Your favorite quote...

[Kylie]

I know, there are so many you think of, but what is the one that makes you believe that we will prevail?

What carries you on when you start to feel defeated?


My daughter just read Anthem. I decided to re-read it so we could discuss it, because it was such an eye opener to me as far as a "big picture". When I got to this:


And I wish I had the power to tell them that the despair of their hearts was not to be final, and there night was not without hope. For the battle they lost can never be lost. For that which they died to save can never perish. Through all the darkness, through all the shame of which men are capable, the spirit of man will remain alive on this earth. It may sleep, but it will awaken. It may wear chains, but it will break through. And man will go on.

Man, not men.


It hit me again. This is the point. This is why we carry on in what we do. It will not die, we will not let it. In fact, you guys have helped me to "wake up" so much, and I know we get depressed or cynical when we see what they are still doing, we can look back to quotes like these to remind us that we are not the only ones who have been fighting this fight. We follow in a long line of those who have fought, and lost everything, and those who have fought, and won.



So, what quotes move you?

What gets you re-engaged, in your heart, to carry on in the truths that we deem self evident, but most choose to ignore?


:)



I think this just may be my favorite.

[Drex]

' When the people fear the government there is tyranny; but when the government fears the people there is liberty ' Thomas Jefferson

[Appalachia]

"If you're not a liberal at twenty you have no heart, if you're not a conservative at forty you have no brain."

-Winston Churchill

(Not sure if this is my favorite though, but I sure like this one).

[IPSecure]

"Only those who will risk going too far can possibly find out how far one can go." - T.S. Eliot

"Anything worth doing, is worth overdoing." - Jon Lord

[Travlyr]

"Do unto to others as you would have them do unto you."

[kah13176]

"If you're not a liberal at twenty you have no heart, if you're not a conservative at forty you have no brain."

-Winston Churchill

(Not sure if this is my favorite though, but I sure like this one).

Either I have no heart, or Churchill was wrong.

[Tyler_Durden]

"The fact that we are here today to debate raising America's debt limit is a sign of leadership failure. It is a sign that the US Government can not pay its own bills. It is a sign that we now depend on ongoing financial assistance from foreign countries to finance our Government's reckless fiscal policies. Increasing America's debt weakens us domestically and internationally. Leadership means that "the buck stops here." America has a debt problem and a failure of leadership. Americans deserve better." - Senator Barack Obama, March 2006

[bluesc]

"The fact that we are here today to debate raising America's debt limit is a sign of leadership failure. It is a sign that the US Government can not pay its own bills. It is a sign that we now depend on ongoing financial assistance from foreign countries to finance our Government's reckless fiscal policies. Increasing America's debt weakens us domestically and internationally. Leadership means that "the buck stops here." America has a debt problem and a failure of leadership. Americans deserve better." - Senator Barack Obama, March 2006

Can someone get 30 seconds face-to-face with Obama, read him that quote, and question him about it on camera? And show the video to every Democrat in the country?

[ican'tvote]

"If people are basically good, you don't need a government; if people are basically evil, you don't dare have one."
I think it's from David Bergland.

[DaninPA]

"Make fun buddy..."-Ron Paul

Guess who he was responding to.

[thoughtomator]

"Every normal man must be tempted at times to spit on his hands, hoist the black flag, and begin to slit throats." - H. L. Mencken

[Inkblots]

"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." - T. Jefferson

"I am an optimist. It does not seem too much use being anything else." - W. Churchill

"When I despair, I remember that all through history the way of truth and love has always won. There have been tyrants and murderers, and for a time, they can seem invincible, but in the end, they always fall. Think of it - always." - M. Gandhi

[Bosco Warden]

“One thing is clear: The Founding Fathers never intended a nation where citizens would pay nearly half of everything they earn to the government.”
― Ron Paul

“Under the United States Constitution, the federal government has no authority to hold states "accountable" for their education performance...In the free society envisioned by the founders, schools are held accountable to parents, not federal bureaucrats.”
― Ron Paul

