“When I quote others, I do so in order to express my own ideas more clearly.”
Michel de Montaigne
“If you should not be forgotten, as soon as you are dead and rotten,
either write things worthy reading, or do things worth the writing.”
Benjamin Franklin
“We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.”
Preamble to THE CONSTITUTION of the United States. (First Paragraph!)
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”
The Declaration of Independence
“Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable. . . . And let us with caution indulge the supposition that morality can be maintained without religion. Whatever may be conceded to the influence of refined education on minds of peculiar structure, reason and experience both forbid us to expect that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle.”
President George Washington (In his farewell address)
“We have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion. Avarice, ambition, revenge, or gallantry, would break the strongest cords of our Constitution as a whale goes through a net. Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”
John Adams (to the officers of the Massachusetts militia in 1798)
“Whoever really has considered the lilies of the field or the birds of the air and pondered the improbability of their existence in this warm world within the cold and empty stellar distances will hardly balk at the turning of water into wine—which was, after all, a very small miracle. We forget the greater and still continuing miracle by which water (with soil and sunlight) is turned into grapes.”
Wendell Berry, “Christianity and the Survival of Creation”
“Gentle in what you do.
Firm in how you do it.”
Buck Brannaman (Horse Trainer)
“The best laid schemes o’ mice an’ men. Gang aft a-gley” (or “goes wrong”). Or to translate, “the best laid plans of mice and men can still go wrong.“ No matter how well you plan, there is no guarantee of success.
Robert Burns (Scotland)
Note: This is a comment from a Chinese Marxist economist after studying Democracy and Capitalism in Boston:
“I had no idea how critical religion is to the functioning of democracy and capitalism.” . . . He continued, “In your past, most Americans attended a church or synagogue every week. These are institutions that people respected. When you were there, from your youngest years, you were taught that you should voluntarily obey the law; that you should respect other people’s property, and not steal it. You were taught never to lie. Americans followed these rules because they had come to believe that even if the police didn’t catch them when they broke a law, God would catch them. Democracy works because most people most of the time voluntarily obey your laws. You can say the same for capitalism, “my friend continued. “It works because Americans have been taught in their churches that they should keep their promises and not tell lies. An advanced economy cannot function if people cannot expect that when they sign contracts, the other people will voluntarily uphold their obligations. Capitalism works because most people voluntarily keep their promises.”
A Chinese Marxist Economist
(spoken to Clayton Christensen, Professor at the Harvard Business School)
The great privilege of the Americans does not simply consist in their being more enlightened than other nations, but in their being able to repair the faults they may commit.”
Alexis De Tocqueville
“I’m not the King. Christ is the King. I’m just a singer.”
Elvis Presley
“Don’t complain about things. Fix them!“
S. Alexander Edgar
“Life is a stage, and we don’t always know what will come out from behind the curtain and into our view. Much of what we see is wonderful. But occasionally, we are exposed to the evil or ugly side of life. We can’t always control what we will see. Images flash before our eyes and leave lasting impressions. However, we do have the power to avoid or minimize our exposure to their influence. Knowing when to turn away is wisdom! If you do not turn away, there is often regret.”
S. Alexander Edgar
“Our lives are filled with ups and downs. Some good and some not so good …some difficult, some rewarding, and some amazing. However, regardless of what we’re going through in our own lives, our animal companions still need to be fed.”
S. Alexander Edgar
“Those of us who may be struggling in lonely darkness and/or despair (whether by our own ignorance or our disobedience) can also feel the ‘immediate’ love and influence of the gospel in our lives when we turn from inappropriate behavior and embrace Jesus Christ (Book of Mormon, Alma 34:31). He will ‘immediately’ bless our lives with His love and the warmth of the gospel. We may not be made completely whole ‘immediately,’ but we will feel his love and have hope ‘immediately’ as the ‘great plan of redemption’ is ‘brought about’ in us. Pure and lasting joy will come as we learn more of Him, continue to follow Him, and embrace His Great Plan of Happiness.”
