Donald R. Newcomb's Quotation Archive
dnewcomb@whale.st.usm.edu
Don says:
Please note that there are some duplicates with slight variations and one or two with the notation ("bogus?"). I don't like distributing undocumented or doubtfull quotes but I am sending this to you as "research material".
The quotations
Rest is not idleness, and to lie sometimes on the grass under
the trees on a summer's day, listening to the murmer of water, or
watching the clouds float across the sky, is by no means a waste
of time.
--Sir J. Lubbock
Well, I'll tell you: In all my days, I've never seen, heard, nor
smelled any issue that was so dangerous it couldn't be talked
about. Hell, yes! I'm for debating anything.
--Stephen Hopkins
A man who carrys a cat by the tail is getting experience that will
always be helpful. He isn't likely to grow dim or doubtful. Chances
are, he isn't likely to carry the cat that way again, either. But
if he wants to, I say let him!
--Mark Twain
The purpose of a fish trap is to catch fish,
and when the fish are caught, the trap is forgotten.
The purpose of a rabbit snare is to catch rabbits.
When the rabbits are caught, the snare is forgotten.
The purpose of words is to convey ideas.
When the ideas are grasped, the words are forgotten.
Where can I find a man who has forgotten words?
He is the one I would like to talk to.
--Chuang Tzu
The breath of the man who loves and the woman who loves
goes to fill the water trough where the spirit horses drink.
--Robert Bly
Firearms stand next in importance to the Constitution itself.
They are the American people's liberty teeth and keystone under
independence... From the hour the Pilgrims landed, to the
present day, events, occurrences, and tendencies prove that to
ensure peace, security, and happiness, the rifle and pistol are
equally indispensable.... The very atmosphere of firearms every-
where restrains evil interference - they deserve a place of honor
with all that's good.
- George Washington (bogus?)
The militia of these free commonwealths, entitled and accustomed
to their arms, when compared with any possible army, must be
_tremendous and irresistable_. Who are the militia? _are they not
ourselves_. Is it feared, then, that we shall turn our arms _each
man against his own bosom_. Congress have no power to disarm the
militia. Their swords, and every other terrible implement of the
soldier, are _the birth-right of an American_...the unlimited
power of the sword is not in the hands of either the _federal or
state governments_, but, where I trust in God it will ever remain,
_in the hands of the people_.
--Tench Coxe 20 Feb. 1788
To preserve liberty, it is necessary that the whole body of the
people possess arms, and be taught alike, especially when young,
how to use them.
--Richard Henry Lee
They that can give up an essential liberty to obtain a little
temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.
-- Benjamin Franklin (1759)
The great object is, that every man be armed....
Everyone who is able may have a gun.
--Patrick Henry
Guard with jealous attention the public liberty. Suspect every
one who approaches that jewel. Unfortunately, nothing will
preserve it but downright force. Whenever you give up that force,
you are ruined.
--Patrick Henry
Are we at last brought to such a humiliating and debasing
degradation, that we cannot be trusted with arms for our own
defense? Where is the difference between having our arms in our
own possession and under our own direction, and having them under
the management of Congress? If our defense be the _real_ object
of having those arms, in whose hands can they be trusted with
more propriety, or equal safety to us, as in our own hands?
--Patrick Henry
Whenever, therefore, the profession of arms becomes a distinct
order in the state....the end of the social compact is
defeated... No free government was ever founded, or ever
preserved its liberty without uniting the characters of the
citizen and soldier in those destined for the defense of the
state...Such are a well regulated militia, composed of the
freeholders, citizen and husbandman, who take up arms to
preserve their property, as individuals, and their rights as
freemen.
--Richard Henry Lee
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
I believe there are more instances of the abridgement of the rights
of the people by the gradual & silent encroachments of those in power
than by violent & sudden usurpations.
-- James Madison, Virginia Conv. 1788.
The right of the people to keep and bear...arms shall not be
infringed. A well-regulated militia, composed of the body of the
people, trained to arms, is the best and most natural defense of
a free country....
-- James Madison
I ask, who are the Militia? They consist now of the whole people.
