Doug's Thought Collection
I think that most Christians would be better pleased if the Lord did not inquire into their personal affairs too closely. They want Him to save them, to keep them happy, and to take them off to heaven at last, but not to be too inquisitive about their conduct or services.
You can't achieve anything without getting in someone's way.
The safety needs can become very urgent on the social scene whenever there are real threats to law, to order, to authority of society. The threat of chaos or if nihilism can be expected in most human beings to produce a regression from any higher needs to the more prepotent safety needs. A common, almost an expectable reaction, is the easier acceptance of dictatorship or of military rule. This tends to be true for all human beings, including healthy ones, since they too will respond to danger with realistic regression to the safety need level and will prepare to defend themselves. (Motivation and Personality, 3rd ed. (1970), p. 19)
I destroy my enemy when I make him my friend.
There are no accidents in my philosophy. Every effect must have its cause. The past is the cause of the present, and the present will be the cause of the future. All these are links in the endless chain stretching from the finite to the infinite."
We have been the recipients of the choicest bounties of heaven; we have been preserved these many years in peace and prosperity; we have grown in number, wealth, and power as no other Nation has ever grown. But we have forgotten God. We have forgotten the gracious hand which preserved us in peace and multiplied and enriched and strengthened us, and we have vainly imagined, in the deceitfulness of our hearts, that all these blessings were produced by some superior wisdom and virtue of our own. Intoxicated with unbroken success we have become too self-sufficient to feel the necessity of redeeming and preserving grace, too proud to pray to the God who made us. It behooves us, then, to humble ourselves before the offended power, to confess our . . sins, and to pray for clemency and forgiveness.
(John Wesley Hill, Abraham Lincoln, Man of God, 4th ed., New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons, p. 391.)
(Marion G. Romney, "Gratitude and Thanksgiving," Ensign, Nov. 1982, 50)
It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest.
No act of kindness, no matter how small, is ever wasted.
We hang the petty thieves and appoint the great ones to public office.
We often give our enemies the means for our own destruction.
Beware lest you lose the substance by grasping at the shadow.
Gratitude is the sign of noble souls.
Aesop, The Fox and the Cat
Better one safe way than a hundred on which you cannot reckon.
Rules cannot substitute for character.
The welfare of the people in particular has always been the alibi of tyrants, and it provides the further advantage of giving the servants of tyranny a good conscience.
Being a lover of freedom, when the (Nazi) revolution came, I looked to the universities to defend it, knowing that they had always boasted of their devotion to the cause of truth; but no, the universities were immediately silenced. Then I looked to the great editors of the newspapers, whose flaming editorials in days gone by had proclaimed their love of freedom; but they, like the universities, were silenced in a few short weeks...Only the Church stood squarely across the path of Hitler's campaign for suppressing truth. I never had any special interest in the Church before, but now I feel a great affection and admiration for it because the Church alone has had the courage and persistence to stand for intellectual and moral freedom. I am forced to confess that what I once despised I now praise unreservedly. (From Kampi und Zeugnis der bekennenden Kirche)
All that is valuable in human society depends upon the opportunity for development accorded to the individual.
Everything that is really great and inspiring is created by the individual who can labor in freedom.
Imagination is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited. Imagination encircles the world.
Science without religion is lame; religion without science is blind.
The difference between stupidity and genius is that genius has its limits.
The significant problems we have cannot be solved at the same level of thinking with which we created them.
Try not to become a man of success, but rather a man of value.
Weakness of attitude becomes weakness of character.
Anyone who has never made a mistake has never
tried anything new.
Few people are capable of expressing with equanimity opinions which differ from the prejudices of their social environment. Most are incapable of even forming such opinions
It is almost a miracle that modern teaching methods have not yet entirely strangled the holy curiosity of inquiry.
It is easier to denature plutonium than to denature the evil spirit of man.
Never do anything against conscience even if the state demands it.
The human mind is not capable of grasping the Universe. We are like a little child entering a huge library. The walls are covered to the ceilings with books in many different tongues. The child knows that someone must have written these books. It does not know who or how. It does not understand the languages in which they are written. But the child notes a definite plan in the arrangement of the books—a mysterious order which it does not comprehend, but only dimly suspects.
There are two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle.
A man can do only what he can do. But if he does that each day he can sleep at night and do it again the next day.
Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored.
When one door closes another door opens; but we so often look so long and so regretfully upon the closed door that we do not see the ones which open for us.
Those who stand for nothing fall for anything.
Let us recollect that peace or war will not always be left to our option; that however moderate or unambitious we may be, we cannot count upon the moderation, or hope to extinguish the ambition of others.
-- (Federalist No. 34, 4 January 1788)
To grant that there is a supreme intelligence who rules the
world and has established laws to regulate the actions of his
creatures; and still to assert that man, in a state of nature,
may be considered as perfectly free from all restraints of law
and government, appears to a common understanding altogether
irreconcilable. Good and wise men, in all ages, have embraced
a very dissimilar theory. They have supposed that the deity,
from the relations we stand in to himself and to each other, has
constituted an eternal and immutable law, which is indispensably
obligatory upon all mankind, prior to any human institution
whatever. This is what is called the law of nature....Upon this
law depend the natural rights of mankind. (The Farmer Refuted, 1775)
To judge from the history of mankind, we shall be compelled to
conclude that the fiery and destructive passions of war reign in
the human breast with much more powerful sway than the mild and
beneficent sentiments of peace; and that to model our political
systems upon speculations of lasting tranquillity would be to
calculate on the weaker springs of human character. (Federalist No. 34, 4 January 1788)
Why has government been instituted at all? Because the passions of men will not conform to the dictates of reason and justice without constraint." (Federalist No. 15)
Wise politicians will be cautious about fettering the governmentwith restrictions that cannot be observed, because they know that every break of the fundamental laws, though dictated by necessity, impairs that sacred reverence which ought to be maintained in the breast of rulers towards the constitution of a country. "
(Federalist No. 25, 21 December 1787)
Alexis de Tocqueville in 'Democracy In America'
In France I had almost always seen the spirit of religion and the spirit of freedom marching in opposite directions. But in America I found they were intimately united and that they reigned in common over the same country.... Religion in America...must be regarded as the foremost of the political institutions of that country; for if it does not impart a taste for freedom, it facilitates the use of it....There is no country in the whole world where the Christian religion retains a greater influence over the souls of men than in America, and there can be no greater proof of its utility...than that its influence is powerfully felt over the most enlightened and free nation of the earth.
