More Quotes - Various Subjects

"The probability that we may fall in the struggle ought not to deter us from the support of a cause we believe to be just; it shall not deter me." Abraham Lincoln

"A man does what he must - in spite of personal consequences, in spite of obstacles and dangers and pressures - and that is the basis of all human morality." John F. Kennedy

"Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced." James Baldwin

"I submit that an individual who breaks a law that conscience tells him is unjust, and who willingly accepts the penalty of imprisonment in order to arouse the conscience of the community over its injustice, has in reality the highest respect for the law." Martin Luther King Jr.

"Almost always, the creative dedicated minority has made the world better." Martin Luther King Jr.

"The accumulation of all powers, legislative, executive, and judiciary, in the same hands, whether of one, a few, or many, and whether hereditary, self-appointed, or elective, may justly be pronounced the very definition of tyranny." James Madison

"It is not by the consolidation or concentration of powers, but by their distribution that good government is effected." Thomas Jefferson

"When we resist . . . concentration of power, we are resisting the powers of death, because concentration of power is what always precedes the destruction of human liberties." Woodrow Wilson

"It is one of the happy incidents of the federal system that a single courageous State may, if its citizens choose, serve as a laboratory; and try novel social and economic experiments without risk to the rest of the country." Justice Louis Brandeis

"Secrecy - the first refuge of incompetents - must be at a bare minimum in a democratic society, for a fully informed public is the basis of self-government." U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Government Operations, 1960

"Public records are the people's records. The officials in whose custody they happen to be are mere trustees for the people." Judge Rufus B. Smith

"As a result of the war, corporations have been enthroned and an era of corruption in high places will follow, and the money power of the country will endeavor to prolong its reign by working upon the prejudices of the people until all wealth is aggregated in a few hands and the Republic is destroyed." Abraham Lincoln

"Of all forms of tyranny the least attractive and the most vulgar is the tyranny of mere wealth." Theodore Roosevelt

"The gains we made in the United States that have made our country great have, in large part, been made over the opposition of major corporations. On nearly every issue, from fair labor standards, to the minimum wage, to environmental standards, to standards for a safe workplace, corporations have fought against them every step of the way." Senator Byron L. Dorgan

"The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much. It's whether we provide enough for those who have too little." Franklin D. Roosevelt

"Taxes are what we pay for civilized society." Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.

"If a man's public record be a clear one, if he has kept his pledges before the world, I do not inquire what his private life may have been." Susan B. Anthony

"Laws alone cannot secure freedom of expression; in order that every man present his views without penalty there must be spirit of tolerance in the entire population." Albert Einstein

"The liberties of none are safe unless the liberties of all are protected." Justice William O. Douglas

"It takes twenty years to build a reputation and five minutes to ruin it." Warren Buffett

"Even the greatest geniuses can make mistakes, even the greatest artists in language are not always at their best, even Homer takes a nap now and then, even the sun has spots." Otto Jespersen

"The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes up short again and again, because there is no effort without error or shortcoming, but who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, who spends himself for a worthy cause; who, at the best, knows, in the end, the triumph of high achievement, and who, at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who knew neither victory nor defeat." Theodore Roosevelt

"They said it couldn't be done, but sometimes it doesn't work out that way." Casey Stengel

"What religion a man shall have is a historical accident, quite as much as what language he shall speak." George Santayana

"Every religion preaches the truth of propositions for which it has no evidence." Sam Harris

"Gullibility and credulity are considered undesirable qualities in every department of human life - except religion. . . ." Christopher Hitchens

"All knowledge that is not the real product of observation, or of consequences deduced from observation, is entirely groundless and illusory." Jean Baptiste LaMarck

"It seems to me that the bane of our country is a profession of faith either with no basis of real belief, or with no proper examination of the grounds on which the creed is supposed to rest." James Russell Lowell

"The greatest threat to civility - and ultimately civilization - is an excess of certitude. The world is much menaced just now by people who think that the world and their duties in it are clear and simple. They are certain that they know what - who - created the universe and what this creator wants them to do to make our little speck in the universe perfect, even if extreme measures – even violence – are required.” George Will

". . . Pope John Paul was praised among other things for the number of apologies he had made. . . . [These] did include an apology to the Jews for the centuries of Christian anti-Semitism, an apology to the Muslim world for the Crusades, an apology to Eastern Orthodox Christians for the many persecutions that Rome had inflicted upon them, too, and some general contrition about the Inquisition as well. This seemed to say that the church had mainly been wrong and often criminal in the past, but was now purged of its sin by confession and quite ready to be infallible all over again." Christopher Hitchens

"The stupid are cocksure, and the intelligent are full of doubt." Bertrand Russell

I do not pretend to know where many ignorant people are sure. That is all that agnosticism means." Clarence Darrow

"When fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag, carrying a cross." Sinclair Lewis