--George Mason ?
I ask, sir, what is the militia? It is the whole people, except
for a few public officials.
-- George Mason
For a people who are free, and who mean to remain so,
a well organized and armed milita is their best security.
--Thomas Jefferson 1808
The Greeks by their laws, and the Romans by the spirit of their
people, took care to put into the hands of their rulers no such
engine of oppression as a standing army. Their system was to make
every man a soldier, and oblige him to repair to the standard of
his country when ever that was reared. This made them invincible;
and the same remedy will make us so.
--Thomas Jefferson
letter to Thomas Cooper(1814)
A strong body makes the mind strong. As to the species of exercises, I
advise the gun. While this gives moderate exercise to the body, it gives
boldness, enterprise and independence to the mind. Games played with the
ball and others of that nature, are too violent for the body and stamp no
character on the mind. Let your gun, therefore, be the constant companion
of your walks.
--Thomas Jefferson
--Encyclopedia of Thomas Jefferson, 318 (Foley, Ed. reissued 1967)
The strongest reason for the people to retain the right to keep
and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against
tyranny in government.
-- Thomas Jefferson
No free man shall ever be debarred the use of arms.
- Thomas Jefferson
"...when all government... in little as in great things, shall be
drawn to Washington as the centre of all power, it will render
powerless the checks provided of one government on another and will
become as venal and oppressive as the government from which we
separated." Thomas Jefferson, 1821
"The First Amendment has erected a wall of separation between
church and state, but that wall is a one directional wall; it
keeps the government from running the church, but it makes sure
that Christian principles will always stay in government."
- Thomas Jefferson, Jan 1, 1802, address to the Danbury Baptists
C'est magnifique, mais ce n`est pas la guerre.
--Marshal Bosquet
The outward and visible sign of the end of war was the
introduction of the magazine rifle.
--I.S. Bloch 1899
"I believe that God puts us in this jolly world to be happy
and enjoy life "
--Lord Baden-Powell
[The role of the Scoutmaster should be as an]"elder brother
among his boys - not detached or above them, but joining
in their activities and sharing their enthusiasm."
--Lord Baden-Powell
Shooting at a fixed target is only a step towards shooting
at a moving one, like a man.
--Lord Baden-Powell
Scouting for Boys(1908)
Make yourselves good scouts and good rifle shots in order to
protect the women and children of your country if it should ever
become necessary.
--Lord Baden-Powell
Scouting for Boys(1908)
We have all got to die some day; a few years more or less
of our lives don't much matter if by dying a year or two
sooner than we should otherwise do from disease we can help to
save the flag of our country from going under.
--Lord Baden-Powell
Scouting for Boys (1908)
Personally, I should like to see all Boy Scouts drilled.
I look upon the Movement as a further savings of the situation
for the nation in the future, and that it will pave the way
directly for its national service.
--Lord Baden-Powell
letter to Lord Meath (1910)
Our gallant fellows at the front are carrying their football training
into practice on the battlefield. They are 'playing the game' in all
conscience.
--Lord Baden-Powell
Headquarters Gazette (1914)
To certain individuals of small minds and overweaning ambition,
there is no greater insult than to be proved wrong.
--Thomas H Dyer 1984
Arms in the hands of citizens (may) be used at individual
discretion...in private self-defense.
--John Adams
A Defense of the Constitutions of Government of the United States
of America(1787-88)
Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people.
It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.
--John Adams
The religion and public liberty of a people are intimately connected;
their interests are interwoven, they cannot subsist separately, and
therefore they rise and fall together. For this reason, it is always
observable that those who are combined to destroy a people's
liberties practice every art to poisn their morals.
--Samuel Adams, 1772
The Constitution shall never be construed...to prevent the people
of the United States who are peaceable citizens from keeping
their own arms.
