The following are some of my favorite quotes, proverbs, sayings, and other pithy statements (including some from your's truly). There is no intentional order other than grouping quotes from the same source together. Note: these quotes do not necessarily represent my personal views (though many do).

Ask a question and you are a fool for three minutes. Do not ask a question and you are a fool for the rest of your life.

-- Chinese proverb

The man with one clock knows what time it is, while the man with two is never sure.

-- Chinese proverb

A society grows great when old men plant trees whose shade they know they shall never sit in.

-- Greek proverb

When you lie down with dogs, you wake up with fleas.

-- Jewish proverb

Like mother, like daughter.

-- Jewish proverb

Speak softly and carry a big stick.

-- West African Proverb

If the only tool you have is a hammer, you tend to see every problem as a nail.

-- Abraham Maslow

Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely.

-- Lord Acton

God never got around to creating a substitute for experience.

-- Adrian Rogers

We hang the petty thieves and appoint the great ones to public office.

-- Aesop

After all is said and done, more is said than done.

-- Aesop

The best way to predict the future is to invent it.

-- Alan Kay

When people attached themselves to a sect or a party, in religion or politics, and they have no good arguments to employ, they attempt to overwhelm their adversaries by bitter and reproachful words.

-- Albert Barnes, 1884

The welfare of the people in particular has always been the alibi of tyrants.

-- Albert Camus, "The Rebel", 1951

The situation may be expressed by an image: science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind.

-- Albert Einstein, speech at Princeton Theological Seminary, May 19, 1939

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 constitutional rights secure.

-- Albert Einstein

Insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.

-- Albert Einstein

Any fool can know. The point is to understand.

--Albert Einstein

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.

--Albert Einstein

Everything should be made as simple as possible, but no simpler.

--Albert Einstein

Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex and more violent. It takes a touch of genius - and a lot of courage to move in the opposite direction.

-- Albert Einstein

God is subtle but He is not malicious.

-- Albert Einstein

The hardest thing in the world to understand is the income tax.

-- Albert Einstein

Sometimes one pays most for the things one gets for nothing.

-- Albert Einstein

Anyone who has never made a mistake has never tried anything new.

-- Albert Einstein

Great spirits have often encountered violent oppostition from weak minds.

-- Albert Einstein

Science is a wonderful thing if one does not have to earn one's living at it.

-- Albert Einstein

The secret to creativity is knowing how to hide your sources.

-- Albert Einstein

The only thing that interferes with my learning is my education.

-- Albert Einstein

We can't solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them.

-- Albert Einstein

Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I'm not sure about the universe.

-- Albert Einstein

I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones.

-- Albert Einstein

It's not that I'm so smart, it's just that I stay with problems longer.

-- Albert Einstein

I have no particular talent. I am merely inquisitive.

-- Albert Einstein

If we knew what it was we were doing, it would not be called research, would it?

-- Albert Einstein

When I examine myself and my methods of thought, I come to the conclusion that the gift of fantasy has meant more to me than my talent for absorbing positive knowledge.

-- Albert Einstein

Only a life lived for others is a life worth while.

-- Albert Einstein

When the solution is simple, God is answering.

-- Albert Einstein

What we don't know is much more than what we know.

-- Albert Einstein

Intellectuals solve problems. Geniuses prevent them.

-- Albert Einstein

A little learning is a dangerous thing; Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring: There shallow draughts intoxicate the brain, and drinking largely sobers us again.

-- Alexander Pope

To a foreigner, nearly all domestic quarrels of the Americans seem at first glance either incomprehensible or puerile, and one is hard put to decide whether one ought to pity a people that takes such wretched trifles seriously or envy it the good fortune that permits to to do so.

-- Alexis de Tocqueville, "Democracy in America", 1840

What puts society in danger is not great corruption in some but laxity in all.

-- Alexis de Tocqueville, "Democracy in America", 1840

There is a close connection and a necessary relation between these two things: liberty and industry.

-- Alexis de Tocqueville, "Democracy in America", 1840

Try as they might, no people can ever achieve a perfect equality of conditions. Should a nation be unfortunate enough to reach such a state of absolute and complete leveling, it would still be left with inequalities of intelligence, and these, stemming as they do directly from God, will always elude laws.

-- Alexis de Tocqueville, "Democracy in America", 1840

The soul has needs that must be satisfied, and no matter what pains one takes to distract it from itself, it soon grows bored, anxious, and agitated among the pleasures of the senses.

-- Alexis de Tocqueville, "Democracy in America", 1840

No philosopher in the world is so great that he does not believe on faith a million things that he learns from others, or that he does not assume the truth of a far greater number of propositions than he demonstrates.

-- Alexis de Tocqueville, "Democracy in America", 1840

To remain silent is the most useful service that a mediocre speaker can render to the public good.

-- A. Tocqueville, "Democracy in America", 1840

People do not receive the truth from their enemies, and their friends seldom offer it.

-- Alexis de Tocqueville, "Democracy in America", 1840

Anarchy is almost always a consequence of tyranny or incompetence rather than impotence.

-- Alexis de Tocqueville, "Democracy in America", 1840

Despotism corrupts the person who submits to it far more than the person who imposes it.

-- Alexis de Tocqueville, "Democracy in America", 1840

Despotism often presents itself as the remedy for all ills suffered in the past. It is the upholder of justice, the champion of the oppressed, and the founder of order,. Nations are lulled to sleep by the temporary prosperity to which it gives rise, and when they awake, they are miserable.

-- Alexis de Tocqueville, "Democracy in America", 1840

If, in the midst of this universal upheaval, you do not succeed in linking the idea of rights to the personal interest that stands out as the only fixed point in the human heart, what means of governing the world will be left to you other than fear?

-- Alexis de Tocqueville, "Democracy in America", 1840

But I also think that when the central administration claims that it can dispense entirely with the free participation of those whose interests are primarily at stake, then it is either deceiving itself or trying to deceive you.

-- Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America, 1835

In the eyes of democracy, government is not a good but a necessary evil.

-- Alexis de Tocqueville, "Democracy in America", 1840

The mind is easily taken in by the false air of exactitude that even aberrant statistics retain and calmly accepts errors that it sees a cloaked in mathematical truth.

-- Alexis de Tocqueville, "Democracy in America", 1840

We can be sure that the majority of men will remain in one of these two states: they will either believe without knowing why, or not know precisely what they ought to believe.

-- Alexis de Tocqueville, "Democracy in America", 1840

It is possible both to remain popular and to oppose the rights of the people, to be a secret servant of tyranny and an avowed lover of liberty.

-- Alexis de Toqueville, speaking of post-revolution France, "Democracy in America", 1850

In order to reap the priceless goods that derive from the freedom of the press, one must learn to accept the inevitable evils that it breeds.

-- Alexis de Tocqueville, "Democracy in America", 1840

The human mind invents things more readily than words. That is why so many improper terms and inadequate expressions are in use.

-- Alexis de Tocqueville, "Democracy in America", 1840

Parties are an evil inherent in free governments.