“I'm convinced that you never have to give up liberties to be safe. I think you're less safe when you give up your liberties.”
― Ron Paul

“Truth is treason in the empire of lies.”
― Ron Paul, The Revolution: A Manifesto

“Setting a good example is a far better way to spread ideals than through force of arms.”
― Ron Paul

“When one gets in bed with government, one must expect the diseases it spreads.”
― Ron Paul

“Liberty is lost through complacency and a subservient mindset. When we accept or even welcome automobile checkpoints, random searches, mandatory identification cards, and paramilitary police in our streets, we have lost a vital part of our American heritage. America was born of protest, revolution, and mistrust of government. Subservient societies neither maintain nor deserve freedom for long.”
― Ron Paul

“It is no coincidence that the century of total war coincided with the century of central banking.”
― Ron Paul, End the Fed

"1913 wasn't a very good year. 1913 gave us the income tax, the 16th amendment and the IRS."
Ron Paul

"Capitalism should not be condemned, since we haven't had capitalism."
Ron Paul

[Philosophy_of_Politics]

My signature.

[PierzStyx]

"If you're not a liberal at twenty you have no heart, if you're not a conservative at forty you have no brain."

-Winston Churchill

(Not sure if this is my favorite though, but I sure like this one).

But I want to know why we can't have both a heart and a brain? -Ron Paul at Berkeley, CA.

[cstarace]

Two of my favorites are in my signature.

[Anti Federalist]

Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.

[emazur]

"The fact that we are here today to debate raising America's debt limit is a sign of leadership failure. It is a sign that the US Government can not pay its own bills. It is a sign that we now depend on ongoing financial assistance from foreign countries to finance our Government's reckless fiscal policies. Increasing America's debt weakens us domestically and internationally. Leadership means that "the buck stops here." America has a debt problem and a failure of leadership. Americans deserve better." - Senator Barack Obama, March 2006

He said something very much along these lines short after taking office in 2/2009. You will never hear him speak like this again:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7X2mSaQD0EY&feature=plcp
2/9/2009 Obama: "Our savings rate has declined and this economy has been driven by consumer spending for a very long time. And that's not gonna be sustainable. If all we're doing is spending and we're not making things, then over time other countries are gonna get tired of lending us money and eventually the party's gonna be over. Well, in fact, the party now is over"

[Pericles]

"This is a very important lesson. You must never confuse faith that you will prevail in the end—which you can never afford to lose—with the discipline to confront the most brutal facts of your current reality, whatever they might be."

ADM James Stockdale

which barely beat out

“And how we burned in the camps later, thinking: What would things have been like if every Security operative, when he went out at night to make an arrest, had been uncertain whether he would return alive and had to say good-bye to his family? Or if, during periods of mass arrests, as for example in Leningrad, when they arrested a quarter of the entire city, people had not simply sat there in their lairs, paling with terror at every bang of the downstairs door and at every step on the staircase, but had understood they had nothing left to lose and had boldly set up in the downstairs hall an ambush of half a dozen people with axes, hammers, pokers, or whatever else was at hand?... The Organs would very quickly have suffered a shortage of officers and transport and, notwithstanding all of Stalin's thirst, the cursed machine would have ground to a halt! If...if...We didn't love freedom enough. And even more – we had no awareness of the real situation.... We purely and simply deserved everything that happened afterward.”
― Aleksandr I. Solzhenitsyn (http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/10420.Aleksandr_I_Solzhenitsyn)

[Xenophage]

I know, there are so many you think of, but what is the one that makes you believe that we will prevail?

What carries you on when you start to feel defeated?


My daughter just read Anthem. I decided to re-read it so we could discuss it, because it was such an eye opener to me as far as a "big picture". When I got to this:


And I wish I had the power to tell them that the despair of their hearts was not to be final, and there night was not without hope. For the battle they lost can never be lost. For that which they died to save can never perish. Through all the darkness, through all the shame of which men are capable, the spirit of man will remain alive on this earth. It may sleep, but it will awaken. It may wear chains, but it will break through. And man will go on.