-- Samuel Adams
During Mass' Constitution ratification Convention, 1788
"The tragedy of American freedom, it is to be feared, is nearly
completed. A tyranny seems to be at the very door. It is to little
purpose, then, to go about coolly to rehearse the gradual steps
that have been taken, the means that have been used, and the
instruments employed to encompass the ruin of the public
liberty. We know them and we detest them. But what will this
avail, if we have not courage and resolution to prevent the
completion of their system?" - Samuel Adams, under the
pseudonym "Candidus", in the "Boston Gazette", 14 October 1771
The goal of civilization is settled life and the achievement of luxury.
But there is a limit which cannot be overstepped. When prosperity and luxury
come to a people, they are followed by excessive consumption and extravagance.
With that the human soul itself is undermined both in its worldly well-being
and in its spiritual life.
--Ibn Khaldun
The best we can hope for concerning the people at large is that
they be properly armed.
- Alexander Hamilton
"For no soldiers or sailors, in any of our forces today, would so willingly
endure the rigors of battle if they thought that in another twenty years
their own sons would be fighting still another war on distant deserts or
seas or in far-away jungles or skies." - Franklin Roosevelt
"Military action is important to the nation--it is the ground of death and
life, the path of survival and destruction so it is important to examine it.
-Sun Tzu
``A knave; a rascal; an eater of broken meats; a base, proud, shallow,
beggarly, three-suited, hundred-pound, filthy, worsted-stocking knave;
a lily-livered, action-taking knave, a whoreson, glass-gazing,
super-serviceable finical rogue; one-trunk-inheriting slave; one that
wouldst be a bawd, in way of good service, and art nothing but the
composition of a knave, beggar, coward, pandar, and the son and heir
of a mongrel bitch: one whom I will beat into clamorous whining, if
thou deniest the least syllable of thy addition.''
--Earl of Kent, _The_Tragedy_of_King_Lear_
"No people can be bound to acknowledge and adore the invisible hand
which conducts the affairs of men more than the people of the United
States. Every step by which they have advanced to the character of an
independent nation seems to have been distinguished by some token of
providential agency.... We ought to be no less persuaded that 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."
- George Washington, in his first Inaugural Address
"We have staked the whole future of American civilization, not upon
the power of government, far from it. We have staked the future of
all of our political institutions upon the capacity of mankind of
self-government; upon the capacity of each and all of us to govern
ourselves, to control ourselves, to sustain ourselves according to
the Ten Commandments of God."
- James Madison
"Is it not that, in the chain of events, the birthday of the nation is
indissolubly linked with the birthday of the Saviour? .... Is it not
that the Declaration of Independence first organized the social compact
on the foundation of the Redeemer's mission? That it laid the
cornerstone of human government upon the first precepts of Christianity
and gave to the world the first irrevocable pledge of the fulfillment of
the prophecies announced directly from Heaven at the birth of the Saviour
and predicted by the greatest of the Hebrew prophets 600 years before?"
-John Quincy Adams, 1837
"The religion which has introduced civil liberty is the religion of
Christ and his apostles, which enjoins humility, piety, and benevolence;
which acknowledges in every person a brother, or a sister, and a citizen
with equal rights. This is genuine Christianity, and to this we owe our
free constitutions of government."
- Noah Webster, _A History of the United States_
"The moral principles and precepts contained in the Scriptures
ought to form the basis of all our civil constitutions and laws.
All the miseries and evils which men suffer from vice, crime,
ambition, injustice, oppression, slavery, and war, proceed from
their despising or neglecting the precepts contained in the Bible."
- Noah Webster
"If religious books are not widely circulated among the masses in this
country, I do not know what is going to become of us as a nation. If
truth be not diffused, error will be; If God and His Word are not know
and received, the devil and his works will gain the ascendancy; If the
evangelical volume does not reach every hamlet, the pages of a corrupt
and licentious literature will; If the power of the Gospel is not felt
throughout the length and breadth of the land, anarchy and misrule,
degradation and misery, corruption and darkness will reign without
mitigation or end."
- Daniel Webster
"He who shall introduce into public affairs the principles of primitive
Christianity will change the face of the world."
- Benjamin Franklin, while he was US Ambassador to France
"The choice before us is plain: Christ or chaos, conviction or
compromise, discipline or disintegration. I am rather tired of hearing
about our rights and privileges as American citizens. The time is come
- it now is - when we ought to hear about the duties and responsibilities
of our citizenship. America's future depends upon her accepting and
demonstrating God's government."
