 |
"Truth
is always the enemy of power. And power the
enemy of truth."
Edward
Abbey, US anarchist, author, essayist, and radical environmentalist
(1927-1989)
|
"Nothing could be more reckless than to base one's moral philosophy on the latest pronouncements of science."
Edward Abbey
"Our `neoconservatives' are neither new nor conservative, but old as Bablyon and evil as Hell."
Edward Abbey
"I've never yet read a review of one of my own books that I couldn't have written much better myself."
Edward Abbey
"The best American writers have come from the hinterlands--Mark Twain, Theodore Dreiser, Jack London, Hemingway, Faulkner, Wolfe, Steinbeck. Most of them never even went to college."
Edward Abbey
"In the Soviet Union, government controls industry. In the United States, industry controls government. That is the principal structural difference between the two great oligarchies of our time."
Edward Abbey
"Taxation: how the sheep are shorn."
Edward Abbey
"The tragedy of modern war is not so much that the young men die but that they die fighting each other - instead of their real enemies back home in the capitals."
Edward Abbey
"Anarchism is founded on the observation that since few men are wise enough to rule themselves, even fewer are wise enough to rule others."
Edward Abbey
"Liberty cannot be guaranteed by law. Nor by any thing else except the resolution of free citizens to defend their liberties."
Edward Abbey
"A true libertarian supports free enterprise, opposes big business; supports local self-government, opposes the nation-state; supports the National Rifle Association, opposes the Pentagon."
Edward Abbey
"The ideal society can be described, quite simply, as that in which no man has the power of means to coerce others."
Edward Abbey
"If guns are outlawed, only the government will have guns."
Edward Abbey
"Government should be weak, amateurish and ridiculous. At present, it fulfills only a third of the role."
Edward Abbey
"Freedom begins between the ears."
Edward Abbey
"In history-as-politics, the `future' is that vacuum in time waiting to be filled with the antics of statesmen."
Edward Abbey
"A patriot must always be ready to defend his country against his government."
"Resist your time--take a foothold outside it."
Lord Acton, [John Emerich Edward Dalberg Acton]; (1834-1902)"In a country where there is no distinction of class, a child is not born to the station"Liberty is not a means to a higher political end. It is the highest political end."
of its parents, but with an indefinite claim to all the prizes that can be won by thought
and labor."
Lord Acton
Lord Acton, Source: The History of Freedom, 1907
"Patriotism is in political life what faith is in religion."
Lord Acton
"Liberty is the prevention of control by others. This requires self-control and,
therefore, religious and spiritual influences; education, knowledge, well-being."
Lord Acton
"At all times sincere friends of freedom have been rare, and its triumphs have been due to minorities...."
Lord Acton
"Liberty is not the power of doing what we like, but the right of being able to do what we ought."
Lord Acton
"History must be our deliverer not only from the undue influence of other times, but from the undue influence of our own, from the tyranny of environment and the pressures of the air we breathe."
Lord Acton (Cited
in
Eerdmans Handbook to the History of Christianity
(Grand Rapids:
Eerdmans,
1977), p. 2
"There are two
things which cannot be attacked in front: ignorance
and narrow-mindedness. They can only be shaken by the simple
development of the contrary qualities. They will not bear discussion."
Lord Acton
"Everything secret degenerates, even the administration of justice; nothing is safe that does not show how it can bear discussion and publicity."
Lord Acton, Source:
Letter, 23 January 1861
"Where you have
a concentration of power in a few hands, all
too frequently men with the mentality of gangsters get control."
"There are plenty of good five-cent cigars in this country. The trouble is they cost a
quarter. What this country needs is a good five-cent nickel."
Franklin P. Adams, (1881 - 1960)
"There is no such thing as an underestimate of average intelligence."
Henry Adams, (1838-1918) American historian, journalist and novelist
"Nothing in education is so astonishing as the amount of ignorance it accumulates in the
form of inert facts."
Henry Adams
"Politics, as a practise, whatever its professions, has always been the systematic
organization of hatreds."
Henry Adams
"A teacher affects eternity, he can never tell where his influence stops."
Henry Adams
"If I had to choose between putting a saloon or a liberal church on a corner, I'd choose the saloon every time. People who drink up the pay check in the saloon are less likely to become Pharisees, thinking that they don't need the Great Physician, than those who weekly swill the soporific doctrine of man's goodness."