-- Alexis de Tocqueville, "Democracy in America", 1840

A long war almost always brings a nation face-to-face with an unhappy alternative: defeat will lead to destruction, while triumph will end in despotism.

-- Alexis de Tocqueville, "Democracy in America", 1840

Admit your errors before someone else exaggerates them.

-- Andrew V. Mason

Even Superman lived as Clark Kent most of the time.

-- April Hamelink

It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.

-- Aristotle

We are what we repeatedly do.

-- Aristotle

Nothing so clearly distinguishes a spiritual man as his treatment of an erring brother.

-- Augustine

There are no original ideas. There are only original people.

--Barbara Grizzuti Harrison

Extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice. And let me remind you also that moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue.

-- Barry Goldwater, acceptance speech in 1964 Republican Convention

One of the greatest tragedies of life is the murder of a beautiful theory by a gang of brutal facts.

-- Benjamin Franklin

Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.

-- Benjamin Franklin (presumed), 1755

And here let me with all humility acknowledge, that to Divine Providence I am indebted for the felicity I have hitherto enjoyed. It is that power alone which has furnished me with the means I have employed, and that has crowned them with success. My faith in this respect leads me to hope, though I cannot count upon it, that the divine goodness will still be exercised towards me, either by prolonging the duration of my happiness to the close of life, or by giving me fortitude to support any melancholy reverse which may happen to me as well as to many others. My future fortune is unknown but to Him, in whose hand is our destiny, and who can make our very afflictions subservient to our benefit.

-- Benjamin Franklin, from his memoirs

If men are so wicked with religion, what would they be if without it?

-- Benjamin Franklin

Three may keep a secret, if two of them are dead.

-- Benjamin Franklin

Well done is better than well said.

-- Benjamin Franklin

But in this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes.

-- Benjamin Franklin

We must all hang together, or, assuredly, we shall all hang separately.

-- Benjamin Franklin

Dost thou love life? Then do not squander time, for that's the stuff life is made of.

-- Benjamin Franklin, “Poor Richard's Almanac”, June 1746

Distrust and caution are the parents of security.

-- Benjamin Franklin, Poor Richard's Almanack, 114

The truest interpretations are those with the best justification.

-- Bernard Ramm, Protestant Biblical Interpretation

The mistake is made when action is taken in ignorance of a risk, not when the risk makes itself known.

-- Bill Mann, Dec. 10, 2003

Great obstacles make great leaders.

-- Billy Diamond, Cree leader

The right of having and using arms for self-preservation and defense is justly called the primary law of nature, so it is not, neither can it be in fact, taken away by the law of society.

-- Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England

I have always wished that my computer would be as easy to use as my telephone. My wish has come true. I no longer know how to use my telephone.

-- Bjarne Stroustrup, inventor of the C++ language

There is no cost to getting things wrong. The cost is not getting them published.

-- Brian Nosek

Politics make strange bedfellows.

-- Charles Dudley Warner

He who is not angry at transgression becomes a partaker in it.

-- Charles H. Spurgeon

Men are handicapped when it comes to arguing, 'cause we have a need to make sense.

-- Chris Rock

Science teaches us to doubt.

-- Claude Bernard

To put the world in order, we must first put the nation in order; to put the nation in order, we must put the family in order; to put the family in order, we must cultivate our personal life; and to cultivate our personal life, we must first set our hearts right.

-- Confucius

Forget injuries, never forget kindnesses.

-- Confucius

Study the past if you would define the future.

-- Confucius

Men's natures are alike, it is their habits that carry them far apart.

-- Confucius, “Analects”

Have no friends not equal to yourself.

-- Confucius, “Analects”

Learning without thought is labor lost; thought without learning is perilous.

-- Confucius, “Analects”

The superior man is modest in his speech, but exceeds in his actions.

-- Confucius, “Analects”

What you do not want done to yourself, do not do to others.

-- Confucius, “Analects”

Uncommon things must be said in common words.

-- Coventry Patmore

You don't have a soul. You are a soul. You have a body.

-- CS Lewis

Experience: that most brutal of teachers. But you learn, my God do you learn.

-- C. Lewis

When I became a man, I put away childish things, including the fear of childishness and the desire to be very grown up.

-- CS Lewis

But probably ever age gets, within certain limits, the science it desires.

-- CS Lewis, “The Funeral of a Great Myth”

Diplomacy is the act of letting someone have your way.

-- Daniel Vare

If you can't prove what you want to prove, demonstrate something else and pretend they are the same thing. In the daze that follows the collision of statistics with the human mind, hardly anyone will notice the difference.

-- Darrel Huff, "How to Lie with Statistics", 1954

If you torture the data long enough, it will confess to anything.

-- Darrel Huff, "How to Lie with Statistics", 1954

The metric system did not really catch on in the States, unless you count the increasing popularity of the nine-millimeter bullet.

-- Dave Barry

A great marriage is not when the 'perfect couple' come together. It is when an imperfect couple learns to enjoy their differences.

-- Dave Meurer

Wisdom is knowing what to do next; virtue is doing it.

-- David Starr Jordan

When you realize that you're driving drunk, the best thing you can do is stop driving.

-- David Yen

If you can't see very far ahead...go ahead as far as you can see.

-- Dawson Trotman

There are two kinds of fool. One says, “This is old, and therefore good.” And one says, “This is new, and therefore better.”

-- Dean Inge

Character is what you are in the dark.

-- Dwight L. Moody

We become what we think about the most.

-- Earl Nightingale

There are seldom technical solutions to behavioral problems.

-- Ed Crowley

Life will give you what you ask of here if only you ask long enough and plainly enough.

-- Edith Nesbit

When people insist on perfection or nothing, they get nothing.

-- Edith Schaeffer

I set out with a perfect distrust of my own abilities, a total renunciation of every speculation of my own, and with a profound reverence for the wisdom of our ancestors, who have left us the inheritance of so happy a Constitution and so flourishing an empire, and, what is a thousand times more valuable, the treasury of the maxims and principles which formed the one and obtained the other.

-- Edmund Burke, Mar. 22, 1775

People will not look forward to posterity who never look backward to their ancestors.

-- Edmund Burke, 1790

APL is a mistake, carried through to perfection. It is the language of the future for the programming techniques of the past: it creates a new generation of coding bums.

-- Edsger Wybe Dijkstra

Besides a mathematical inclination, an exceptionally good mastery of one's native tongue is the most vital asset of a competent programmer.

-- Edsger Wybe Dijkstra

Cripples the mind; its teaching should therefore, be regarded as a criminal offense.

-- Edsger Wybe Dijkstra, in reference to COBOL

Mentally mutilated potential programmers beyond hope of regeneration.

-- Edsger Wybe Dijkstra, in reference to BASIC programmers

The church is looking for better methods; God is looking for better men.

-- Edward M. Bounds

Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people.

--Eleanor Roosevelt

After man knows the truth, he cannot be too careful of his words.

-- Florence Scovel Shinn, from her book "The Game of Life"

The only thing that saves us from the bureaucracy is its inefficiency.