True courage is not the brutal force of vulgar heroes, but the firm resolve of virtue and reason.
Speak when you are angry, and you will make the best speech you will ever regret.
To apologize is to lay the foundation for a future offense.
Courage is not the absence of fear, but rather the judgment that something else is more important than fear.
If a million people say a foolish thing, it is still a foolish thing.
The first virtue of all really great men is that they are sincere. They eradicate hypocrisy from their hearts.
In order to discover new lands, one must be willing to lose sight of the shore for a very long time.
Individualism, private property, the law of accumulation of wealth, and the law of competition; these are the highest results of human experience. The soil in which society so far has produced the best fruit.
Whenever the nation is under attack, from within or without, liberals side with the enemy. This is their essence.
If I were asked to give what I consider the single most useful bit of advice for all humanity, it would be this: Expect trouble as an inevitable part of life, and when it comes, hold your head high. Look it squarely in the eye, and say, "I will be bigger than you. You cannot defeat me.
All our talents increase in the using, and every faculty... strengthens by exercise.
If suffering alone taught, all the world would be wise, since everyone suffers.
He who receiveth all things with thankfulness shall be made
glorious.
Each step we take, on the mountain or off, must be taken with respect and appreciation for the preciousness of our human birth.
(Apa currently holds the world record for ascending Mount Everest 16 times. He now lives in Utah to educate his family.)
.... Alabama complied ... and moved the Ten Commandments from the court lobby to a closet just off the lunchroom. It's insane. In the space of three months, the federal courts have put the Ten Commandments in the closet and let the sodomy laws out.
Character is that which reveals moral purpose, exposing the class of things a man chooses and avoids.
It is the characteristic of the magnanimous man to ask no favor but to be ready to do kindness to others.
We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.
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.
Anybody can become angry, that is easy; but to be angry with the right person, and to the right degree, and at the right time, and for the right purpose, and in the right way, that is not within everybody’s power, that is not easy.
Bring your desires down to your present means. Increase them only when your increased means permit.
It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.
What it lies in our power to do, it lies in our power not to do.
Arnold Schwarzenegger, Actor, on the possibility of a California gubernatorial campaign in 2006
[A run for governor] could be very intimidating. But I said to myself: ‘Hey, which of those guys ever won Mr. Universe? Who had Danny DeVito as a twin brother? Who did a movie with Sharon Stone? Who is married to Maria Shriver?’ Me, so there you go.
Man is the only animal who causes pain to others with no other object than wanting to do so.
When fate throws a dagger at you, there are only two ways to catch it, either by the blade or by the handle. (adversity)
How should it happen that the individual should be without rights, but the combination of individuals should possess unlimited rights?
Nothing costs so little, goes so far, and accomplishes so much as a single act of merciful service.
Morality has perished through poverty of great men; a poverty for which we must not only assign a reason, but for the guilt of which we must answer as criminals charged with a capital crime. For it is through our vices, and not by any mishap, that we retain only the name of a republic, and have long since lost the reality.
It is easy to want things from the Lord and yet not want the Lord Himself, as though the gift could ever be preferable to the Giver.
It requires as much caution to tell the truth as to conceal 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. It is not to inaugurate new programs, but to cancel old ones that do violence to the Constitution, or that have failed in their purpose, or that impose on the people an unwarranted financial burden. I will not attempt to discover whether legislation is 'needed' before I have first determined whether it is constitutionally permissible. And if I should later be attacked for neglecting my constituents' interests, I shall reply that I was informed their main interest is liberty and that in that cause I am doing the very best I can.
A government that is big enough to give you all you want is big enough to take it all away.
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.
Next to knowing when to seize an opportunity, the most important thing in life is to know when to forego an advantage.
Any fool can criticize, condemn and complain and most fools do.
Energy and persistence conquer all things.
Energy and persistence conquer all things.
Have you something to do to-morrow; do it to-day.
Having been poor is no shame, but being ashamed of it, is.
He that goes a borrowing goes a sorrowing.
Human Felicity is produced not so much by great Pieces of good
Fortune that seldom happen, as by little Advantages that occur
every Day.
Human Felicity is produced not so much by great Pieces of good
Fortune that seldom happen, as by little Advantages that occur every Day.
I am for doing good to the poor, but I differ in opinion of the means. I think the best way of doing good to the poor, is not making them easy in poverty, but leading or driving them out of it. 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.
I pronounce it as certain that there was never yet a truly great man that was not at the same time truly virtuous.
If men are so wicked with religion, what would they be if without it?
In reality there is perhaps no one of our natural Passions so hard to subdue as Pride. Disguise it, struggle with it, beat it down, stifle it, mortify it as much as one pleases, it is still alive, and will now and then peek out and show itself.
Necessity never made a good bargain.
Only a virtuous people are capable of freedom. As nations become corrupt and vicious, they have more need of masters.
Remember, that Time is Money."
-- (Advice to a Young Tradesman, 1748)
Reference: Franklin: Writings, Lemay, Library of America (1198)
Resolve to perform what you ought. Perform without fail what you resolve.
Strive to be the greatest man in your country, and you may be disappointed. Strive to be the best and you may succeed: he may well win the race that runs by himself.
The Constitution only gives people the right to pursue happiness. You have to catch it yourself.
The doors of wisdom are never shut.
There never was a good war, or a bad peace.
