Category: Wisdom (Page 7 of 13)

John Locke (1632-1704) completed a philosophical education at Oxford. Locke declined the offer of a permanent academic position in order to avoid committing himself to a religious order. Having also studied medicine, he served for many years as a private physician. A friend of Isaac Newton and Robert Boyle, Locke was also an early member of the Royal Society. He studied and wrote on philosophical, scientific, and political matters throughout his life, in a voluminous correspondence and ample journals.

The fundamental principles of Locke’s philosophy are presented in An Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1690), the culmination of twenty years of reflection on the origins of human knowledge. According to Locke, what we know is always properly understood as the relation between ideas, and he devoted much of the Essay to an extended argument that all of our ideas, simple or complex, are ultimately derived from experience. The consequence of this empiricist approach is that the knowledge of which we are capable is severely limited in its scope and certainty.

Locke held that we have no grounds for complaint about the limitations of our knowledge, since a proper application of our cognitive capacities is enough to guide our action in the practical conduct of life. Further, Locke viewed that all rights begin in the individual property interest created by an investment of labor. The social structure or commonwealth, then, depends for its formation and maintenance on the express consent of those who are governed by its political powers. Majority rule thus becomes the cornerstone of all political order, and dissatisfied citizens reserve a lasting right to revolution. Locke also argued for the acceptance of alternative religious convictions.

“I have no reason to suppose that he, who would take away my liberty, would not, when he had me in his power, take away everything else.”

“An excellent man, like precious metal, is in every way invariable; A villain, like the beams of a balance, is always varying, upwards and downwards.”

“As people are walking all the time, in the same spot, a path appears.”

“What worries you, masters you.”

“Education begins the gentleman, but reading, good company and reflection must finish him.”

“I have always thought the actions of men the best interpreters of their thoughts.”

“If we will disbelieve everything, because we cannot certainly know all things, we shall do much what as wisely as he who would not use his legs, but sit still and perish, because he had no wings to fly.”

“Parents wonder why the streams are bitter, when they themselves have poisoned the fountain.”

“New opinions are always suspected, and usually opposed, without any other reason but because they are not already common.”

“Our incomes are like our shoes; if too small, they gall and pinch us; but if too large, they cause us to stumble and to trip.”

“Reading furnishes the mind only with materials of knowledge; it is thinking that makes what we read ours.”

“The discipline of desire is the background of character.”

“There is frequently more to be learned from the unexpected questions of a child than the discourses of men, who talk in a road, according to the notions they have borrowed and the prejudices of their education.”

“This tendency to cruelty should be watched in them children, and if they incline to any such cruelty, they should be taught the contrary usage. For the custom of tormenting and killing other animals will, by degrees, harden their hearts even towards men… And they, who delight in the suffering and destruction of inferior creatures, will not be apt to be very compassionate or benign to those of their own kind. Children should from the beginning be brought up in an abhorrence of killing or tormenting living beings… And indeed, I think people from their cradles should be tender to all sensible creatures… All the entertainment and talk of History is of nothing but fighting and killing; and the honor and renown that is bestowed on conquerors, who, for the most part, are but the great butchers of mankind, further mislead youth.”

Additional information on John Locke’s contributions to both the Declaration and Constitution can be found HERE.

Born on Feb. 12, 1809, in a log cabin in backwoods Hardin co., Ky. (now Larue co.), he grew up on newly broken pioneer farms of the frontier. In 1842 he married Mary Todd. He continued his interest in politics and entered on the national scene by serving one term in Congress (1847-49). In 1861, Abraham Lincoln became the 16th president of the United States serving until his assassination April 4, 1865. Lincoln displayed great ability in law, a ready grasp of argument, and sincerity, color, and lucidity of speech.

“If I were to try to read, much less answer, all the attacks made on me, this shop might as well be closed for any other business. I do the very best I know how – the very best I can; and I mean to keep doing so until the end. If the end brings me out all right, what’s said against me won’t amount to anything. If the end brings me out wrong, ten angels swearing I was right would make no difference.”

“Leave nothing for tomorrow which can be done today.”

“What is conservatism? Is it not adherence to the old and tried, against the new and untried?”

“You can fool all the people some of the time, and some of the people all the time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time.”

“Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man’s character, give him power.”

“The shepherd drives the wolf from the sheep, for which the sheep thanks the shepherd as his liberator, while the wolf denounces him for the same act as the destroyer of liberty. Plainly, the sheep and the wolf are not agreed upon a definition of liberty.”

“In the end, it’s not the years in your life that count. It is the life in your years.”

Clive Staples or “Jack” Lewis (1898-1963) was a tutor at Oxford University, England and later the chair of Medieval and Renaissance English Literature at Cambridge University, England. He wrote apologetics, science fiction, children and adult fantasy, and much more. His writings and radio talks became so popular that he was called an “apostle to the skeptics” by Time magazine. His imagination, the clarity of his writing style, the force of his apologetic and his integrity have influenced thousands of people.

“The future is something which everyone reaches at the rate of sixty minutes an hour, whatever he does, whoever he is.”

“Christianity, if false, is of no importance, and if true, of infinite importance. The only thing it cannot be is moderately important.”

“Aim at heaven and you will get earth thrown in. Aim at earth and you get neither. ”

“I believe in Christianity as I believe that the sun has risen, not only because I see it but because I see everything in it.”

“A proud man is always looking down on things and people; and, of course, as long as you’re looking down, you can’t see something that’s above you.”

“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 own conscience.”

Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929-1968) was born Michael Luther King, Jr., but later had his name changed to Martin. Martin Luther attended segregated public schools in Georgia, graduating from high school at the age of fifteen; he received the B. A. degree in 1948 from Morehouse College. After three years of theological study at Crozer Theological Seminary in Pennsylvania, he was awarded the Bachelor of Divinity in 1951 and enrolled in graduate studies at Boston University, completing his residence for the doctorate in 1953 and receiving the degree in 1955.

In 1954, Martin Luther King accepted the pastoral of the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery, Alabama. King was, by this time, a member of the executive committee of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. In 1957 he was elected president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. The ideals for this organization he took from Christianity; its operational techniques from Gandhi. In the eleven-year period between 1957 and 1968, King traveled over six million miles and spoke over twenty-five hundred times and wrote five books as well as numerous articles. He was awarded five honorary degrees; was named Man of the Year by Time magazine in 1963; and became the symbolic leader of American blacks.

At the age of thirty-five, Martin Luther King, Jr., was the youngest man to have received the Nobel Peace Prize. On the evening of April 4, 1968, while standing on the balcony of his motel room in Memphis, Tennessee, where he was to lead a protest march in sympathy with striking garbage workers of that city, he was assassinated.

“Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.”

“In the End, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.”

“If a man hasn’t discovered something that he will die for, he isn’t fit to live.”

“Hatred paralyzes life; love releases it. Hatred confuses life; love harmonizes it. Hatred darkens life; love illuminates it.”

“A religion true to its natures must also be concerned about man’s social conditions. Religion deals with both earth and heaven, both time and eternity. Religion operates not only on the vertical plane but also on the horizontal. It seeks not only to integrate men with God but to integrate men with men and each man with himself.”

“Everybody can be great… because anybody can serve. You don’t have to have a college degree to serve. You don’t have to make your subject and verb agree to serve. You only need a heart full of grace. A soul generated by love.”

“If you succumb to the temptation of using violence in the struggle, unborn generations will be the recipients of a long and desolate night of bitterness, and your chief legacy to the future will be an endless reign of meaningless chaos.”

“Life’s most persistent and urgent question is, ‘What are you doing for others?'”

“Love is the only force capable of transforming an enemy into friend.”

Genghis Khan (1167-1227) was the creator and leader of the Mongolian Empire. His original name was Temjin and was left an orphan at the age of 9. Growing up in conditions of great hardship, he was taken prisoner and then later escaped. Temjin became the protg of Toghril, the ruler of the Kereits, a Christian tribe in central Mongolia. A rift developed between them and they parted company. It was at this time that certain of the Mongol princes acclaimed Temjin as their ruler, bestowing upon him the title by which he is known in history, Chingiz-Khan (Genghis Khan), which mans “Universal Monarch.”

