these instructions to you so that, if I am delayed, you may know how one ought to behave in the household of God, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and bulwark of the truth.— , 1 Timothy 3:14-15 (RSV-CE)
Socialist governments traditionally do make a financial mess. They always run out of other people’s money.—
I am the Queen of Heaven, who prays for the conversion of sinners, and I wish you to do the same.— , as recorded by Adele Brise, 1859
Fight all error, but do it with good humor, patience, kindness, and love. Harshness will damage your own soul and spoil the best cause.—
You may tear apart the baby’s rattle and see what makes the noise inside, but there is a veil covering the unseen world which not the strongest man, nor even the united strength of all the strongest men that ever lived, could tear apart. Only faith, fancy, poetry, love, romance, can push aside that curtain and view and picture the supernal beauty and glory beyond.— , The New York Sun, 1897
The universe is not the result of chance, as some would want to make us believe. Contemplating it, we are invited to read something profound into it: the wisdom of the creator, the inexhaustible creativity of God.—
Americans are a free people, who know that freedom is the right of every person and the future of every nation. The liberty we prize is not America’s gift to the world, it is God’s gift to humanity.—
Accustom yourself continually to make many acts of love, for they enkindle and melt the soul.—
You learn to speak by speaking, to study by studying, to run by running, to work by working; and just so you learn to love God and man by loving. All those who think to learn in any other way deceive themselves.—
Make friends with the angels, who though invisible are always with you…. Often invoke them, constantly praise them, and make good use of their help and assistance in all your temporal and spiritual affairs.—
Just as it is better to illuminate than merely to shine, so to pass on what one has contemplated is better than merely to contemplate.—
Love the sinner and hate the sin.—
It was pride that changed angels into devils; it is humility that makes men as angels.—
An unjust law is no law at all.—
The spiritual virtue of a sacrament is like light…although it passes among the impure, it is not polluted.—
Therefore do not seek to understand in order to believe, but believe that thou mayest understand.—
As a youth I prayed, ‘Give me chastity and continence, but not yet.’—
So material a difference does it make, not what ills are suffered, but what kind of man suffers them. For, stirred up with the same movement, mud exhales a horrible stench, and ointment emits a fragrant odor.—
But it isn’t just a matter of faith, but of faith and works. Each is necessary. For the demons also believe and tremble, but their believing doesn’t do them any good. Faith alone is not enough, unless works too are joined to it: ‘Faith working through love,’ says the apostle.—
No one in the world can change truth. What we can do and should do is to seek truth and to serve it when we have found it.—
Whenever anything disagreeable or displeasing happens to you, remember Christ crucified and be silent.—
Much harm may result from bad company, and we are inclined by nature to follow what is worse than what is better.—
I will go peaceably and firmly to the Catholic Church: for if Faith is so important to our salvation, I will seek it where true Faith first began, seek it among those who received it from God Himself.—
Truly, matters in the world are in a bad state; but if you and I begin in earnest to reform ourselves, a really good beginning will have been made.—
Comfort in tribulation can be secured only on the sure ground of faith holding as true the words of Scripture and the teaching of the Catholic Church.—
If Saint Paul exhorts us to pray for one another, and we gladly think it right to ask every poor man to pray for us, should we think it evil to ask the holy Saints in Heaven to do the same?—
The Devil never runs upon a man to seize him with his claws until he sees him on the ground, already having fallen by his own will.—
The General hopes and trusts that every officer and man will endeavor to live and act as becomes a Christian soldier defending the dearest rights and liberties of his country.—
The preservation of the sacred fire of liberty, and the destiny of the republican model of government, are justly considered as deeply, perhaps as finally staked, on the experiment entrusted to the hands of the American people.—
It is infinitely better to have a few good men than many indifferent ones.—
The basis of our political systems is the right of the people to make and to alter their Constitutions of Government. But the Constitution which at any time exists, till changed by an explicit and authentic act of the whole people, is sacredly obligatory upon all.—
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.—
He who permits himself to tell a lie once, finds it much easier to do it a second and third time, till at length it becomes habitual; he tells lies without attending to it, and truths without the world’s believing him. This falsehood of tongue leads to that of the heart, and in time depraves all its good dispositions.—
Our liberty depends on the freedom of the press, and that cannot be limited without being lost.—
The basis of our government being the opinion of the people, the very first object should be to keep that right; and were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers, or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter.—
I 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.’ To take a single step beyond the boundaries thus specially drawn around the powers of Congress, is to take possession of a boundless field of power….—
The care of human life and happiness, and not their destruction, is the first and only legitimate object of good government.—
If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be.—
It is not by the consolidation or concentration, of powers, but by their distribution that good government is effected.—
I agree with you that in politics the middle way is none at all.—
Virtue is not always amiable.—
The right of a nation to kill a tyrant, in cases of necessity, can no more be doubted, than to hang a robber, or kill a flea. But killing one tyrant only makes way for worse, unless the people have sense, spirit, and honesty enough to establish and support a constitution guarded at all points against the tyranny of the one, the few, and the many.—
Since the general civilization of mankind, I believe there are more instances of the abridgment of the freedom of the people by gradual and silent encroachments of those in power, than by violent and sudden usurpations….—
If Congress can do whatever in their discretion can be done by money, and will promote the general welfare, the Government is no longer a limited one possessing enumerated powers, but an indefinite one subject to particular exceptions.—
The government of the United States is a definite government, confined to specified objects. It is not like the state governments, whose powers are more general. Charity is no part of the legislative duty of the government.—
A popular Government without popular information, or the means of acquiring it, is but a Prologue to a Farce or a Tragedy, or perhaps both. Knowledge will forever govern ignorance: And a people who mean to be their own Governors, must arm themselves with the power which knowledge gives.—
Suspicion is a virtue as long as its object is the public good, and as long as it stays within proper bounds…. Guard with jealous attention the public liberty. Suspect every one who approaches that jewel.—
It has been observed that a pure democracy if it were practicable would be the most perfect government. Experience has proved that no position is more false than this.—
Civil liberty is only natural liberty, modified and secured by the sanctions of civil society. It is not a thing, in its own nature, precarious and dependent on human will and caprice; but it is conformable to the constitution of man, as well as necessary to the well-being of society.—
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.— , United States Constitution
A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the People to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.— , United States Constitution
No person shall…be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.— , United States Constitution
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause….— , United States Constitution
The enumeration in the Constitution of certain rights shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.— , United States Constitution
The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.— , United States Constitution
Society in every state is a blessing, but government even in its best state is but a necessary evil, in its worst state an intolerable one….— , Common Sense
The protection in FOIA against disclosure of law enforcement information on the ground that it would constitute an unwarranted invasion of personal privacy does not extend to corporations. We trust that AT&T will not take it personally.— , United States Supreme Court
In the sweat of your face you shall eat bread till you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken; you are dust, and to dust you shall return.— , Genesis 3:19 (RSV-CE)
But I feel that the greatest destroyer of peace today is abortion, because it is a war against the child, a direct killing of the innocent child, murder by the mother herself. And if we accept that a mother can kill even her own child, how can we tell other people not to kill one another?—
Whenever a separation is made between liberty and justice, neither, in my opinion, is safe.—
Freedom and not servitude is the cure of anarchy; as religion, and not atheism, is the true remedy for superstition.—
The true danger is when liberty is nibbled away, for expedients, and by parts.—
Religious persecution may shield itself under the guise of a mistaken and over-zealous piety.—
Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.— , Matthew 5:3 (RSV-CE)
Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.— , Matthew 5:4 (RSV-CE)
Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.— , Matthew 5:5 (RSV-CE)
Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied.— , Matthew 5:6 (RSV-CE)
Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy.— , Matthew 5:7 (RSV-CE)
Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.— , Matthew 5:8 (RSV-CE)
Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God.— , Matthew 5:9 (RSV-CE)
Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.— , Matthew 5:10 (RSV-CE)
Blessed are you when men revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for so men persecuted the prophets who were before you.— , Matthew 5:11-12 (RSV-CE)
Think not that I have come to abolish the law and the prophets; I have come not to abolish them but to fulfil them. For truly, I say to you, till heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the law until all is accomplished.— , Matthew 5:17-18 (RSV-CE)
Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee; blessed art thou amongst women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death. Amen— , Traditional English Rendering
O my Jesus, forgive us our sins, save us from the fires of hell, lead all souls to Heaven, especially those in most need of Thy mercy. Amen.— , Traditional English Rendering
A nation which kills its own children is a nation without a future.—
If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just, and will forgive our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.— , 1 John 1:8-9 (RSV-CE)
I call heaven and earth to witness against you this day, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and curse; therefore choose life, that you and your descendants may live, loving the LORD your God, obeying his voice, and cleaving to him…— Deuteronomy 30:19-20 (RSV-CE)
Ever since the days of Adam, man has been hiding from God and saying, ‘God is hard to find.’—
The philosophy of gun control: Teenagers are roaring through town at 90mph, where the speed limit is 25. Your solution is to lower the speed limit to 20.—
Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again but expecting different results.—
Normal is the average of deviance.—
For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes. Whoever, therefore, eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty of profaning the body and blood of the Lord.— , 1 Corinthians 11:26-27 (RSV-CE)
Men despise religion; they hate it and fear it is true. To remedy this, we must begin by showing that religion is not contrary to reason; that it is venerable, to inspire respect for it; then we must make it lovable, to make good men hope it is true; finally, we must prove it is true.—
…the [National Rifle] Association fills an important role in our national defense effort, and fosters in an active and meaningful fashion the spirit of the Minutemen.—
If anybody ever says you’re ‘smart as a whip,’ remember this: whips are inanimate objects that do not possess any intelligence whatsoever.—
I have attended public worship in all countries and with all sects and believe them all much better than no religion, though I have not thought myself obliged to believe all I heard.—
I can see how it might be possible for a man to look down upon the earth and be an atheist, but I cannot conceive how he could look up into the heavens and say there is no God.— , (as recollected by Gilbert J. Greene)
Any people anywhere being inclined and having the power have the right to rise up and shake off the existing government, and form a new one that suits them better. This is a most valuable, a most sacred right—a right which we hope and believe is to liberate the world.—
Let us discard all this quibbling about this man and the other man, this race and that race and the other race being inferior and therefore they must be placed in an inferior position. Let us discard all these things, and unite as one people throughout this land, until we shall once more stand up declaring that all men are created equal.—
This country, with its institutions, belongs to the people who inhabit it. Whenever they shall grow weary of the existing Government, they can exercise their constitutional right of amending it or their revolutionary right to dismember or overthrow it.—
[A] great Empire, like a great Cake, is most easily diminished at the Edges.—
The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure.—
Let us see life as it really is…. It is a moment between two eternities.—
God has created me to do him some definite service…. I have a part in this great work; I am a link in a chain, a bond of connection between persons. He has not created me for naught.—
The history of every human being passes through the threshold of a woman’s motherhood.—
There is more value in a little study of humility and in a single act of it than in all the knowledge in the world.—
Be not intimidated . . . nor suffer yourselves to be wheedled out of your liberties by any pretense of politeness, delicacy, or decency. These, as they are often used, are but three different names for hypocrisy, chicanery[,] and cowardice.—
Then I heard another voice from heaven saying, ‘Come out of her, my people, lest you take part in her sins, lest you share in her plagues; for her sins are heaped high as heaven, and God has remembered her iniquities.’— , Revelation 18:4-5 (RSV-CE)
Such democracies have ever been spectacles of turbulence and contention; have ever been found incompatible with personal security or the rights of property; and have in general been as short in their lives as they have been violent in their deaths.—
If men were angels, no government would be necessary.—
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted.—
I am the living bread which came down from heaven; if any one eats of this bread, he will live for ever; and the bread which I shall give for the life of the world is my flesh.— , John 6:51 (RSV-CE)
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 whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it….—
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.—
Likewise, our churches should not be afraid to challenge the moral decay that surrounds them today—even if the righteous stance is unpopular or ‘offensive’ in some (or even all) circles.—
For what have I to do with judging outsiders? Is it not those inside the church whom you are to judge? God judges those outside. ‘Drive out the wicked person from among you.’— , 1 Corinthians 5:12-13 (RSV-CE)
The end of the matter; all has been heard. Fear God, and keep his commandments; for this is the whole duty of man. For God will bring every deed into judgment, with every secret thing, whether good or evil.— , Ecclesiastes 12:13-14 (RSV-CE)
I know that there is nothing better for [men] than to be happy and enjoy themselves as long as they live; also that it is God’s gift to man that every one should eat and drink and take pleasure in all his toil.— , Ecclesiastes 3:12-13 (RSV-CE)
Moreover I saw under the sun that in the place of justice, even there was wickedness, and in the place of righteousness, even there was wickedness. I said in my heart, God will judge the righteous and the wicked, for he has appointed a time for every matter, and for every work.— , Ecclesiastes 3:16-17 (RSV-CE)
But of that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but the Father only…. Watch therefore, for you do not know on what day your Lord is coming.— , Matthew 24:36,42 (RSV-CE)
Then if any one says to you, ‘Lo, here is the Christ!’ or ‘There he is!’ do not believe it. For false Christs and false prophets will arise and show great signs and wonders, so as to lead astray, if possible, even the elect.— , Matthew 24:23-24 (RSV-CE)
I have come as light into the world, that whoever believes in me may not remain in darkness.— , John 12:46 (RSV-CE)
Too many of us believe that the local police or our military…will always be there to protect us, and will always be on our side. Too many of us believe we will never need to act individually—violently, if necessary—to protect ourselves, our families, our liberty, our communities, or our country.—
You cannot please both God and the world at the same time, they are utterly opposed to each other in their thoughts, their desires, and their actions.—
Everything is grace, everything is the direct effect of our Father’s love. Everything is grace because everything is God’s gift. Whatever be the character of life or its unexpected events–to the heart that loves, all is well.—
Oh, how precious time is! Blessed are those who know how to make good use of it. Oh, if only all could understand how precious time is, undoubtedly everyone would do his best to spend it in a praiseworthy manner!—
He who has my commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves me; and he who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and manifest myself to him.— , John 14:21 (RSV-CE)
Do not reprove a scoffer, or he will hate you; reprove a wise man, and he will love you.— , Proverbs 9:8 (RSV-CE)
They will put you out of the synagogues; indeed, the hour is coming when whoever kills you will think he is offering service to God. And they will do this because they have not known the Father, nor me.— , John 16:2-3 (RSV-CE)
We should bear in mind that, in general, it is the object of our newspapers rather to create a sensation—to make a point—than to further the cause of truth. The latter end is only pursued when it seems coincident with the former.— , The Mystery of Marie Roget
Modern liberty means that nobody is allowed to discuss [religion]. Good taste, the last and vilest of human superstitions, has succeeded in silencing us where all the rest have failed.— , Heretics
There was far more courage to the square mile in the Middle Ages, when no king had a standing army, but every man had a bow or sword.— , Heretics
Now, the psychological discovery is merely this, that whereas it had been supposed that the fullest possible enjoyment is to be found by extending our ego to infinity, the truth is that the fullest possible enjoyment is to be found by reducing our ego to zero.— , Heretics
Carlyle said that men were mostly fools. Christianity, with a surer and more reverent realism, says that they are all fools. This doctrine is sometimes called the doctrine of original sin. It may also be described as the doctrine of the equality of men.— , Heretics
But if there really be anything of the nature of progress, it must mean, above all things, the careful study and assumption of the whole of the past.— , Heretics
But if we do revive and pursue the pagan ideal of a simple and rational self-completion we shall end where Paganism ended. I do not mean that we shall end in destruction. I mean that we shall end in Christianity.— , Heretics