-- Eugene McCarthy

The higher up you go, the more mistakes you�re allowed. Right at the top, if you make enough of them, it's considered to be your style.

-- Fred Astaire

Government is the great fiction through which everybody endeavors to live at the expense of everybody else.

-- Frederic Bastiat, 1848

Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he doesn't become a monster.

-- Friedrich Nietzsche

Out of life's school of war: What does not destroy me, makes me stronger.

-- Friedrich Nietzsche

I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use.

-- Galileo Galilei

Discipline without love breeds resentment. Discipline with love builds character.

-- Gary Chapman

To call a child “stupid” reveals more about our own intelligence than it does about the child's.

-- Gary Chapman

Do not become so obsessed by reading books on how to be a parent that you don't have time left over to actually parent.

-- Gary Chapman

With most men, unbelief in one thing springs from blind belief in another.

-- Georg Christoph Lichtenberg

We learn from experience that men never learn anything from experience.

-- George Bernard Shaw

America is the only nation in history which miraculously has gone directly from barbarism to degeneration without the usual interval of civilization.

-- George Clemenceau, 1841-1921

Harold, like the rest of us, had many impressions which saved him the trouble of distinct ideas.

-- George Eliot

To disarm the people is the best and most effectual way to enslave them.

-- George Mason, 1788 during Virginia's ratification convention

In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act.

-- George Orwell

All models are wrong, but some are useful.

-- George E. P. Box, "Science and Statistics", 1976

Those who speak most of progress measure it by quantity and not by quality.

-- George Santayana

Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.

-- George Santayana, "The Life of Reason", 1905

I've seen many politicians paralyzed in the legs as myself, but I've seen more of them who were paralyzed in the head.

-- George Wallace

Great men are very apt to have great faults; and the faults appear the greater by their contrast with their excellencies.

-- Gerald J. Simmons

There will be peace in the Middle East when the Arabs love their children more than they hate us.

-- Golda Meir

The wonderful thing about standards is that there are so many of them to choose from.

-- Grace Murray Hopper [speaking of technical standards]

It's remarkable how attached we often become to what's familiar. We feel confortable when we know how to do something well – whether or not that “something” fits the needs of others around us.

-- Rev. Greg Parsons

I find television very educating - everytime someone turns on a set, I go into the other room and read a book.

-- Groucho Marx

Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly and applying the wrong remedies.

-- Groucho Marx

Well, yes: people write poems when they are in love, but a wise man will not print them.

-- Hans Christian Andersen, "The Goloshes Of Fortune"

How little do the wisest among us know of that which is so important to us all.

-- Hans Christian Andersen, "The Philosopher's Stone"

The wiser a man becomes, the more he will read, and those who are wisest read most.

-- Hans Christian Andersen, "The Philosopher's Stone"

I thank God that I live in a country where dreams can come true, where failure sometimes is the first step to success and where success is only another form of failure if we forget what our priorities should be.

-- Harry Lloyd Hopkins

I long to accomplish a great and noble task, but it is my chief duty to accomplish humble tasks as though they were great and noble. The world is moved along, not only by the mighty shoves of its heroes, but also by the aggregate of the tiny pushes of each honest worker.

-- Helen Keller

It is a characteristic of wisdom not to do desperate things.

-- Henry David Thoreau

Any fool can make a rule, and any fool will mind it.

-- Henry David Thoreau

Aim above morality. Be not simply good; be good for something.

-- Henry David Thoreau

That man is richest whose pleasures are the cheapest.

-- Henry David Thoreau

The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation.

-- Henry David Thoreau

How many a man has dated a new era in his life from the reading of a book.

-- Henry David Thoreau, Walden: Reading, 1854

No amount of artificial reinforcement can offset the natural inequalities of human individuals.

-- Henry P. Fairchild

The laws that forbid the carrying of arms are laws of such a nature. They disarm those only who are neither inclined nor determined to commit crimes.

-- Henry Palolucci, 1764

Furious Activity is no substitute for understanding.

-- H. H. Williams

Don't worry about people stealing your ideas. If your ideas are any good, you'll have to ram them down people's throats.

--Howard Aiken

There are two kinds of people, those who work and those who take the credit. Try to be in the first group; there is less competition there.

-- Indira Gandhi

Contempt is a well-recognized defensive reaction.

-- I.A. Richards

Life is pleasant. Death is peaceful. Its the transition that's troublesome.

-- Isaac Asimov

In America, we tax work, investment, employment, savings, and production, while we subsidize non-work, consumption, and debt. It's time we reverse this trend.

-- Jack Kemp

Praise God for the King Jamnes Version! It was good enough for the apostle Paul; it's good enough for me.

-- Dr. Jack Van Impe (from “Signs of the Times Part One”)

Children are harmed more by our apathy than our error.

-- Jay Strack

The more Dad and Mom love each other, the more secure their children will feel.

-- Jay Strack

Vendors have learned, this year more than ever, that to simply churn out upgrades that fulfill already-expressed needs simply isn't enough. One goal of all progressive vendors should be to hear these words from a thankful customer: “I didn't even know that this was what I needed.”

-- Jill Duffy, “2006 Front Line Awards”. January 2006 Game Developer magazine

Courage is knowing it might hurt, and doing it anyway. Stupidity is the same. And that's why life is hard.

-- Jeremy Goldberg

Good judgment comes from experience. Experience comes from bad judgment.

-- Jim Horning

Facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, or the dictates of our passion, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence.

-- John Adams, Argument in Defense of the Soldiers in the Boston Massacre Trials, December 1770

I can't understand why people are frightened of new ideas. I'm frightened of the old ones.

-- John Cage

There is no God and there is no soul. Hence, there are no needs for the props of traditional religion. With dogma and creed excluded, immutable truth is also dead and buried. There is no room for fixed, natural laws or moral absolutes.

-- John Dewey

It is the common fate of the indolent to see their rights become a prey to the active. The condition upon which God hath given liberty to man is eternal vigilance; which condition if he break, servitude is at once the consequence of his crime and the punishment of his guilt.

-- John Philpot Curran, “Speech upon the right of election”, 1790

If your case is just, if your principles are pure, and if your conduct is prudent, you need not fear the multitude of opposing hosts.

-- John Witherspoon

Even despotism does not produce its worst effects, so long as individuality exists under it; and whatever crushes individuality is despotism, by whatever name it may be called, and whether it professes to be enforcing the will of God or the injunctions of men.

-- John Stuart Mill, "On Liberty", Chapter 3, 1859

He who lets the world, or his own portion of it, choose his plan of life for him, has no need of any other faculty than the ape-like one of imitation.

-- John Stuart Mill, "On Liberty", 1859

Originality is the one thing which unoriginal minds cannot feel the use of.

-- John Stuart Mill, "On Liberty", 1859

I am more afraid of an army of 100 sheep led by a lion than an army of 100 lions led by a sheep.

-- Unknown (attributed to both Alexander the Great and Charles Maurice de Talleyrand-P�rigord)

I consider strangers as friends I haven't met yet.

-- Unknown

The difficulty lies not so much in developing new ideas as in escaping from old ones.

