Quotes about uncategorised

If we desire to avoid insult, we must be able to repel it; if we desire to secure peace, one of the most powerful instruments of our rising prosperity, it must be known, that we are at all times ready for War.

— George Washington

All the armies of Europe, Asia and Africa combined, with all the treasure of the earth in their military chest; with a Buonaparte for a commander, could not by force take a drink from the Ohio or make a track on the Blue Ridge in a trial of a thousand years.

— Abraham Lincoln

It is not given to us to peer into the mysteries of the future. Still, I avow my hope and faith, sure and inviolate, that in the days to come the British and American peoples will for their own safety and for the good of all walk together side by side in majesty, in justice, and in peace.

— Winston Churchill

To draw around the whole nation the strength of the General Government, as a barrier against foreign foes, to equalize and moderate the public contributions, that while the requisite services are invited by due renumeration, nothing beyond this may exist to attract the attention of our citizens from the pursuits of useful industry, nor unjustly to burthen those who continue in those pursuitsthese are functions of the General Government on which you have a right to call.

— Thomas Jefferson

A strong defense is the surest way to peace. Strength makes detente attainable. Weakness invites war, as my generationmy generationknows from four very bitter experiences. Just as Americas will for peace is second to none, so will Americas strength be second to none. We cannot rely on the forbearance of others to protect this Nation. The power and diversity of the Armed Forces, active Guard and Reserve, the resolve of our fellow citizens, the flexibility in our command to navigate international waters that remain troubled are all essential to our security.

— Gerald R. Ford

The worst to be feared and the best to be expected can be simply stated. The worst is atomic war. The best would be this: a life of perpetual fear and tension; a burden of arms draining the wealth and the labor of all peoples; a wasting of strength that defies the American system or the Soviet system or any system to achieve true abundance and happiness for the peoples of this earth. Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children. The cost of one modern heavy bomber is this: a modern brick school in more than 30 cities. It is two electric power plants, each serving a town of 60,000 population. It is two fine, fully equipped hospitals. It is some 50 miles of concrete highway. We pay for a single fighter plane with a half million bushels of wheat. We pay for a single destroyer with new homes that could have housed more than 8,000 people. This, I repeat, is the best way of life to be found on the road the world has been taking. This is not a way of life at all, in any true sense. Under the cloud of threatening war, it is humanity hanging from a cross of iron.

— Dwight D. Eisenhower

Today is Trinity Sunday. Centuries ago words were written to be a call and a spur to the faithful servants of Truth and Justice: Arm yourselves, and be ye men of valor, and be in readiness for the conflict; for it is better for us to perish in battle than to look upon the outrage of our nation and our altar. As the Will of God is in Heaven, even so let it be.

— Winston Churchill

I do not hold that we should rearm in order to fight. I hold that we should rearm in order to parley.

— Winston Churchill

I am most anxious that in dealing with matters which every Member knows are extremely delicate matters, I should not use any phrase or expression which would cause offence to our friends and Allies on the Continent or across the Atlantic Ocean.

— Winston Churchill

But man is not made for defeat. A man can be destroyed but not defeated.

— Ernest Hemingway

He said that he felt like the boy that stumped his toe,it hurt too bad to laugh, and he was too big to cry.

— Abraham Lincoln

Come! Let us lay a lance in rest,And tilt at windmills under a wild sky!For who would live so petty and unblestThat dare not tilt at something ere he die;Rather than, screened by safe majority,Preserve his little life to little end,And never raise a rebel cry!

— John Galsworthy

We hold these truths to be self-evident: That all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights, among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, that to secure these rights governments are instituted among men. We solemnly publish and declare, that these colonies are and of right ought to be free and independent states and for the support of this declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine providence, we mutually pledge our lives, our fortunes and our sacred honour.

— Thomas Jefferson

We must all hang together, or most assuredly we shall all hang separately.

— Benjamin Franklin

In 1776, the Americans laid before Europe that noble Declaration, which ought to be hung up in the nursery of every king, and blazoned on the porch of every royal palace.