Where liberty dwells, there is my country.
[T]he best way of doing good to the poor, is not making them easy in poverty, but leading or driving them out of it.
Patriotism is as much a virtue as justice, and is as necessary for the support of societies as natural affection is for the support of families.
'Anger ... is primarily one's personal responsibility. The reasons to become angry exist in our heads. ... The few times anger worked for you pale in comparison to the multitude of times it made things worse. It is far better not to produce the anger than to experience it.
I don't know the key to success, but the key to failure is to try to please everyone.
As government grows bigger, expectations concerning its performance grow smaller.
We have failed our children if we have not passed on to them a realistic perspective of government. We must insure that they know that it is not okay to raid people’s paychecks and steal their property, even if doing so seems to be in the best interest of society. We must not take it for granted that our children know the importance of spiritual things and understand the foundations of traditional morality. We must insure that they do. Walt Disney would not know the company he founded only a generation ago. He would roll over in his grave at what those at the helm of Disney today have made of his dream. Henry Ford would turn away in disgust at what the Ford Foundation is doing with his fortune. I am certain that the Founding Fathers would be distressed at the way we have allowed their carefully constructed, much debated words...twisted so as to kick God and the Bible out of our schools and to protect the purveyors of obscenity. They would wonder in disbelief at the income taxes we allow to be confiscated from our paychecks today and the property that is stolen without compensation by means of egregious land use regulations. In their day, they would have hung the government official who told them that they could not build a deck on the back of their house without a government permit or could not own a gun without the government’s consent.... Today, 'church going' Walt [Disney] would not even be welcome to sit on the board of directors of his own company. Today, neither George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, nor James Madison could be elected to Congress in any of the states from which they hailed two centuries ago. That’s what happens when a generation or two fails to pass on to their children and those who work under them the values and traditions that form the very underpinnings of their society. Precious things slip away, for the price of liberty really is eternal vigilance.
Contradiction is not a sign of falsity, nor the lack of contradiction a sign of truth.
Faith declares what the senses do not see, but not the contrary of what they see. It is above them, not contrary to them.
he strength of a man’s virtue should not be measured by his special exertions, but by his habitual acts.
Nothing is so insufferable to man as to be completely at rest, without passions, without business, without diversion, without study. He then feels his nothingness, his forlornness, his insufficiency, his dependence, his weakness, his emptiness. There will immediately rise from the depth of his heart weariness, gloom, sadness, fretfulness, vexation, despair.
One must know oneself. Even if that does not help in finding truth, at least it helps in running one's life.
Bob Lewis, Survival Guide columnist
Leaders aren't supposed to have all the good ideas themselves. Far from it, they seek out great ideas, and then help develop both the ideas and the people who brought them forward.
Gratitude is a Spirit-filled principle. It opens our minds to a
universe permeated with the richness of a living God. Through it, we become
spiritually aware of the wonder of the smallest things, which gladden our
hearts with their messages of God's love. This grateful awareness
heightens our sensitivity to divine direction. When we communicate
gratitude, we can be filled with the Spirit and connected to those around
us and the Lord. Gratitude inspires happiness and carries divine
influence.
Any man’s life will be filled with constant and unexpected encouragement if he makes up his mind to do his level best each day.
Character is power.
Learn all you can, but learn to do something, or your learning will be useless and your vision will depart.
Never chasten beyond the balm you have to bind up.
Buckminster Fuller, Inventor
Man knows so much and does so little.
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 without meaning.
Of all tyrannies, a tyranny exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.
Our leisure, even our play, is a matter of serious concern. There is no neutral ground in the universe: every square inch, every split second, is claimed by God and counterclaimed by Satan.
When first things are put first, second things are not suppressed but increased.
We have a strange illusion that mere time cancels sin. I have heard others, and I have heard myself, recounting cruelties and falsehoods committed in boyhood as if they were not concern of the present speaker's, and even with laughter. But mere time does nothing either to the fact or to the guilt of a sin. The guilt is washed out not by time but by repentance and the blood of Christ.
If you do not specify and confront real issues, what you will do will surely obscure them. If you do not alarm anyone morally, you will yourself remain morally asleep. If you do not embody controversy, what you say will be an acceptance of the drift to the coming human hell.
...[By] the advance, and increasing application, of science ... we shall grow able to cure, and to produce, more diseases — bacterial war, not bombs, might ring down the curtain — to alleviate, and to inflict, more pains, to husband, or to waste, the resources of the planet more extensively. We can become either more beneficent or more mischievous. My guess is we shall do both; mending one thing and marring another, removing old miseries and producing new ones, safeguarding ourselves here and endangering ourselves there.
Do not let us mistake necessary evils for good.
Nothing can deceive unless it bears a plausible resemblance to reality.
When I was ten I read fairy tales in secret and would have been ashamed if I had been found doing so. Now that I am fifty, I read them openly. When I became a man I put away childish things, including the fear of childishness and the desire to be very grown-up.
…to banish the knight does not [always] alleviate the suffering of the peasant.
I believe in God as I believe the sun has risen, not because I can see it, but because by way of it I can see everything else.
Pride gets no pleasure out of having something, only out of having more of it than the next man.
The next best thing to being wise oneself is to live in a circle of those who are.
We must not suppose that even if we succeeded in making everyone nice we should have saved their souls. A world of nice people, content in their own niceness, looking no further, turned away from God, would be just as desperately in need of salvation as a miserable world -- and might even be more difficult to save. For mere improvement is no redemption, though redemption always improves people even here and now and will, in the end, improve them to a degree we cannot yet imagine.
C.S. Lewis The Chronicles of Narnia The Silver Chair, Chapter 2
Crying is all right in its way while it lasts. But you have to stop sooner or later, and then you still have to decide what to do.
Evil cannot be accommodated. It must be defeated.
