Category: Quote of the Day

"The most expensive thing in the world is a second-best military establishment, good but not good enough to win." – Robert A. Heinlein, "The Happy Days Ahead" in Expanded Universe

"If a man neglects to enforce his rights, he cannot complain if, after a while, the law follows his example." – Oliver Wendell Holmes

"In Italy, for thirty years under the Borgias, they had warfare, terror, murder and bloodshed, but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, and the Renaissance. In Switzerland they had brotherly love, they had five hundred years of democracy and peace, and what did they produce? The cuckoo clock." – Orson Welles as Harry Lime in The Third Man (Screenplay by Graham Greene)

"I tell ye true, liberty is the best of all things; never live beneath the noose of a servile halter." – William Wallace, Address to the Scots, circa 1300

"Strategy without tactics is the slowest route to victory. Tactics without strategy is the noise before defeat." – Sun Tzu

“Naturally, as with every opportunity, equally true is the fact that the country is standing on the edge of a cliff which threatens to take us downhill if we do not move boldly forward with speed to address most our shortcomings.” – Zimbabwean Reserve Bank Governor Gideon Gono, describing Zimbabwe’s economy, in a speech on his monetary policy in late January, 2006. (This statement was a classic Freudian slip, since Zimbabwe’s economy is indeed “moving forward with speed” off  “the edge of a cliff.” The Zimbabwean dollar’s inflation rate recently jumped back up to 585%, and climbing.)

"Individual rights are not subject to a public vote; a majority has no right to vote away the rights of a minority; the political function of rights is precisely to protect minorities from oppression by majorities (and the smallest minority on earth is the individual)." – Ayn Rand

"To be successful, you must decide exactly what you want to accomplish, then resolve to pay the price to get it." – Nelson Bunker Hunt

"This course is dedicated to the idiotic proposition that you can be taught the fundamentals of Organic chemistry, Inorganic chemistry, Qualitative analysis, Quantitative analysis, Physical chemistry, and Biochemistry all in one semester. The odds against any of you passing this course would be staggering to contemplate if there were any time for contemplation. However, there is not. Get out your notebooks." – Max Shulman in The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis

"But if anyone provide not for his own, and specifically for those of his own house, he hath denied the faith, and is worse than an infidel." – Timothy 5:8 (KJV)

"If you think about disaster, you will get it. Brood about death and you hasten your demise. Think positively and masterfully, with confidence and faith, and life becomes more secure, more fraught with action, richer in achievement and experience." – Aviator Edward Rickenbacker (1890-1973).

"Of course, our failures are a consequence of many factors, but possibly one of the most important is the fact that society operates on the theory that specialization is the key to success, not realizing that specialization precludes comprehensive thinking." – R. Buckminster Fuller, Operating Manual for Spaceship Earth, 1963

“Rome wasn’t built in a day — but it burned in one.”  –  Rourke http://groups.yahoo.com/group/survivalretreat

“The average man’s love of liberty is nine-tenths imaginary. It takes a special sort of man to understand and enjoy liberty — and he is usually an outlaw in democratic societies.” – H.L. Mencken

"We are apt to shut our eyes against a painful truth…For my part, whatever anguish of spirit it may cost, I am willing to know the whole truth; to know the worst, and to provide for it. I have but one lamp by which my feet are guided; and that is the lamp of experience. I know of no way of judging the future but by the past. Let us not, I  beseech you, sir, deceive ourselves longer." – Patrick Henry, 1736-1799