“Congress has no power to appropriate money as an act of charity. As individuals, Americans have the right to give away as much money as they please, but Congress has no right to take our money from us and give it away, however worthy the recipient.” – Tennessee Congressman David "Davy" Crockett, from The Life of Colonel David Crockett, by Edward Sylvester Ellis (Philadelphia: Porter & Coates, 1884)
“I sincerely believe . . . that banking establishments are more dangerous than standing armies, and that the principle of spending money to be paid by posterity, under the name of funding, is but swindling futurity on a large scale.” – Thomas Jefferson
"He who would do some great things in this short life must apply himself to work with such a concentration of force as, to idle spectators who live only to amuse themselves, looks like insanity." – Francis Parkman, author of "The Oregon Trail"
"Upon the plains of hesitation bleach the bones of countless millions, who when on the dawn of victory paused to rest, and there resting died." – John Dretschmer
"Good judgment comes from experience. And where does experience come from? Experience comes from bad judgment." – Mark Twain
“When the government’s boot is on your throat, whether it is a left boot or a right boot is of no consequence.” – Gary Lloyd
"Excellence is an art won by training and habituation. We do not act rightly because we have virtue or excellence, but rather we have those because we have acted rightly. We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act but a habit." – Aristotle
“It is important for the human race to spread out into space for the survival of the species… Life on Earth is at the ever-increasing risk of being wiped out by a disaster, such as sudden global warming, nuclear war, a genetically engineered virus or other dangers we have not yet thought of.” – Stephen Hawking
“We have discovered that the scheme of ‘outlawing war’ has made war more like an outlaw without making it less frequent, and, that to banish the knight, does not alleviate the suffering of the peasant.” – C.S. Lewis
"Hiding may be a tactic, but it is never a strategy." – Fred the Rifleman
"The state that separates its scholars from its warriors will have its thinking done by cowards, and its fighting by fools." – Thucydides
“The only purpose of a government is to protect a man’s rights, which means: To protect him from physical violence. A proper government is only a policeman, an agent of man’s self defense, and, as such, may resort to force only against those who start the use of force. The only proper function s of a government are: The police, to protect you from criminals; the army, to protect you from foreign invaders; and the courts, to protect your property and contracts from breach or fraud from others, to settle disputes by rational rules, according to objective laws. – John …
“Man’s mind is his basic tool of survival. Life is given to him, survival is not. His body is given to him, its sustenance is not. His mind is given to him, its content is not. To remain alive, he must act, and before he can act, he must know the nature and purpose of his action. He cannot obtain food without a knowledge of food and of the way to obtain it. He cannot dig a ditch — or build a cyclotron — without a knowledge of his aim and the means to achieve it. To remain alive, he …
"Those gentlemen, who will be elected senators, will fix themselves in the federal town, and become citizens of that town more than of your state." – George Mason
"Personal honor, decency, and courage are the basis of any successful civilization. Moral and virtuous citizens form the rock of any successful society. Toleration of, and eventual encouragement of, corruption, iniquity, and sleaziness unfailingly mark the decline of a civilization." – John Farnam