Jay Adams
John Adams,
(1735-1826)
US diplomat, patriot, and Federalist politician, 2nd president of US
1797-1801
"You have
rights antecedent to all earthly governments: rights that cannot be
repealed or restrained by human laws; rights derived from the Great
Legislator of the universe."
John Adams
"We
have no government armed in power capable of
contending with human passions
unbridled by morality and religion. Our Constitution
was made
only for a
religious and moral people. It is wholly inadequate for the government of any
other."
John
Adams, Source: Oct. 11, 1798; Address to the military
"There is
danger from all men. The only maxim of
a free government ought to be to trust no man living with power to
endanger the public liberty."
"Strait is the gate and narrow is the way that leads to liberty, and few nations, if any, have found it."
John Adams
"...[L]iberty
must at all hazards be supported. We have a right to it, derived from
our
Maker. But if we had not, our fathers have earned and bought it for us,
at the expense of their ease, their estates, their pleasure, and their
blood."
John Adams
"Power always thinks it has a great soul and vast views beyond the comprehension of the weak; and that it is doing God's service, when it is violating all His laws."
John Adams
"I am apt to believe that [Independence Day] will be celebrated by succeeding generations as the 'Day of Deliverance' by solemn acts of devotion to God Almighty."
"The moment the idea is admitted into society that property is not as sacred as the laws of God, and that there is not a force of law and public justice to protect it, anarchy and tyranny commence. If 'Thou shalt not covet' and 'Thou shalt not steal' were not commandments of Heaven, they must be made inviolable precepts in every society before it can be civilized or made free."
John Adams
"I must study politics and war that my sons may have liberty to study mathematics and philosophy. My sons ought to study mathematics and philosophy, geography, natural history, naval architecture, navigation, commerce and agriculture in order to give their children a right to study painting, poetry, music, architecture, statuary, tapestry, and porcelain."
John Adams
"Democracy... while it lasts is more bloody than either aristocracy or monarchy. Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide."
John Adams, Letter to John Taylor [April 15, 1814]
"Suppose a nation in some distant region should take the Bible for their only law book, and every member should regulate his conduct by the precepts there contained! Every member would be obliged in conscience to temperance, frugality and industry; to justice, kindness and charity towards his fellow men; and to piety, love and reverence toward Almighty God."
John Adams
"Statesmen...may plan and speculate for Liberty, but it is religion and morality alone, which can establish the principles upon which Freedom can securely stand."
John Adams
| "Wherever the standard of freedom and independence has been or shall be unfurled, there will [America's] heart, her benedictions, and her prayers be. But she does not go abroad in search of monsters to destroy. She is the well wisher to the freedom and independence of all. She is the champion and vindicator only of her own... She well knows that by once enlisting under other banners than her own, were they even the banners of foreign independence, she would involve herself beyond the power of extrication, in all the wars of interest and intrigue, of individual avarice, envy, and ambition, which assume the colors and usurp the standard of freedom. The fundamental maxims of her policy would insensibly change from liberty to force. ... She might become the dictatress of the world. She would be no longer the ruler of her own spirit." |
"[America's] glory
is
not dominion, but liberty. Her march is the march of the mind. She has
a spear and a shield: but the motto upon her shield is, Freedom,
Independence, Peace. This has been her Declaration: this has been, as
far as her necessary intercourse with the rest of mankind would permit,
her practice."
John Quincy Adams, Speech to the U.S. House of Representatives [July 4, 1821]
"Why is it that, next to the birthday of the Savior of the World, your most joyous and most venerated festival returns on this day. Is it not that, in the chain of human events, the birthday of the nation is indissolubly linked with the birthday of the Savior? That it forms a leading event in the Progress of the Gospel dispensation? Is it not that the Declaration of Independence first organized the social compact on the foundation of the Redeemer's mission upon earth? That it laid the cornerstone of human government upon the first precepts of Christianity........"
John Quincy Adams,
(1767-1848)
US diplomat and politician, 6th president of US 1825-1829
July 4, 1837
"There are three points of doctrine the belief of which forms the foundation of all morality. The first is the existence of God; the second is the immortality of the human soul; and the third is a future state of rewards and punishments. Suppose it possible for a man to disbelieve either of these three articles of faith and that man will have no conscience, he will have no other law than that of the tiger or the shark. The laws of man may bind him in chains or may put him to death, but they never can make him wise, virtuous, or happy."
