Jim’s Quote of the Day:
“Wait on the Lord, be of good courage, and He shall strengthen thine heart. Wait, I say on the Lord." – Psalm 27:14
“Wait on the Lord, be of good courage, and He shall strengthen thine heart. Wait, I say on the Lord." – Psalm 27:14
“You must never confuse faith that you will prevail in the end – which you can never afford to lose – with the discipline to confront the most brutal facts of your current reality, whatever they might be.” – Vice Admiral James B. Stockdale, Stockdale’s Paradox
"It is good to keep in mind that the screw that tightens the mechanism is also the one that loosens it." – From a Japanese air rifle manual, circa 1971
“No one was psychologically prepared for hard times when they hit, because, according to the tenets of positive thinking, even to think of trouble is to bring it on. Americans did not start out as deluded optimists. The original ethos, at least of white Protestant settlers and their descendants, was a grim Calvinism that offered wealth only through hard work and savings, and even then made no promises at all. You might work hard and still fail; you certainly wouldn’t get anywhere by adjusting your attitude or dreamily ‘visualizing’ success.” – Barbara Ehrenreich
“A government by representatives, elected by the people at short periods, was our object; and our maxim at that day was, ‘Where annual election ends, tyranny begins.’” – Thomas Jefferson, letter to Samuel Adams, February 26, 1800
"We may be tossed upon an ocean where we can see no land nor, perhaps, the sun and stars. But there is a chart and a compass for us to study, to consult, and to obey. The chart is the Constitution." – Daniel Webster
"A wise and frugal government, which shall restrain men from injuring one another, which shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned. This is the sum of good government, and all that is necessary to close the circle of our felicities." – Thomas Jefferson, in his 1801 Inaugural Address
“By this we have come to know love, because He laid down His life for us. And we also ought to lay down our lives in behalf of our brothers. But whoever has this world’s goods, and sees his brother having need, and shuts off his compassion towards him, how does the love of God abide in him? My little children, let us not love in word or in tongue, but in deed and in truth.” – 1 John 3:16-18
"A gun is a tool, Marian; no better or no worse than any other tool:–an axe, a shovel or anything. A gun is as good or as bad as the man using it. Remember that." – Alan Ladd as Shane – Shane, 1953. (Screenplay by A.B. Guthie, Jr. and Jack Sher)
"You and I as individuals can, by borrowing, live beyond our means, but only for a limited period of time. Why should we think that collectively, as a nation, we are not bound by that same limitation?" – President Ronald Wilson Reagan
"To be successful, you must decide exactly what you want to accomplish, then resolve to pay the price to get it." – Nelson Bunker Hunt
“Until they realize that their agenda is destroying the life savings of millions of Americans, then all I can give you is caution… I’m not saying Mr. President go stare at the Bloomberg quote machine and come to your senses. I just want some sign that Obama realizes the market is totally falling apart and that his agenda has a big hand in that happening. I don’t know about you but I felt it everywhere I went this weekend… A young kid took me aside. He said I was right when I said we’ve elected a Leninist… I felt the …
“For what, after all, is the stimulus package attempting to stimulate? A restrained life of living within our means? No. It’s stimulating consumption. All the big talk of get the credit markets moving again, banks healthy again, balance sheets strong again comes down to this: we need little Susie [Homemaker] to get a loan for a really cool new car she can live without, drive it to a shopping mall to buy cr*p she doesn’t need with a credit card she shouldn’t have, and return to a home mortgaged at a price higher than she can afford. That way, when …
“When watching men of power in action it must be always kept in mind that, whether they know it or not, their main purpose is the elimination or neutralization of the independent individual — the independent voter, consumer, worker, owner, thinker — and that every device they employ aims at turning man into a manipulatable “animated instrument,” which is Aristotle’s definition of a slave.” – Eric Hoffer, The Ordeal of Change (1963)
"If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land." – 2 Chronicles 7:14 (KJV)