"The real
guarantee of freedom is an
equilibrium of social forces in conflict, not the triumph of any one
force."
Max Eastman,
(1883-1969) Source: Reflections on the Failure of Socialism, 1955
"Abuse of power
isn't limited to bad guys in other nations. It happens in our
own country if we're not vigilant." Clint Eastwood, Source: Parade
Magazine, 12 January 1997
"In youth we
learn; in age we understand."
Marie von
Ebner-Eschenbach, (1830 - 1916)"If
the only prayer you said in your
whole life
was, "thank you," that
would suffice."
"Be
not angry that you cannot make others as you wish them to be,
since you cannot make yourself as you wish to be."
Thomas
Alva Edison
"I find my greatest pleasure, and so my reward, in the work that precedes what the world calls success."
Thomas A. Edison
"Hell, there are no rules here - we're trying to accomplish something."
Thomas Alva Edison
"Discontent is the first necessity of progress."
Thomas A. Edison
"As a cure for worrying, work is better than whiskey."
Thomas A. Edison
"The dove is my emblem."
Thomas A. Edison
"I want to save and advance human life, not destroy it."
Thomas A. Edison
"I am proud of the fact that I have never invented weapons to kill."
Thomas A. Edison
"If we all did the things we are really capable of doing, we would literally astound ourselves."
Thomas A. Edison
"Our schools are not teaching students to think. It is astonishing how many young people have difficulty in putting their brains definitely and systematically to work."
Thomas A. Edison
"Education is the
process
of casting false pearls before real swine."
"The modern
susceptibility to conformity and obedience to authority indicates that
the truth endorsed by authority is likely to be accepted as such
by a majority of the people."
David Edwards, British columnist Source: Burning
All Illusions, 1996
"The Sovereignty of
God is the stumbling block on which thousands
fall and perish; and if
we
go contending with God about His sovereignty it will be our eternal
ruin.
It is absolutely necessary that we should submit to God as an absolute
sovereign, and the sovereign of our souls; as one who may have mercy on
whom He will have mercy and harden whom He will"
"The real problem is
in
the hearts and minds of men. It is not a
problem of physics but of
ethics.
It is easier to denature plutonium than to denature the evil from the
spirit
of man."
Albert Einstein,
(1879-1955) Physicist and Professor, Nobel Prize 1921
"There are
two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The
other is as though everything is a miracle."
"The
difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has its limits."
"Never do
anything against conscience even if the state demands it."
"The
important thing is not to stop questioning."
"Men marry
women with the hope they will never change. Women marry men
with the hope they will change. Invaribly they are both disappointed."
"It is almost a miracle that modern teaching methods have not yet entirely strangled the holy curiosity of inquiry."
"It is the supreme art of the teacher to awaken joy in creative expression and knowledge."
"All of us
who are concerned for peace and the triumph of reason and justice must
be keenly aware how small an influence reason
and honest good will
exert upon events in the political field."
"The prestige of government has undoubtedly been lowered
considerably
by the Prohibition law. For nothing is more
destructive of respect for
the government and the law of the land than passing laws which cannot
be enforced. It is an open secret that the dangerous increase of crime
in this country is closely connected with this."
Source: "My
First Impression of the U.S.A.", 1921
"I never think of the future - it comes soon enough."
"It is the duty of every citizen according to his best capacities to give validity to his convictions in political affairs."
Source: 'Treasury for the Free World,' 1946 "The world is a dangerous place to live - not because of the people who are evil, but because of the people who don't do anything about it."
"Nationalism
is an infantile disease. It is the measles of mankind."
(attributed)
"The ruling
class has the schools and press under its thumb. This enables it to
sway the emotions of the masses."
"As a child
I received instruction both in the Bible and in the Talmud. I am a Jew,
but I am enthralled by the luminous figure of the Nazarene... No one
can read the Gospels without feeling the actual presence of Jesus. His
personality pulsates in every word.
No myth is filled with such life."
Source: an interview with George Sylvester Viereck,
"What Life Means
to Einstein," The Saturday Evening Post, October 26, 1929, Curtis
Publishing Company.
"When a man sits with a pretty girl for an hour, it
seems like a
minute. But let him sit on a hot stove for a minute, and it's longer
than any hour. That's relativity."
"The
pioneers of a warless world are the youth that refuse military service."