S. Alexander. Edgar
“With the loss of a loving companion, we will often ask: ‘Why? Why must my children be without a loving mother or father?’ The truth is, we usually do not know why. But two things are sure; the Lord knows those of us who are left behind, and He trusts us enough to carry on and care for the needs and growth of our little ones. If we are true and diligent, we will enjoy many indescribable tender mercies.”
S. Alexander Edgar
“Hope springs eternal”
Alexander Pope
“The Truth beckons to us all.”
Anonymous
“One of the illusions of life is that the present hour is not the critical, decisive hour. Write it on your heart that every day is the best day of the year. He only is rich who owns the day, and no one owns the day who allows it to be invaded with worry, fret, and anxiety. Finish every day and be done with it. You have done what you could. Some blunders and absurdities no doubt have crept in; forget them as soon as you can. Tomorrow is a new day; begin it well and serenely and with too high a spirit to be cumbered with your old nonsense. This day is all that is good and fair. It is too dear, with its hopes and invitations, to waste a moment on yesterdays.”
Ralph Waldo Emerson
“Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms – to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way. We all suffer injustices to one degree or another. Though some of these have greater costs, our hurt and helplessness remain the same. Comparing our circumstances to others is dangerous. Because regardless of the situations, we all have similar feelings. Our choice in our response to those circumstances is what matters … how we think about them and how we act on them. In concentration camps … we watched and witnessed some of our comrades behave like swine while others behaved like saints. Man has both potentialities within himself… After all, man is the being who has invented the gas chambers of Auschwitz; however, he is also that being who has entered those gas chambers upright, with the Lord’s prayer or the Shema Israel on his lips. When we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves.”
Dr. Viktor Frankl, Man’s Search For Meaning,
“You can fool all people some of the time and some of the people all the time. But you can never fool all people all the time.”
President Abraham Lincoln
“Christianity, if false, is of no importance, and, if true, of infinite importance. The one thing it cannot be is moderately important.”
C.S. Lewis
In the words of C. S. Lewis, the animation and renovation of human character “…is precisely what Christianity is about. This world is a great sculptor’s shop. We are the statues and there is a rumour going round the shop that some of us are some day going to come to life.”
C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity
“Some of us who seem quite nice people may, in fact, have made so little use of a good heredity and good upbringing that we are really worse than those whom we regard as fiends. That is why Christians are told not to judge. We see only the results which a man’s choices make out of his raw material. But God does not judge him on the raw material at all, but on what he has done with it.
“Most of the man’s psychological makeup is probably due to his body: when his body dies all that will fall off him, and the real central man, the thing that chose, that made the best or worst out of this material, will stand naked.
“All sorts of nice things which we thought our own, but which were really due to a good digestion, will fall off some of us: all sorts of nasty things which were due to complexes or bad health will fall off others. We shall then, for the first time, see every one as he really was. There will be surprises.”
C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity
“People often think of Christian morality as a kind of bargain in which God says, ‘If you keep a lot of rules I’ll reward you, and if you don’t I’ll do the other thing.’ I do not think that is the best way of looking at it. I would much rather say that every time you make a choice you are turning the central part of you, the part of you that chooses, into something a little different from what it was before. And taking your life as a whole, with all your innumerable choices, all your life long you are slowly turning this central thing either into a heavenly creature or into a hellish creature: either into a creature that is in harmony with God, and with other creatures, and with itself, or else into one that is in a state of war and hatred with God, and with its fellow-creatures, and with itself.”
C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity
“Don’t use words too big for the subject. Don’t say infinitely when you mean very; otherwise you’ll have no word left when you want to talk about something really infinite.”
C.S. Lewis
“What you lose in the fire, you will find amongst the ashes.” That is, what you think was destroyed in a fire you will find in the ashes of rebirth (if looked at correctly, you will find it transformed into something else.)
French Proverb
“…the earth is a medium-sized planet orbiting around an average star in the outer suburbs of an ordinary spiral galaxy, which is itself only one of about a million million galaxies in the observable universe.”