— Henry Thomas Buckle

We must never cease to proclaim in fearless tones the great principles of freedom and the rights of man which are the joint inheritance of the English-speaking world and which through Magna Carta, the Bill of Rights, the Habeas Corpus, trial by jury, and the English common law find their most famous expression in the American Declaration of Independence.

— Winston Churchill

Our national debt after all is an internal debt owed not only by the Nation but to the Nation. If our children have to pay interest on it they will pay that interest to themselves. A reasonable internal debt will not impoverish our children or put the Nation into bankruptcy.

— Franklin D. Roosevelt

The Alliance for Progress is an alliance between one millionaire and many beggars.

— Fidel Castro

I am well aware of the Toil and Blood and Treasure, that it will cost Us to maintain this Declaration, and support and defend these States. Yet through all the Gloom I can see the Rays of ravishing Light and Glory. I can see that the End is more than worth all the Means. And that Posterity will tryumph in that Days Transaction, even altho We should rue it, which I trust in God We shall not.

— John Adams

I am for a government rigorously frugal & simple, applying all the possible savings of the public revenue to the discharge of the national debt; and not for a multiplication of officers & salaries merely to make partisans, & for increasing, by every device, the public debt, on the principle of its being a public blessing.

— Thomas Jefferson

I, however, place economy among the first and most important of republican virtues, and public debt as the greatest of the dangers to be feared.

— Thomas Jefferson

I wish it were possible to obtain a single amendment to our constitution. I would be willing to depend on that alone for the reduction of the administration of our government to the genuine principles of its constitution; I mean an additional article, taking from the federal government the power of borrowing.

— Thomas Jefferson

As an individual who undertakes to live by borrowing, soon finds his original means devoured by interest, and next no one left to borrow fromso must it be with a government.

— Abraham Lincoln

And to preserve their independence, we must not let our rulers load us with perpetual debt. We must make our election between economy and liberty, or profusion and servitude.

— Thomas Jefferson

My other piece of advice, Copperfield, said Mr. Micawber, you know. Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure nineteen nineteen six, result happiness. Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure twenty pounds ought and six, result misery. The blossom is blighted, the leaf is withered, the god of day goes down upon the dreary scene, andand, in short, you are for ever floored. As I am!

— Charles Dickens

Say the report is exaggerated.

— Mark Twain

In his first years in the White House, Mr. Roosevelt apologized for each annual deficit. Each new budget message explained that, because of unforeseen circumstances, the promise of the previous year had not been met, but next year things would be better; next year there would be a balanced budget. The 1938 congressional elections were uncomfortably near at hand. it was announced that the President would deliver a Fireside Chat. In it our startled ears caught the opening accents of a grand new liturgy. Spending would be resumed, but let not the heart be troubled. Spending was no longer the rock of unsound finance on which so many liberal governments had been wrecked; it was not danger, but security. Debt, if owed to ourselves, was not debt but investment.

— Bruce Barton

Sleep sweetly, tender heart, in peace;Sleep, holy spirit, blessed soul,While the stars burn, the moons increase,And the great ages onward roll. Sleep till the end, true soul and sweet. Nothing comes to thee new or strange. Sleep full of rest from head to feet;Lie still, dry dust, secure of change.

— Lord Alfred Tennyson

As for myself, may the sweet Muses, as Virgil says, bear me away to their holy places where sacred streams do flow, beyond the reach of anxiety and care, and free from the obligation of performing each day some task that goes against the grain. May I no longer have anything to do with the mad racket and the hazards of the forum, or tremble as I try a fall with white-faced Fame. I do not want to be roused from sleep by the clatter of morning callers or by some breathless messenger from the palace; I do not care, in drawing my will, to give a money-pledge for its safe execution through anxiety as to what is to happen afterwards; I wish for no larger estate than I can leave to the heir of my own free choice. Some day or other the last hour will strike also for me, and my prayer is that my effigy may be set up beside my grave, not grim and scowling, but all smiles and garlands, and that no one shall seek to honour my memory either by a motion in the senate or by a petition to the Emperor.

— Publius Cornelius Tacitus

Your death and my death are mainly of importance to ourselves. The black plumes will be stripped off our hearses within the hour; tears will dry, hurt hearts close again, our graves grow level with the church-yard, and although we are away, the world wags on. It does not miss us; and those who are near us, when the first strangeness of vacancy wears off, will not miss us much either.