"I am not only a pacifist but a militant pacifist. I
am willing to fight for peace. Nothing will end war unless the people
themselves refuse to go to war."
"Try not to become
a
man of success, but rather a man of value."
"Being a lover of
freedom, when the revolution came in Germany, I looked to the
universities to defend it, knowing that they had always boasted of
their devotion to the cause of truth; but, no, the universities
immediately were silenced. Then I looked to the great editors of the
newspapers whose flaming editorials in days gone by had proclaimed
their love of freedom; but they, like the universities, were silenced
in a few short weeks... Only the Church stood squarely across the path
of Hitler's campaign for suppressing truth. I never had any special
interest in the Church before, but now I feel a great affection and
admiration because the Church alone has had the courage and persistence
to stand for intellectual truth and moral freedom. I am forced thus to
confess that what I once despised I now praise unreservedly."
Time Magazine,
December 23, 1940
"Before God we are
all
equally wise - and equally foolish."
"Science can only
be
created by those who are thoroughly imbued with the aspiration toward
truth
and understanding. This source of feeling, however springs from the
sphere
of religion. To this there also belongs the faith in the possibility
that
the regulations valid for the world of existence are rational, that is,
comprehensible to reason. I cannot conceive of a genuine scientist
without
that profound faith. The situation may be expressed by an image:science
without religion is lame, religion without science is blind."
Ideas
and Opinions, p. 46 (1954)
"Not everything
that
counts can be counted, and not everything that can be counted counts."
"Everything that is
really
great and inspiring is created by the individual who can labor in
freedom."
"The strength of
the
Constitution lies entirely in the
determination of each citizen to
defend
it. Only if every single citizen feels duty bound to do his share in
this
defense are the constitutional rights secure."
"The problems that
exist
in the world today cannot be solved by the level of thinking that
created
them."
"The hardest thing
in
the world to understand is the income tax."
"Any society which
does
not insist upon respect for all life must
necessarily decay."
"Once you can accept the universe as matter expanding into nothing that is something, wearing stripes with plaid comes easy."
"Insanity is endlessly repeating the same process and hoping for a different result."
"Perfection of means and confusion of ends seem to characterize our age."
"Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one."
"Common sense is the collection of prejudices acquired by age eighteen."
"The most incomprehensible thing about the world is that it is comprehensible."
"A human being is a part of the whole, called by us, "Universe," a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings as something separated from the rest -- a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty. Nobody is able to achieve this completely, but the striving for such achievement is in itself a part of the liberation and a foundation for inner security."
"When
I
was a small boy in Kansas, a friend of mine and I went fishing and as
we sat there in the warmth of the summer afternoon on a river bank, we
talked about what we wanted to do when we grew up. I told him that I
wanted to be a real major league baseball
player, a genuine
professional like Honus
Wagner. My
friend said that he'd like to be President of the United States.
Neither of us got our wish."
Dwight D. Eisenhower
Ike scoring a game.
"Here in
America
we are descended in blood and in spirit from
revolutionists and rebels -- men and women who dare to dissent from accepted
doctrine. As their heirs, we may never confuse honest dissent
with disloyal subversion." Dwight D.
Eisenhower, (1890-1969),
34th US President, WWII General Source:
Speech, Columbia University, 1954
"I like to believe that people in the long run are going to do more to
promote peace than our governments. Indeed, I think that people
want peace so much that one of these days governments had better get
out of the way and let them have it."
Dwight David Eisenhower
"Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed."
Dwight D. Eisenhower
"A people that values its privileges above its principles soon loses both."
Dwight D. Eisenhower
"The history of free men is never really written by chance but by choice; their choice!"
Dwight D. Eisenhower
"We have never stopped sin by passing laws; and in the same way, we are not going to take a great moral ideal and achieve it merely by law."
Dwight D. Eisenhower
"All of us have heard this term 'preventive war' since the earliest days of Hitler. I don't believe there is such a thing; and, frankly, I wouldn't even listen to anyone seriously that came in and talked about such a thing."
Dwight Eisenhower, Source: Bob Fitrakis and Harvey Wasserman, Bush and America's Willing Executioners would be Guilty at Nuremberg, The Free Press (Columbus, Ohio), 3/2/03
"An election is
coming.
Universal peace is declared, and the foxes have a sincere interest in
prolonging
the lives of the poultry."