John Quincy Adams
"Posterity -- you will never know how much it has cost my generation to preserve your freedom. I hope you will make good use of it."
"Duty is ours; results are God's."
John Quincy Adams
(1830's)
"The highest glory of the American Revolution was this; it connected in one indissoluble bond the principles of civil government with the principles of Christianity."
John Quincy Adams,
July 4, 1821
"Individual
liberty is individual power, and as the power
of a community is a mass compounded of individual powers, the nation
which enjoys the most freedom must
necessarily be in proportion to its numbers the most powerful nation."
John Quincy Adams
"Always vote for principle, though you may vote alone, and you may cherish the sweetest
reflection that your vote is never lost."
John Quincy Adams
"Self-pity and gratitude are mortal enemies. Where one exists the other cannot. Since
both are highly contagious, individuals must choose gratitude before becoming too
thankless to do otherwise."
Mike S. Adams
 US brewer, patriot, and politician in American Revolution, (1722-1803) |
|
"The public cannot be too curious concerning the characters of public men."
"Religion and good morals are the only solid foundation of public liberty and happiness."
"The liberties of our country, the freedom of our civil constitution, are worth defending against all hazards: And it is our duty to defend them against all attacks. We have received them as a fair inheritance from our worthy ancestors. They purchased them for us with toil and danger and expense of treasure and blood. It will bring a mark of everlasting infamy on the present generation - enlightened as it is - if we should suffer them to be wrested from us by violence without a struggle, or to be cheated out of them by the artifices of designing men."
"If Virtue and Knowledge are diffused among the People, they will never be enslav'd. This will be their great Security."
"If men of wisdom and knowledge, of moderation and temperance, of patience, fortitude and perseverance, of sobriety and true republican simplicity of manners, of zeal for the honour of the Supreme Being and the welfare of the commonwealth; if men possessed of these other excellent qualities are chosen to fill the seats of government, we may expect that our affairs will rest on a solid and permanent foundation."
"Our unalterable resolution would be to be free. They have attempted to subdue us by force, but God be praised! in vain. Their arts may be more dangerous then their arms. Let us then renounce all treaty with them upon any score but that of total separation, and under God trust our cause to our swords."
"Let divines and philosophers, statesmen and patriots, unite their endeavors to renovate the age, by impressing the minds of men with the importance of educating their little boys and girls, of inculcating in the minds of youth the fear and love of the Deity and universal philanthropy, and, in subordination to these great principles, the love of their country; of instructing them in the art of self-government without which they never can act a wise part in the government of societies, great or small; in short, of leading them in the study and practice of the exalted virtues of the Christian system."
"Our glorious reformers ... left the root and stock when they left us under the domination of human systems and decisions, usurping the infallibility which can be attributed to Revelation alone. They dethroned one usurper only to raise up another; ... only to place the civil magistrate in the throne of Christ, vested with authority to enact laws and inflict penalties in his kingdom. And if we now cast our eyes over the nations of the earth, we shall find that, instead of possessing the pure religion of the Gospel, they may be divided either into infidels, who deny the truth; or politicians who make religion a stalking horse for their ambition; or professors, who walk in the trammels of orthodoxy, and are more attentive to traditions and ordinances of men than to the oracles of truth."
"The truth is, all might be free if they valued freedom, and defended it as they ought. ...If therefore a people will not be free; if they have not virtue enough to maintain their liberty against a presumptuous invader, they deserve no pity, and are to be treated with contempt and ignominy."
"The liberties of
our
country, the freedom of our civil constitution, are worth defending at
all hazards; and it is our duty to defend them against all attacks. We
have received them as a fair inheritance from our worthy ancestors;
they
purchased them for us with toil and danger and expense of treasure and
blood. It will bring an everlasting mark of infamy on the present
generation,
enlightened as it is, if we should suffer them to be wrested from us by
violence without a struggle, or be cheated out of them by the artifices
of false and designing men."
"Neither the wisest
constitution
nor the wisest laws will secure the liberty and happiness of a people
whose
manners are universally corrupt."
"He who is void of virtuous attachments in private life is, or very soon will be, void of all regard for his country. There is seldom an instance of a man guilty of betraying his country, who had not before lost the feeling of moral obligations in his private connections."
Samuel Adams, letter to James Warren (Nov. 4, 1775)
"A general
dissolution
of principles and manners will more surely overthrow the liberties of
America
than the whole force of the common enemy. While the people are virtuous
they cannot be subdued; but when once they lose their virtue they will
be ready to surrender their liberties to the first external or internal
invader...if virtue and knowledge are diffused among the people, they
will
never be enslaved. This will be their great security."