- Reverend Peter Marshall, on being elected Chaplain
of the U. S. Senate in January 1947
"When I was in England I experimented with marijuana a time or two, I
didn't like it, I didn't inhale it, and never tried it again."
-- Bill Clinton
"I think it's about time we voted for senators with breasts. After all,
we've been voting for boobs long enough."
-- Arizona senatorial candidate Claire Sargent, on women candidates
"Many, if not all, of my presidential opponents are certifiable idiots."
-- Philippine presidential candidate Miriam Defensor Santiago
"Half of the American people never read a newspaper. Half never voted for
President. One hopes it is the same half."
-- Gore Vidal
"Your food stamps will be stopped effective Marc, 1992, because we received
notice that you passed away. May God bless you. You may reapply if there is a
change in your circumstances."
-- From a letter to a dead person from the Greenville County (S.C.)
Department of Social Services
"We believe he wanted to win in the worst way."
-- Seminole County, Fla., Sheriff Don Eslinger on a state representative
challenger charged with attempted murder of his opponent
"It is about a socialist, anti-family political movement that encourages
women to leave their husbands, kill their children, practice witchcraft,
destroy capitalism and become lesbians."
-- Televangelist Pat Robertson, who spoke at the Republican convention, on
the proposed equal rights amendment
"Would you please shut up and sit down!"
-- George Bush, to a grooup of POW-MIA families protesting his campaign
speech in Crystal City, Va.
I used to hate writing assignments, but now I enjoy them.
I realised that the purpose of writing is to inflate weak
ideas, obscure poor reasoning, and inhibit clarity.
With a little practice, writing can be an intimidating and
inpenetrable fog !
-- Calvin Feb 11, 1993
"You just can't promise something like that just to get elected if you
know there's a good chance that circumstances may overtake you."
- Bill Clinton, East Lansing MI debate, Mon Oct 19 1992
"So, where can someone practice with his phaser 'round here?"
- Dr. Bashir to Odo, Stardate 46393.1
"If you will not fight for right when you can easily win without
bloodshed; if you will not fight when your victory will be sure and not
too costly; you may come to the moment when you will have to fight with
all the odds against you and only a precarious chance of survival.
There may be even a worse case. You may have to fight when there is no
hope of victory, because it is better to perish than live as slaves."
--Winston Churchill
"I consider trial by jury as the only anchor yet imagined by man, by
which a government can be held to the principles of its constitution."
- Thomas Jefferson
"It is not only [the juror's] right, but his duty, in that case, to
find the verdict according to his own best understanding, judgement,
and conscience, though in direct opposition to the direction of the court."
- John Adams, 1771
"... if exercising their judgment with discretion and honesty
they have a clear conviction that the charge of the court is wrong."
- Alexander Hamilton, advice to jurors to acquit
against the judge's instructions
"The jury has the right to determine both the law and the facts."
- Samuel Chase, signer of the Declaration of Independence,
and Supreme Court Justice, 1804
"The jury has a right to judge both the law
as well as the fact in controversy."
- John Jay, first Chief Justice, U.S. Supreme Court
( Georgia vs. Brailsford, 1794:4 )
"But, sir, the people themselves have it in their power effectually
to resist usurpation, without being driven to an appeal of arms.
An act of usurpation is not obligatory; it is not law; and any man
may be justified in his resistance. Let him be considered as a criminal
by the general government, yet only his fellow-citizens can convict him;
they are his jury, and if they pronounce him innocent, not all the powers
of Congress can hurt him; and innocent they certainly will pronounce him,
if the supposed law he resisted was an act of usurpation."
- Theophilus Parsons, in the Massachusetts Convention on the
ratification of the U.S. Constitution [Jonathan Elliot, ed.,
_The Debates of the Several State Conventions on the Adoption of the
Federal Constitution_, (New York, Burt Franklin: 1888), 2:94 ]
"In the trial of all criminal cases, the Jury shall be the
Judges of Law, as well as of fact, except that the Court may pass
upon the sufficiency of the evidence to sustain a conviction."