-- John Maynard Keynes

Ideas are more powerful than guns. We would not let our enemies have guns, why should we let them have ideas.

-- Joseph Stalin

Wisdom has never made a bigot, but learning has.

-- Josh Billings

Without training, they lacked knowledge. Without knowledge, they lacked confidence. Without confidence, they lacked victory.

-- Julius Caesar

It is easier to find men who will volunteer to die, than to find those who are willing to endure pain with patience.

-- Julius Caesar

There is no patch for stupidity.

-- Kevin Mitnik

Now and then an innocent man is sent to the legislature.

-- Kim Hubbard

We'd all like to vote for the best man but he's never a candidate.

-- Kim Hubbard

"Many Laws, many transgressions." This is akin to a government which draws all things under its guardianship. It trains people for utter dependence rather than responsible independance. The result of this is that the greater number of laws that are given, the fewer are kept. And a worse result in government, education, or family can scarcely be imagined than a decreasing respect for law altogether. The man who could bring us to live under few laws, but would see them fairly administrered from above, and willingly obeyed for conscience' sake from beneath, would be the greatest possible benefactor of the state...the school...the family.

-- Dr. Heinrich Thiersch, "Christian Family Life", 1856 (translated by S. R. Gardiner)

If you steal ideas from one source, that's plagiarism, but if you steal ideas from more than one source, that's research.

-- Laurendo Almeida

I like to remind myself, as a parent, that God holds me responsible to, not for, my children!

-- Lee Ezell

We will give an account, to God, for our own actions – not our children's reactions.

-- Lee Ezell

War is not courtesy but the most horrible thing in life; and we ought to understand that, and not play at war. We ought to accept this terrible necessity sternly and seriously. It all lies in that: get rid of falsehood and let war be war and not a game.

-- Leo Tolstoy, “War and Peace”

I know that most men, including those at ease with problems of the greatest complexity, can seldom accept even the simplest and most obvious truth if it would oblige them to admit the falsity of conclusions which they have delighted in explainig to colleagues, proudly taught to others, and which they haven woven, thread by thread, into the fabric of their lives.

-- Leo Tolstoy

In a country where the sole employer is the State, opposition means death by slow starvation. The old principle: who does not work shall not eat, has been replaced by a new one: who does not obey shall not eat.

-- Leon Trotsky

Owing to its preference for totalistic explanation, scientism transforms science into an ideology, which is of course a betrayal of the experimental and empirical spirit.

-- Leon Wieseltier

Why is it when we talk to God, we're said to be praying -- but when God talks to us, we're schizophrenic?

-- Lily Tomlin

The best way to have a good idea is to have a lot of ideas.

-- Linus Pauling

Experience should teach us to be more on our guard to protect liberty when the government's purposes are beneficent.

-- Louis Brandeis, US Supreme Court justice

Love is as love does.

-- M. Scott Peck

It is much easier to suggest solutions when you don't know too much about the problem.

-- Malcolm Forbes, 1919-1990

We shape our tools and then our tools shape us.

-- Marshall McLuhan

Fathering a child is for many, not difficult. But *being* a father is.

-- Max Lucado

Brevity is the soul of wit.

-- Oscar Wilde

Fear of God builds churches, but love of God builds men.

-- Louis O. Williams

Chance favors only the prepared mind.

-- Louis Pasteur

Neither is there any substantial difference between the intentions of the self-styled 'progressives' and those of the Italian Fascists and the German Nazis. The Fascists and the Nazis were no less eager to establish all-round regimentation of all economic activities than those governments and parties which flamboyantly advertise their anti-Fascist tenets.

-- Ludwig von Mises

We see, again and again, that resentment lies behind all socialist ideas.

-- Ludwig von Mises, "Socialism", 1951

Mere opportunists excepted, everyone is convinced of the rightness of his opinions. But, if such a conviction by itself were a justification for intolerance, then everyone would have a right to coerce and persecute everyone else of another way of thinking. In these circumstances, the demand for toleration can only be a prerogative of the weak. With power comes the exercise of intolerance.

-- Luwig von Mises, "Socialism", 1951

To obtain legal recognition of the subjective rights of citizens, to limit the arbitrary action of officials to the narrowest possible field - this is the aim and object of libertarianism. It demands not grace but rights. And it recognizes from the outset that there is no other way of realizing this demand than by the most rigid suppressing of the powers of the State over the individual.

-- Ludwig von Mises, "Socialism", 1951

Who ever stirs up the resentment of the poor against the rich can count on securing a big audience. Democracy creates the most favourable preliminary conditions for the development of this spirit, which is always and everywhere present, though concealed. So far all democratic states have foundered on this point. The democracy of our own time is hastening towards the same end.

-- Ludwig von Mises, "Socialism", 1951

Facts per se can neither prove nor refute anything. Everything is decided by the interpretation and explanation of the facts, by the ideas and the theories.

-- Ludwig von Mises, "Socialism", 1951

Only by a battle of ideas can a decision be reached.

-- Ludwig von Mises, "Socialism", 1951

A speaker who inflames the passions of the masses is supposed to have a better chance of success than one who appeals to their reason.

-- Ludwig von Mises, "Socialism", 1951

Those interventionists who look at interventionism as a means of improving capitalism and thereby preserving it are utterly confused.

-- Ludwig von Mises, "Socialism", 1951

The philosophy of the Nazis, the German National Socialist Labour party, is the purest and most consistent manifestation of the anti-capitalistic and socialist spirit of our age.

-- Luwig von Mises, "Socialism", 1951

The slogan into which Nazis condensed their economic philosophy, viz., Gemeinnutz geht vor Eigennutz (i.e., the commonweal ranks above private profit), is likewise the idea underlying the American New Deal and the Soviet management of economic affairs. It implies that profit-seeking business harms the vital interests of the immense majority, and that it is the sacred duty of popular government to prevent the emergence of profits by public control of production and distribution.

-- Ludwig von Mises, "Socialism", 1951

Hitler was not the founder of Nazism; he was its product. He was, like most of his collaborators, a sadistic gangster.

-- Ludwig von Mises, "Socialism", 1951

The truth is that most people lack the intellectual ability and courage to resist a popular movement, however pernicious and ill-considered.

-- Ludwig von Mises, "Socialism", 1951

If the book will be too difficult for grown-ups, then you write it for children.

-- Madeleine L'Engle

To be alive is to be vulnerable.

-- Madeleine L'Engle

First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.

-- Mahatma Gandhi

Consensus? Consensus is the negation of leadership.

-- Margaret Thatcher, upon her assumption of leadership over the conservative party in 1975

Honest differences are are often a healthy sign of progress.

-- Mahatma Gandhi

The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong.

-- Mahatma Gandhi

The workshop of character is everyday life.

-- Maltbie Babcock

A lie can travel halfway around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes.

-- Mark Twain

Don't go around saying the world owes you a living. The world owes you nothing. It was here first.

-- Mark Twain

If you tell the truth, you don't have to remember anything.

-- Mark Twain

I was gratified to be able to answer promptly. I said I don't know.