"Mankind are governed more by their feelings than by reason."
"Contemplate the
mangled
bodies of your countrymen, and then say, 'What should be the reward of
such sacrifices?' Bid us and our
posterity bow the
knee,
supplicate the friendship, and plough, and sow, and reap, to glut the
avarice
of the men who have let loose on us the dogs of war to riot in our
blood
and hunt us from the face of the earth? If ye love wealth greater than
liberty,
the tranquility of servitude greater than the animating contest for
freedom,
go home from us in peace. We seek not your counsel, nor your arms.
Crouch
down and lick the hand that feeds you. May your chains set lightly upon
you; and may posterity forget that ye were our countrymen."
"The eyes of mankind will be upon you to see whether the Government, which is now more popular than it has been for many years past, will be productive of more virtue moral and political. We may look up to Armies for our Defense, but Virtue is our best Security. It is not possible that any State should long remain free, where Virtue is not supremely honored."
"Truth
loves an appeal to the common sense of mankind."
"It does not require a majority to prevail, but rather an irate, tireless minority keen to set brush fires in people's minds."
Joseph Addison,
(1672-1719) British essayist, poet, statesman
"A contented mind is the greatest blessing a man can enjoy in this world."
Joseph Addison
 |
"I believe that demolishing Hussein's military power and liberating Iraq would be a cakewalk." Kenneth Adelman, from "Cakewalk in Iraq", The Washington Post, February 2002 |
"Freedom is the emancipation from the arbitrary rule of other men."
Mortimer Adler, (1902-2001)
Aesop, (c. 550 B.C.) legendary Greek fabulist
"We hang the petty thieves and appoint the great ones to public office."
Aesop
"Vices
are their own punishment."
Aesop
"The
injury we do and the one we suffer are not weighed in the same scales."
Aesop
"No act of kindness, no matter how small, is ever wasted."
Aesop
"Those who voluntarily put power into the hands of a tyrant or an enemy, must not wonder
if it be at last turned against themselves."
Aesop
"The truth that makes men free is for the most part the truth which men prefer not
to hear."
Herbert Sebastien Agar (1897-1980) The Time for Greatness, 1942
"A positive attitude may not solve all your problems, but it will annoy enough people to
make it worth the effort."
Herm Albright (1876 - 1944)
"They (women) may not be interested in whom to bomb but they are interested in knowing how foreign policy impacts our daily lives."
US Secretary of
State
Madeleine
Albright
"Fame is a pearl many dive for and only a few bring up. Even when they do, it is not
perfect, and they sigh for more, and lose better things in struggling for them."
Louisa May Alcott, (1832-1888, American author)
"The possession of unlimited power will make a despot of almost any man. There is a
possible Nero in the gentlest human creature that walks."
Thomas Bailey Aldrich, (1836-1907) Source: Ponkapog Papers, 1903
"I like long walks - especially when they are taken by people who annoy me."
Fred
Allen, US entertainer and radio comedian (1894-1956)
"A
committee is a group of people who individually can do nothing but
together can decide that nothing can be done."
Fred
Allen
"During
the Samuel Johnson days they had big men enjoying small talk, today we
have small men enjoying big talk."
Fred
Allen
"Television is a medium because anything well done is rare."
Fred Allen
"What's on your mind, if you will allow the overstatement?"
Fred Allen
"California is a nice place to live if you happen to be an orange."
Fred Allen
"What if everything is an illusion and nothing exists? In that case I definitely overpaid for my carpet."
Woody
Allen, (1935- )
"I am at two with nature."
Woody Allen
"The government is unresponsive to the needs of the little man. Under 5'7", it is
impossible to get your congressman on the phone."
Woody Allen
"Time is
nature's way of keeping everything from happening at once."
Woody Allen
"More than any other time in history, mankind faces a crossroads. One path leads to despair and utter hopelessness. The other, to total extinction. Let us pray we have the wisdom to choose correctly."
Woody Allen
"I was thrown out of college for cheating on a metaphysical exam; I looked into the soul of the boy next to me."
Woody Allen
"It's not that I'm afraid to die. I just don't want to be there when it happens."
Woody
Allen
"It is impossible to travel faster than the speed of light, and certainly not desirable,
as one's hat keeps blowing off."