- Article XV, section 5, Constitution of Maryland.
"In all criminal cases whatsoever, the jury shall have the right to
determine the law and the facts."
- Indiana Constitution.
"If the jury feels the law is unjust, we recognize the undisputed
power of the jury to acquit, even if its verdict is contrary to the
law as given by a judge, and contrary to the evidence ... and the
courts must abide by that decision."
- US v Moylan, 4th Circuit Court of Appeals, 1969, 417 F.2d at 1006
"It would be an absurdity for jurors to be required to accept the judge's
view of the law, against their own opinion, judgement, and conscience."
- John Adams
"The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed
(and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless
series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary."
- H. L. Mencken
"It will be of little avail to the people that the laws are made by men of
their own choice, if the laws be so voluminous that they cannot be read, or
so incoherent that they cannot be understood; [or] if they be repealed or
revised before they are promulgated, or undergo such incessant changes that
no man who knows what the law is today can guess what it will be tomorrow."
-- The Federalist No. 62
"1935 will go down in history! For the first time, a civilized nation
has full gun registration! Our streets will be safer, our police more
efficient and the world will follow our lead into the future!"
- Adolph Hitler
"In Germany they came first for the Communists, and I didn't speak up
because I wasn't a Communist. Then they came for the Jews, and I didn't
speak up because I wasn't a Jew. Then they came for the trade unionists,
and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a trade unionist. Then they came
for the Catholics, and I didn't speak up because I was a Protestant.
Then they came for me, and by that time no one was left to speak up."
German Lutheran Pastor Martin Niemoeller (b.1892 d.1984)
(Actual quote includes homosexuals)
"Our safety, our liberty depends on preserving the Constitution of the United
States as our fathers made it inviolate. The people of the US are the right-
ful masters of both Congress and the courts - Not to overthrow the Constitu-
tion, but to overthrow the men who pervert the Constitution" Abraham Lincoln
"Obviously, a man's judgment cannot be better than the information on
which he has based it. Give him the truth and he may still go wrong
when he has the chance to be right, but give him no news or present
him only with distorted and incomplete data, with ignorant, sloppy or
biased reporting, with propaganda and deliberate falsehoods, and you
destroy his whole reasoning process, and make him something less than
a man."
--- Arthur Hays Sulzberger, 1891-1968, American newspaper publisher
"The strongest reason for the people to retain the right to
keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves
against tyranny in government." (Thomas Jefferson)
"... God forbid we should ever be twenty years without such a
rebellion. The people cannot be all, and always, well informed.
The part which is wrong will be discontented, in proportion to the
importance of the facts they misconceive. If they remain quiet
under such misconceptions, it is lethargy, the forerunner of death
to the public liberty. ... And what country can preserve its
liberties, if it's rulers are not warned from time to time, that
this people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take
arms. The remedy is to set them right as to the facts, pardon and
pacify them. What signify a few lives lost in a century or two?
The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time, with the
blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure."
-- Thomas Jefferson, Nov. 13, 1787
Abraham Lincoln, First Inaugural Address, March 4, 1861: "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."
Thoughtcrime was not a thing that could be concealed forever.
You might dodge successfully for a while, even for years, but sooner
or later they were bound to get you."
---George Orwell
They have exiled me now from their society and I am pleased, because
humanity does not exile except the one whose noble spirit rebels
against despotism and oppression. He who does not prefer exile to
slavery is not free by any measure of freedom, truth and duty"
--Kahil Gibran, from "Spirits Rebellious"
Experience should teach us to be most on our guard to protect liberty
when the government's purposes are beneficient . . . the greatest
dangers to liberty lurk in insidious encroachment by men of zeal, well
meaning but without understanding.
Justice Louis Brandeis
Olmstead vs. United States, United States Supreme Court, 1928
You do not examine legislation in the light of the benefits it will
convey if properly administered, but in the light of the wrongs it
would do and the harms it would cause if improperly administered.
---Lyndon Johnson