Forced belief does not persuade people to love God with their hearts, any more than a forced marriage creates love for another human being. God and relationships must be freely chosen to be meaningful and herein lies the fundamental difference in world views. One sees their God as an angry enforcer who needs goon squads to whip people into line. The other sees God giving humanity free will with blessings and consequences for each choice, but with ultimate judgment reserved for Himself.
Rather than attempt to bring mankind up to God's level, many skeptics try to bring God down to man's level, remaking Him in a human image and thus encouraging the false view that God is someone who is supposed to make us happy and prosperous. If we are unhappy and not rich (or not rich enough), we will deny He exists. Prosperity and good health provide their own motives for unbelief, as C.S. Lewis and numerous other thinkers have eloquently written.
No person was ever honored for what he received. Honor has been the reward for what he gave.
Nothing in this world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful people with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent. The slogan 'press on' has solved and always will solve the problems of the human race.
Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent. The slogan 'press on' has solved and always will solve the problems of the human race.
Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent. The slogan ‘press on’ has solved and always will solve the problems of the human race.
Prosperity is only an instrument to be used, not a deity to be worshipped.
There is no dignity quite so impressive, and no independence quite so important, as living within your means.
There is no greater service that we can render the oppressed of the earth than to maintain inviolate the freedom of our own citizens.
We cannot do everything at once, but we can do something at once.
What we need in appointive positions is men of knowledge and experience who have sufficient character to resist temptations.
I want the people of America to be able to work less for the government and more for themselves. I want them to have the rewards of their own industry. This is the chief meaning of freedom.
Liberty is not collective, it is personal. All liberty is individual liberty.
Little progress can be made by merely attempting to repress what is evil; our great hope lies in developing what is good.
We live in an age of science and of abounding accumulation of material things. These did not create our Declaration. Our Declaration created them. The things of the spirit come first. Unless we cling to that, all our material prosperity, overwhelming though it may appear, will turn to a barren sceptre in our grasp. If we are to maintain the great heritage which has been bequeathed to us, we must be like-minded as the fathers who created it.
Everything that irritates us about others can lead us to an understanding of ourselves.
Carl Sagan, Astronomer, of a photo taken by the Voyager 1 spacecraft as it left our solar system in 1990.
Look again at that dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives.
A baby is God’s opinion that the world should go on.
'It's easy to have a complicated idea. It's very, very hard to have a simple idea.
Catechism of the Catholic Church
Sin creates [an inclination] to sin; it engenders vice by repetition of the same acts. This results in perverse inclinations which cloud conscience and corrupt the concrete judgment of good and evil. Thus sin tends to reproduce itself and reinforce itself, but it cannot destroy the moral sense at its root.
What fools we are when we think we can legislate away the immorality of human beings
Let no man turn aside, ever so slightly, from the broad path of honor, on the plausible pretence that he is justified by the goodness of his end. All good ends can be worked out by good means.
Reflect upon your present blessings, of which every man has many—not on your past misfortunes, of which all men have some.
Achieve success in any area of life by identifying the optimum strategies and repeating them until they become habits.
It is the soldier, not the reporter, Who has given us freedom of the press. It is the soldier, not the poet, Who has given us freedom of speech. It is the soldier, not the campus organizer, Who has given us the freedom to demonstrate. It is the soldier, who salutes the flag, Who serves beneath the flag, And whose coffin is draped by the flag, Who allows the protester to burn the flag.
We believe that human happiness requires freedom and that freedom requires limited government.
Nonsense is nonsense whether it rhymes or not, just as bad half-pennies are good for nothing whether they jingle or lie quiet.
How came I into being? Certainly not by chance. For chance never could produce such a regular well ordered machine, in which appears so much design, so much harmony, and such a nice adjustment of several parts. I must then be the work of some intelligent Being. If so, there must have been some design in bringing me into existence. All these powers of soul & body which I find myself endowed with, plainly indicate that I was formed for some end. That end must be worthy the Divine Author.
If you believe in the right to life, then you must believe in the right to have the means to defend that life.
We cannot stop professional racists from stirring even imaginary pots as they try to keep their jobs, but we should remember that the road to better race relations lies where it always has: Looking at each other as human beings and not as representatives of groups or classes.
... I simply cannot stand by and watch a right guaranteed by the Constitution of the United States come under attack from those who either can't understand it, don't like the sound of it, or find themselves too philosophically squeamish to see why it remains the first among equals: Because it is the right we turn to when all else fails. That's why the Second Amendment is America's first freedom. ...
... Now, I doubt any of you would prefer a rolled up newspaper as a weapon against a dictator or a criminal intruder. Yet in essence, that is what you have asked our loved ones to do, through an ill-contrived and totally naive campaign against the Second Amendment. ...
... The First Amendment is crucial. Of course it is. So are all the others. And the Second Amendment is the one that guarantees that people can bear arms to protect themselves. ...
... The Founders' intent in framing the Second Amendment is perfectly clear and undeniable. Thomas Jefferson wrote, 'No man shall ever be debarred the use of arms.' Some anti-gun elitists declare this notion outdated. However, many constitutional scholars from this country's most prestigious universities agree that the Founders' intent is clear and irreversible: To 'keep and bear arms' is a right for all law-abiding citizens. ..
He [President Clinton] boasts about 186,000 people denied firearms under the Brady Law rules. The Brady Law has been in force for three years. In that time, they have prosecuted seven people and put three of them in prison. You know, the president has entertained more felons than that at fund-raising coffees in the White House, for Pete's sake.
Teddy Roosevelt hunted in the last century with a semiautomatic rifle. Most deer rifles are semiautomatic ... it's become a demonized phrase. The media distorts that and the public ill understands it.
There's no such thing as a good gun. There's no such thing as a bad gun. A gun in the hands of a bad man is a very dangerous thing. A gun in the hands of a good person is no danger to anyone except the bad guys.