Woody Allen
"Basically my wife was immature. I'd be at home in the bath and she'd come in and sink my
boats."
Woody Allen
"Life is full of misery, loneliness, and suffering - and it's all over much too soon."
Woody Allen
"Capital punishment would be more effective as a preventive measure if it were
administered prior to the crime."
Woody Allen
Stephen E. Ambrose, Professor of History, University of New Orleans, in his book 'Rise to Globalism, American Foreign Policy since 1938'
Fisher Ames,
American
statesman, 1805
"Thankfulness is the beginning of gratitude. Gratitude is the completion of thankfulness.
Thankfulness may consist merely of words. Gratitude is shown in acts."
Henri Frederic Amiel, (1821-1881) Swiss philosopher, poet, critic
"Life is short and we have never too much time for gladdening the hearts of those who are
traveling the dark journey with us. Oh, be swift to love, make haste to be kind!"
Henri Frederic Amiel
"Doing easily what others find difficult is talent; doing what is impossible for talent is
genius."
Henri Frederic Amiel
"The test of every religious, political, or educational system, is the man which it forms.
If a system injures the intelligence it is bad. If it injures the character it is vicious.
If it injures the conscience it is criminal."
Henri Frederic Amiel, Source: Journal, 17 June 1852
"Truth is not only violated by falsehood; it may be equally outraged by silence."
Henri Frederic Amiel
"Bullets cannot be recalled. They cannot be uninvented. But they can be taken out of the
gun."
Martin Amis, (1949-, British Author)
"The only normal people are the ones you don't know very well."
Joe Ancis
"If everything seems under control, you're just not going fast enough."
Mario Andretti, (1940-, Italian-born American car racer)
"There is little good in filling churches with people who go out exactly the same as they came in; the call of the Church is not to fill churches but to fill heaven."
Fr.
Andrew SDC "The Way of Victory"
"I distrust those people who know so well what God wants them to do, because I notice it
always coincides with their own desires."
Susan B. Anthony
"Sooner or later we all discover that the important moments in life are not the advertised
ones, not the birthdays, the graduations, the weddings, not the great goals achieved. The
real milestones are less prepossessing. They come to the door of memory unannounced, stray
dogs that amble in, sniff around a bit, and simply never leave. Our lives are measured by
these."
Susan B. Anthony
"Without being forgiven, released from the consequences of what we have done, our capacity
to act would, as it were, be confined to a single deed from which we could never recover;
we would remain the victims of its consequences forever, not unlike the sorcerer's
apprentice who lacked the magic formula to break the spell."
Hannah Arendt, Breaking the Spell
"What makes it so plausible to assume that hypocrisy is the vice of vices is that
integrity can indeed exist under the cover of all other vices except this one. Only crime
and the criminal, it is true, confront us with the perplexity of radical evil; but only
the hypocrite is really rotten to the core."
Hannah Arendt
"Politically speaking, tribal nationalism [patriotism] always insists that its own people
are surrounded by 'a world of enemies' - 'one against all' - and that a fundamental
difference exists between this people and all others. It claims its people to be unique,
individual, incompatible with all others, and denies theoretically the very possibility of
a common mankind long before it is used to destroy the humanity of man."
Hannah Arendt, The Origins Of Totalitarianism p.227
"Under every stone lurks a politician."
Aristophanes, (450 BC - 385 BC)
"A tyrant must put on the appearance of uncommon devotion to religion. Subjects are less"It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it."
apprehensive of illegal treatment from a ruler whom they consider god-fearing and pious."
Aristotle, Greek philosopher (384 BC - 322 BC) Source: Politics, 343 B.C.
"The aim of art is to represent not the outward appearance of things, but their inward
significance."
Aristotle
"And so long as they were at war, their power was preserved, but when they had attained
empire they fell, for of the arts of peace they knew nothing, and had never engaged in any
employment higher than war."
Aristotle, Politics
"The gods too are fond of a joke."
Aristotle
"My best friend is the man who in wishing me well wishes it for my sake."
Aristotle
"Moral excellence comes about as a result of habit. We become just by doing just acts,
temperate by doing temperate acts, brave by doing brave acts."
Aristotle
"We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit."
Aristotle
"If liberty and equality, as is thought by some are chiefly to be found in democracy, they
will be best attained when all persons alike share in the government to the utmost."
