Quotes

Updated June 10, 2021, 4:56 p.m.

This page includes all of the quotes that can appear in the quotes widget. They are organized by author.

They come in all kinds: funny, thought provoking, political, spiritual, and more. They are from theologians, authors, politicians, pundits, saints, popes, friends, family, and . . . me. Most of them say things that I agree with, but some I just found to be interesting or thought provoking.

I have attempted to verify the original author of each quote and, when possible, I provided some kind of sourcing . . . a book or document title, an event description, or a date. Please report any errors (or submit new quotes you think I might like) using the contact page.

Scott Bradford has been putting his opinions on his website since 1995—before most people knew what a website was. He has been a professional web developer in the public- and private-sector for over twenty years. He is an independent constitutional conservative who believes in human rights and limited government, and a Catholic Christian whose beliefs are summarized in the Nicene Creed. He holds a bachelor’s degree in Public Administration from George Mason University. He loves Pink Floyd and can play the bass guitar . . . sort-of. He’s a husband, pet lover, amateur radio operator, and classic AMC/Jeep enthusiast.

Quotes

We are all unequal. No one, thank heavens, is like anyone else. . . . We believe that everyone has the right to be unequal but to us every human being is equally important.

Nothing is as easy to make as a promise this winter to do something next summer; this is how commencement speakers are caught.

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.

The rhetoric about ‘progressive’ and ‘regressive’ hardly deserves comment. Those who tell truth by the clock or the calendar are practicing chronological snobbery.

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.

He who gives himself to vanity, and does not give himself to meditation, forgetting the real aim of life and grasping at pleasure, will in time envy him who has exerted himself in meditation.

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.

There is nothing better for a man than that he should eat and drink, and find enjoyment in his toil. This also, I saw, is from the hand of God; for apart from him who can eat or who can have enjoyment?

Those who do not want to be partakers of the American spirit ought not to settle in America.

Every step in human progress, from the first feeble stirrings in the abyss of time, has been opposed by the great majority of men.

All democrats object to men being disqualified by the accident of birth; tradition objects to their being disqualified by the accident of death.

There are two things which a democratic people will always find very difficult: to begin a war, and to end it.

For to answer objections made to a power given to a government, by saying it will never be exercised, is really admitting that the power ought not to be exercised, and therefore ought not to be granted.

Some acts are always wrong—that is, intrinsically evil—and may never be done, no matter what the intention or the circumstances.

Churches . . . that are nothing more than a loosely bound assembly of individuals committed to finding their own ‘truth,’ are no longer the church in any meaningful sense, because there is no shared belief.

There 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 are defeated in our innermost personal selves?

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.

For the Church remains our mother because Christ remains Christ, and she is not changed into a step-mother simply because of our evil rulers.

When men are uniform in their opinions, it affords evidence that they are sincere. When they are shifting, it gives reason to believe, they do not change from conviction.

Murder is sometimes punished, free speech always.

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