Trigger locks? A ludicrous invention. If you can't put it on a weapon without taking the bullets out, why put it on? A five-day waiting period? It's hard for me to accept that a guy says, 'I'm going to kill that s.o.b., but, darn, I have this five-day waiting period.' He probably still wants to kill him after five days. Ban Saturday-night specials? The black and Hispanic women who clean office buildings until 3 a.m. and then walk home ?of course, they want a handgun in their purse. Limit purchases to one gun a month? It's the camel's nose in the tent. Look at Stalin, Mussolini, Hitler, Mao Zedong, Pol Pot, Idi Amin ?every one of these monsters, on seizing power, their first act was to confiscate all firearms in private hands.
We have to pass on to America in the 21st century the same Bill of Rights that those wise, old, dead white guys that invented this country passed on to us.
You could say that the paparazzi and the tabloids are sort of the 'assault weapons' of the First Amendment. They're ugly, a lot of people don't like them, but they're protected by the First Amendment just as 'assault weapons' are protected by the Second Amendment.
You do not define the First Amendment. It defines you. And it is bigger than you. That's how freedom works. It also demands you do your homework. Again and again, I hear gun owners say, how can we believe anything the anti-gun media says when they can't even get the facts right? For too long, you have swallowed manufactured statistics and fabricated technical support from anti-gun organizations that wouldn't know a semi- auto from a sharp stick. And it shows. You fall for it every time.
You know, the Bill of Rights guarantees every citizen the right to own and bear firearms. It doesn't say anything about how many, how much you can pay for them. That's in the Bill of Rights. That's a sacred document in our country. There's no other country in the world that has such a document. And you know what its purpose is? To prevent the federal government from interfering with private citizens' rights. ... If you will read what the Founding Fathers wrote when they were writing it Jefferson, Mason, Madison, Patrick Henry, Tom Paine every one of them wrote at great length that they were talking about the individual rights of individual citizens.
He who asks is a fool for five minutes, but he who does not ask remains a fool forever.
He who knows not, and knows not that he knows not, is a fool...shun him. He who knows not, and knows that he knows not, is willing...teach him. He who knows, and knows not that he knows, is asleep...awaken him. He who knows, and knows that he knows, is wise...follow him.
The gem cannot be polished without friction, nor man perfected without trials.
Christian Freidrich Hebbel
Remember: One lie does not cost you one truth but the truth.
America's constitutional foundations and its rule of law are hemorrhaging.
[O]ver the centuries, it has been Christians -- conservative Christians who believe the Bible -- who have done and continue to do the greatest works of mercy and justice for the oppressed. Jesus' words are true: When we let our light shine before men, not only is God glorified, but people see the truth of Christianity.
If we are forced, at every hour, to watch or listen to horrible events, this constant stream of ghastly impressions will deprive even the most delicate among us of all respect for humanity.
A thankful heart is not only the greatest of virtues, but the parent of all the others.
If we do only what is required of us, we are slaves. The moment we do more, we are free.
If you pursue evil with pleasure, the pleasure passes away and the evil remains; if you pursue good with labor, the labor passes away but the good remains.
The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, Part II (partial):
Water, water, every where,
And all the boards did shrink;
Water, water, every where,
Nor any drop to drink.
The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, Part V (last four stanzas):
How long in that same fit I lay,
I have not to declare;
But ere my living life returned,
I heard and in my soul discerned
Two voices in the air.
'Is it he?' quoth one, 'Is this the man?
By him who died on cross,
With his cruel bow he laid full low
The harmless Albatross.
The spirit who bideth by himself
In the land of mist and snow,
He loved the bird that loved the man
Who shot him with his bow.'
The other was a softer voice,
As soft as honey-dew:
Quoth he, 'The man hath penance done,
And penance more will do.'
The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, Part VII (partial):
Farewell, farewell! but this I tell
To thee, thou Wedding-Guest!
He prayeth well, who loveth well
Both man and bird and beast.
He prayeth best, who loveth best
All things both great and small;
For the dear God who loveth us,
He made and loveth all.
It does not matter how slowly you go, so long as you do not stop.
When things are investigated, then true knowledge is achieved; when true knowledge is achieved, then the will becomes sincere; when the will is sincere, then the heart is set right (or then the mind sees right); when the heart is set right, then the personal life is cultivated; when the personal life is cultivated, then the family life is regulated; when the family life is regulated, then the national life is orderly; and when the national life is orderly, then there is peace in this world.
For both Confucius and Socrates, wisdom, virtue, and happiness were necessarily related. The wise man was someone who knew what the right choice was and always made it; to be the right choice, it had to be morally right; he was therefore always happy, knowing he'd done the best he could. I can't think of many ancient philosophers who would have disagreed with that, so far as it goes.
"The superior man is always happy; the small man sad," said Confucius.
If a man take no thought as to what is distant, he will find sorrow near at hand.
The higher type of man clings to virtue, the lower type of man clings to material comfort. The higher type of man cherishes justice, the lower type of man cherishes the hope of favors to be received.
In stirring up tumult and strife, the worst men can do the most, but peace and quiet cannot be established without virtue.
Good men sometimes make mistakes. A man of integrity will honestly face and correct his mistakes, and that is an example we can respect. Sometimes men try but fail. Not all worthy objectives are realized despite one's honest and best efforts. True manhood is not always measured by the fruits of one's labors but by the labors themselves--by one's striving. ('Let Us Be Men', Ensign, Nov. 2006, 47-48)
Develop success from failures. Discouragement and failure are two of the surest stepping stones to success.
We do not always receive inspiration or revelation when we request it. Sometimes we are delayed in the receipt of revelation, and sometimes we are left to our own judgment. We cannot force spiritual things. It must be so. Our life’s purpose to obtain experience and to develop faith would be frustrated if our Heavenly Father directed us in every act, even in every important act. We must make decisions and experience the consequences in order to develop self-reliance and faith.
Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not his own facts.
God grants liberty only to those who love it and are always ready to guard and defend it.