Aristotle, Source: Politics, 343 BC
Henri Arnold
"The distinction between Christianity and all other systems of religion consists largely in this, that in these others men are found seeking after God, while Christianity is God seeking after men."
Thomas
Arnold, English educator; father of Matthew Arnold (1795-1842)
"God is gracious beyond the power of language to describe."
Francis Asbury
John
Ashcroft, U. S. Attorney General, Critics Aid Terrorists, AG
Argues,
Boston Globe, 7 December 2001.
"Life is pleasant. Death is peaceful. It's the transition that's troublesome."
Isaac Asimov
"Never let your sense of morals get in the way of doing what's right."
Isaac Asimov
"Youth would be an ideal state if it came a little later in life."
Herbert Henry Asquith
Clyde B. Aster
"Christ did not enchant men; He demanded that they believe in Him: except on one occasion, the Transfiguration. For a brief while, Peter, James, and John were permitted to see Him in His glory. For that brief while they had no need of faith. The vision vanished, and the memory of it did not prevent them from all forsaking Him when He was arrested, or Peter from denying that he had ever known Him."
W.
H. Auden, US (English-born) critic and poet; (1907-1973)
in
A Certain World [1971]
"To save your world you asked this man to die; Would this man, could he see you now, ask why?"
W. H. Auden, Epitaph for an unknown soldier
"God will not suffer man to have a knowledge of things to come; for if he had prescience of his prosperity, he would be careless; and if understanding of his adversity, he would be despairing and senseless."
Augustine
of Hippo (354-430)
"God of our life, there are days when the burdens we carry
chafe our shoulders and weigh us down; when the road seems dreary and
endless, the skies grey and threatening; when our lives have no music
in them, and our hearts are lonely, and our souls have lost their
courage. Flood the path with light, run our eyes to where the skies are
full of promise; tune our hearts to brave music; give us the sense of
comradeship with heroes and saints of every age; and so quicken our
spirits that we may be able to encourage the souls of all who journey
with us on the road of life, to Your honour and glory."
"I have read in Plato and Cicero sayings that are very wise and very beautiful; but I
never read in either of them: 'Come unto me all ye that labor and are heavy laden.'"
"This is the very perfection of a man, to find out his own imperfections."
"It is easy to want things from the Lord and yet not want the Lord Himself, as though the
gift could ever be preferable to the Giver."
"It is not that we keep His commandments first, and that then He loves; but that He loves us, and then we keep His commandments. This is that grace, which is revealed to the humble, but hidden from the proud...."
"God chooses us, not because we believe, but that we may believe."
"Faith is to believe what we do not see; the reward of this faith is to see what we believe."
"Justice is that virtue that assigns to every man his due."
"The world is a book, and those who do not travel, read only a page."
"If you believe what you like in the Gospel, and reject what you don't like, it is not the Gospel you believe, but yourself."
"But whence comes this liberty to do right to the man who is in ####### and sold under sin, except he be redeemed by Him who has said, "If the Son shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed?" And before this redemption is wrought in a man, when he is not yet free to do what is right, how can he talk of the freedom of his will and his good works, except he be inflated by that foolish pride of boasting which the apostle restrains when he says, "By grace are ye saved, through faith."
"Christ is not valued at all unless He is valued above all."
"Since man was corrupted by the Fall, he sins voluntarily. There is no external force or Coercion: he is motivated by his own passions. But such is the depravity of his nature, he can only move in the direction of evil."
"Justice being taken
away, then, what are kingdoms but great
robberies? For what are robberies themselves, but little kingdoms? The
band itself is made up of men; it is ruled by the authority of a
prince, it is knit together by the pact of the confederacy; the booty
is divided by the law agreed on. If, by the admittance of abandoned
men, this evil increases to such a degree that it holds places, fixes
abodes, takes possession of cities, and subdues peoples, it assumes the
more plainly the name of a kingdom, because the reality is now
manifestly conferred on it, not by the removal of covetousness, but by
the addition of impunity. Indeed, that was an apt and true reply which
was given to Alexander the Great by a pirate who had been seized. For
when that king had asked the man what he meant by keeping hostile
possession of the sea, he answered with bold pride, "What thou meanest
by seizing the whole earth; but because I do it with a petty ship, I am
called a robber, whilst thou who dost it with a great fleet art styled
emperor."
"
City
of God
[Circa 420 A.D.]
"We need not despair of any man, so long as he lives. For God deemed it better to bring
good out of evil than not to permit evil at all."