Stephen Hawking, A Brief History of Time
“Happiness is a butterfly, which when pursued, is always just beyond your grasp, but which, if you will sit down quietly, may alight upon you.”
Nathaniel Hawthorne
“It is well to remember that the entire universe, with one trifling exception, is composed of others.”
John Andrew Holmes.
“We hold these truths to be sacred & undeniable; that all men are created equal & independent, that from that equal creation they derive rights inherent & inalienable, among which are the preservation of life, & liberty, & the pursuit of happiness.”
Thomas Jefferson, (in an early draft of The Declaration of Independence)
“…for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the Protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.” (Closing lines of The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen United States Of America.)
Thomas Jefferson, (approved official document of united will and determination, July 4, 1776).
“I find that all my thoughts circle around God like the planets around the sun, and are as irresistibly attracted by Him. I would feel it to be the grossest sin if I were to oppose any resistance to this force.”
Carl Gustav Jung
“[T]here are as many nights as days, and the one is just as long as the other in the year’s course. Even a happy life cannot be without a measure of darkness, and the word “happy” would lose its meaning if it were not balanced by sadness.”
Carl Gustav Jung
“If Jesus rose from the dead, then you have to accept all that he said; if he didn’t rise from the dead, then why worry about any of what he said? The issue on which everything hangs is not whether or not you like his teachings but whether or not he rose from the dead.”
Timothy Keller
“With hurricanes, tornadoes, fires out of control, mudslides, flooding, severe thunderstorms tearing up the country from one end to another, and with the threat of bird flu and terrorist attacks, are we sure this is a good time to take God out of the Pledge of Allegiance?”
Jay Leno
“In a sort of ghastly simplicity we remove the organ and demand the function. We make men without chests and expect of them virtue and enterprise. We laugh at honour and are shocked to find traitors in our midst. We castrate and bid the geldings be fruitful.”
C.S. Lewis, The Abolition of Man.
(What was Lewis’ point? He was referring to Relativism: The notion or idea that there are no absolute truths! Lewis believed “relativism would lead to the decay of morality and a lack of virtue within society. Without a belief in Universal Moral Laws, we would fail to educate the heart and are left with intelligent men who behave like animals.” Lewis put it: “Men without Chests.”)
“The framers of our Bill of Rights thought that religious freedom deserved double-barreled protection. Americans would have the right of ‘free exercise’ of their chosen faith, and government was forbidden to foster or control religion by means of an ‘establishment of religion.’ Today, an increasing number of scholars and activists say that ‘…religion is not so special after all. Churches are just another charity, faith is just another ideology and worship is just another weekend activity.’ All Americans—believers and nonbelievers alike—should resist this argument. . . . The religion clauses of the Constitution were the culmination of centuries of theological and political debate over the proper relationship between spiritual and temporal authority. . . .”
Michael McConnell, director of the Stanford Constitutional Law Center
“If ever there’s a tomorrow when we’re not together, there’s something you must remember …you’re braver than you believe, and stronger than you seem, and smarter than you think. But the most important thing is, even if we are apart, I will always be with you, …I will always be with you!”
Alan Alexander Milne, “Christopher Robin to Winnie the Pooh”
“In every walk with nature one receives far more than he seeks.”
John Muir
“I think colleges are basically for fun and to prove you can do your chores, but they’re not for learning. …I don’t consider going to college as evidence of exceptional ability. …If you’re trying to do something exceptional, you must have evidence of exceptional ability. In fact, ideally you dropped out and did something. (Bill) Gates is a pretty smart guy who dropped out. (Steve) Jobs is pretty smart, he dropped out. …Larry Ellison, smart guy, he dropped out …like obviously not needed. …did Shakespeare even go to college, probably not.”
Elon Musk (The Wealthiest Man in the World)
“My children didn’t choose to be born, I chose to have children.
They owe me nothing, I owe them everything.”