— Alexander Smith

I have a rendezvous with DeathAt some disputed barricade,When Spring comes back with rustling shadeAnd apple-blossoms fill the airI have a rendezvous with DeathWhen Spring brings back blue days and fair. It may be he shall take my handAnd lead me into his dark landAnd close my eyes and quench my breathIt may be I shall pass him still. I have a rendezvous with DeathOn some scarred slope of battered hill,When Spring comes round again this yearAnd the first meadow-flowers appear. God knows twere better to be deepPillowed in silk and scented down,Where Love throbs out in blissful sleep,Pulse nigh to pulse, and breath to breath,Where hushed awakenings are dear But Ive a rendezvous with DeathAt midnight in some flaming town,When Spring trips north again this year,And I to my pledged word am true,I shall not fail that rendezvous.

— Alan Seeger

Were a star quenched on high,For ages would its light,Still travelling downward from the sky,Shine on our mortal sight. So when a great man dies,For years beyond our ken,The light he leaves behind him liesUpon the paths of men.

— Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Dear Madam,I have been shown in the files of the War Department a statement of the Adjutant General of Massachusetts, that you are the mother of five sons who have died gloriously on the field of battle. I feel how weak and fruitless must be any words of mine which should attempt to beguile you from the grief of a loss so overwhelming. But I cannot refrain from tendering to you the consolation that may be found in the thanks of the Republic they died to save. I pray that our Heavenly Father may assuage the anguish of your bereavement, and leave you only the cherished memory of the loved and lost, and the solemn pride that must be yours, to have laid so costly a sacrifice upon the altar of Freedom. Yours, very sincerely and respectfully.

— Abraham Lincoln

Let dull critics feed upon the carcases of plays; give me the taste and the dressing.

— Philip Dormer Stanhope

It is not right to glory in the slain.

— Homer

Tis after death that we measure men.

— James Barron Hope

Sweet and glorious it is to die for our country.

— Horace

Depend upon it, Sir, when a man knows he is to be hanged in a fortnight, it concentrates his mind wonderfully.

— Samuel Johnson

There are few better measures of the concern a society has for its individual members and its own well being than the way it handles criminals.

— Ramsey Clark

Credit is the vital air of the system of modern commerce. It has done more, a thousand times, to enrich nations, than all the mines of all the world. It has excited labor, stimulated manufactures, pushed commerce over every sea, and brought every nation, every kingdom, and every small tribe, among the races of men, to be known to all the rest. It has raised armies, equipped navies, and, triumphing over the gross power of mere numbers, it has established national superiority on the foundation of intelligence, wealth, and well-directed industry. Credit is to money what money is to articles of merchandise. As hard money represents property, so credit represents hard money; and it is capable of supplying the place of money so completely, that there are writers of distinction, especially of the Scotch school, who insist that no hard money is necessary for the interests of commerce. I am not of that opinion. I do not think any government can maintain an exclusive paper system, without running to excess, and thereby causing depreciation.

— Daniel Webster

Let me remind you that credit is the lifeblood of business, the lifeblood of prices and jobs.

— Herbert Clark Hoover

The maxim of buying nothing without the money in our pocket to pay for it, would make of our country one of the happiest upon earth. Experience during the war proved this; as I think every man will remember that under all the privations it obliged him to submit to during that period he slept sounder, and awaked happier than he can do now. Desperate of finding relief from a free course of justice, I look forward to the abolition of all credit as the only other remedy which can take place.

— Thomas Jefferson

I love the man that can smile in trouble, that can gather strength from distress, and grow brave by reflection. Tis the business of little minds to shrink; but he whose heart is firm, and whose conscience approves his conduct, will pursue his principles unto death.

— Thomas Paine

Were I to commence my administration again, the first question I would ask respecting a candidate would be, Does he use ardent spirits?

— Thomas Jefferson

I would not change my native landFor rich Peru with all her gold

— Isaac Watts

Be scared. You cant help that. But dont be afraid. Aint nothing in the woods going to hurt you unless you corner it, or it smells that you are afraid. A bear or a deer, too, has got to be scared of a coward the same as a brave man has got to be.

