"No one can read our Constitution without concluding that the people who wrote it wanted their government severely limited; the words ‘no’ and ‘not’ employed in restraint of government power occur 24 times in the first seven articles of the Constitution and 22 more times in the Bill of Rights." – Edmund A. Opitz
“Nothing is ever what it seems, but everything is exactly what its is.” – Buckaroo Banzai (as quoted in Pinky Carruthers’ Unknown Facts)
"The Lord is good, a refuge in times of trouble. He cares for those who trust in Him." – Nahum 1:7
“No battle plan ever survives contact with the enemy.” – Field Marshall Helmuth Carl Bernard von Moltke
"Pets are always a great help in times of stress. And in times of starvation too, o’course." – Terry Pratchett, Small Gods
“I wish I didn’t know now, what I didn’t know then.” – Bob Seger, from “Running Against the Wind“
"Something funny is happening down at the bank." – Jimmy Stewart in It’s a Wonderful Life (Screenplay by Frances Goodrich, Albert Hackett, and Frank Capra.)
“Well, I guess we don’t get to make fun of Burt’s [survivalist] lifestyle anymore.” – Fred Ward as Earl Bassett in Tremors, (1990). (Screenplay by S.S. Wilson and Brent Maddock.)
"It is tempting to deny the existence of evil since denying it removes the need to fight it." – Alexis Carrel
"Thank God every morning when you get up that you have something to do which must be done, whether you like it or not. Being forced to work, and forced to do your best, will breed in you temperance, self-control, diligence, strength of will, content, and a hundred other virtues which the idle never know." – Charles Kingsley (1819 – 1875)
"There is nothing which persevering effort and unceasing and diligent care can not accomplish." – Seneca (4 BC – 65 AD)
“It’s best for anyone who’s been in the military service if he’s had some disagreeable experiences… to talk about it and get it out of his system and then forget it.” – Frank Woodruff Buckles (America’s last surviving WWI Veteran, age 107)
“God forbid we should ever be twenty years without such a rebellion. The people cannot be all, and always, well informed. The part which is wrong will be discontented, in proportion to the importance of the facts they misconceive. If they remain quiet under such misconceptions, it is lethargy, the forerunner of death to the public liberty. … And what country can preserve its liberties, if it’s rulers are not warned from time to time, that this people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms. The remedy is to set them right as to the facts, pardon and …
“For a quarter century, those who recalled Charles Mackay’s [non-fiction book] Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds and its many successors, and pointed out that uncontrolled speculation always ends the same dismal way, were told that they ought to shut up until they learned something about economics. Sober warnings from distinguished scholars were drowned out by a chorus of cheerleading, while less prestigious voices were pushed out to the fringes of the blogosphere. What is now painfully clear is that those marginalized voices were right all along, and their warnings could have spared us a massive economic disaster …
‘If we find our government in all its branches rushing headlong… into the arms of monarchy, if we find them violating our dearest rights, the trial by jury, the freedom of the press, the freedom of opinion, civil or religious, or opening on our peace of mind or personal safety the sluices of terrorism, if we see them raising standing armies, when the absence of all other danger points to these as the sole objects on which they are to be employed, then indeed let us withdraw and call the nation to its tents. But while our functionaries are wise, …