Elon Musk
“Clearly, the family is the seedbed of economic skills, money habits, attitudes toward work, and the arts of financial independence. The family is a stronger agency of educational success than the school. The family is a stronger teacher of the religious imagination than the church. Political and social planning in a wise social order begin with the axiom: What strengthens the family strengthens society. Highly paid, mobile, and restless professionals may disdain the family (having been nurtured by its strengths), but those whom other agencies desert have only one institution in which to find essential nourishment.
The role of a father, a mother, and of children with respect to them, is the absolutely critical center of social force. … One unforgettable law has been learned painfully through all the oppressions, disasters, and injustices of the last thousand years: If things go well with the family, life is worth living; when the family falters, life falls apart.”
Michael Novak
You may come to ask yourself, “what should I do today?” in a manner that means “how could I use my time to make things better instead of worse?”
Dr. Jordan B. Peterson
“We all know this. It is better to live courageously than cowardly. Everyone knows that.”
Dr. Jordan B. Peterson
“There is no limit to the amount of good you can do if you don’t care who gets the credit.“
President Ronald Reagan
“While America’s military strength is important … I’ve always maintained that the struggle now going on for the world will never be decided by bombs or rockets, by armies or military might. The real crisis we face today is a spiritual one; at root, it is a test of moral will and faith. Our enemies must be made to understand: We will never compromise our principles and standards. We will never give away our freedom. We will never abandon our belief in God.”
President Ronald Reagan
“In the first place, we should insist that if the immigrant who comes here in good faith becomes an American and assimilates himself to us, he shall be treated on an exact equality with everyone else, for it is an outrage to discriminate against any such man because of creed, or birthplace, or origin. But this is predicated upon the person’s becoming in every facet an American and nothing but an American…There can be no divided allegiance here. Any man who says he is an American, but something else also, isn’t an American at all. We have room for but one flag, the American flag… We have room for but one language here, and that is the English language… and we have room for but one sole loyalty and that is a loyalty to the American people.”
President Theodore Roosevelt (1907)
“Great minds discuss ideas;
Average minds discuss events;
Small minds discuss people.”
Commonly attributed to Eleanor Roosevelt
“You read Jane Austen [and] you put it back on the shelf and it makes no further demand of you until you feel like reading it again. But you read a sacred text and you put it back on the shelf [and] it’s still making a demand of you. It is saying this is a truth to be lived. . . . That is the difference between religion and culture. . . . Unless you hear a command [or] an obligation that comes from beyond you [or “from above you”] . . . you will not be able to generate sustainable, [actionable faith].”
Lord Jonathan Sacks, Chief Rabbi of Great Britain
“The only man who behaved sensibly was my tailor; he took my measurements anew every time he saw me, while all the rest went on with their old measurements and expected them to fit me.”
George Bernard Shaw
“Wisdom is the right use of knowledge. To know is not to be wise. Many men know a great deal, and are all the greater fools for it. There is no fool so great a fool as a knowing fool. But to know how to use knowledge is to have wisdom.”
Charles H. Spurgeon
“They who know of no purer sources of truth, who have traced up its stream no higher, stand, and wisely stand, by the Bible and the Constitution, and drink at it there with reverence and humanity; but they who behold where it comes trickling into this lake or that pool, gird up their loins once more, and continue their pilgrimage toward its fountainhead.”
Henry David Thoreau
“The masses of men lead lives of quiet desperation. What is called resignation is confirmed desperation. From the desperate city you go into the desperate county, and have to console yourself with the bravery of minks and muskrats. A stereotyped but unconscious despair is concealed even under what are called the games and amusements of mankind. There is no play in them, for this comes after work. But it is a characteristic of wisdom not to do desperate things.”
Henry David Thoreau
“Our country was founded under George Washington’s leadership, as he led our army to win the War of Independence. During the War, Thomas Paine said, ‘These are the times that try men’s souls.’ Today we face a similar test (…trying our souls). And, in this test lies the fate of the world. The forces of evil want to see us surrender. The American tradition teaches we meet tyranny with defiance and threats with courage. It teaches drawing on the resources of faith to counter evil. At this critical moment, Americans need to come together to take a stand against fraud and in favor of truth: to choose freedom over communism, and good over evil. … This is about whether we can still have a free country.”
