August 2009 Quotations

"Liberty can not be preserved without a general knowledge among the people. Let us dare to read, think, speak and write".
~~ John Adams [1735-1826]

"The future ain't what it used to be."
~~ Yogi Berra

"Wine is bottled poetry."
~~ Robert Louis Stevenson [1850-94]

"A good traveller has no fixed plans."
~~ Chinese philosopher Lao-Tzu [IVth Century B.C.E.]

"We live in the world as it is and dream of the world that might one day be and consider ourselves fortunate to have reduced, even modestly, the distance between the two."
~~ Peter Beinart

"Old, in America, is not a good thing to be."
~~ Katha Pollitt

"Even if you cannot fool all of the people all of the time, you can fool enough people long enough to do irreversible damage."
~~ Joseph Schumpeter [1883-1950]

"The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes."
~~ Marcel Proust [1871-1922]

"These days it is not 'the economy, stupid' but the stupid economy."
~~ motto of the Green Festival Project

"The art of writing is the art of discovering what you believe."
~~ Gustave Flaubert [1821-80]

“Those who dwell among the beauties and mysteries of the Earth are never alone or weary of life.”
~~ Rachel Carson ]1907-64]

"Cowardice asks the question, 'Is it safe?' Expediency asks the question, 'Is it politic?' Vanity asks the question, 'Is it popular?' But, conscience asks the question, 'Is it right?' And there comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular but one must take it because one's conscience tells one that it is right."
~~ Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. [1929-68]

"When I stop working the rest of the day is posthumous. I'm only really alive when I'm writing."
~~ Tennessee Williams [1911-83]

"I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies."
~~ Thomas Jefferson [1743-1826]

"Liberty is not the means to a higher political end. It is itself the highest political end."
~~ Lord Acton [1834-1902]

"It is not for honor or glory or wealth that we fight, but for freedom alone, which no good man gives up except with his life."
~~ Declaration of Arbroath by Scottish leaders, 1320 A.D.

"The American Republic will endure, until politicians realize [that] they can bribe the people with their own money."
~~ Alexis de Tocqueville [1805-59]

"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 it or overthrow it."
~~ Abraham Lincoln [1809-65] in 1838

"We all declare for liberty; but in using the same word we do not all mean the same thing."
~~ Abraham Lincoln [1809-65]

"We, the People are the rightful masters of both Congress and the courts; not to overthrow the Constitution, but to overthrow men who pervert the Constitution."
~~ Abraham Lincoln [1809-65]

"Live Free or die; death is not the worst of evils."
~~ Gen. John Stark [1728-1822]

"As nightfall does not come at once, neither does oppression. In both instances, there is a twilight when everything remains seemingly unchanged. And it is in such twilight that we all must be most aware of change in the air – however slight – lest we become unwitting victims of the darkness."
~~ Justice William O. Douglas [1898-1980]

"The only security men can have for their political liberty, consists in keeping their money in their own pockets."
~~ Lysander Spooner [1808-87]

"There is no such thing as an achieved liberty; like electricity, there can be no substantial storage and it must be generated as it is enjoyed, or the lights go out."
~~ Justice Robert H. Jackson [1892-1954] in 1953

"The strength of the Constitution lies entirely in the determination of each citizen to defend it. Only if every single citizen feels duty bound to do his share in this defense are the constitutional rights secure."
~~ Albert Einstein [1879-1955]

"Baseball is 90 percent mental; the other half is physical."
~~ Yogi Berra

"No amount of experimentation can ever prove me right; a single experiment can prove me wrong."
~~ Albert Einstein [1879-1955]

"The American Revolution was a beginning, not a consummation."
~~ Woodrow Wilson [1856-1924]

"With reasonable men I will reason; with humane men I will plead; but with tyrants I will give no quarter, nor waste arguments where they will be certainly be lost."
~~ William Lloyd Garrison [1805-79]

"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 consciences."
~~ C.S. Lewis [1898-1963]

"Knowledge will forever govern ignorance; and a people who mean to be their own governors must arm themselves with the power which knowledge gives."
~~ James Madison [1751-1836] in 1822

"Guard with jealous attention the public liberty. Suspect everyone who approaches that jewel. Unfortunately, nothing will preserve it but downright force. Whenever you give up that force, you are inevitably ruined."
~~ Patrick Henry [1736-99]

"There is nothing more terrifying than ignorance in action."
~~ Goethe [1749-1832]

"Every day brings a chance for you to draw in a breath, kick off your shoes, and dance."
~~ Oprah Winfrey

{each set of posted quotations are then posted at the Working Minds website, alphabetical by author}