With us the governing class is always saying to itself, ‘What laws shall we make?’ In a purely democratic state it would be always saying, ‘What laws can we obey?’— , Heretics
Being full of that kindliness which should come at the end of everything, even of a book, I apologize to the rationalists even for calling them rationalists. There are no rationalists. We all believe fairy-tales, and live in them.— , Heretics
I tell you, on the day of judgment men will render account for every careless word they utter; for by your words you will be justified, and by your words you will be condemned.— , Matthew 12:36-37 (RSV-CE)
Salvation, while personal, is not private. To be incorporated into Christ is to be incorporated into his Church. You cannot sunder the two: it is not two in any case. It is one thing.— , On Being Catholic
O God, Present in this Most Holy Sacrament, O Bread of Angels, O heavenly food, I love Thee; but Thou art not, neither am I, satisfied with my love. I love Thee; but I love Thee too little.— , Visits to the Most Holy Sacrament
Thou art an infinite God, and I am a miserable worm. It would be little, did I die for Thee, or wear myself out for Thee, Who didst die for me, and dost sacrifice Thy entire self for me every day on the Altar.— , Visits to the Most Holy Sacrament
Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.— , Romans 12:21 (RSV-CE)
For you were called to freedom, brethren; only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love be servants of one another.— , Galatians 5:13 (RSV-CE)
You ask me for a method of obtaining perfection. I know of Love and Love only! Our hearts are made for this alone.— , The Story of a Soul
O Timothy, guard what has been entrusted to you. Avoid the godless chatter and contradictions of what is falsely called knowledge, for by professing it some have missed the mark as regards the faith.— , 1 Timothy 6:20-21 (RSV-CE)
For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own likings, and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander into myths.— , 2 Timothy 4:3-4 (RSV-CE)
Was not Abraham our father justified by works, when he offered his son Isaac upon the altar? You see that faith was active along with his works, and faith was completed by works…. For as the body apart from the spirit is dead, so faith apart from works is dead.— , James 2:21-22, 26 (RSV-CE)
But the devotion which we have to the Saints of God, whether living or dead, does not stop at them, but passes on to God, since we venerate God in God’s ministers.— , On Prayer and The Contemplative Life
It is not just an accident that in our age inflation has become the accepted method of monetary management. Inflation is the fiscal complement of statism and arbitrary government. It is a cog in the complex of policies and institutions which gradually lead toward totalitarianism.— , The Theory of Money and Credit
If God exists, then He must be outside the natural world, and therefore the tools of science are not the right ones to learn about Him. Instead…the evidence of God’s existence would have to come from other directions, and the ultimate decision would be based on faith, not proof.— , The Language of God
The church is made up of fallen people. The pure, clean water of spiritual truth is placed in rusty containers, and the subsequent failings of the church down through the centuries should not be projected onto the faith itself, as if the water had been the problem.— , The Language of God
But do we not sometimes hear the thief contend that he is not guilty of sin, because he steals from the rich and the wealthy, who, in his mind, not only suffer no injury, but do not even feel the loss? Such an excuse is as wretched as it is baneful.— , The Catechism of the Council of Trent
Nothing is so efficacious in appeasing God, when His wrath is kindled; nothing so effectually delays or averts the punishments prepared for the wicked as the prayers of men.— , The Catechism of the Council of Trent
Who does not perceive how much we stand in need of the goodness and beneficence of God, if he but consider the extreme destitution and misery of man?— , The Catechism of the Council of Trent
We are to pray for all mankind, without exception of enemies, nation or religion; for every man, be he enemy, stranger or infidel, is our neighbour, whom God commands us to love, and for whom, therefore, we should discharge a duty of love, which is prayer.— , The Catechism of the Council of Trent
The confusing in-fighting, doctrinal disunity, and ‘a-la-carte’ nature of the greater church in the world today is what made it possible for atheism, moral relativism, and disbelief to wedge in and become the norm in western society. This ongoing fracture provides ammunition for those who seek to dismiss Christianity as outmoded superstition.—
Non-believers have a difficult (if not impossible) time coming to the truth because there are now so many variants of ‘truth’ to choose from. Believers have an easy time abandoning their faith for the same reason.—
Everywhere I go I’m asked if I think the university stifles writers. My opinion is that they don’t stifle enough of them.—
You have heard that it was said, `You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven; for he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust.— , Matthew 5:43-45 (RSV-CE)
Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.—
Each person matters; no human life is redundant.—
But the LORD is with me as a dread warrior; therefore my persecutors will stumble, they will not overcome me. They will be greatly shamed, for they will not succeed. Their eternal dishonor will never be forgotten.— , Jeremiah 20:11 (RSV-CE)
Christianity doesn’t begin by telling people what they must do, but what God has done for them. Gift comes before duty.—
There’s no device known to mankind that will prevent people from being idiots.—
The Church does not derive from human will, from reflection, from man’s ability and organizational capacity…if that were so it would have become extinct a long time ago, like all human things.—
America seeks no earthly empire built on blood and force…. The higher state to which she seeks the allegiance of all mankind is not of human, but of divine origin. She cherishes no purpose save to merit the favor of Almighty God.— , 1925 Inaugural Address
Do not think that love in order to be genuine has to be extraordinary. What we need is to love without getting tired. Be faithful in small things because it is in them that your strength lies.—
For the law holds, that it is better that ten guilty persons escape, than that one innocent suffer.— , Commentaries on the Laws of England
We concede—as we must—that so much of what [the Catholic Church says] is true: that the papacy has God’s word and the office of the apostles, and that we have received holy scriptures, baptism, the sacrament, and the pulpit from them. What would we know of these if it were not for them?—
The more project management you do the less likely your project is to succeed.— , Google
Reason itself is a matter of faith. It is an act of faith to assert that our thoughts have any relation to reality at all.— , Orthodoxy
Nobody brings a sword to a phaser fight…except Hikaru Sulu.—
Hikaru Sulu prefers a .45 Magnum to a phaser. A .45 can’t be set to ‘stun.’—
If the helm isn’t responding, it must have been overloaded…by Hikaru Sulu.—
Hikaru Sulu is immune to the Vulcan nerve pinch.—
Chuck Norris is no match for a swashbuckling Hikaru Sulu.—
Hikaru Sulu invented Q.—
Many believe that warp drives are powered by a matter/antimatter reaction channelled through a dilithium crystal assembly. No; they are powered by Hikaru Sulu.—
Hikaru Sulu is in a constant state of pon farr.—
Hikaru Sulu can play ‘Stairway to Heaven’ on the Enterprise helm console.—
Hikaru Sulu has destroyed several Romulan ships…with a sword.—
In truth, the idea that there is a fundamental right to life is a liberal idea…. It is an idea that compassionately sees humanity in people who might seem un-human. It is an idea that won’t let you forget or ignore somebody just because they are hidden from view, or imperfect.—
Hikaru Sulu can make the Kessel Run in under eight parsecs.—
Hikaru Sulu takes monorails very seriously.—
Spread love everywhere you go. Let no one ever come to you without leaving happier.—
Those who don’t love you will tell you what you want to hear; those who love you will lead you to the truth.—
Any country that accepts abortion is not teaching the people to love, but to use any violence to get what they want.—
The rabbit’s tail looks like it’s made of cotton because if the tail looked like it was made of polyester, everybody would assume that the rabbit was artificial.—
Hikaru Sulu is the only licensed Texas Ranger in the 23rd century.—
If God can work through me, He can work through anyone.—
Our government is still clothed in the garb of a republic, but more and more our representatives behave as if they are the American sovereigns and are un-bound by any limits on their authority. Many have forgotten that we are the sovereigns, we make the republic, and it is our job to keep it.—
Now anything the people demand that is right it is most clearly and most emphatically the duty of this Legislature to do; but we should never yield to what they demand if it is wrong.—
I would rather go out of politics having the feeling that I had done what was right than stay in with the approval of all men, knowing in my heart that I have acted as I ought not to.—
History teaches us that men and nations behave wisely once they have exhausted all other alternatives.—
Have you been calumniated, my friends? Have you been loaded with insults? Have you been wronged? So much the better! That is a good sign; do not worry; you are on the road that leads to Heaven.— , The Beloved Crosses
There can never be a contradiction between faith and science because both originate in God. It is God who gives us both the light of reason and of faith.—
Success requires a persistent misreading of the odds.—
By a continuing process of inflation, government can confiscate, secretly and unobserved, an important part of the wealth of their citizens.—
Show me that age and country where the rights and liberties of the people were placed on the sole chance of their rulers being good men, without a consequent loss of liberty?—
Art is not freedom from discipline, but a disciplined freedom.—
Occasionally he stumbled over the truth, but hastily picked himself up and hurried on as if nothing had happened.—