-- Mark Twain

It could probably be shown by facts and figures that there is no distinctly American criminal class except Congress.

-- Mark Twain

Suppose you were an idiot and suppose you were a member of Congress. But I repeat myself.

-- Mark Twain

The right word may be effective, but no word was ever as effective as a rightly timed pause.

-- Mark Twain

Truth is more of a stranger than fiction.

-- Mark Twain

When in doubt, tell the truth.

-- Mark Twain

The reason we hold truth in such respect is that we have so little opportunity to get familiar with it.

-- Mark Twain

The history of our race, and each individual's experience, are sown thick with evidence that a truth is not hard to kill and that a lie told well is immortal.

-- Mark Twain

Action speaks louder than words, but not nearly as often.

-- Mark Twain

The report of my death was an exaggeration.

-- Mark Twain, New York Journal, June 2, 1897

Whenever you find that you are on the side of the majority, it is time to reform.

-- Mark Twain

There is something fascinating about science. One gets such wholesale returns of conjecture out of such a trifling investment of fact.

-- 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

Let us so live that when we come to die even the undertaker will be sorry.

-- Mark Twain

Most people are bothered by those passages of Scripture they do not understand, but the passages that bother me are those I do understand.

-- Mark Twain

Get your facts first, and then you can distort 'em as much as you please.

-- Mark Twain (1835-1910)

Figures often beguile me, particularly when I have the arranging of them myself; in which case the remark attributed to Disraeli would often apply with justice and force: “There are three kinds of lies: lies, damn lies, and statistics”.

-- Mark Twain, autobiography

Those who make a distinction between education and entertainment don't know the first thing about either.

-- Marshall McLuhan

In Germany they came first for the Communists, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Communist. Then they came for the Jews, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Jew. Then they came for the trade unionists, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a trade unionist. Then they came for the Catholics, and I didn't speak up because I was a Protestant. Then they came for me, and by that time no one was left to speak up.

-- Martin Niemoeller, speaking about Nazism in the 1930s.

Remember that God is our only sure trust.

-- Mary Washington (George Washington's Mother)

Contrary to the politically correct culture we inhabit, men are not defective women.

-- Matthew Jacobson

If you never fail, you aren't trying hard enough.

-- Michael Bloomberg

Extreme liberalism is not a political philosophy. It is a mental disorder.

-- Michael Savage, 2003

God is in the details.

-- Mies Van Der Rohe, Atchitect

Every society honors its live conformists and its dead troublemakers.

-- Mignon McLaughlin

You must distinguish sharply between being pro-free enterprise and being pro-business.

-- Milton Friedman

When I despair, I remember that all through history, the way of truth and love has always won. There have been murderers and tyrants, and for a time they can seem invincible. But in the end they always fall. Think of it, always.

-- Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi

When you feel you're at the end of your rope, remind yourself whose hand is holding the other end.

-- Nancy Kennedy

Glory is fleeting, but obscurity is forever.

-- Napleon Bonaparte

...it is much better to do things you cannot explain than explain things you cannot do.

-- Nassim Nicholas Taleb

The problem with wit and wisdom is that you usually get one or the other.

-- NB (Times Literary Supplement, September 28, 2007)

Whereas Europeans generally pronounce my name the right way, Americans invariably mangle it into 'Nickle-less Worth'. This is to say that Europeans call me by name, but Americans call me by value.

-- Niklaus Wirth, Author of the Pascal and Modula programming languages

A government which does not trust its citizens to be armed is not itself to be trusted.

-- Niccolo Machiavelli

Before a standing army can rule, the people must be disarmed; as they are in amost every kingdom in Europe. The supreme power in American can not enforce unjust laws by the sword, because the whole body of the people are armed, and constitute a force superior to any band of regular troops that can be, on any pretense, raised in the United States.

-- Noah Webster, An Examination Into the Leading Principals of the Federal Constitution.

Good intentions will always be pleaded for every assumption of authority. It is hardly too strong to say that the Constitution was made to guard the people against the dangers of good intentions. There are men in all ages who mean to govern well, but they mean to govern. They promise to be good masters, but they mean to be masters.

-- Daniel Webster, speech given March 15, 1837

I believe that every single event in life that happens is an opportunity to choose love over fear.

-- Oprah Winfrey

I am not young enough to know everything.

-- Oscar Wilde

Experience is the name everyone gives to his mistakes.

-- Oscar Wilde

We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.

-- Oscar Wilde, Lady Windermere's Fan, 1892, Act 3

A man cannot be too careful in the choice of his enemies.

-- Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray, 1891

An idea that is not dangerous is unworthy of being called an idea at all.

-- Oscar Wilde

It is not by means of speeches and majority resolutions that the great issues of the day will be decided...but by iron and blood..

-- Otto von Bismarck, 29-September-1862 Gray, 1891

Guard with jealous attention to the public liberty. Suspect every on who approaches that jewel. Unfortunately, nothing will preserve it by downright force. Whenever you give up that force, you are ruined.

-- Patrick Henry

When people forget God, tyrants forge their chains; a corrupted public conscience is incompatible with freedom.

-- Patrick Henry

The battle, sir, is not to the strong alone, it is to the vigilant, the active, the brave.

-- Patrick Henry, speech in the Virginia convention, March 23, 1775

Why is it that we often give the most of our time to those who care about us the least, and the least of our time to those who care about us the most? We should prioritize everything on the basis of who will cry at our funeral.

-- Patrick Morley

Priorities are a grid to help us distinguish opportunity from distraction.

-- Patrick Morley

People are bad at looking at seeds and guessing what size tree will grow out of them.

-- Paul Graham

Adults are always asking little kids what they want to be when they grow up because they're looking for ideas

-- Paula Poundstone

Help us, O Lord, when we want to do the right thing, but know not what it is. But help us most when we know perfectly well what we ought to do, and do not want to do it.

-- Peter Marshall

Unless we stand for something, we shall fall for anything.

-- Peter Marshall

Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away.

-- Philip K. Dick

The price good men pay for indifference to public affairs...is to be ruled by evil men.

-- Plato

Knavery is the best defense against a knave.

-- Plutarch

The truth of the matter, as it seems to me, is that those who write the history of particular episodes, whenever they have to deal with a subject which is narrowly limited in its interest, are compelled by sheer lack of subject-matter to exaggerate the importance of trivial incidents and to write at great length on matters which are scarcely worth mentioning at all.

-- Polybius, "The Rise of the Roman Empire, Book VII"

Few men are born brave. Many become so through training and force of discipline.

-- Publius Flavius Vegitius Renatus

Only the Lord knows how many children lose heart because their fathers have hard days.

-- R. Kent Hughes

The Republicans are the party that says government doesn't work and then they get elected and prove it.

-- P. J. O'Rourke

Certainly one sees often enough that those who are most ready to find fault with their neighbors are the most blameworthy in their own lives.

-- Polybius, The Rise of the Roman Empire, Book XII

Do not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.

-- Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882)

A hero is no braver than an ordinary man, but he is braver five minutes longer.

-- Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882)

The ancestor of every action is a thought.

-- Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882)

What you do speaks so loud that I cannot hear what you say.

-- Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882)

A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by statesmen and philosophers and divines.

-- Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882)

The best effect of fine persons is felt after we have left their presence.

-- Ralph Waldo Emerson, Journals, 1839

To be great is to be misunderstood.

-- Ralph Waldo Emerson, An Essay on Self-Reliance

We make our decisions; then our decisions turn around and make us.

-- Ray Pritchard

Our children copy everything we do. This is one of the most terrifying truths of parenthood.

-- Ray Pritchard

I think, therefore I am.

-- Rene Descartes

Argue for your limitations, and they are yours.

-- Richard Bach

Absolute freedom is absolute nonsense! We gain freedom in anything through commitment, discipline, and fixed habit.

-- Dr. Richard J. Foster

Organizations that don't make a significant commitment to Research & Development do not survive over the long haul – no matter how dominant they are at a given moment. The waves of other peoples' progress are simply too powerful, too relentless, to be met with halfhearted efforts.

-- Robert Buden, 2003, Technology Review magazine

Anyone who believes that the way to a man's heart is through his stomach flunked geography.

-- Robert Byrne

Good fences make good neighbors.

-- Robert Frost

The essence of strategy is not to carry out a brilliant plan that proceeds in steps; it is to put yourself in situations where you have more options than the enemy does.

-- Robert Greene

The greatest generals, the most creative strategists, stand out not because they have more knowledge but because they are able, when necessary, to drop their preconceived notions and focus intensely on the present moment.

-- Robert Greene, The 33 Strategies of War

The constitution shall never be construed to prevent the people of the United States who are peaceable citizens from keeping their own arms.

-- Samuel Adams, 1788, during the Massachusetts' US Constitution Ratification Convention

No people can be great who have ceased to be virtuous.

-- Samuel Johnson

The road to hell is paved with good intentions.

-- attributed to Samuel Johnson

Our task of creating a socialist America can only succeed when those who would resist us have been totally disarmed.

-- Sara Brady, 1994

I'm not saying that all salespeople are liars – just the really good ones.

-- Scott Buresh, January 8 2007 issue of Lockergnome “Web Developers” newsletter

It is easy to tell a lie but hard to tell only one.

-- Sissela Bok

Scars remind us where we've been. They don't have to dictate where we're going.

-- Steve Forbes, 2012

For those who believe, no proof is necessary. For those who don't believe, no proof is possible.

-- Stuart Chase

For to win a crowd is not so great a trick; one only needs some talent, a certain dose of untruth and a little acquaintance with the human passions.

-- S�ren Kierkegaard, 'On the Dedication to "That Single Individual"'

The man who thinks he knows something does not yet know as he ought to know.

-- St. Paul (1 Corinthians 8:2)

If you believe in God, you don't need religion.

-- Teresa Evans

Society in every state is a blessing, but Government, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil; in its worst state an intolerable one.

-- Thomas Painem Common Sense

There are only 10 types of people in the world: those that understand binary and those that don't.

-- Tina Sieber

Artifical intelligence usually beats real stupidity.

-- Tina Sieber

To err is human - and to blame it on a computer is even more so.

-- Tina Sieber

CAPS LOCK - Preventing login since 1980.

-- Tina Sieber

If at first you don't succeed, call it version 1.0.

-- Tina Sieber

Love feels no burden, thinks nothing of trouble, attempts what is above its strength, pleads no excuse of impossibility.

-- Thomas a Kempis

I am not so much afraid of death, as ashamed thereof.

-- Thomas Browne

Premature Optimization is the root of all evil.

-- Tony Hoare

Death isn't the worst thing that can happen to you. The worst thing that can happen to you is allowing yourself to die inside while you're still alive.

-- Travis Bradberry

Fear cannot be banished, but it can be calm and without panic; and it can be mitigated by reason and evaluation.

-- Vannevar Bush

Text without context is pretext.

-- Dr. Walter Martin

One should leave enough money for his children to do anything, but not enough for them to do nothing.

-- Warren Buffet

There is nothing so terrible as a battle won – except a battle lost.

-- Wellington (from his commentary on Waterloo)

The more closely you look at one thing, the less closely can you see something else.

-- Dr. Werner Heisenberg

One need not hope in order to undertake, nor succeed in order to preserve.

-- William I

Feeling gratitude and not expressing it is like wrapping a present and not giving it.

-- William Arthur Ward

Heaven hath no rage like love to hatred turned, nor Hell a fury, like a woman scorned.

-- William Congreve

Cowards die many times before their deaths; The valiant never taste of death but once.

-- William Shakespeare, “Julius Ceasar”, Act 2, scene 2

The evil that men do lives after them. The good is oft interred with their bones.

-- William Shakespeare, “Julius Ceasar”, Act 3, scene 2

In time we hate that which we often fear.

-- William Shakespeare

Nothing emboldens sin so much as mercy.

-- William Shakespeare

Suspicion always haunts the guilty mind.

-- William Shakespeare

The fool doth think he is wise, but the wise man knows himself to be a fool.

-- William Shakespeare, “As You Like It”, Act 2, scene 7

Brevity is the soul of wit.

-- William Shakespeare, “Hamlet”, Act 2, scene 2

Stop asking the government for "free" goods and services, however desirable and necessary they may seem to be. They are not free. They are simply extracted from the hide of your neighbors - and can be extracted only by force. If you would not confront your neighbor and demand his money at the point of a gun to solve every new problem that may appear in your life, you should not allow the government to do it for you.

-- William Simon, "A Time For Truth"

Men often make up in wrath what they want in reason.

-- William R. Alger

I belong to no organized party. I am a Democrat.

-- Will Rogers

Education is like a double-edged sword. It may be turned to dangerous uses if it is not properly handled.

-- Wu Ting-Fang

Prediction is very hard, particularly when it's about the future.

-- Yogi Berra

When you come to a fork in the road, take it.

-- Yogi Berra

The child who has not been disciplined with love by his little world will be disciplined, generally without love, by the big world.

-- Zig Ziglar

Firearms stand next in importance to the Constitution itself. They are the American people's liberty teeth and keystone under independance.

-- George Washington

...you understand the game behind the Curtain too well not to perceive the old trick of turning every contingency into a resource for accumulating force in the Government.

-- James Madison, in a letter to Thomas Jefferson, 14 March 1794

The facility and excess of law-making seem to be the diseases to which our governments are most liable.

-- James Madison, "The Federalist Papers", 1788

We have staked the whole future of the American civilization, not upon the power of the government (but) upon the capacity of each and all of us to govern ourselves, to control ourselves, to sustain ourselves, according to the Ten Commandments of God.

-- James Madison

A bad cause seldom fails to betray itself.

-- James Madison, The Federalist Papers

If this spirit shall ever be so far debased as to tolerate a law not obligatory on the legislature, as well as on the people, the people will be prepared to tolerate anything but liberty.

-- James Madison, The Federalist Papers, No. 57

If Congress can do whatever in their discretion can be done by money, the Government is no longer a limited one, possessing enumerated powers, but an indefinite one, subject to particular exceptions.

