Category: Quote of the Week

“Freedom is not defined by safety. Freedom is defined by the ability of citizens to live without government interference. Government cannot create a world without risks, nor would we really wish to live in such a fictional place. Only a totalitarian society would even claim absolute safety as a worthy ideal, because it would require total state control over its citizens’ lives. Liberty has meaning only if we still believe in it when terrible things happen and a false government security blanket beckons.” – Dr. Ron Paul

“When I speak of home, I speak of the place where—in default of a better—those I love are gathered together; and if that place were a gypsy’s tent, or a barn, I should call it by the same good name notwithstanding.” – Charles Dickens

“We have a system that increasingly taxes work and subsidizes nonwork.” – Milton Friedman

“Many Americans who say that we should learn from other people, especially Europeans, mean that we should imitate what they did. That may make those who talk this way feel superior to other Americans. But let us never forget that the most disastrous ideologies of the 20th century — Communism, Fascism and Nazism — all originated in Europe. So did both World Wars. More recently, Europe has been belatedly discovering how unbelievably stupid it was to import millions of people from cultures that despise Western values, and which often promote hatred toward Western people.” – Thomas Sowell

“It is a universal truth that the loss of liberty at home is to be charged to the provisions against danger, real or pretended, from abroad.” – James Madison

“There’s risks that come from people misusing AI, and that’s most of the risks and all of the short-term risks. And then there’s risks that come from AI getting super smart and understanding it doesn’t need us.” – 2024 Nobel Laureate Geoffrey Hinton

“Behold, I have longed after thy precepts: quicken me in thy righteousness. Let thy mercies come also unto me, O Lord, even thy salvation, according to thy word. So shall I have wherewith to answer him that reproacheth me: for I trust in thy word. And take not the word of truth utterly out of my mouth; for I have hoped in thy judgments. So shall I keep thy law continually for ever and ever. And I will walk at liberty: for I seek thy precepts. I will speak of thy testimonies also before kings, and will not be ashamed. …

“Courage is not simply one of the virtues but the form of every virtue at the testing point, which means at the point of highest reality.” – C.S. Lewis, as quoted in Cyril Connolly’s ‘The Unquiet Grave’ (1944) Chapter 31

“Bring ye all the tithes into the storehouse, that there may be meat in mine house, and prove me now herewith, saith the LORD of hosts, if I will not open you the windows of heaven, and pour you out a blessing, that there shall not be room enough to receive it.” – Malachi 3:10 (KJV) 

“I don’t believe in luck. I believe in preparation.” – Basketball coach Bobby Knight (1940-2023)

“It’s government’s role to inform us of risks and let us use personal responsibility to evaluate that risk ourselves.” – Lauren Boebert

“We say, then, that Scripture clearly proves this much, that God by his eternal and immutable counsel determined once for all those whom it was his pleasure one day to admit to salvation, and those whom, on the other hand, it was his pleasure to doom to destruction. We maintain that this counsel, as regards the elect, is founded on his free mercy, without any respect to human worth, while those whom he dooms to destruction are excluded from access to life by a just and blameless, but at the same time incomprehensible judgment.” – John Calvin

“I am apt to believe that it will be celebrated, by succeeding Generations, as the great anniversary Festival. It ought to be commemorated, as the Day of Deliverance by solemn Acts of Devotion to God Almighty. It ought to be solemnized with Pomp and Parade, with Shews, Games, Sports, Guns, Bells, Bonfires and Illuminations from one End of this Continent to the other from this Time forward forever more.” – John Adams, in a letter to his wife Abigail, 1776

“The Constitution … is a mere thing of wax in the hands of the judiciary which they may twist and shape into any form they please.” – Thomas Jefferson, letter to Judge Spencer Roane, September 6, 1819

“Justice is the constant and perpetual wish to render to every one his due.” – Emperor Justinian I, ‘Institutes’ bk. 1, ch. 1, para. 1