Do not lose your inner peace for anything whatsoever, not even if your whole world seems upset. If you find that you have wandered away from the shelter of God, lead your heart back to Him quietly and simply.—
When circumstances change, I change my opinion.—
There are some people who seem to want to ask favors from God as a right. A pretty kind of humility that is! He Who knows us all does well in seldom giving things to such persons, He sees clearly that they are unable to drink of His chalice.— , The Way of Perfection
I am an American by choice and conviction. I was born in Europe, but I came to America because this was the country based on my moral premises and the only country where one could be fully free to write.—
My philosophy, in essence, is the concept of man as a heroic being, with his own happiness as the moral purpose of his life, with productive achievement as his noblest activity, and reason as his only absolute.—
[President Theodore] Roosevelt’s [R] all right, but he’s got no more use for the Constitution than a tomcat has for a marriage license.—
If a man has a very decided character, has a strongly accentuated career, it is normally the case of course that he makes ardent friends and bitter enemies.—
[My father] gave me a piece of advice that I have always remembered, namely, that, if I was not going to earn money, I must even things up by not spending it. As he expressed it, I had to keep the fraction constant, and if I was not able to increase the numerator, then I must reduce the denominator.—
Pay no heed, then, to anyone who tries to frighten you or depicts to you the perils of the way. What a strange idea that one could ever expect to travel on a road infested by thieves, for the purpose of gaining some great treasure, without running into danger!—
…the more I see the better satisfied I am that I am an American; free born and free bred, where I acknowledge no man as my superior, except for his own worth, or as my inferior, except for his own demerit.—
You must practice simplicity and humility, for those are the virtues which achieve everything. You must say: ‘Fiat voluntas tua.’—
…perfect souls are in no way repelled by trials, but rather desire them and pray for them and love them.—
But I advise you once more, even if you think you possess it, to suspect that you may be mistaken; for the person who is truly humble is always doubtful about his own virtues; very often they seem more genuine and of greater worth when he sees them in his neighbors.—
I appeal to you, brethren, to take note of those who create dissensions and difficulties, in opposition to the doctrine which you have been taught; avoid them. For such persons do not serve our Lord Christ, but their own appetites, and by fair and flattering words they deceive the hearts of the simple-minded.— , Romans 16:17-18 (RSV-CE)
And we also thank God constantly for this, that when you received the word of God which you heard from us, you accepted it not as the word of men but as what it really is, the word of God, which is at work in you believers.— , 1 Thessalonians 2:13 (RSV-CE)
Better a thousand times err on the side of over-readiness to fight, than to err on the side of tame submission to injury, or cold-blooded indifference to the misery of the oppressed.—
Diplomacy is utterly useless when there is no force behind it; the diplomat is the servant, not the master of the soldier.—
It is through strife, or the readiness for strife, that a nation must win greatness.—
We are not making a revolution, we are merely recognizing and giving shape to an evolution.—
Few people deny the existence of heaven (though, oddly, some do), but there are many who deny the existence of hell. And their motivation for doing so is understandable, if not correct. The only doctrine of the Church I wish weren’t true is the doctrine that hell exists.—
For he will render to every man according to his works: to those who by patience in well-doing seek for glory and honor and immortality, he will give eternal life; but for those who are factious and do not obey the truth, but obey wickedness, there will be wrath and fury.— , Romans 2:6-8 (RSV-CE)
[President William] McKinley [R] has his ear so close to the ground it’s always full of grasshoppers.—
[You] shall not murder a child by abortion nor kill that which is born.— , The Didache (ca. AD 100)
Whosoever, therefore, comes and teaches you all these things that have been said before, receive him. But if the teacher himself turns and teaches another doctrine to the destruction of this, hear him not.— , The Didache (ca. AD 100)
If he asks for money, he is a false prophet.— , The Didache (ca. AD 100)
And every prophet who teaches the truth, but does not do what he teaches, is a false prophet.— , The Didache (ca. AD 100)
If he who comes is a wayfarer, assist him as far as you are able…. But if he has no trade, according to your understanding, see to it that, as a Christian, he shall not live with you idle. But if he wills not to do, he is a Christ-monger. Watch that you keep away from such.— , The Didache (ca. AD 100)
Intuition is a very powerful thing, more powerful than intellect, in my opinion. That’s had a big impact on my work.—
Interpretation of Scripture can never be a purely academic affair, and it cannot be relegated to the purely historical. Scripture is full of potential for the future, a potential that can only be opened up when someone ‘lives through’ and ‘suffers through’ the sacred text.— , Jesus of Nazareth
The prevailing view today is that everyone should live by the religion—or perhaps by the atheism—in which he happens to find himself already. This, it is said, is the path of salvation for him. Such a view presupposes a strange picture of God and a strange idea of man and of the right way for man to live.— , Jesus of Nazareth
In a word, the true morality of Christianity is love. And love does admittedly run counter to self-seeking—it is an exodus out of oneself, and yet this is precisely the way in which man comes to himself.— , Jesus of Nazareth
Whoever then relaxes one of the least of these commandments and teaches men so, shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven; but he who does them and teaches them shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven.— , Matthew 5:19 (RSV-CE)
You know, Gina, Apple [Computer Inc.] is like a ship. That ship is loaded with treasure, but there’s a hole in the ship. And my job is to get everyone to row in the same direction.—
Deciding what not to do is as important as deciding what to do. That’s true for companies, and it’s true for products.—
Normally, thought precedes word; it seeks and formulates the word. But praying the Psalms and liturgical prayer in general is exactly the other way round: The word, the voice, goes ahead of us, and our mind must adapt to it.— , Jesus of Nazareth
I love you, not because you have the power to give heaven or hell, but simply because you are you—my king and my God.—
For I am sure that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.— , Romans 8:38-39 (RSV-CE)
…[The] ancient world did in fact experience the birth of Christianity as a liberation from the fear of demons that, in spite of skepticism and enlightenment, was all-pervasive at the time. The same thing also happens today wherever Christianity replaces old tribal religions, transforming and integrating their positive elements into itself.— , Jesus of Nazareth
The friendliness and charity of our countrymen can always be relied upon to relieve their fellow-citizens in misfortune…. Federal aid in such cases encourages the expectation of paternal care on the part of the government and weakens the sturdiness of our national character, while it prevents the indulgence among our people of that kindly sentiment and conduct which strengthens the bonds of a common brotherhood.—
The most neglected fact in business is that we’re all human.—
The feminists hate me, don’t they? And I don’t blame them. For I hate feminism. It is poison.—
Too many people get credit for being good, when they are only being passive. They are too often praised for being broadminded when they are so broadminded they can never make up their minds about anything.—
I am convinced that life is 10% what happens to me and 90% of how I react to it. And so it is with you. We are in charge of our attitudes.—
We can categorically state that we have not released man-eating badgers into the area.— , BBC News Report
The illiterate of the 21st century will not be those who cannot read and write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn, and relearn.—
I can’t help but laugh when I am condemned for believing in Heaven, Hell, and an invisible God by people who believe in invisible matter and hidden dimensions. We’re saying almost the same thing…. If we could stop getting distracted by our different phraseology, we’d find that we’re basically on the same page.—
The said Constitution shall never be construed to authorize Congress to infringe the just liberty of the press or the rights of conscience; or to prevent the people of The United States who are peaceable citizens from keeping their own arms.—
The great masses will more easily fall victim to a big lie than to a small one.—
If you’re not catching flak, you’re not over the target.—
If ye love wealth better than liberty, the tranquility of servitude than the animated contest of freedom–go home from us in peace. We ask not your counsels or arms. Crouch down and lick the hands which feed you. May your chains sit lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that you were our countrymen!—
…whenever the legislators endeavor to take away and destroy the property of the people, or to reduce them to slavery under arbitrary power, they put themselves into a state of war with the people, who are thereupon absolved from any farther obedience and are left to the common refuge, which God hath provided for all men, against force and violence.— , Second Treatise on Government
If you will not fight for the right when you can easily win without bloodshed; if you will not fight when your victory will be 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 small 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.—
It is perfectly evident to my mind that there exists a necessary, eternal, supreme, and intelligent being. This is no matter of faith, but of reason.—
To compel a man to furnish contributions of money for the propagation of opinions which he disbelieves and abhors, is sinful and tyrannical.—