The inherent right in the people to reform their government, I do not deny; and they have another right, and that is to resist unconstitutional laws without overturning the government.
The Seven Deadly Sins, with their opposite virtues are:
7. lust (self control)
6. gluttony (temperance and moderation)
5. greed (generosity)
4. sloth (zeal)
3. anger or wrath (kindness)
2. envy (gratitude, joy)
1. pride (humility)
The above numbers indicate the level where they are found in Dante's Purgatorio.
Dante considers these sins as offenses against love, and groups them as shown here:
Perverted Love: Pride, Envy, Wrath/Anger
Insufficient Love: Sloth
Excessive Love of Earthly Goods: Avarice/Greed, Gluttony, Lust
The hottest places in Hell are reserved for those who remain neutral in time of great moral crisis.
Darrell Cole, Christian scholar
The Christian who fails to use force to aid his neighbor when prudence dictates that force is the best way to render that aid is an uncharitable Christian. Hence Christians who willingly and knowingly refuse to engage in a just war ... fail to show love towards their neighbor as well as towards God.
[M]ore and more we need understanding and appreciation of those principles upon which the republic was founded. What were those 'self-evident' truths that so many risked all for, fought for, suffered and died for? What was the source of their courage? Who were those people? I don't think we can ever know enough about them.
No good deed, no kind word can be spoken without its effect being felt for good upon all. Sometimes the good may be infinitesimal, but as a rock that is thrown in a pool starts a wave from the center which continues to enlarge until every part of the shore is touched, so your deeds, silent, many of them, unknown, unspoken, unheralded, continue to radiate and touch many hearts.
David O. McKay, Message of the First Presidency, Conference Report, April 1942, p.90
We again warn our people in America of the constantly increasing threat against our inspired Constitution and our free institutions set up under it. The same political tenets and philosophies that have brought war and terror in other parts of the world are at work amongst us in America. The proponents thereof are seeking to undermine our own form of government and to set up instead one of the forms of dictatorships now flourishing in other lands. These revolutionists are using a technique that is as old as the human race, -- a fervid but false solicitude for the unfortunate over whom they thus gain mastery, and then enslave them.
Sometimes the difference in success and failure is just getting over a small hump.
The hardest thing in life is to know which bridges to cross and which to burn.
We have the right, as individuals, to give away as much of our own money as we please in charity; but as members of Congress we have no right so to appropriate a dollar of the public money.
Money with [Congress] is nothing but trash when it is to come out of the people. But it is the one great thing for which most of them are striving, and many of them sacrifice honor, integrity, and justice to obtain it.
Nothing is easier than self-deceit. For what each man wishes, that he also believes to be true.
From fanaticism to barbarism is only one step.
There is no moral precept that does not have something inconvenient about it.
Expect the best, plan for the worst, and prepare to be surprised.
America derives its laws from its Constitution. It derives its values from the Bible. We don’t get inalienable rights from the Constitution; we get them from God.
It’s time to abandon the mindlessly repeated mantra that religious belief has been the greatest source of human conflict and violence. Atheism, not religion, is the real force behind the mass murders of history.
[I]t is not religion but atheism that requires a Darwinian explanation. It seems perplexing why nature would breed a group of people who see no purpose to life or the universe, indeed whose only moral drive seems to be sneering at their fellow human beings who do have a sense of purpose.
Thus, government is to be a neutral arbiter that protects all men in their enjoyment of God's blessings. It certainly is not to become a tool to rob and oppress, a constant risk in every political system, including American democracy.
The secret to Momentum in life can be found in the word Momentum... you create it Moment by Moment.
Great danger lies in the notion that we can reason with evil.
History fails to record a single precedent in which nations subject to moral decay have not passed into political and economic decline. There has been either a spiritual awakening to overcome the moral lapse, or a progressive deterioration leading to ultimate national disaster.
Douglas MacArthur, General
History fails to record a single precedent in which nations subject to moral decay have not passed into political and economic decline. There has been either a spiritual awakening to overcome the moral lapse, or a progressive deterioration leading to ultimate national disaster.
Maturity does not come with age, but with the accepting of responsibility for one's actions...
The ideal tyranny is that which is ignorantly self-administered by its victims.
Before we can teach our children, we must understand and live the principles ourselves. It is vital that the child learn from our example that what we say and what we live are the same.
A vital element in keeping the peace is our military establishment. Our arms must be mighty, ready for instant action, so that no potential aggressor may be tempted to risk his own destruction.
Foreign policy must be clear, consistent and confident.
I hate war as only a soldier who has lived it can, only as one who has seen its burtality, its futility, its stupidity.
If we make ourselves worthy of America’s ideals, if we do not forget that our nation was founded on the premise that all men are creatures of God’s making, the world will come to know that it is free men who carry forward the true promise of human progress and dignity.
The history of free men is never really written by chance but by choice — their choice.
When shallow critics denounce the profit motive inherent in our system of private enterprise, they ignore the fact that it is an economic support of every human right we possess and without it, all rights would soon disappear.
Leadership is the art of getting someone else to do something you want done because he wants to do it.
Remember, a small light will do a great deal when it is in a very dark place. Put one little tallow candle in the middle of a large hall, and it will give a good deal of light.
There is nothing more likely to start disagreement among people or countries than an agreement.
Our attitude toward life determines life's attitude towards us.
It is ordained in the eternal constitution of things that men of intemperate minds cannot be free. Their passions forge their fetters.
Men are qualified for liberty in exact proportion to their disposition to put moral chains upon their own appetites.
The people never give up their liberties but under some delusion.
When bad men combine, the good must associate; else they will fall one by one, an unpitied sacrifice in a contemptible struggle.
All that is necessary for the forces of evil to win in the world is for enough good men to do nothing.
Among a people generally corrupt, liberty cannot long exist.
He who wrestles with us strengthens our nerves, and sharpens our skills. Our antagonist is our friend.
It is not what a lawyer tells me I may do; but what humanity, reason, and justice tell me I ought to do.