Genghis Khan’s history is one filled with brutality and war. With many enemies in western Mongolia, he battled until his was declared the undisputed supreme ruler of the Mongol people in 1206. This allowed Genghis Kahn to switch his focus on the conquest of foreign nations. Genghis Khan’s campaigns and those of his descendants led to the creation of an immense empire that stretched from Hungary to Korea.

Leadership is the ability of a person to lead, inspire and mobilize masses to act in unison, in pursuit of a common goal. Genghis Khan is one such leader who brought different tribes under the Mongolian flag and then expanded his empire across Asia, right up to the Adriatic Sea. He conquered almost half the world claiming and achieving the top spot among world conquerors. It is unfortunate that this man of substance and valor is known only for his exploits and the trail of destruction that he left behind after his conquests.

“Not even a mighty warrior can brake a frail arrow when it is multiplied and supported by its fellows. As long as you brothers support one another and render assistance to one another, your enemies can never gain the victory over you. But if you fall away from each other your enemy can brake you like frail arrows, one at a time.”

“The strength of a wall is neither greater nor less than the courage of the men who defend it.”

“Oh people, know that you have committed great sins. If you ask me what proof I have for these words, I say it is because I am the punishment of God. If you had not committed great sins, God would not have sent a punishment like me upon you!”

“The merit of an action lies in finishing it to the end.”

“Violence never settles anything.”

John Fitzgerald Kennedy was born on May 29th 1917 in Brookline, Massachusetts. Kennedy studied at Harvard and after he had finished, he also had to serve in World War II as a lieutenant of the famous PT 109.

In 1952 Kennedy became senator of Massachusetts. In 1958 he won reelection in Massachusetts by 875,000 votes, the largest majority in the state’s history. He was elected for president in November 1960, defeating Richard Nixon and became the youngest to be elected to the White House in American history.

The 35th, first Catholic, president ended his inaugural address on January 20th in 1961 with the following words: “My fellow citizens of the world: ask not what America will do for you, but what together we can do for the freedom of man”.

During his short presidency there were many crisis. The first in April 1961, at the Bay of Pigs, was an assault on Cuba. The Cuba crisis in 1962 is a much more complicated crisis, caused by placing of intermediate range missiles in Cuba by the Russians. In 1961, the problem of West and East Berlin were not yet solved and it became even worse because of the construction of the Berlin Wall.

The Cold War offered Kennedy opportunities to establish a ‘hotline’ to insure instantaneous communication between the Kremlin and White House for times of crisis threatening the peace. Both governments became more peaceful and in 1963 they signed the Test Ban Treaty, which outlawed atmospheric testing of nuclear weapons.

On 22 November 1963 Kennedy visited Dallas with his wife. He was shot during a riding tour in an open limousine and died after about half an hour. The sad fact is that John F. Kennedy was just forty six years old and left a wife and two children.

“Change is the law of life. And those who look only to the past or present are certain to miss the future.”

“Efforts and courage are not enough without purpose and direction.”

“Tolerance implies no lack of commitment to one’s own beliefs. Rather it condemns the oppression or persecution of others.”

“Things do not happen. Things are made to happen.”

“Forgive your enemies, but never forget their names.”

“If a free society cannot help the many who are poor, it cannot save the few who are rich.”

“The problems of the world cannot possibly be solved by skeptics or cynics whose horizons are limited by the obvious realities. We need men who can dream of things that never were.”

“Leadership and learning are indispensable to each other.”

“The best road to progress is freedom’s road.”

“The courage of life is often a less dramatic spectacle than the courage of a final moment; but it is no less a magnificent mixture of triumph and tragedy.”

“The one unchangeable certainty is that nothing is unchangeable or certain.”

“The ignorance of one voter in a democracy impairs the security of all.”

“There are risks and costs to action. But they are far less than the long range risks of comfortable inaction.”

“Those who dare to fail miserably can achieve greatly.”

“When written in Chinese, the word “crisis” is composed of two characters. One represents danger and the other represents opportunity.”

Helen Keller’s (1880-1968) father was Captain Arthur Helen Keller who had fought with the Confederate army of Vicksburg. He edited a news weekly and was periodically a US Marshall. She had a brother and a sister.