An atheist has to know a lot more than I know. An atheist is someone who knows there is no god. By some definitions atheism is very stupid.—
Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.—
The fact that I want to fly to Albuquerque does not constitute probable cause for an invasive search.—
Some pundits said our programs would result in catastrophe. Our views on foreign affairs would cause war. Our plans for the economy would cause inflation to soar and bring about economic collapse…. Well, [they] were wrong. The fact is, what they called ‘radical’ was really ‘right.’ What they called ‘dangerous’ was just ‘desperately needed.’—
I wasn’t a great communicator, but I communicated great things, and they didn’t spring full bloom from my brow, they came from the heart of a great nation—from our experience, our wisdom, and our belief in the principles that have guided us for two centuries.—
The lesson of all this was, of course, that because we’re a great nation, our challenges seem complex. It will always be this way. But as long as we remember our first principles and believe in ourselves, the future will always be ours.—
The fact that some geniuses were laughed at does not imply that all who are laughed at are geniuses. They laughed at Columbus, they laughed at Fulton, they laughed at the Wright brothers. But they also laughed at Bozo the Clown.— , Broca’s Brain
It is all a matter of time scale. An event that would be unthinkable in a hundred years may be inevitable in a hundred million.— , Cosmos
With insufficient data it is easy to go wrong.— , Cosmos
We began as wanderers, and we are wanderers still. We have lingered long enough on the shores of the cosmic ocean. We are ready at last to set sail for the stars.— , Cosmos
If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first invent the universe.— , Cosmos
Other things being equal, it is better to be smart than to be stupid.— , Cosmos
We wish to pursue the truth no matter where it leads. But to find the truth, we need imagination and skepticism both. We will not be afraid to speculate, but we will be careful to distinguish speculation from fact. The cosmos is full beyond measure of elegant truths; of exquisite interrelationships; of the awesome machinery of nature.— , Cosmos
There are many hypotheses in science that are wrong. That’s perfectly alright; it’s the aperture to finding out what’s right. Science is a self-correcting process. To be accepted, new ideas must survive the most rigorous standards of evidence and scrutiny.— , Cosmos
Exactly the same technology can be used for good and for evil. It is as if there were a God who said to us, ‘I set before you two ways: You can use your technology to destroy yourselves or to carry you to the planets and the stars. It’s up to you.’— , Cosmos
The vast distances that separate the stars are providential. Beings and worlds are quarantined from one another. The quarantine is lifted only for those with sufficient self-knowledge and judgement to have safely traveled from star to star.— , Pale Blue Dot
Widespread intellectual and moral docility may be convenient for leaders in the short term, but it is suicidal for nations in the long term. One of the criteria for national leadership should therefore be a talent for understanding, encouraging, and making constructive use of vigorous criticism.— , Billions and Billions
Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.—
Interest groups…are made up of people who willingly support those groups with their time and money. They aren’t some diabolical, nebulous enemy of our democracy; they ARE democracy.—
Be kind to everyone you meet, for every person is fighting a great battle.—
If you constantly accuse those you disagree with of bigotry, chances are that you, not them, are the bigot.—
Whoever receives one such child in my name receives me; but whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him to have a great millstone fastened round his neck and to be drowned in the depth of the sea. Woe to the world for temptations to sin! For it is necessary that temptations come, but woe to the man by whom the temptation comes!— , Matthew 18:5-7 (RSV-CE)
The family is the cornerstone of our society. More than any other force it shapes the attitude, the hopes, the ambitions, and the values of the child. And when the family collapses it is the children that are usually damaged. When it happens on a massive scale the community itself is crippled.—
There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed.—
I owe my success to having listened respectfully to the very best advice, and then going away and doing the exact opposite.—
I cannot see how to refute the arguments for the subjectivity of ethical values, but I find myself incapable of believing that all that is wrong with wanton cruelty is that I don’t like it.—
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.—
I would remind you that extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice! And let me remind you also that moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue!—
Those who seek absolute power, even though they seek it to do what they regard as good, are simply demanding the right to enforce their own version of heaven on earth. And let me remind you, they are the very ones who always create the most hellish tyrannies.—
Equality, rightly understood, as our founding fathers understood it, leads to liberty and to the emancipation of creative differences. Wrongly understood, as it has been so tragically in our time, it leads first to conformity and then to despotism.—
My faith in the future rests squarely on the belief that man, if he doesn’t first destroy himself, will find new answers in the universe, new technologies, new disciplines, which will contribute to a vastly different and better world in the twenty-first century.—
Some people are so politically oriented, when they see cornflakes in a bowl, they get some complex interpretation out of it.—
He who thus considers things in their first growth and origin, whether a state or anything else, will obtain the clearest view of them.— , Politics
It is absurd to hold that a man ought to be ashamed of being unable to defend himself with his limbs but not of being unable to defend himself with speech and reason, when the use of reason is more distinctive of a human being than the use of his limbs.— , Rhetoric
How many a dispute could have been deflated into a single paragraph if the disputants had dared to define their terms.— , Rhetoric
He who is unable to live in society, or who has no need because he is sufficient for himself, must be either a beast or a god.— , Politics
Man, when perfected, is the best of animals, but when separated from law and justice, he is the worst of all.— , Politics
Even when laws have been written down, they ought not always to remain unaltered.— , Politics
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 the government to the utmost.— , Politics
Both oligarch and tyrant mistrust the people, and therefore deprive them of their arms.— , Politics
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.— , Politics
The basis of a democratic state is liberty.— , Politics
Law is order, and good law is good order.— , Politics
Piety requires us to honor truth above our friends.— , Nicomachean Ethics
For the things we have to learn before we can do, we learn by doing.— , Nicomachean Ethics
In cases of this sort, let us say adultery, rightness and wrongness do not depend on committing it with the right woman at the right time and in the right manner, but the mere fact of committing such action at all is to do wrong.— , Nicomachean Ethics
Therefore only an utterly senseless person can fail to know that our characters are the result of our conduct.— , Nicomachean Ethics
The worst form of inequality is to try to make unequal things equal.—
Let each citizen remember at the moment he is offering his vote that he is not making a present or a compliment to please an individual…but rather he is executing one of the most solemn trusts in human society for which he is accountable to God and his country.—
Those who understand freedom as the radically arbitrary license to do just what they want and to have their own way are living in a lie, for by his very nature man is part of a shared existence and his freedom is shared freedom.— , Jesus of Nazareth
Let us declare that God is dead, then we ourselves will be God…. At last we can do what we please. We get rid of God; there is no measuring rod above us; we ourselves are our only measure. The ‘vineyard’ belongs to us. What happens to man and the world next? We are already beginning to see it.— , Jesus of Nazareth
The cruel consequences of religiously motivated violence are only too evident to us all. Violence does not build up the kingdom of God, the kingdom of humanity. On the contrary, it is a favorite instrument of the Antichrist, however idealistic its religious motivation may be. It serves, not humanity, but inhumanity.— , Jesus of Nazareth: Holy Week
God grants to evil and to evildoers a large measure of freedom–too large, we might think. Even so, history does not slip through his fingers.— , Jesus of Nazareth: Holy Week
Unity does not come from the world: on the basis of the world’s own efforts, it is impossible. The world’s own efforts lead to disunion, as we can all see. Inasmuch as the world is operative in the Church, in Christianity, it leads to schisms.— , Jesus of Nazareth: Holy Week
Don’t let your life be sterile. Be useful. Blaze a trail. Shine forth with the light of your faith and of your love.— , The Way
Among us there is no place for the lukewarm. Humble yourself, and Christ will kindle in you again the fire of love.— , The Way
If your character and that of those around you were soft and sweet like marshmallows, you would never become a saint.— , The Way
Don’t be afraid of the truth, even though the truth may mean your death.— , The Way
Be united to Christ in order to purify yourself, and together with him experience the insults, the spit, the blows and the thorns….— , The Way
When a layman sets himself up as an arbiter of morals, he frequently errs; laymen can be only disciples.— , The Way
Saints are not abnormal cases to be studied by a modernistic doctor. They were–they are–normal, with flesh like yours. And they conquered.— , The Way
Suffering overwhelms you because you take it like a coward. Meet it bravely, with a Christian spirit, and you will esteem it like a treasure.— , The Way