Man, not men.

This is a magnificent quote and an example of Ayn Rand at her finest. +1

This is my personal favorite, from John Galt at the end of Atlas Shrugged, and a quote I've always loved:


Do not lose your knowledge that man's proper estate is an upright posture, an intransigent mind and a step that travels unlimited roads. Do not let your fire go out, spark by irreplaceable spark, in the hopeless swamps of the approximate, the not-quite, the not-yet, the not-at-all. Do not let the hero in your soul perish, in lonely frustration for the life you deserved, but have never been able to reach. Check your road and the nature of your battle. The world you desired can be won, it exists, it is real, it is possible, it's yours.

[Proph]

<3 me some Twain.

"[Humanity] has unquestionably one really effective weapon—laughter. Power, money, persuasion, supplication, persecution—these can lift at a colossal humbug—push it a little—weaken it a little, century by century; but only laughter can blow it to rags and atoms at a blast. Against the assault of laughter nothing can stand."
-Mark Twain, The Mysterious Stranger, chapter 10 (1916)

"Keep away from people who try to belittle your ambitions. Small people always do that, but the really great make you feel that you, too, can become great."
-Mark Twain

[Todd]

These pretty much reflect my philosophy:


I find television very educating. Every time somebody turns on the set, I go into the other room and read a book. - Groucho Marx

Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect - Mark Twain

Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities - Voltaire

However beautiful the strategy, you should occasionally look at the results. - Winston Churchill

All the war-propaganda, all the screaming and lies and hatred, comes invariably from people who are not fighting. - George Orwell

The men the American people admire most extravagantly are the most daring liars; the men they detest most violently are those who try to tell them the truth.~ H.L. Mencken

A man is likely to mind his own business when it is worth minding. When it is not, he takes his mind off his own meaningless affairs by minding other people's business - Eric Hoffer

The problems we face today cannot be solved by the minds that created them - Albert Einstein

I am not young enough to know everything. - Oscar Wilde

Be careful when you fight the monsters, lest you become one - Friedrich Nietzsche

A nation that thinks it can be ignorant and free thinks what never was and never will be - Thomas Jefferson

Television may countermand the warning we once received about the fallacy of the Ad hominem argument. We now banish those who tell us the news when we do not care for the face of the teller. Televison provides a new definition of truth. Credibility is no longer the ultimate test of truth of a proposition, but now the impression of sincerity, authenticity, vulnerability or attractiveness - Neal Postman

[pcosmar]

What moves me?

Pete, shut up. You're rambling again.
My Wife

usually moves me to another room.
;)

[Anti Federalist]

What moves me?

Pete, shut up. You're rambling again.
My Wife

usually moves me to another room.
;)

ROFL!!!

[ProIndividual]

It's in my signature below. (The first one.)

[TonySutton]

Be the change you wish to see in the world

[oyarde]

"Those who would give up Essential Liberty to purchase a little Temporary Safety , deserve neither Liberty nor Safety " Ben Franklin.

[oyarde]

Then there is the one from the guy , later , the First Gov. of Virginia , hard to beat that ...

[fisharmor]

Preach the word; be ready in season and out of season; reprove, rebuke, and exhort, with complete patience and teaching. For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions, and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths. As for you, always be sober-minded, endure suffering, do the work of an evangelist, fulfill your ministry.
St. Paul

[Bossobass]

"Time wounds all heels"

John Lennon

Bosso

[Stupified]

My signature. It summarizes my political, philosophical, and general life views perfectly.

[UMULAS]

Is not a man entitled to the sweat of his own brown? - Andrew Ryan

A man Chooses, a slave obeys - Andrew Ryan

I think, and there fore I am - Ayn Rand

An Idea whose time has come cannot be stopped by no size of an army - Ron Paul

[Todd]

"Time wounds all heels"

John Lennon

Bosso

LOL. McCartney II album cover...

I'm a big Macca fan.
Worst LP ever by him.