-- James Madison

All men having power ought to be distrusted to a certain degree.

-- James Madison, 1787, speech at the Constitutional Convention

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, Federalist Papers

"But it is reason, alone, of the public, that ought to control and regulate the government. The passions ought to be controlled and regulated by the government..."

-- James Madison, "The Debates in the Federal Convention of 1787"

Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man's character, give him power.

-- Abraham Lincoln

Men are not flattered by being shown that there has been a difference of purpose between the Almighty and them.

-- Abraham Lincoln

In regard to this great book, I have but to say, it is the best gift God has given to men. All the good the Saviour gave to the world was communicated through this book. But for it we could not know right from wrong.

-- Abraham Lincoln, "Remarks upon the Holy Scriptures, In Receiving the Present of a Bible from a Negro Delegation"

Let them beware of surrendering a political power which they already possess, and which, if surrendered, will surely be used to close the door of advancement against such as they, and to fix new disabilities and burdens upon them, till all of liberty shall be lost.

-- Abraham Lincoln, from a message to congress, 1861

The philosophy of the classroom in one generation is the philosophy of government in the next.

-- attributed to Abraham Lincoln

The only limit to our realization of tomorrow will be our doubts of today.

-- President Franklin D. Roosevelt

We have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion. Avarice, ambition, or revenge 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.

-- President John Quincy Adams, October 11, 1798, speech

The highest glory of the American Revolution was this: it connected in one indissolutable bond the principles of civil government with the principles of Christianity. From the day of the Declaration...they were bound by the laws of God, which they all, and by the laws of the Gospel, which they nearly all, acknowledge as the rules of their conduct.

-- President John Qunicy Adams

Politics are a labyrinth without a clue.

-- John Adams

Statesman, my dear Sir, may plan and speculate for liberty, but it is religion and morality alone which can establish the principles upon which Freedom can securely stand. The only foundation of a free Constitution is pure virtue.

-- John Adams, June 21, 1776

Those who stand for nothing fall for anything.

-- Alexander Hamilton

If the representatives of the people betray their constituents, there is then no resource left but in the exertion of that original right of self-defense which is paramount to all positive forms of government, and which against the usurpations of the national rulers, may be exerted with infinitely better prospect of success than against those of the rulers of an individual state. In a single state, if the persons intrusted with supreme power become usurpers, the different parcels, subdivisions, or districts of which it consists, having no distinct government in each, can take no regular measures for defense. The citizens must rush tumultuously to arms, without concert, without system, without resource; except in their courage and despair.

-- Alexander Hamilton, Federalist Papers No. 28

I ask you to judge me by the enemies I have made.

-- Franklin D. Roosevelt (1932)

On every question of construction let us carry ourselves back to the time when the Constitution was adopted, recollect the spirit manifested in the debates, and instead of trying to determine what meaning can be squeezed out of the text, or invented against it, conform to the probable one in which it was passed.

-- Thomas Jefferson, letter to William Johnson, 12-Jun-1823

No free man shall ever be debarred the use of arms.

-- Thomas Jefferson, Proposed Virgina Constitution (1776), Jefferson Papers 344

I find that the harder I work, the more luck I seem to have.

-- Thomas Jefferson

The price of freedom is eternal vigilance.

-- Thomas Jefferson

The Bible is the cornerstone of liberty. A student's perusal of the sacred volume will make him a better citizen, a better father, a better husband.

-- Thomas Jefferson

Whereas it appeareth that however certain forms of government are better calculated than others to protect individuals in the free exercise of their natural rights, and are at the same time themselves better guarded against degeneracy, yet experience hath shewn, that even under the best forms, those entrusted with power have, in time, and by slow operations, perverted it into tyranny...

-- Thomas Jefferson, "Preamble to a Bill for the More General Diffusion of Knowledge", 1778

In questions of power, then, let no more be heard of confidence in man, but bind him down from mischief by the chains of the Constitution.

-- Thomas Jefferson, The Kentucky Resolutions of 1798 (16-November-1798).

Men by their constitutions are naturally divided into two parties: 1. Those who fear and distrust the people, and wish to draw all powers from them into the hands of the higher classes. 2. Those who identify themselves with the people, have confidence in them, cherish and consider them as the most honest and safe, although not the most wise depositary of the public interests. In every country these two parties exist, and in every one where they are free to think, speak, and write, they will declare themselves.

-- Thomas Jefferson, Letter to Henry Lee (10 August 1824)

It's not me who can't keep a secret - it's the people I tell that can't.

-- Abraham Lincoln

Press on: nothing in the world can take the place of perseverance. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent.

-- Calvin Coolidge

It is not the critic who counts, not the man who points out how the strong man stumbled, or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by the dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes short again and again; who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions and spends himself in a worthy course; who at best, knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who, at worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be those cold and timid souls who know neither victory or defeat

-- Theodore Roosevelt

Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.

-- Theodore Roosevelt

Things are more like they are now than they ever were before.

-- Dwight D. Eisenhower

It has been said that freedom is merely the opportunity for self-discipline; when restraint is gone, so is the effectiveness of the democratic system.

-- Dwight D. Eisenhower, "Waging Peace"

If you want total security, go to prison. There you're fed, clothed, given medical care and so on. The only thing lacking... is freedom.

- Attributed to Dwight D. Eisenhower

Victory has a thousand fathers, but defeat is an orphan.

-- John F. Kennedy

A government big enough to give you everything you want is big enough to take away everything you have.

-- Gerald Ford

I used to say that politics is the second oldest profession, and I have come to know that it bears a gross similarity to the first.

-- Ronald Reagan

Government's view of the economy could be summed up in a few short phrases: If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. And if it stops moving, subsidize it.

-- Ronald Reagan

How do you tell a communist? Well, it's someone who reads Marx and Lenin. And how do you tell an anti-Communist? It's someone who understands Marx and Lenin.

-- Ronald Reagan

Politics is not a bad profession. If you succeed there are many rewards, if you disgrace yourself you can always write a book.

-- Ronald Reagan

The nine most terrifying words in the English language are, “I'm from the government and I'm here to help”.

-- Ronald Reagan

The best minds are not in government. If any were, business would hire them away.

-- Ronald Reagan

Government is not the answer to the problem - it IS the problem.

-- Ronald Reagan

Washington doesn't solve problems. It subsidizes them.

-- Ronald Reagan, November 1967

A Pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity. An Optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty.

-- Winston Churchill

Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of them pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing had happened.

-- Winston Churchill

A lie gets halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to get its pants on.

-- Winston Churchill

Character may be manifested in great choices but made in the small ones.

-- Winston Churchill

A fanatic is one who can't change his mind and won't change the subject.

-- Winston Churchill

He has all the virtues I dislike and none of the vices I admire.

-- Winston Churchill

It has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all the others that have been tried.

-- Winston Churchill

Personally I'm always ready to learn, although I do not always like being taught.

-- Winston Churchill

One ought never to turn one's back on a threatened danger and try to run away from it. If you do that, you will double the danger. But if you meet it promptly and without flinching, you will reduce the danger by half.