— William Faulkner

God grant, that not only the Love of Liberty, but a thorough Knowledge of the Rights of Man, may pervade all the Nations of the Earth, so that a Philosopher may set his Foot anywhere on its Surface, and say, This is my Country.

— Benjamin Franklin

You convey too great a compliment when you say that I have earned the right to the presidential nomination. No man can establish such an obligation upon any part of the American people. My country owes me no debt. It gave me, as it gives every boy and girl, a chance. It gave me schooling, independence of action, opportunity for service and honor. In no other land could a boy from a country village, without inheritance or influential friends, look forward with unbounded hope. My whole life has taught me what America means. I am indebted to my country beyond any human power to repay.

— Herbert Clark Hoover

It is too probable that no plan we propose will be adopted. Perhaps another dreadful conflict is to be sustained. If to please the people, we offer what we ourselves disapprove, how can we afterwards defend our work? Let us raise a standard to which the wise and the honest can repair. The event is in the hand of God.

— George Washington

Should the States reject this excellent Constitution, the probability is, an opportunity will never again offer to cancel another in peacethe next will be drawn in blood.

— George Washington

Contempt is not a thing to be despised.

— Edmund Burke

I cannot conceive how any man can have brought himself to that pitch of presumption, to consider his country as nothing but carte blanche, upon which he may scribble whatever he pleases.

— Edmund Burke

If in the opinion of the People, the distribution or modification of the Constitutional powers be in any particular wrong, let it be corrected by an amendment in the way which the Constitution designates. But let there be no change by usurpation; for though this, in one instance, may be the instrument of good, it is the customary weapon by which free governments are destroyed.

— George Washington

In questions of power, then, let no more be heard of confidence in man, but bind him down from mischief by the chains of the Constitution.

— Thomas Jefferson

Dont interfere with anything in the Constitution. That must be maintained, for it is the only safeguard of our liberties.

— Abraham Lincoln

The danger of disturbing the public tranquillity by interesting too strongly the public passions, is a still more serious objection against a frequent reference of constitutional questions to the decision of the whole society.

— James Madison

I hope your committee will not permit doubts as to constitutionality, however reasonable, to block the suggested legislation.

— Franklin D. Roosevelt

And lastly, let us provide in our constitution for its revision at stated periods.

— Thomas Jefferson

The constitution, on this hypothesis, is a mere thing of wax in the hands of the judiciary, which they may twist and shape into any form they please.

— Thomas Jefferson

I always say, as you know, that if my fellow citizens want to go to Hell I will help them. Its my job.

— Oliver Wendell Holmes

We are under a Constitution, but the Constitution is what the judges say it is, and the judiciary is the safeguard of our liberty and of our property under the Constitution.

— Charles Evans Hughes

The principles of a free constitution are irrecoverably lost, when the legislative power is nominated by the executive.

— Edward Gibbon

Whilst the last members were signing [the Constitution], Doctor Franklin, looking towards the Presidents chair, at the back of which a rising sun happened to be painted, observed to a few members near him, that painters had found it difficult to distinguish in their art, a rising, from a setting, sun. I have, said he, often and often, in the course of the session, and the vicissitudes of my hopes and fears as to its issue, looked at that behind the President, without being able to tell whether it was rising or setting; but now at length, I have the happiness to know, that it is a rising, and not a setting sun.

— Benjamin Franklin

Most faults are not in our Constitution, but in ourselves.

— Ramsey Clark

The Constitution is the sole source and guaranty of national freedom.

— Calvin Coolidge

To live under the American Constitution is the greatest political privilege that was ever accorded to the human race.

— Calvin Coolidge

I confess that there are several parts of this Constitution which I do not at present approve, but I am not sure I shall never approve them. For having lived long, I have experienced many instances of being obliged by better information, or fuller consideration, to change opinions even on important subjects, which I once thought right, but found to be otherwise.

— Benjamin Franklin

In these sentiments, sir, I agree to this Constitution, with all its faults, if they are such; because I think a General Government necessary for us, and there is no form of government, but what may be a blessing to the people if well administered; and believe further, that this is likely to be well administered for a course of years, and can only end in despotism, as other forms have done before it, when the people shall become so corrupted as to need despotic government, being incapable of any other.