George Eliot
"What greater thing is there for two human souls
than to
feel that
they are joined... to strengthen each other... to be at one with each
other
in silent unspeakable memories.
"
George Eliot
"When
death, the great reconciler, has come, it is never our tenderness that
we repent of, but our severity."
George
Eliot
"It is never too late to be what you might have been."
George Eliot
"The golden moments in the stream of life rush past us, and we see nothing but sand; the angels come to visit us, and we only know them when they are gone."
George Eliot
"It seems to me we can never give up longing and wishing while we are thoroughly alive. There are certain things we feel to be beautiful and good, and we must hunger after them."
"The tendency of
liberals
is to create bodies of men and women -of all classes-detached from
tradition,
alienated from religion, and susceptible to mass suggestion-mob rule.
And
a mob will be no less a mob if it is well fed, well clothed, well
housed,
and well disciplined."
"Half the harm that is done in this world is due to people who want to feel important. They don't mean to do harm -- but the harm does not interest them. Or they do not see it, or they justify it because they are absorbed in the endless struggle to think well of themselves."
T. S. Elliot
"The greatest proof
of
Christianity for others is not how far a
man can logically analyze his
reasons for believing, but how far in practice he will stake his life
on
his belief."
T. S. Eliot
"Only those
who will risk going too far can possibly
find out how far one can go."
T.S. Eliot
"Some editors are
failed
writers, but so are most writers."
T. S. Eliot
Footfalls echo in the memory Down the passage which we did not take Towards the door we never opened Into the rose-garden.
T.S. Eliot, "Burnt Norton" in Four Quartets [1943]
"To do the useful thing, to say the courageous thing, to contemplate the beautiful thing: that is enough for one man's life."
"Peace
cannot be achieved through violence, it can only be
attained through understanding."
Ralph Waldo Emerson, Yankee peace advocate at times
"You
cannot do a kindness too soon, for you never know how soon it will be
too late." Ralph Waldo
Emerson
"The imbecility of
men
is always inviting the impudence of power."
Ralph Waldo Emerson
"Democracy becomes
a
government of bullies tempered by editors."
Ralph Waldo Emerson
"The meaning of
good and bad, of better and worse, is simply helping or hurting."
Ralph Waldo Emerson
"He has not learned the lesson of life who does not every day surmount a fear."
Ralph Waldo Emerson
"Every violation of truth is not only a sort of suicide in the liar, but is a stab at the health of human society."
Ralph Waldo Emerson, "Prudence" from Essays: First Series [1841]
"...(M)ost men have bound their eyes with one or another handkerchief, and attached themselves to some one of these communities of opinion. This conformity makes them not false in a few particulars, authors of a few lies, but false in all particulars. Their every truth is not quite true. Their two is not the real two, their four not the real four; so that every word they say chagrins us, and we know not where to begin to set them right."
Ralph Waldo Emerson, Self Reliance - 1841 - From 'Essays", First series
"Trust men, and they will be true to you; treat them greatly, and they will show greatness themselves...."
Ralph Waldo
Emerson, "Prudence" from Essays: First
Series [1841]
Given what we
know about human nature, might the quote above be deemed 'imprudent'?
RAB
"Live as though
Christ
died yesterday, rose from the grave today, and is coming back tomorrow."
Theodore Epp
"America's
greatness
is due in no small measure to our system of government,
in which power
and authority are deliberately divided. The separation of powers is not
a mere "technicality." It is the centerpiece of our Constitution. Our
freedoms depend upon it in the future, just as they have in the past."
"There are some whose only reason for inciting war
is to use it as a means to exercise their tyranny
over their subjects
more easily. For in times of peace the authority of the assembly, the
dignity of the magistrates, the force of the laws stand in the way to
some extent of the ruler doing what he likes. But once war is declared
then the whole business
of state is subject to the will of a few ... They demand as much money
as they like. Why say more?"
"The American
feels too rich in his opportunities for free expression that he often no
longer knows what he is free from. Neither does he
know where he is not free; he does not
recognize his native autocrats when he sees them."
Erik H.
Erikson, (1902-1994) Source: Childhood and Society, 1950"In the New
Testament, religion is grace and ethics is gratitude."
"A judicial
activist
is a judge who interprets the Constitution
to mean what it would have
said
if he, instead of the Founding Fathers, had written it."
