Category: Quote O’ The Day

In religion and politics people’s beliefs and convictions are in almost every case gotten at second-hand, and without examination, from authorities who have not themselves examined the questions at issue but have taken them at second-hand from other non-examiners, whose opinions about them were not worth a brass farthing.–Mark Twain

Revealingly, the central function of the Constitution as law–the supreme law–was to impose limitations not on the behavior of ordinary citizens but on the federal government. The government, and those who ran it, were not placed outside the law, but expressly targeted by it. Indeed, the Bill of Rights is little more than a description of the lines that the most powerful political officials are barred from crossing, even if they have the power to do so and even when the majority of citizens might wish them to do so.
― Glenn Greenwald

The relationship between you and history is this: When you study history, you think you’re studying a record of events in the past. And that’s not right. What you’re studying is the circumstances that gave rise to you as a being. And unless you understand your history in every way you possibly can, then you’re an incomplete creature. You don’t know enough to move forward.
–Jordan Peterson

In the digital space, your ‘data drug’ habit goes exponential, because there’s just so much. You can mainline this all day long. To me, there’s a psychology that’s not often written about: What happens when you have this much reach and power, and constraints of law and even policy simply fade into the woodwork… Which is made worse by the fact that you can’t get enough, there’s never enough, and there’s more coming… You’re high all the time. Because you’re plugged in. It’s now 24/7. There’s no relief from the addiction.–Thomas Drake

It doesn’t matter what the press says. It doesn’t matter what the politicians or the mobs say. It doesn’t matter if the whole country decides that something wrong is something right. Republics are founded on one principle above all else: The requirement that we stand up for what we believe in, no matter the odds or consequences. -Mark Twain

The very purpose of a Bill of Rights was to withdraw certain subjects from the vicissitudes of political controversy to place them beyond the reach of majorities and officials and to establish them as legal principles to be applied by the courts. One’s right to life liberty and property to free speech a free press freedom of worship and assembly and other fundamental rights may not be submitted to vote they depend on the outcome of no elections.
― Robert H. Jackson

All presidents but Jefferson have argued that their first job was to keep us safe. All presidents but Jefferson were wrong. If you read the Constitution, you will see that the President’s first job – as Jefferson understood well – is to keep us free.
-Judge Andrew Napolitano

Republics decline into democracies and democracies degenerate into despotisms. -Aristotle

I see the liberty of the individual not only as a great moral good in itself (or, with Lord Acton, as the highest political good), but also as the necessary condition for the flowering of all the other goods that mankind cherishes: moral virtue, civilization, the arts and sciences, economic prosperity. Out of liberty, then, stem the glories of civilized life. –Murray N. Rothbard

The 2nd Amendment is uniquely American. It was the work of the Founding Fathers – men who had to fight for their freedom from tyranny, and who intended for the means of that fight to never be taken away from American citizens.–Brian Miller

Many politicians are in the habit of laying it down as a self-evident proposition, that no people ought to be free till they are fit to use their freedom. The maxim is worthy of the fool in the old story, who resolved not to go into the water till he had learned to swim. If men are to wait for liberty till they become wise and good in slavery, they may indeed wait forever.
— LORD THOMAS MACAULAY

Don’t think of it as `gun control,’ think of it as `victim disarmament.’ If we make enough laws, we can all be criminals.– Jeffrey R. Snyder

To trust arms in the hands of the people at large has, in Europe, been believed…to be an experiment fraught only with danger. Here by a long trial it has been proved to be perfectly harmless…If the government be equitable; if it be reasonable in its exactions; if proper attention be paid to the education of children in knowledge and religion, few men will be disposed to use arms, unless for their amusement, and for the defence of themselves and their country. — Timothy Dwight, Travels in New England and New York, 1823

Show me that age and country where the rights and liberties of the people were placed on the sole chance of their rulers being good men, without a consequent loss of liberty? – Patrick Henry

The supposed quietude of a good mans allures the ruffian; while on the other hand, arms like laws discourage and keep the invader and the plunderer in awe, and preserve order in the world as well as property. The same balance would be preserved were all the world destitute of arms, for all would be alike; but since some will not, others dare not lay them aside…Horrid mischief would ensue were one half the world deprived of the use of them… — Thomas Paine

Samuel Adams, of Massachusetts:
“The said Constitution shall be never construed to authorize Congress to infringe the just liberty of the press, or the rights of conscience; or to prevent the people of the United States, who are peaceable citizens, from keeping their own arms.” — Massachusetts` U.S. Constitution ratification convention, 1788

He that would make his own liberty secure must guard even his enemy from oppression; for if he violates this duty, he establishes a precedent that will reach to himself. — Thomas Paine

Every politician brings in a wide range of context, promises and characters to bring his mission of you to listen to his words and vote for him and later he won’t listen to you at any range. — Auliq Ice

The fact that so many successful politicians are such shameless liars is not only a reflection on them, it is also a reflection on us. When the people want the impossible, only liars can satisfy. — Thomas Sowell