At the age of 18 months a serious illness meningitis destroyed her sight and hearing. Before her illness she was a healthy child. Her father took her to Dr. Alexander Graham Bell in Washington who was an activist in deaf education. He advised him to write to the Perkins Institution for the Blind in Boston. Annie Sullivan was offered to tutor her. The deeper into Helens life we look, the deeper her personality appears. She was certainly a very determined woman; the first deaf blind woman ever to graduate from university, she also became renowned worldwide as a champion of social justice, a talented public speaker, and an inspiration to millions around the globe. Her accomplishments would set her apart from anyone let alone, someone who was handicapped.

• She became a vice-president of the Royal National Institute for the blind in the United Kingdom.
• In 1921 American Foundation for the Blind (AFB) was organized and Helen was invited to be spokesperson for the organization. She gave speeches and raised funds for blind and the related causes. Her many books and the articles became her lifes work.
• She received the honorary degree of laws from the university of Glasgow in 1932. She met and visited the Queen at Buckingham Palace.
• She collected one million Dollars and founded the American Foundation for the blind.
• The highest honor of her own country, USA, the Presidential Medal of Freedom was given to her.
• She was elected to membership in the National Institute of Arts and Letters.
• During the Louis Braille Centennial Commemoration in 1952. Helen Keller was made a Chevalier of the French Legion of Honor.
• Radcliffe granted her its Alumnae Achievement Award [50 years after her graduation].
• She received the Americas Award for Inter-American Unity, the Gold Medal Award from the National Institute of Social Sciences, the National Humanitarian Award from Variety Clubs.
• She had honorary membership in scientific societies and philanthropic organizations throughout the world.
• Helen Kellers last major public appearance in 1961 at Washington, D. C. Lions Club meeting where she received the Lions Humanitarian Award for her life time service to humanity and inspiration of the Lions programs in sight conservation and aid to blind persons.
• During the visit to Washington she called on President Kennedy at the White House.
• Acceptance of Honorary Degree, delivered before Temple University at Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (Feb 16, 1931).
• Acceptance of Honorary Degree delivered before Glasgow university at Glasgow, Scotland (June 15,1932).
• Dedication of AFB Cornerstone, delivered before the American Foundation for the Blind at New York, New York (December 5, 1934).
• Helen Keller won an Oscar Award for her story a documentary movie of her life.
• Awarded the President Lyndon Johnson. This is the highest civilian honor bestowed by the United States of America.
• Life magazine called Helen Keller one of the 100 most important Americans of the 20th century a national treasure.
• The Helen Keller Prize is established to bring public attention to vision research as a solution to sight loss.
• She was awarded the GOLD MEDAL of the National Institute of Social Science given annually to a distinguished individual who has been of outstanding service to humanity (1952).
• Met Winston Churchill who called her the most remarkable woman of the twentieth century.

It isn’t only that Helen was able to overcome the barriers of being blind and deaf in a time when they were much greater disadvantages than they are now; her intelligence and perception speak to many people, blind or sighted, deaf or hearing, regardless of boundaries. Here are just some of the many insightful quotations that pepper her speeches and writing.

“Security is mostly a superstition. It does not exist in nature… Life is either a daring adventure or nothing.”

“When one door of happiness closes, another opens; but often we look so long at the closed door that we do not see the one which has been opened for us.”

“No pessimist ever discovered the secret of the stars, or sailed to an uncharted land, or opened a new doorway for the human spirit.”

“When one door of happiness closes, another opens; but often we look so long at the closed door that we do not see the one which has been opened for us.”

“That we have once enjoyed we can never lose. All that we love deeply becomes a part of us.”

“Although the world is full of suffering, it is also full of the overcoming of it.”

“I am only one, but still I am one. I cannot do everything, but still I can do something; And because I cannot do everything I will not refuse to do the something that I can do.”

“Keep your face to the sunshine and you can never see the shadow.”

“When we do the best we can, we never know what miracle is wrought in our life, or in the life of another.”

“I believe that the welfare of each is bound up in the welfare of all.”

“I am a child of God, an inheritor of a fragment of the Mind that created All words.”

“We can do anything we want to do if we stick to it long enough.
While they were saying among themselves it cannot be done, it was done.”

“Alone we can do so little; together we can do so much.”

“Optimism is the faith that leads to achievement. Nothing can be done without hope and confidence.”

