Category: Quote of the Day

“All the lessons of history and experience must be lost upon us if we are content to trust alone to the peculiar advantages we happen to possess.” – Martin Van Buren

“We still proclaim the old ideals of liberty but we cannot voice them without anxiety in our hearts. The question is no longer one of establishing democratic institutions but of preserving them. … The arch enemies of society are those who know better but by indirection, misstatement, understatement, and slander, seek to accomplish their concealed purposes or to gain profit of some sort by misleading the public. The antidote for these poisons must be found in the sincere and courageous efforts of those who would preserve their cherished freedom by a wise and responsible use of it. Freedom of expression …

“The President can exercise no power which cannot be fairly and reasonably traced to some specific grant of power in the Federal Constitution or in an act of Congress passed in pursuance thereof. There is no undefined residuum of power which he can exercise because it seems to him to be in the public interest.” – President William Howard Taft

“We must not forget that when radium was discovered no one knew that it would prove useful in hospitals. The work was one of pure science. And this is a proof that scientific work must not be considered from the point of view of the direct usefulness of it. It must be done for itself, for the beauty of science, and then there is always the chance that a scientific discovery may become like the radium a benefit for mankind.” – Marie Curie

“Our country – In her intercourse with foreign nations may she always be in the right, and always successful, right or wrong.” – Stephen Decatur, from a toast at a dinner in Norfolk, Virginia (April 1816) as reported in Niles’ Weekly Register (Baltimore, Maryland), April 20, 1816

“When Jesus therefore perceived that they would come and take him by force, to make him a king, he departed again into a mountain himself alone.” – John 6:15 (KJV)

“And it came to pass, when Pharaoh had let the people go, that God led them not through the way of the land of the Philistines, although that was near; for God said, Lest peradventure the people repent when they see war, and they return to Egypt: but God led the people about, through the way of the wilderness of the Red sea: and the children of Israel went up harnessed out of the land of Egypt. And Moses took the bones of Joseph with him: for he had straitly sworn the children of Israel, saying, God will surely visit …

“Believe only half of what you see and nothing that you hear.” – Edgar Allen Poe

“Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty; power is ever stealing from the many to the few. The manna of popular liberty must be gathered each day or it is rotten. The living sap of today outgrows the dead rind of yesterday. The hand entrusted with power becomes, either form human depravity or esprit de corps, the necessary enemy of the people. Only by continued oversight can the democrat in office be prevented from hardening into a despot; only by unintermitted agitation can a people be sufficiently awake to principle not to let liberty be smothered in material prosperity.” – …

“The poorest man may in his cottage bid defiance to all the forces of the Сrown. It may be frail – its roof may shake – the wind may blow through it – the storm may enter – the rain may enter – but the King of England cannot enter.” – William Pitt

“Thought and theory must precede all action, that moves to salutary purposes. Yet action is nobler in itself than either thought or theory.” – William Wordsworth

“There is a vulgar incredulity, which in historical matters, as well as in those of religion, finds it easier to doubt than to examine.” – Sir Walter Scott (1771-1832), introduction to The Fair Maid of Perth (1828)

“For this cause many are weak and sickly among you, and many sleep. For if we would judge ourselves, we should not be judged. But when we are judged, we are chastened of the Lord, that we should not be condemned with the world.” – 1 Corinthians 11:30-32 (KJV)

Then the Lord said to Moses, “Go to Pharaoh, for I have hardened his heart and the heart of his servants, that I may perform these signs of Mine among them, and that you may tell in the hearing of your son, and of your grandson, how I made a mockery of the Egyptians and how I performed My signs among them, that you may know that I am the Lord.” – Exodus 10:1-2 (NASB)

“The happiness of life is made up of minute fractions — the little soon forgotten charities of a kiss or smile, a kind look, a heartfelt compliment, and the countless infinitesimals of pleasurable and genial feeling.” – Samuel Taylor Coleridge, “The Friend. The Improvisatore” (1828)