— Benjamin Franklin

Is not every man sometimes a radical in politics? Men are conservatives when they are least vigorous, or when they are most luxurious. They are conservatives after dinner, or before taking their rest; when they are sick, or aged. In the morning, or when their intellect or their conscience has been aroused; when they hear music, or when they read poetry, they are radicals.

— Ralph Waldo Emerson

We have seen that the American Constitution has changed, is changing, and by the law of its existence must continue to change, in its substance and practical working even when its words remain the same.

— James Bryce

Here in the United States we turn our rivers and streams into sewers and dumping-grounds, we pollute the air, we destroy forests, and exterminate fishes, birds, and mammalsnot to speak of vulgarizing charming landscapes with hideous advertisements. But at last it looks as if our people were awakening. Many leading men, Americans and Canadians, are doing all they can for the Conservation movement.

— Theodore Roosevelt

I am a Conservative to preserve all that is good in our constitution, a Radical to remove all that is bad. I seek to preserve property and to respect order, and I equally decry the appeal to the passions of the many or the prejudices of the few.

— Benjamin Disraeli

Conservation and rural-life policies are really two sides of the same policy; and down at bottom this policy rests upon the fundamental law that neither man nor nation can prosper unless, in dealing with the present, thought is steadily taken for the future.

— Theodore Roosevelt

The idea that our natural resources were inexhaustible still obtained, and there was as yet no real knowledge of their extent and condition. The relation of the conservation of natural resources to the problems of National welfare and National efficiency had not yet dawned on the public mind. The reclamation of arid public lands in the West was still a matter for private enterprise alone; and our magnificent river system, with its superb possibilities for public usefulness, was dealt with by the National Government not as a unit, but as a disconnected series of pork-barrel problems, whose only real interest was in their effect on the reelection or defeat of a Congressman here and therea theory which, I regret to say, still obtains.

— Theodore Roosevelt

The nation behaves well if it treats the natural resources as assets which it must turn over to the next generation increased, and not impaired, in value.

— Theodore Roosevelt

A jay hasnt got any more principle than a Congressman. A jay will lie, a jay will steal, a jay will deceive, a jay will betray; and four times out of five, a jay will go back on his solemnest promise.

— Mark Twain

To my mind Judas Iscariot was nothing but a low, mean, premature Congressman.

— Mark Twain

We have been taught to regard a representative of the people as a sentinel on the watch-tower of liberty.

— Daniel Webster

I never know what South Carolina thinks of a measure. I never consult her. I act to the best of my judgment, and according to my conscience. If she approves, well and good. If she does not, or wishes any one to take my place, I am ready to vacate. We are even.

— John C. Calhoun

When a man asks himself what is meant by action he proves that he isnt a man of action. Action is a lack of balance. In order to act you must be somewhat insane. A reasonably sensible man is satisfied with thinking.

— Georges Clemenceau

I fear the vermin that shall undermineSenate and citadel and school and shrine.

— Edwin Markham

In order to judge of the form to be given to this institution [the Senate], it will be proper to take a view of the ends to be served by it. These were,first, to protect the people against their rulers, secondly, to protect the people against the transient impressions into which they themselves might be led.

— James Madison

Cultivators of the earth are the most valuable citizens. They are the most vigorous, the most independant, the most virtuous, and they are tied to their country and wedded to its liberty and interests by the most lasting bands. As long therefore as they can find emploiment in this line, I would not convert them into mariners, artisans, or any thing else. But our citizens will find emploiment in this line till their numbers, and of course their productions, become too great for the demand both internal and foreign.

— Thomas Jefferson

Do you pray for the Senators, Dr. Hale? someone asked the chaplain. No, I look at the Senators and pray for the country.

— Edward Everett Hale

There is only one thing I wast to say about Ohio that has a political tinge, and that is that I think a mistake has been made of recent years in Ohio in failing to continue as our representatives the same people term after term. I do not need to tell a Washington audience, among whom there are certainly some who have been interested in legislation, that length of service in the House and in the Senate is what gives influence.