The true danger is when liberty is nibbled away, for expedience, and by parts.
Safe upon the solid rock the ugly houses stand,
Come and see my shining castle built upon the sand.
Principle—particularly moral principle—can never be a weathervane, spinning around this way and that with the shifting winds of expediency. Moral principle is a compass forever fixed and forever true.
I wouldn't call it fascism exactly, but [an American] political system nominally controlled by an irresponsible, dumbed down electorate who are manipulated by dishonest, cynical, controlled mass media that dispense the propaganda of a corrupt political establishment can hardly be described as democracy either.
Everything in the scriptures is applicable to our lives. The scriptures answer our questions, they provide role models and heroes, and they help us understand how to handle challenges and trials. Many times the scriptures you read will be the answer to your prayers.
("Believe!" Ensign, May 2004, 111)
Never explain. Your friends do not need it and your enemies will not believe it anyway.
Elder ElRay L. Christiansen
Someone has said,'The size of a man may be measured by the size of the things that make him angry.' How true that is! To become upset and infuriated over trivial matters gives evidence of childishness and immaturity in a person.
If you come to think of it, you never see deer, dogs and rabbits worrying about their menus and yet they run much faster than humans.
To boast of a performance which I cannot beat is merely stupid vanity. And if I can beat it, that means there is nothing special about it.
What has passed is already finished with. What I find more interesting is what is still to come.
When a person trains once, nothing happens. When a person forces himself to do a thing a hundred or a thousand times, then he certainly has developed in more ways than physical. Is it raining? That doesn't matter. Am I tired? That doesn't matter, either. Then willpower will be no problem.
Why should I practice running slow? I already know how to run slow. I want to learn to run fast.
You can't climb to the second floor without a ladder. Try for a goal that's reasonable, then gradually raise it.
You can't climb up to the second floor without a ladder. When you set your aim too high and don't fulfill it, then your enthusiasm turns to bitterness. Try for a goal that's reasonable, and then gradually raise it.
Freedom is not procured by a full enjoyment of what is desired, but by controlling that desire.
Power corrupts the few, while weakness corrupts the many.
Rudeness is the weak man’s imitation of strength.
We actually did an evil scale and decided (that) not to serve at all was worse evil.
The chief cause of problems is solutions.
A man’s most valuable trait is a judicious sense of what not to believe.
Slight not what is near though aiming at what is far.
Who so neglects learning in his youth, loses the past and is dead for the future.
There is in the worst of fortune the best of chances for a happy change.
I testify to you that God’s hand has been in our destiny. I testify that freedom as we know it today is being threatened as never before in our history. I further witness that this land—the Americas—must be protected, its Constitution upheld, for this is a land foreordained to be the Zion of our God. He expects us as members of the Church and bearers of His priesthood to do all we can to preserve our liberty.
Ezra Taft Benson - An Enemy Hath Done This - Preface
He who fears criticism is hopeless. Only those who do things are criticized. To hesitate for fear of criticism is cowardly. To be ashamed of patriotism is to be ashamed of God. There is NO EXCUSE that can compensate for the loss of liberty.
F. E. Northam; Hays, Kansas as quoted in a letter to the editor of the National Geographic, May 1994
The universe's first second is also noted in a biblical discussion of faith as 'evidence of things not seen' (Hebrews 11:1). Concerning those unseen things, how was the one-trillion-k temperature at 10 to the minus 5 second sampled and verified? If the initital expansion of the universe occurred between 10 to the minus 36 and 10 to the minus 32 seconds, what clock monitored and confirmed the event? The conjecture devised to explain a non-recurring, unrepeated, and non-measurable origin of the universe proves that religion has no monopoly on faith.
Remember that if the opportunities for great deeds should never come, the opportunities for good deeds are renewed day by day. The thing for us to long for is the goodness, not the glory.
On what legitimate constitutional grounds can a federal judge lodge demands, punishments and fines against chief judicial officers in the several states — or does the federal bench now assume that the states are nothing more than administrative agencies of the central government — rather than federally separated governments subject to their own constitutional sovereignty?
Federalist, The [03-16 Brief]
Franklin Delano Roosevelt did more damage to Federalism than any president in our nation’s history — funded unconstitutional government growth with unconstitutional taxation, justified by his accounting: “Here is my principle: Taxes shall be levied according to ability to pay. That is the only American principle.” Well, not quite “American.” Roosevelt’s “principle” was little more than a paraphrase of Karl Marx’s maxim, “From each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs.” And through invasive taxation and regulation, the central government has its nose in every aspect of our business. As Nikita Khrushchev observed, “We can’t expect the American People to jump from Capitalism to Communism, but we can assist their elected leaders in giving them small doses of Socialism, until they awaken one day to find that they have Communism.
The hero is the one who kindles a great light in the world, who sets up blazing torches in the dark streets of life for men to see by. The saint is the man who walks through the dark paths of the world, himself a light.
In a democratic society like ours, relief must come through an aroused popular conscience that sears the conscience of the people’s representatives.
Anybody who is any good is different from anybody else.
First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof
...In addition, doing good may require that one suffer more than if one did either evil or no good at all. That is, suffering may or may not accompany the committing of a serious moral wrong, and sometimes suffering accompanies that which is morally obligatory or permissible or has no moral aspect whatsoever.
An opinion, right or wrong, can never constitute a moral offense, nor be in itself a moral obligation. It may be mistaken; it may involve an absurdity, or a contradiction. It is a truth, or it is an error; it can never be a crime or a virtue.
François duc de la Rochefoucauld
Most of our faults are more pardonable than the means we use to conceal them.
There is never any peace for those who resist God.
Francois, Duc de la Rochefoucauld
Almost all our faults are more pardonable than the methods we resort to hide them.
Frank Borman, airline CEO and astronaut
Capitalism without bankruptcy is like Christianity without hell, said. (Editor’s note: Right, but the threat of one of them is more likely to prompt belated piety than the other.)
