Category: Quote of the Day

"One of these days, one of these (rogue) governments fabricates one or two nuclear weapons, and gives them to a terrorist group…The group brings one of these bombs into Baltimore by boat, and drives another one up to Pittsburgh. And then the message comes into the White House. Adjust your policy in the Middle East, or on Tuesday you lose Baltimore, and on Wednesday you lose Pittsburgh. Tuesday comes and we lose Baltimore. What does the U.S. do?" – Ambassador Robert Galucci, Former U.S. Arms Negotiator, Dean of Georgetown University School of Foreign Service

“At the end of the 17th century, Marshal Vauban, a French military engineer, developed modern fortification to its pinnacle, refining siege warfare without fundamentally altering it: ditches would be dug; walls would be protected by glacis; and bastions would enfilade an attacker. He was also a master of planning sieges themselves. Before Vauban, sieges had been somewhat slapdash operations. Vauban refined besieging to a science with a methodical process that, if uninterrupted, would break even the strongest fortifications. Examples of Vauban-style fortresses in North America include Fort McHenry in Baltimore, Maryland, Fort Ticonderoga in New York State, and La Citadelle …

"I am only one, but I am one. I cannot do everything, but I can do something. And because I cannot do everything, I will not refuse to do the something that I can do. What I can do, I should do. And what I should do, by the grace of God, I will do." – Edward Everett Hale

“But when ye go over Jordan, and dwell in the land which the Lord your God giveth you to inherit, and when he giveth you rest from all your enemies round about, so that ye dwell in safety; then there shall be a place which the Lord your God shall choose to cause his name to dwell there.”  Deuteronomy 12:10-11 (KJV)

"It does not require a majority to prevail, but rather an irate, tireless minority keen to set brush fires in people’s minds." – Samuel Adams

"We are never prepared for what we expect."  – James A. Michener, Caravans

I try to keep my daily quotes short, so forgive me for subjecting you to four stanzas. But that article from Jeff in Afghanistan reminded me of Kipling… If, by Rudyard Kipling If you can keep your head when all about you Are losing theirs and blaming it on you; If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you, But make allowance for their doubting too; If you can wait and not be tired by waiting; Or, being lied about, don’t deal in lies, Or, being hated, don’t give way to hating; And yet don’t look too good, nor …

"You cannot invade the mainland United States. There would be a rifle behind each blade of grass." – Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto

“Are you going to tell the soldier to shoot the soccer mom trying to get her kids out of the city in her minivan?” – Ed Richards, a Louisiana State University law professor, on using the military to enforce quarantines, as quoted at GovExec.com

“A pandemic is going to be a catastrophic nightmare. What we’re going to be doing is trying to make it less of a nightmare.” – Dr. Georges Benjamin, executive director of the American Public Health Association, on preparations for a possible bird-flu pandemic, as recently quoted in GovExec.com.

“A billion dollars isn’t what it used to be.” – Nelson Bunker Hunt

"The right of the citizens to keep and bear arms has justly been considered, as the palladium of the liberties of a republic; since it offers a strong moral check against the usurpation and arbitrary power of rulers; and will generally, even if these are successful in the first instance, enable the people to resist and triumph over them." – Supreme Court Justice Joseph Story (Appointed by James Madison)

“..the simple truth — born of experience — is that tyranny thrives best where government need not fear the wrath of an armed people.The prospect of tyranny may not grab the headlines the way vivid stories of gun crime routinely do. But few saw the Third Reich coming until it was too late. The Second Amendment is a doomsday provision, one designed for those exceptionally rare circumstances where all other rights have failed — where the government refuses to stand for reelection and silences those who protest; where courts have lost the courage to oppose, or can find no one …

“I believe that liberty is the only genuinely valuable thing that men have invented, at least in the field of government, in a thousand years. I believe that it is better to be free than to be not free, even when the former is dangerous and the latter safe. I believe that the finest qualities of man can flourish only in free air – that progress made under the shadow of the policeman’s club is false progress, and of no permanent value. I believe that any man who takes the liberty of another into his keeping is bound to become …

"A few honest men are better than numbers." – Oliver Cromwell