Conversion is a matter of a moment. Sanctification is the work of a lifetime.— , The Way
Compromising is a sure sign of not possessing the truth. When a man yields in matters of ideals, of honor or of faith, that man is without ideals, without honor, and without faith.— , The Way
Holy steadfastness is not intolerance.— , The Way
Don’t worry too much about what the world calls victories or defeats. How often the ‘victor’ ends up defeated!— , The Way
Don’t judge without having heard both sides. Even persons who think themselves virtuous very easily forget this elementary rule of prudence.— , The Way
The ‘prudent’ have always called the works of God madness.— , The Way
Let us not forget that unity is a symptom of life; disunion is decay, a sure sign of being a corpse.— , The Way
Every man of power by the very fact of that power, is capable of doing damage to his neighbors; but we cannot afford to discourage the development of such men merely because it is possible they may use their power for wrong ends.—
Probably the greatest harm done by vast wealth is the harm that we of moderate means do ourselves when we let the vices of envy and hatred enter deep into our own hearts.—
Normally the man of great productive capacity who becomes rich by guiding the labor of many other men does so by enabling them to produce more than they could produce without his guidance; and both he and they share in the benefit, which comes also to the public at large.—
Here is the thing you must bear in mind: I do not represent public opinion; I represent the public. There is a wide difference between the two, between the real interests of the public, and the public’s opinion of these interests.—
To be neutral between right and wrong is to serve wrong.—
If God does not exist, everything is permissible.—
There are three kinds of people in the world; those who have sought God and found Him and now serve Him, those who are seeking Him but have not yet found Him, and those who neither seek Him nor find Him. The first are reasonable and happy, the second reasonable and unhappy, and the third unreasonable and unhappy.—
Brilliant minds often reject Christianity because they don’t want it to be true, because it is no longer fashionable or because it commands obedience, repentance and humility.— , Handbook of Christian Apologetics
Americans’ deepest religion is often equality. The notion that Christ alone is God–superior, authoritative, supernatural–and that Christ’s teaching and person is far greater than Buddha’s, or Muhammad’s, or Moses’s, no matter how much great and good wisdom may be contained in those others, is scandalous.— , Handbook of Christian Apologetics
[The early Christians] willingly died for their ‘conspiracy.’ Nothing proves sincerity like martyrdom.— , Handbook of Christian Apologetics
The dispute between the modernist demythologizer and the traditional believer is neither a textual dispute nor a scientific dispute, but a philosophical and theological dispute. Modernists read their philosophy of naturalism into the text, not out of it. They read the miracles out of it, not because the text tells them to but because their philosophy tells them to.— , Handbook of Christian Apologetics
There is an implicit but astonishing arrogance in the idea that all the apostles, all the church fathers and all the millions of ordinary Christians were fundamentally mistaken about Christ for nineteen centuries, and only a few theologians, sitting at their desks, in a very different culture, nineteen centuries later, finally understood him.— , Handbook of Christian Apologetics
Modernists have undermined faith far more effectively than atheists. The wolves in sheep’s clothing have carried away many more sheep than the honest wolves.— , Handbook of Christian Apologetics
Once we stop believing that morality has a basis in objective reality, once we start believing that morality is nothing more than subjective feelings and wishes, once we reduce justice from a cosmic law to a private preference, we no longer see it as binding or fear to disobey it when it is inconvenient.— , Handbook of Christian Apologetics
Judging God by human political categories is like judging a great symphony on which stanza of ‘Mary Had a Little Lamb’ it most resembles.— , Handbook of Christian Apologetics
The rhetoric about ‘progressive’ and ‘regressive’ hardly deserves comment. Those who tell truth by the clock or the calendar are practicing chronological snobbery.— , Handbook of Christian Apologetics
The Inquisition confused sin with sinners and judged both. Liberals make the same mistake and judge neither. But if you don’t judge the sin, you don’t care about the sinner. If you don’t hate the cancer, you don’t love the patient.— , Handbook of Christian Apologetics
Indiscriminate inclusion or indiscriminate exclusion are equally unthinking.— , Handbook of Christian Apologetics
Of all the symptoms of decay in our decadent civilization, subjectivism is the most disastrous of all. A mistake can possibly be discovered and amended if and only if truth exists and can be known and is loved and searched for.— , Handbook of Christian Apologetics
Just as pragmatism is unpragmatic and empiricism is not empirical, rationalism is irrational. You can’t prove that truth is only what can be proved.— , Handbook of Christian Apologetics
If the burden of proof is always on the one who believes any idea, then that principle should also apply to the belief in the idea of skepticism.— , Handbook of Christian Apologetics
If all values are only subjective, so is the value of tolerance.— , Handbook of Christian Apologetics
If no set of moral ideas were truer or better than any other, there would be no sense in preferring civilized morality to savage morality, or Christian morality to Nazi morality. In fact, of course, we all do believe that some moralities are better than others.— , Mere Christianity
All want progress. But progress means getting nearer to the place where you want to be. And if you have taken a wrong turning, then to go forward does not get you any nearer. If you are on the wrong road, progress means doing an about-turn and walking back to the right road; and in that case the man who turns back soonest is the most progressive man.— , Mere Christianity
There is nothing progressive about being pig headed and refusing to admit a mistake. And I think if you look at the present state of the world, it is pretty plain that humanity has been making some big mistake.— , Mere Christianity
There is nothing indulgent about the Moral Law. It is as hard as nails. It tells you to do the straight thing and it does not seem to care how painful, or dangerous, or difficult it is to do.— , Mere Christianity
If the whole universe has no meaning, we should never have found out that it has no meaning. Just as, if there were no light in the universe and therefore no creatures with eyes, we should never know it was dark. Dark would be a word without meaning.— , Mere Christianity
Besides being complicated, reality, in my experience, is usually odd. It is not neat, not obvious, not what you expect.— , Mere Christianity
You can do a kind action when you are not feeling kind and when it gives you no pleasure, simply because kindness is right; but no one ever did a cruel action simply because cruelty is wrong–only because cruelty was pleasant or useful to him.— , Mere Christianity
Every historical statement in the world is believed on authority. None of us has seen the Norman Conquest or the defeat of the Armada. None of us could prove them by pure logic as you prove a thing in mathematics…. A man who jibbed at authority in other things as some people do in religion would have to be content to know nothing all his life.— , Mere Christianity
It is, of course, quite true that God will not love you any the less, or have less use for you, if you happen to have been born with a very second-rate brain. He has room for people with very little sense, but He wants every one to use what sense they have.— , Mere Christianity
Really great moral teachers never do introduce new moralities: it is quacks and cranks who do that. As Dr. [Samuel] Johnson said, ‘People need to be reminded more often than they need to be instructed.’— , Mere Christianity
When a man is getting better he understands more and more clearly the evil that is still left in him. When a man is getting worse he understands his own badness less and less. A moderately bad man knows he is not very good; a thoroughly bad man thinks he is all right.— , Mere Christianity
Good and evil both increase at compound interest. That is why the little decisions you and I make every day are of such infinite importance.— , Mere Christianity
If Christianity was something we were making up, of course we could make it easier. But it is not…. We are dealing with fact. Of course anyone can be simple if he has no facts to bother about.— , Mere Christianity
The more you obey your conscience, the more your conscience will demand of you.— , Mere Christianity
A generation ago [the Democratic Party] stood for progressive change. Now they defend every federal program as if each were sacred. They have become the most conservative force in American politics.— , That Used To Be Us
In general, if you were to design a country ideally suited to flourish in the world we are living in, it would look more like the United States than any other.— , That Used To Be Us
If you call a horse’s tail a leg, how many legs does a horse have? The answer is four, because calling a horse’s tail a leg doesn’t make it one.—
As history demonstrates, a democracy without values easily turns into open or thinly disguised totalitarianism.— , Centesimus Annus
An atheist is someone who is certain that God does not exist, someone who has compelling evidence against the existence of God. I know of no such compelling evidence.—
Because God can be relegated to remote times and places and to ultimate causes, we would have to know a great deal more about the universe than we do now to be sure that no such God exists.—
We know that love doesn’t mean unquestioning acceptance, constant affirmation, or bottomless approval. People who expect these things are narcissists; people who indulge them are sycophants. Neither are giving, or receiving, anything resembling love.— , Love Isn’t Sycophancy
It makes little sense to condemn Christianity for its adherents’ and leaders’ hypocrisy; our faith is possibly the only one in the world that openly admits it is full of imperfect, sinful hypocrites.— , Guilt is a Good Thing