You may be deceived if you trust too much, but you will live in torment if you don't trust enough.
Communism doesn't work because people like to own stuff.
I searched for years I found no love. I'm sure that love will never be a product of plasticity.
The United States is a nation of laws: badly written and randomly enforced.
There is more stupidity than hydrogen in the universe, and it has a longer shelf life.
Always will we remember the character of the onslaught against us. No matter how long it may take us to overcome this premeditated invasion, the American people in their righteous might will win through to absolute victory... so help us God.
Everyone wants to live at the expense of the state. They forget that the state lives at the expense of everyone.
All I ask is, give him a chance to stand on his own legs! Let him alone! ... Your interference is doing him positive injury.
Always retain the old, unchanging truth that happiness is not created by wealth and luxury, but by simplicity, moderation, a pure heart and a peaceful disposition.
Diplomacy without arms is like music without instruments.
He who has a 'why' to live for can bear almost any 'how'.
To oppose corruption in government is the highest obligation of patriotism.
When people stop believing in God, they don't believe in nothing -- they believe in anything.
Faith is always at a disadvantage; it is a perpetually defeated thing which survives all conquerors.
All you have to do is decide what to do with the time that is given you.
I like when the enemy shoots at me; then I know where the bastards are and can kill them.
It is foolish and wrong to mourn the men who died. Rather we should thank God that such men lived.
General Douglas MacArthur
I am concerned for the security of our great nation, not so much because of any threat from without, but because of the insidious forces working from within.
If we take the generally accepted definition of bravery as a quality which knows not fear, I have never seen a brave man. All men are frightened. The more intelligent they are, the more they are frightened. The courageous man is the man who forces himself, in spite of his fear, to carry on.
Never tell people how to do things. Tell them what to do and they will surprise you with their ingenuity.
General H. Norman Schwarzkopf
Leadership is a combination of strategy and character. If you must be without one, be without the strategy.
Make a virtue of necessity.
Liberty means responsibility. That’s why most men dread it.
People are always blaming their circumstances for what they are. I don't believe in circumstances. The people who get on in the world are the people who get up and look for the circumstances they want, and if they can't find them, make them.
Blessed is the man who, having nothing to say, abstains from giving in words evidence of the fact.
There is [a type of] mercy which is weakness, and even treason against the common good.
One sword keeps another in the sheath.
There can be no public or private virtue unless the foundation of action is the practice of truth.
The quickest way of ending a war is to lose it.
Political language...is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind.
The great enemy of clear language is insincerity. When there is a gap between one’s real and one’s declared aims, one turns as it were instinctively to long words and exhausted idioms, like a cuttlefish spurting out ink.
The ordinary man is passive. Within a narrow circle, home life, and perhaps the trade unions or local politics, he feels himself master of his fate. But otherwise he simply lies down and lets things happen to him.
Those who ignore history are doomed to repeat it.
Power and diplomacy work together.
[I]n the long run, stability cannot be purchased at the expense of liberty.
George W. Bush, President
As long as I hold this office, I will never risk the lives of American citizens by assuming the good will of dangerous enemies.
We should never despair, our Situation before has been unpromising
and has changed for the better, so I trust, it will again. If
new difficulties arise, we must only put forth new Exertions and
proportion our Efforts to the exigency of the times. (letter to Philip Schuyler, 7/15/1777)
Be courteous to all, but intimate with few, and let those few be well tried before you give them your confidence.
But if we are to be told by a foreign power...what we shall do, and what we shall not do, we have independence yet to seek, and have contended hitherto for very little.
If we desire to avoid insult, we must be able to repel it...
Let us...rely upon the goodness of the Cause, and the aid of the supreme Being, in whose hands Victory is, to animate and encourage us to great and noble Actions.
May the father of all mercies scatter light, and not darkness, upon our paths, and make us in all our several vocations useful here, and in His own due time and way everlastingly happy.
Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, Religion and morality are indispensable supports. In vain would that man claim the tribute of Patriotism, who should labor to subvert these great Pillars of human happiness -- these firmest props of the duties of Men and citizens. Farewell Address, September 19, 1796
The blessed Religion revealed in the word of God will remain an eternal and awful monument to prove that the best Institution may be abused by human depravity and...made subservient to the vilest purposes.
The value of liberty was thus enhanced in our estimation by the difficulty of its attainment, and the worth of characters appreciated by the trial of adversity.
There is but one straight course, and that is to seek truth and pursue it steadily.
To be prepared for war is one of the most effectual means of preserving peace.
[W]here is the security for property, for reputation, for life, if the sense of religious obligation deserts the oaths...?
All see, and most admire, the glare which hovers round the
external trappings of elevated office. To me there is nothing in it, beyond the lustre which may be reflected from its connection with a power of promoting human felicity.
(letter to Catherine Macaulay Graham, 9 January 1790)
But if we are to be told by a foreign Power...what we shall do, and what we shall not do, we have Independence yet to seek, and have contended hitherto for very little.
Can it be, that Providence has not connected the permanent felicity of a Nation with its virtue? The experiment, at least, is recommended by every sentiment which ennobles human Nature.
Honesty will be found on every experiment, to be the best and
only true policy; let us then as a Nation be just.
The bosom of America is open to receive not only the Opulent and respectable Stranger, but the oppressed and persecuted of all Nations and Religions; whom we shall welcome to a participation of all our rights and privileges, if by decency and propriety of conduct they appear to merit the enjoyment.
The propitious smiles of Heaven can never be expected on a nation that disregards the eternal rules of order and right, which Heaven itself has ordained.
There is a rank due to the United States, among nations, which will be withheld, if not absolutely lost, by the reputation of weakness.
There is but one straight course, and that is to seek truth and pursue it steadily.
We take the stars from heaven, the red from our mother country, separating it by white stripes, thus showing that we have separated from her, and the white stripes shall go down to posterity representing liberty.