Immanuel Kant was born in 1724 at Konigsberg, East Prussia, into a family of harness-makers. A Lutheran pastor thought that he saw some talent in young Immanuel and arranged for him to receive a thorough education, that would have been beyond the means of his parents, at a celebrated local secondary school. The distinguishing characteristics of this school was its formation around devout Pietist reformism within Lutheranism.

Kant suffered the loss of his father and his mother quite early in life, he also suffered some physical deformity as well as being noticeably small. Despite such setbacks as these circumstances may have represented the youthful Immanuel Kant had a wide circle of friends and admirers won through his innate grace and powers of conversation. Kant entered the local university at age sixteen graduating some six years later.

Kant began to acquire a reputation as a teacher and was even occasionally offered posts by other universities. In his mid forties Kant was offered a Professorship at Konigsberg itself. Kant’s earlier work had been in the areas of Mathematics and Dynamics his new appointment however had a specification that was directed towards Metaphysics and Logic. He was so popular as a lecturer that it was necessary for students to be an hour early for their lecture in order to be sure of a place.

It was not until some twelve years into his Professorship that Kant’s famous philosophical publications began to appear in print. His Critique of Pure Reason appeared in 1781 when Kant was approaching his sixtieth year. The Critique of Pure Reason and subsequent works such as the Critique of Practical Reason (1788) and the Critique of Judgment (1790) went on to have an immense impact on the philosophy and wider intellectual life of Europe and the World.

Kant remained active as a lecturer until 1796 when his mind became confused. Kant died in his native city in February 1804.

“Always recognize that human individuals are ends, and do not use them as means to your end.”

“May you live your life as if the maxim of your actions were to become universal law.”

“Science is organized knowledge. Wisdom is organized life.”

“Two things fill the mind with ever new and increasing wonder and awe – the starry heavens above me and the moral law within me.”

“Nature itself, even in chaos, cannot proceed except in an orderly and regular manner.”

“In law a man is guilty when he violates the rights of others. In ethics he is guilty if he only thinks of doing so.”

“It is not necessary that whilst I live I live happily; but it is necessary that so long as I live I should live honorably.”

“It is not God’s will merely that we should be happy, but that we should make ourselves happy.”

“To be is to do.”

Johnson was born in Litchfield, England, on September 18, 1709; his father Michael was a bookseller. Johnson was not a healthy infant, and there was considerable question as to whether he would survive. Johnson was scarred from scrofula, and suffered a loss of hearing and was blind in one eye. The availability of the books in his father’s shop, and his natural proclivity for learning, contributed to his having extensive knowledge at an early age.

When Johnson spent time with an elder cousin, he was exposed to a broad range of thinking and cultivation. He later attended Oxford for about a year, but left for financial reasons. This was a horrible disappointment to someone who was so learned, to leave for financial reasons, and see his academic inferiors succeed in an arena where he couldn’t. During this period he went into a severe depression; his friend Edmund Hector helped him remain productive, in spite of the depression.

In 1735, Johnson married Elizabeth “Tetty” Porter, a woman several years older than him: she was 46, and he 25.

As a young man, Johnson tried his hand at a career as a schoolmaster, and was unsuccessful– largely because he didn’t have a degree. To some extent, his ungainly appearance, twitches, and mannerisms made it difficult to maintain the respect of his students. He eventually (1737) went to London to seek his fortune, and found employment as a writer for various periodicals. In addition to writing book reviews and derivative biographies, at one point he was assigned the task of writing thinly disguised reports of the debates in Parliament. Johnson obtained some notice with his works London (1738) and The Vanity of Human Wishes (1749) — both of which are considered great poems. His efforts in the 1750’s are why he’s considered a titan. This decade saw the creation of his Dictionary (1755), his Rambler essays (1750-52), his Idler essays (1758-60), and Rasselas, Prince of Abyssinia (1759). This was a trying decade for him: his wife died in 1752 (just after the cessation of the Rambler essays), and she was often on his mind.

Shortly after this period, Johnson met a young Scot named James Boswell (in 1763) in Thomas Davies bookstore in London. The two became fast friends. Boswell took notes of their conversations, and leveraged those notes and other material into the mammoth, landmark biography “The Life of Samuel Johnson.”