The simple fact is that God certainly intended to create a human being and that this nascent human being has been deliberately deprived of his life. And that is nothing but murder.— , Ethics
In my youth I traveled much, and I observed in different countries, that the more public provisions were made for the poor, the less they provided for themselves, and of course became poorer. And, on the contrary, the less was done for them, the more they did for themselves, and became richer.—
The totalitarian states can do great things, but there is one thing they cannot do: they cannot give the factory-worker a rifle and tell him to take it home and keep it in his bedroom. That rifle hanging on the wall of the working class flat or laborer’s cottage is the symbol of democracy. It is our job to see that it stays there.—
Give me one hundred preachers who fear nothing but sin and desire nothing but God, and I care not whether they be clergymen or laymen, they alone will shake the gates of Hell and set up the kingdom of Heaven upon Earth.—
Freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed.— , Letter from Birmingham City Jail
The function of education is to teach one to think intensively and to think critically. Intelligence plus character–that is the goal of true education.— , The Purpose of Education
Science investigates; religion interprets. Science gives man knowledge which is power; religion gives man wisdom which is control. Science deals mainly with facts; religion deals mainly with values. The two are not rivals. They are complementary.— , Strength to Love
The trailblazers in human, academic, scientific, and religious freedom have always been nonconformists.— , Strength to Love
Every one, though born of God in an instant, yet undoubtedly grows by slow degrees.—
Beware you be not swallowed up in books! An ounce of love is worth a pound of knowledge.—
When I was young I was sure of everything. In a few years, having been mistaken a thousand times, I was not half so sure of most things as I was before. At present, I am hardly sure of anything but what God has revealed to man.—
The greater the share the people have in government, the less liberty, civil or religious, does a nation enjoy.—
Beware you are not a fiery, persecuting enthusiast. Do not imagine that God has called you (just contrary to the spirit of Him you style your Master) to destroy men’s lives, and not to save them. Never dream of forcing men into the ways of God. Think yourself, and let think.— , The Nature of Enthusiasm
Though we cannot think alike, may we not love alike? May we not be of one heart, though we are not of one opinion? Without all doubt, we may. Herein all the children of God may unite, notwithstanding these smaller differences.— , Catholic Spirit
Silence in the face of evil is itself evil: God will not hold us guiltless. Not to speak is to speak. Not to act is to act.—
How wrong it is to use God as a stop-gap for the incompleteness of our knowledge…. We are to find God in what we know, not in what we don’t know.—
Jesus bluntly calls the evil person evil. If I am assailed, I am not to condone or justify aggression. Patient endurance of evil does not mean a recognition of its rights. That is sheer sentimentality, and Jesus will have nothing to do with it.—
The great masquerade of evil has played havoc with all our ethical concepts. For evil to appear disguised as light, charity, historical necessity or social justice is quite bewildering to anyone brought up on out traditional ethical concepts, while for the Christian who bases his life on the Bible, it merely confirms the fundamental wickedness of evil.—
Who stands fast? Only the man whose final standard is not his reason, his principles, his conscience, his freedom, or his virtue, but who is ready to sacrifice all this when he is called to obedient and responsible action in faith and in exclusive allegiance to God.—
There remains an experience of incomparable value. We have for once learned to see the great events of world history from below, from the perspective of the outcasts, the suspects, the maltreated—in short, from the perspective of those who suffer. Mere waiting and looking on is not Christian behavior. Christians are called to compassion and to action.—
Identity politics is corrosive to the great American melting pot and we reject it. We must reject the notion that demography is destiny, the pathetic and simplistic notion that skin pigmentation dictates voter behavior. We must treat all people as individuals rather than as members of special interest groups.—
When you’re right, you don’t have to worry too much about stinging political defeats. All you have to do is sit back and let the winners enact their policies. If you’re really right, and they’re really wrong, their policies will fail.— , Wilson, Obama, and the Fiscal Cliff
Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind.—
The man of science is a poor philosopher.—
Every one who is seriously engaged in the pursuit of science becomes convinced that the laws of nature manifest the existence of a spirit vastly superior to that of men, and one in the face of which we with our modest powers must feel humble.—
There can never be any real opposition between religion and science; for the one is the complement of the other.—
Religion and natural science are fighting a joint battle in an incessant, never-relaxing crusade against skepticism and against dogmatism, against disbelief and against superstition, and the rallying cry in this crusade has always been, and always will be: ‘On to God!’—
The fool says in his heart, ‘There is no God.’ They are corrupt, they do abominable deeds, there is none that does good.— Psalm 14:1 (RSV-CE)
You shall walk after the LORD your God and fear him, and keep his commandments and obey his voice, and you shall serve him and cleave to him.— Deuteronomy 13:4 (RSV-CE)
The excesses and atrocities of organized religion have no bearing whatsoever on the existence of God, just as the threat of nuclear proliferation has no bearing on the question of whether E = mc^2.— , There Is a God (Preface)
Natural selection does not positively produce anything. It only eliminates, or tends to eliminate, whatever is not competitive. A variation does not need to bestow any actual competitive advantage in order to avoid elimination; it is sufficient that it does not burden its owner with any competitive disadvantage.— , There Is a God
Science spotlights three dimensions of nature that point to God. The first is the fact that nature obeys laws. The second is the dimension of life, of intelligently organized and purpose-driven beings, which arose from matter. The third is the very existence of nature.— , There Is a God
My discovery of the Divine has been a pilgrimage of reason and not of faith.— , There Is a God
It is crazy to postulate a trillion (causally unconnected) universes to explain the features of one universe, when postulating one entity (God) will do the job.—
A government will best promote a speedy business recovery by making recovery the top priority, which means letting people keep more of their money, removing obstacles to productive enterprise, and providing stable money and a political climate where investors feel that it’s safe to invest for the future.— , FDR’s Folly
Economic planning on a national scale in a politically free society involves contradictions that cannot be resolved in practice.— , FDR’s Folly
A tax, in the general understanding of the term, and as used in the Constitution, signifies an exaction for the support of the Government. The word has never been thought to connote the expropriation of money from one group for the benefit of another.—
The question is not what power the Federal Government ought to have, but what powers, in fact, have been given by the people…. The federal union is a government of delegated powers. It has only such as are expressly conferred upon it and such as are reasonably to be implied from those granted.—
From the accepted doctrine that the United States is a government of delegated powers, it follows that those not expressly granted, or reasonably to be implied from such as are conferred, are reserved to the states, or to the people. To forestall any suggestion to the contrary, the Tenth Amendment was adopted.—
Union bosses talked about securing the ‘right to strike,’ but they didn’t mean the right to quit, which everybody already had. In practice, the ‘right to strike’ meant the right to forcibly prevent others from filling jobs that strikers had left.— , FDR’s Folly
If the Constitution, intelligently and reasonably construed, stands in the way of desirable legislation, the blame must rest upon that instrument, and not upon the court for enforcing it according to its terms. The remedy in that situation—and the only true remedy—is to amend the Constitution.—
People must be free to use their knowledge, and they must have incentives to do so. Market prices must be free because they are crucial signals indicating whether things are abundant or scarce, unwanted or wanted. The most important thing government officials can do is get out of the way.— , FDR’s Folly
It would be a master stroke if those great Powers honestly bent on peace would form a League of Peace, not only to keep the peace among themselves, but to prevent, by force if necessary, its being broken by others.—
The people have spoken, and the politicians must learn to answer or understand. They will be made to understand that they are the servants of the rank and file of the plain citizens of the republic.—
The great mass of ordinary commonplace men of dull imagination who simply vote under the party symbol and whom it is almost as difficult to stir by any appeal to the higher emotions and intelligence as it would be to stir so many cattle.—
There can be no higher international duty than to safeguard the existence and independence of industrious, orderly states, with a high personal and national standard of conduct, but without the military force of the great powers.—
The one certain way to invite disaster is to be opulent, offensive, and unarmed.—
The way to treat an adversary like [Theodore] Roosevelt is to gaze at the stars over his head.—
It is the American example that deserves the most credit for the global spread of democratic politics and free-market economies. In this sense, too, the world of today is a world that we invented.— , That Used to Be Us