— William Howard Taft

Ive said many a time that I think the Un-American Activities Committee in the House of Representatives was the most un-American thing in America!

— Harry S Truman

It is good to be back in the Peoples House. But this cannot be a real homecoming. Under the Constitution, I now belong to the executive branch. The Supreme Court has even ruled that I am the executive branchhead, heart, and hand.

— Gerald R. Ford

In my many years as a Representative in Congress it is my observation that the district that is best represented is the district that is wise enough to select a man of energy, intelligence, and integrity and reelects him year after year. A man of this type and character serves more efficiently and effectively the longer he is returned by his people.

— Sam Rayburn

Don't try to go too fast. Learn your job. Don't ever talk until you know what you're talking about. If you want to get along, go along.

— Sam Rayburn

Certainly, Gentlemen, it ought to be the happiness and glory of a representative to live in the strictest union, the closest correspondence, and the most unreserved communication with his constituents. Their wishes ought to have great weight with him; their opinions high respect; their business unremitted attention. It is his duty to sacrifice his repose, his pleasure, his satisfactions, to theirs,and above all, ever, and in all cases, to prefer their interest to his own. But his unbiased opinion, his mature judgment, his enlightened conscience, he ought not to sacrifice to you, to any man, or to any set of men living. These he does not derive from your pleasure,no, nor from the law and the Constitution. They are a trust from Providence, for the abuse of which he is deeply answerable. Your representative owes you, not his industry only, but his judgment; and he betrays, instead of serving you, if he sacrifices it to your opinion.

— Edmund Burke

For of all gainful professions, nothing is better, nothing more pleasing, nothing more delightful, nothing better becomes a well-bred man than agriculture.

— Marcus T. Cicero

I think I can say, and say with pride, that we have some legislatures that bring higher prices than any in the world.

— Mark Twain

Let me make it clear that I do not assert that a President and the Congress must on all points agree with each other at all times. Many times in history there has been complete disagreement between the two branches of the Government, and in these disagreements sometimes the Congress has won and sometimes the President has won. But during the Administration of the present President we have had neither agreement nor a clear-cut battle.

— Franklin D. Roosevelt

And kid Congress and the Senate, dont scold em. They are just children thats never grown up. They dont like to be corrected in company. Dont send messages to em, send candy.

— Will Rogers

So when all the yielding and objections is over, the other Senator said, I object to the remarks of a professional joker being put into the Congressional Record. Taking a dig at me, see? They didnt want any outside fellow contributing. Well, he had me wrong. Compared to them Im an amateur, and the thing about my jokes is that they dont hurt anybody. You can say theyre not funny or theyre terrible or theyre good or whatever it is, but they dont do no harm. But with Congressevery time they make a joke its a law. And every time they make a law its a joke.

— Will Rogers

A jackass can kick a barn down, but it takes a carpenter to build one.

— Sam Rayburn

Too many critics mistake the deliberations of the Congress for its decisions.

— Sam Rayburn

Burn down your cities and leave our farms, and your cities will spring up again as if by magic; but destroy our farms and the grass will grow in the streets of every city in the country. We will answer their demand for a gold standard by saying to them: You shall not press down upon the brow of labor this crown of thorns, you shall not crucify mankind upon a cross of gold.

— William Jennings Bryan

Congress is so strange. A man gets up to speak and says nothing. Nobody listensand then everybody disagrees.

— Boris Marshalov

It has always been my ambition since childhood to live such a life that one day my fellow citizens would call me to membership in this popular branch of the greatest lawmaking body in the world. Out of their confidence and partiality they have done this. It is now my sole purpose here to help enact such wise and just laws that our common country will by virtue of these laws be a happier and a more prosperous country. I have always dreamed of a country which I believe this should be and will be, and that is one in which the citizenship is an educated and patriotic people, not swayed by passion and prejudice, and a country that shall know no East, no West, no North, no South, but inhabited by a people liberty loving, patriotic, happy, and prosperous, with its lawmakers having no other purpose than to write such just laws as shall in the years to come be of service to human kind yet unborn. [Applause]

— Sam Rayburn