Johnson’s output included far more than just his output of the 1750’s, of course. It also includes a complete edition of Shakespeare; a number of frequently cited political tracts; sermons; a description of his 1773 tour to Scotland with Boswell, with considerable discussion of the change of an era; and a series of biographies of numerous British poets (The Lives of the Poets), commissioned to accompany reprints of each poet’s works.

Johnson died on December 13, 1784. Boswell’s biography was published in 1791.

“Adversity is the state in which man mostly easily becomes acquainted with himself, being especially free of admirers then.”

“The applause of a single human being is of great consequence.”

“Few things are impossible to diligence and skill. Great works are performed not by strength, but perseverance.”

“Curiosity is, in great and generous minds, the first passion and the last.”

“It matters not how a man dies, but how he lives. The act of dying is not of importance, it lasts so short a time.”

“Shame arises from the fear of men, conscience from the fear of God.”

“To strive with difficulties, and to conquer them, is the highest human felicity.”

“Knowledge is of two kinds: We know a subject ourselves, or we know where we can find information about it.”

“The true art of memory is the art of attention.”

“He that is already corrupt is naturally suspicious, and he that becomes suspicious will quickly become corrupt.”

“The true measure of a man is how he treats someone who can do him absolutely no good.”

“Self-confidence is the first requisite to great undertakings.”

“It is better to suffer wrong than to do it, and happier to be sometimes cheated than not to trust.”

“No man ever yet became great by imitation.”

“The road to hell is paved with good intentions.”

(1743 – 1826) Thomas Jefferson, of the Declaration of Independence and third President of the United States, was this nation’s greatest champion of representative democracy and the rights of man. He was our most eloquent spokesman on the founding principles of American self-government. Many make the mistake to assume that our forefathers were all Christians. As one of the designer’s of America, Thomas Jefferson had some very different but important views regarding religion and a people’s ability to worship freely.

Although Jefferson believed in a Creator, his concept of it resembled that of the god of deism (the term “Nature’s God” used by deists of the time). With his scientific bent, Jefferson sought to organize his thoughts on religion. He rejected Christianity as being superstitious and mystic. Jefferson even went so far as to edit the Gospels, removing the miracles and mystery of Jesus, leaving only what he deemed the correct moral philosophy of Jesus.

Thomas Jefferson quotes can be readily found that expound his cynical attitude toward religion and Christianity. Yet there is truth in some of what Jefferson observed about those who claim Christ as their Savior.

“Millions of innocent men, women and children, since the introduction of Christianity, have been burnt, tortured, fined and imprisoned; yet we have not advanced one inch towards uniformity.”

“When you reach the end of your rope, tie a knot in it and hang on.”

“History, I believe, furnishes no example of a priest-ridden people maintaining a free civil government. This marks the lowest grade of ignorance of which their civil as well as religious leaders will always avail themselves for their own purposes.”

“Question with boldness even the existence of a god; because if there be one he must approve of the homage of reason more than that of blindfolded fear.”

“Where the preamble declares, that coercion is a departure from the plan of the holy of our religion, an amendment was proposed by inserting “Jesus Christ,” so that it would read “A departure from the plan of Jesus Christ, the holy of our religion;” the insertion was rejected by the great majority, in proof that they meant to comprehend, within the mantle of its protection, the Jew and the Gentile, the Christian and Mohammedan, the Hindu and Infidel of every denomination.”

Above is an excerpt from his autobiography, in reference to the Virginia Act for Religious Freedom

“I find that the harder I work, the more luck I seem to have.”

“It is neither wealth nor splendor; but tranquility and occupation which give you happiness.”

“The democracy will cease to exist when you take away from those who are willing to work and give to those who would not. ”

“Most bad government has grown out of too much government.”

“What country can preserve its liberties if its rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance? ”

“The policy of the American government is to leave their citizens free, neither restraining nor aiding them in their pursuits. ”

“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. ”

“Was the government to prescribe to us our medicine and diet, our bodies would be in such keeping as our souls are now. ”

“Government big enough to supply everything you need is big enough to take everything you have. The course of history shows us that as a government grows, liberty decreases.”

“All tyranny needs to gain a foothold is for people of good conscience to remain silent.”

“Those who hammer their guns into plows, will plow for those who do not.”