-- Winston Churchill

Never, never, never believe any war will be smooth and easy, or that anyone who embarks on the strange voyage can measure the tides and hurricanes he will encounter. The statesmen who yields to war fever must realize that once the signal is given, he is no longer the master of policy but the slave of unforeseeable and uncontrollable events.

-- Winston Churchill

The price of greatness is responsibility.

-- Winston Churchill

Success is the ability to go from one failure to another with no loss of enthusiasm.

-- Winston Churchill

We make a living by what we get, we make a life by what we give.

-- Winston Churchill

There are a terrible lot of lies going around the world, and the worst of it is half of them are true.

-- Winston Churchill

For myself I am an optimist – it does not seem to be much use being anything else.

-- Winston Churchill

Never give in – never, never, never, never, in nothing great or small, large or petty, never give in except to convictions of honour and good sense. Never yield to force; never yield to the apparently overwhelming might of the enemy.

-- Winston Churchill

The cemetery is full of indispensable people.

-- Winston Churchill

The best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter.

-- Winston Churchill

Once lead this people into war, and they'll forget there ever was such a thing as tolerance. To fight you must be brutal and ruthless, and the spirit of ruthless brutality will enter into the very fibre of our national life, infecting Congress, the courts, the policeman on the beat, the man in the street.

-- President Woodrow Wilson

They are done merely for ornament. ... the common people regard them as supernatural.

-- Xun-zi (ca. 215 BC), spoken in regard to religious rituals

A liberal is a person who'll give you the shirt off his neighbor's back.

-- Author Unknown

If you're not a liberal when you're 20, you have no heart. If you're a liberal when you're 50, you have no brain.

-- Author Unknown

Programming in C is unteachable. It is acquired through trial and error, chiefly error.

-- Author Unknown

There's good music and bad music, and there's music you like and music that you don't like. They're not the same thing.

-- Author Unknown

We are either a nation of laws, or a nation of outlaws.

-- Author Unknown

Ask twelve Americans for their opinion and you will get thirteen responses.

-- Author Unknown

When man works, man works. When man prays, God works.

-- Author Unknown

Twice is he armed whose who hath his quarrel just.

--Author unknown

Not everything that counts can be counted, and not everything that can be counted counts.

-- Author unknown

When all is said and done, more has been said than has been done.

-- Author unknown

A man is only as good as his word.

-- Author unknown

The truly educated man is that rare individual who can separate reality from illusion.

-- Author unknown

Today's headlines are tomorrows birdcage drop-sheets.

-- Author unknown

The cure should not be worse than the disease.

-- Author unknown

Only within constraints am I free.

-- Author unknown

No man ever became great doing as he pleased.

-- Author unknown

The early bird gets the worm, but the second mouse gets the cheese.

-- Author unknown

Faith is spelled R-I-S-K.

-- Author unknown

What a person is when he is a child is the fault of his parents. What a person is when he is an adult is the fault of himself.

-- Author unknown

Consistency is a hallmark of reality.

-- Author unknown

Those who are not willing to bleed and die for what they hold dear will always be held hostage by those who are.

-- Author unknown

To belittle is to be little.

-- Author unknown

There is very little future in being right when your boss is wrong.

-- Author unknown

Never attribute to malice what you can attribute to stupidity.

-- Author unknown

Two of the most famous products of Berkeley are LSD and Unix. I don't think that this is a coincidence.

-- Author unknown

A man surprised is half beaten.

-- Author unknown

If it isn't broken, don't fix it.

-- Author unknown

You are what you eat.

-- Author unknown

An absence of evidence is not an evidence of absence.

-- Author unknown

The difference between “involvement” and “commitment” is like an eggs-and-ham breakfast: the chicken was “involved” – the pig was “committed”.

-- Author unknown

Bravery is not a lack of fear – it is doing what needs to be done even when you are afraid.

-- Author unknown

Debugging is twice as hard as writing the code in the first place. Therefore, if you write the code as cleverly as possible, you are, by definition, not smart enough to debug it.

-- Author unknown

People prefer the devil they know to the devil they don't.

-- Author unknown

People prefer the devil they know to the God they don't.

-- Alan Conroy

The wise man learns from the mistakes of others. The fool doesn't even learn from his own. For myself, I hope I can be prudent. That is, even if I don't learn from the mistakes of others, at least I can avoid repeating my own mistakes.

-- Alan Conroy

There is no stronger bond known to man than that between an American Christian and his money.

-- Alan Conroy

Life has no meaning if you're dead.

-- Alan Conroy

The fool chatters whilst the wise man listens.

-- Chiun (from Remo Williams)

Certainly no legislation can be supposed more wholesome and necessary in the founding of a free, self-governing commonwealth... than that which seeks to establish it on the basis of the idea of the family, as consisting in and springing from the union for life of one man and one woman...

-- The United States Supreme Court, Murphy v. Ramsey, 1885

With much wisdom comes much sorrow; the more knowledge, the more grief.

-- King Solomon (Ecclesiastes 1:18)

The more the words, the less the meaning, and how does that profit anyone?

-- King Solomon (Ecclesiastes 6:11)

When the sentence for a crime is not quickly carried out, the hearts of the people are filled with schemes to do wrong.

-- King Solomon (Ecclesiastes 8:11)

Like a gold ring in a pig's snout is a beautiful woman who shows no discretion.

-- Proverbs 11:22 (NIV)

Whoever loves discipline loves knowledge, but he who hates correction is stupid.

-- Proverbs 12:1 (NIV)

A man's riches may ransom his life, but a poor man hears no threat.

-- Proverbs 13:8

There is a way that seems right to a man, but in the end it leads to death.

-- Proverbs 14:12 & 16:25 (NIV)

Even a fool is thought wise if he keeps silent, and discerning if he holds his tongue.

-- Proverbs 17:28 (NIV)

A fool finds no pleasure in understanding, but delights in airing his own opinions.

-- Proverbs 18:2 (NIV)

It is not good to have zeal without knowledge, nor to be hasty and miss the way.

-- Proverbs 19:2 (NIV)

A man's own folly ruins his life, yet his heart rages against the LORD.

-- Proverbs 19:3 (NIV)

Many a man claims to have unfailing love, but a faithful man who can find?

-- Proverbs 20:6 (NIV)

Better to live on a corner of the roof than share a house with a quarrelsome wife.

-- Proverbs 21:9 & 25:24 (NIV)

Better to live in a desert than with a quarrelsome and ill-tempered wife.

-- Proverbs 21:19 (NIV)

The rich rule over the poor, and the borrower is servant ot the lender.

-- Proverbs 22:7 (NIV)

A quarrelsome wife is like a constant dripping on a rainy day; restraining her is like restraining the wind or grasping oil with the hand.

-- Proverbs 27:15-16 (NIV)

He who rebukes a man will in the end gain more favor than he who has a flattering tongue.

-- Proverbs 28:23 (NIV)

The righteous care about justice for the poor, but the wicked have no such concern.

-- Proverbs 29:7 (NIV)

Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see.

-- Hebrews 11:1