President Donald J. Trump
“Don’t let schooling interfere with your education.”
Mark Twain
“It is better to keep your mouth closed and let people think you are a fool than to open it and remove all doubt.”
Mark Twain
“It is curious that physical courage should be so common in the world and moral courage so rare.”
Mark Twain
“Patriotism is supporting your country all the time, and your government when it deserves it.”
Mark Twain
“My ability to remember song lyrics from the 60’s and 70’s far exceeds my ability to remember why I walked into the kitchen.“
Unknown Author
“Even though there are days I wish I could change some things that happened in the past, there’s a reason the rearview mirror is so small and the windshield is so big. Where you’re headed is much more important than what you left behind.”
Unknown Author
“Never trust your tongue when your heart is bitter. Hush until you heal.”
Unknown Author
If you were a horse and I was your rider, I would want you to know we’re on the same team!
If you strive to listen and see what I see, we will begin to ride in Harmony together.
As you hear what I hear and see what I see, …I will learn to trust you and give you my all!
We become an equine team …together! We hear and see together. Thank you for listening.
Anonymous
“Remind students that one of the central missions of the university, which justifies its existence, is to get at the truth. …that requires honest debate, patience, intellectual honesty, investigation, and a lot of hard work. But it also is not for the faint of heart. And that is a lesson that is almost never transmitted today. That offense, bruising thoughts, and unpleasant facts simply go with the territory. They are an intrinsic feature of an open society, and they never can be entirely avoided. No one can be heard to say, ‘I’m offended.’ They all have permission to be offended. But they just can’t express it. No one should be allowed to accuse anyone else, in the classroom or out, dead or alive, of being racist, sexist, xenophobic, white supremacist, or any other derisive, identity-based label. No slurs or name-calling. These don’t enlighten, educate, or edify. They add nothing. Give us an argument. Tell us why the other person is wrong.”
Professor Amy L. Wax, University of Pennsylvania Law School
“Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting:
The Soul that rises with us, our life’s Star,
Hath had elsewhere its setting,
And cometh from afar:
Not in entire forgetfulness,
And not in utter nakedness,
But trailing clouds of glory do we come
From God, who is our home:
Heaven lies about us in our infancy!”
William Wordsworth
Who would want to go to Mars, set up colonies, and live there? The theory is: ‘Life on earth becomes unlivable in the future. So, let’s go to a place where it’s negative 80 degrees on average, the atmosphere is toxic and you can’t breathe it, and once every few years there are massive dust storms that cover the entire planet.’ (Ya, let’s go there instead of living here on Earth! …NOT!)
Matt Walsh (Conservative Commentator and Thinker)
“If you live in America today, Congratulations! You now live in the most advanced and prosperous civilization in history. And you get to enjoy a life of luxury and comfort that would have been unthinkable to the vast majority of humans who have ever lived, and even live today. You are in the one percent (you are probably in the one percent of the one percent)! And of all people who have ever existed on the planet, you are easily wealthier and more comfortable than 99% of them. You also have more freedom than 99% of them, more opportunity than 99% of them. In fact, no matter who you are, you are virtually guaranteed a stable and successful life …if you simply: 1) Graduate High School, 2) Refrain from committing any serious crime, 3) Refrain from using hard drugs, 4) Work moderately hard, and 5) Get married before you have children. That’s it! Do all of that. We’re talking about the bear low effort minimum. Do all of that and you will certainly not end up homeless, you will certainly not starve in this country, you will certainly not die of exposure or malnutrition, and you will have an extremely high chance of living a well-adjusted, relative happy and comparatively prosperous life. The world has never given more in exchange for less. That is a fact!”
Matt Walsh (Conservative Commentator and Thinker)
Lessons from the Navy Seals:
1. Start the day with a task completed.
2. Find someone to help you through life.
3. Respect everyone.
4. Life is not always fair, move forward.
5. Don’t be afraid to fail often.
6. Take risks.
7. Step up when times are toughest.
8..Face down the bullies.
9. Lift up the downtrodden.
10. Never give up!
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