[Pericles]

I think, and there fore I am - Ayn Rand


Rene Descartes got there a few hundred years before Ayn Rand did. Cogito Ergo Sum.

http://www.renedescartes.com/

[PierzStyx]

Is not a man entitled to the sweat of his own brown? - Andrew Ryan

A man Chooses, a slave obeys - Andrew Ryan

I think, and there fore I am - Ayn Rand

An Idea whose time has come cannot be stopped by no size of an army - Ron Paul

"What separates a man from a slave?

Money?

Power?

No. A man chooses, a slave obeys.

A man chooses.

A slave obeys." -Andrew Ryan

[Feeding the Abscess]

Ideas are very important to the shaping of society. In fact, they are more powerful than bombs or armies or guns. And this is because ideas are capable of spreading without limit. They are behind all the choices we make. They can transform the world in a way that governments and armies cannot. Fighting for liberty with ideas makes more sense to me than fighting with guns or politics or political power. With ideas, we can make real change that lasts.

- Ron Paul

[AZJoe]

Ideas are very important to the shaping of society. In fact, they are more powerful than bombs or armies or guns. And this is because ideas are capable of spreading without limit. They are behind all the choices we make. They can transform the world in a way that governments and armies cannot. Fighting for liberty with ideas makes more sense to me than fighting with guns or politics or political power. With ideas, we can make real change that lasts.

- Ron Paul


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gq7iYtkj0DM

[Anti Globalist]

Mine is in my signature.

[ILUVRP]

Eisenhower warned that the United States must “guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence…by the military-industrial complex,”

[Slave Mentality]

Life's a garden, dig it.

-Joe Dirt

[Anti Globalist]

Eisenhower warned that the United States must “guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence…by the military-industrial complex,”
And yet he had his own role to play in the MIC.

[thoughtomator]

Rome cut off the heads of Christians and they continued to reappear one way or another. Something similar happens with Marxists.

- Augusto Pinochet

[106459]

Ooo. It's been a long time since I've collected quotes. But here's some I've stashed away, haha:

Extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice. And moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue.
-Barry Goldwater

Government is not reason; it is not eloquent; it is force. Like fire, it is a dangerous servant and a fearful master.
-George Washington (fake, apparently?)

Americans have the right and advantage of being armed - unlike the citizens of other countries whose governments are afraid to trust the people with arms.
-James Madison

Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn't pass it to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same.
-Ronald Reagan

A system of morality which is based on relative emotional values is a mere illusion, a thoroughly vulgar conception which has nothing sound in it and nothing true.
-Socrates

I only wish that ordinary people had an unlimited capacity for doing harm; then they might have an unlimited power for doing good.
-Socrates

Not life, but good life, is to be chiefly valued.
-Socrates

America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves.
-Abraham Lincoln

Only Americans can hurt America.
-Dwight D. Eisenhower

Criticism may not be agreeable, but it is necessary. It fulfills the same function as pain in the human body. It calls attention to an unhealthy state of things.
-Winston Churchill

Those who can win a war well can rarely make a good peace and those who could make a good peace would never have won the war.
-Winston Churchill

The inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of blessings; the inherent virtue of socialism is the equal sharing of miseries.
-Winston Churchill

All the perplexities, confusion and distress in America arise, not from defects in their Constitution or Confederation, not from want of honor or virtue, so much as from the downright ignorance of the nature of coin, credit and circulation.
-John Adams

Inflation is as violent as a mugger, as frightening as an armed robber and as deadly as a hit man.
-Ronald Reagan

If you want total security, go to prison. There you're fed, clothed, given medical care and so on. The only thing lacking... is freedom.
-Dwight D. Eisenhower

Do not separate text from historical background. If you do, you will have perverted and subverted the Constitution, which can only end in a distorted, bastardized form of illegitimate government.
-James Madison

If Tyranny and Oppression come to this land, it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy.
-James Madison

No nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare.
-James Madison

[DamianTV]

When morality has been outlawed, only outlaws will have morality.

[osan]

"Do unto to others as you would have them do unto you."


Or my preferred version:


Do unto others before they do unto you.