Countries don’t compete directly with one another in economic terms. When Singapore or China gets richer, America does not become poorer. To the contrary, Asia’s surging economic growth has made Americans better off.— , That Used to Be Us
Bill Gates has always told me if I had been born, you know, many thousands of years ago, I’d have been some animal’s lunch because I can’t run very fast, I can’t climb trees, and some animal would be chasing me and I would say, Well, I allocate capital. The animal would say, Those are the kind that taste the best.—
A 2011 report produced by Forrester Research estimated that the revenue generated through the sales of smartphone and tablet applications will reach $38 billion annually by 2015. Think about that: An industry that did not exist in 2006 will be generating $38 billion in revenues within a decade….— , That Used to Be Us
We treat education as a social issue. And I’ll tell you what happens with social issues: When the budget crunch comes, they get swept under the rug, they get pushed aside. We have to start treating education as an economic issue.—
When children come to school knowing that their parents have high expectations, it makes everything a teacher is trying to do easier and more effective. Self-esteem is important, but it is not an entitlement. It has to be earned.— , That Used to Be Us
American young people have got to understand from an early age that the world pays off on results, not on effort. Not everyone should win a prize no matter where he or she finishes.— , That Used to Be Us
Arithmetic is not an opinion.—
We have a treaty that says we have to defend Taiwan in the event that it is attacked by China. The only problem is that we would now have to borrow the money from China to do it.— , (as recorded in ‘That Used to Be Us’ by Thomas Friedman and Michael Mandelbaum)
In sum, national, state, and local economic and fiscal policies over the last two decades added up to a bipartisan flight from prudence, common sense, and reality that has created an enormous challenge for the United States.— , That Used to Be Us
It cannot be said often enough: Well-paying jobs don’t come from bailouts. They come from start-ups, which come from smart, creative, inspired risk takers.— , That Used to Be Us
First, that human beings, all over the earth, have this curious idea that they ought to behave in a certain way, and cannot really get rid of it. Secondly, that they do not in fact behave in that way. They know the Law of Nature; they break it. These two facts are the foundation of all clear thinking about ourselves and the universe we live in.— , Mere Christianity
If no set of moral ideas were truer or better than any other, there would be no sense in preferring civilized morality to savage morality, or Christian morality to Nazi morality. In fact, of course, we all do believe that some moralities are better than others.— , Mere Christianity
You make a thing voluntary and then half the people do not do it. That is not what you willed, but your will has made it possible.— , Mere Christianity
Every historical statement in the world is believed on authority. None of us has seen the Norman Conquest or the defeat of the Armada. None of us could prove them by pure logic as you prove a thing in mathematics.— , Mere Christianity
They tell you sex has become a mess because it was hushed up. But for the last twenty years it has not been. It has been chattered about all day long. Yet it is still in a mess.— , Mere Christianity
Poster after poster, film after film, novel after novel, associate the idea of sexual indulgence with the ideas of health, normality, youth, frankness, and good humor…. This association is a lie.— , Mere Christianity
Knowledge can last, principles can last, habits can last; but feelings come and go.— , Mere Christianity
But love, in the Christian sense, does not mean an emotion. It is a state not of the feelings but of the will; that state of the will which we have naturally about ourselves, and must learn to have about other people.— , Mere Christianity
How monotonously alike all the great tyrants and conquerors have been: how gloriously different are the saints.— , Mere Christianity
Our bodies are essentially the same kind of thing as ape bodies. If we have no souls or if our souls are also essentially the same as ape souls, then there is no reason to expect anyone to act essentially different from apes. (This may explain much current social history!) What makes a difference is not where the body came from, but whether there is a soul, and where it came from.— , Handbook of Christian Apologetics
If you can’t translate it into words a fisherman would understand, you don’t understand it yourself.— , Handbook of Christian Apologetics
There is no more contradiction between Christianity’s hard-nosed doctrines and its softhearted love than there is between the hard objective truths of anatomy and the surgeon’s compassion for the patient.— , Handbook of Christian Apologetics
Objective does not mean “known by all” or “believed by all.” Even if everyone believes a lie, a lie is still a lie.— , Handbook of Christian Apologetics
At any rate, while I am in public life, however short a time it may be, I am in honor bound to act up to my beliefs and convictions.—
In El Paso, the people are homicidal but orthodox.—
The captains of industry who have driven the railway systems across this continent, who have built up our commerce, who have developed our manufactures, have on the whole done great good to our people.—
The whole history of the world shows that legislation will generally be both unwise and ineffective unless undertaken after calm enquiry and with sober self-restraint.—
I had much rather be a real President for three years and a half than a figurehead for seven years and a half.—
[British Ambassador Sir Mortimer Durand] seems to have a brain of about eight guinea-pig power.—
[In school] I encountered authority of a different kind than I had ever encountered before, and I did not like it. And they really almost got me. They came close to really beating any curiosity out of me.—
I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life and no idea how college was going to help me figure it out. And here I was spending all of the money my parents had saved their entire life. So I decided to drop out and trust that it would all work out okay.—
I will solve your problem, and you will pay me. You can use what I produce, or not, but I will not do options, and either way you will pay me.—
Some people resent the fact that Steve [Jobs] gets credit for everything, but I’ve never given a rat’s ass about that. Frankly speaking, I’d prefer my name never be in the paper.—
I’m about fifty-fifty on believing in God. For most of my life, I’ve felt that there must be more to our existence than meets the eye.—
But if we successfully reduce gun murders without reducing the overall murder rate, that’s not really success. The murder victim doesn’t care whether he was killed with a gun, knife, hammer, car, poison, anvil, or blow-dart. Neither should we.— , On the Obama Gun-Control Proposals
I am a gun. I have challenged the waves and crossed a vast, unforgiving sea. I have landed on these shores. I am held by the pilgrim, the pioneer, and the trail blazer. I have brought civilization to a barren wilderness.— , I Am a Gun
Should Congress, under the pretext of executing its powers, pass laws for the accomplishment of objects not entrusted to the Government, it would become the painful duty of [the Supreme Court], should a case requiring such a decision come before it, to say that such an act was not the law of the land.— , McCulloch v. Maryland
By pointing out the apostolic tradition and faith announced to mankind, which has been brought down to our time by successions of bishops, in the greatest, most ancient, and well known church, founded and established by the two most glorious apostles, Peter and Paul, at Rome, we can confound all who in any other way . . . gather more than they ought.— , Against the Heresies (ca. AD 180)
Avoid divisions, as the beginning of evil. Follow, all of you, the bishop, as Jesus Christ followed the father; and follow the presbytery as the apostles. Let no man do aught pertaining to the Church apart from the bishop. Wheresoever the bishop appears, there let the people be, even as wheresoever Christ Jesus is, there is the Catholic Church.— , To the Smyrnaeans (ca. AD 115)
For though you think that heaven is still shut up, remember that the Lord left the keys of it to Peter here, and through him to the Church, which keys everyone will carry with him, if he has been questioned and made confession.— , Scorpiace (ca. AD 208)
There is one God, and one Christ, and one Church, and one chair founded by the voice of the Lord on the rock. Another altar cannot be set up, nor a new priesthood made, besides the one altar and the one priesthood. Whoever gathers elsewhere scatters.— , Treatise 1 (ca. AD 250)
He who deserts the chair of Peter, upon whom the Church was founded, does he trust himself to be in the Church?— , De Catholicae Ecclesiae Unitate (ca. AD 251)
There are many other things which rightly keep me in the bosom of the Catholic Church . . . The succession of the priests keeps me, from the very seat of the apostle Peter (to whom the Lord after his resurrection gave charge to feed his sheep) down to the present episcopate.— , Contra Epistolam Manichaei (AD 395)
The Constitution does not prohibit legislatures from enacting stupid laws.—
Let not many of you become teachers, my brethren, for you know that we who teach shall be judged with greater strictness.— , James 3:1 (RSV-CE)
As it is, you boast in your arrogance. All such boasting is evil. Whoever knows what is right to do and fails to do it, for him it is sin.— , James 4:16-17 (RSV-CE)
My brethren, if any one among you wanders from the truth and some one brings him back, let him know that whoever brings back a sinner from the error of his way will save his soul from death and will cover a multitude of sins.— , James 5:19-20 (RSV-CE)
Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter!— , Isaiah 5:20 (RSV-CE)
And this food is called among us the Eucharist, of which no one is allowed to partake but the man who believes that the things which we teach are true, and who has been washed with the washing that is for the remission of sins, and unto regeneration, and who is so living as Christ enjoined.— , First Apology (ca. AD 150)
