Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Comment on this quoteShare via Email Print this Page Daily Quotes Archives2014-06-04 Jun 4, 2014It is not the benevolence of the butcher, or the baker that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest. We address ourselves, not to their humanity but to their self-love, and never talk to them of our own necessities but of their advantages.~ Adam SmithGive a man secure possession of a bleak rock and he will turn it into a garden; give him nine years lease of a garden and he will turn it into a desert.~ Arthur YoungIf a law to donate aid to any farmer or cattleman who has had poor crops or lost his cattle comes within the meaning of the phrase “to provide for the General Welfare of the United States,” why should not similar gifts be made to grocers, shopkeepers, miners, and other businessmen who have made losses through financial depression, or to wage earners out of employment? Why is not their property equally within the purview of the General Welfare?~ Charles Warren Jun 3, 2014Congress is extraordinarily reluctant to inject itself into foreign policy. It has dumped entirely its constitutional duty for money onto a central bank, and for trade, onto the executive branch. It seems to never know what the CIA and other intelligence agencies are doing. Like the Romans, they no longer talk of the republic or liberty. And like the Romans, the American people, or most of them anyway, don’t seem to care. ... Like the Romans, we no longer have a citizen army but professional legions, and whether they wear jackboots or not, some federal officers seem to regard Americans with about the same compassion as the Praetorian Guard had for the plebes. As in Rome, the air is full of suspicion, intrigues and conspiracies, real or imagined, and the air reeks of greed and opportunism. As those on the Tiber, the rulers on the Potomac have grown suspicious of the people, don’t trust them and, in some cases fear them. And, as in Rome, they grovel in luxury while taking 40 cents on the dollar out of the sweat of working people to pay for corn and circuses to keep the mob satisfied. ~ Charley ReeseWashington, of course, aside from being one of the most mismanaged, crime-ridden cities on the planet, is a place where 535 federal legislators and about 38,000 lobbyists work at confiscating and redistributing the incomes of the American people.~ Charley Reese Jun 2, 2014The free man owns himself. He can damage himself with either eating or drinking; he can ruin himself with gambling. If he does he is certainly a damn fool, and he might possibly be a damned soul; but if he may not, he is not a free man any more than a dog.~ Gilbert Keith ChestertonThe whole principle is wrong. It’s like demanding that grown men live on skim milk because the baby can't eat steak.~ Robert A. HeinleinIf the people let government decide what foods they eat and what medicines they take, their bodies will soon be in as sorry a state as are the souls of those who live under tyranny.~ Thomas Jefferson May 30, 2014A civilization in which there is not a continuous controversy about important issues…is on the way to totalitarianism and death.~ Robert M. HutchinsWe have not passed that subtle line between childhood and adulthood until we move from the passive voice to the active voice -- that is, until we have stopped saying, "It got lost," and say, "I lost it.~ Sydney J. HarrisTo punish a man because we infer from the nature of some doctrine which he holds, or from the conduct of other persons who hold the same doctrines with him, that he will commit a crime, is persecution, and is, in every case, foolish and wicked.~ Thomas Babington Macaulay May 29, 2014If you want to make enemies, try to change something.~ Woodrow WilsonThe whole drift of our law is toward the absolute prohibition of all ideas that diverge in the slightest form from the accepted platitudes, and behind that drift of law there is a far more potent force of growing custom, and under that custom there is a natural philosophy which erects conformity into the noblest of virtues and the free functioning of personality into a capital crime against society.~ H. L. MenckenEducation consists mainly of what we have unlearned.~ Mark Twain Previous week's quotes Next week's quotes Share on Facebook Tweet Email Print