Category: Quote of the Day

AVL’s Note: This week, I re-read Farmer Boy to remind myself of the natural wild edible plants that they ate in the late 1800s.  I read the last two pages of the story and they hit me like a ton of bricks and brought me to tears, for so many reasons.  For background, Almanzo’s father has just been asked by Mr. Paddock the Wheelwright if Mr. Wilder would apprentice his son, Almanzo, to him to be a wheelwright. Here is the conversation between Mother, Father, and nine-year-old Almanzo that evening at their dinner table: “Paddock makes good money,” said Father. …

“Having therefore these promises, dearly beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God. Receive us; we have wronged no man, we have corrupted no man, we have defrauded no man. I speak not this to condemn you: for I have said before, that ye are in our hearts to die and live with you. Great is my boldness of speech toward you, great is my glorying of you: I am filled with comfort, I am exceeding joyful in all our tribulation. For, when we were come into Macedonia, …

“Be merciful unto me, O God, be merciful unto me: for my soul trusteth in thee: yea, in the shadow of thy wings will I make my refuge, until these calamities be overpast. I will cry unto God most high; unto God that performeth all things for me. He shall send from heaven, and save me from the reproach of him that would swallow me up. Selah. God shall send forth his mercy and his truth. My soul is among lions: and I lie even among them that are set on fire, even the sons of men, whose teeth are …

“I place economy among the first and most important virtues and public debt as the greatest dangers to be feared … We must not let our rulers load us with perpetual debt. We must make our choice between economy and liberty or profusion and servitude … The same prudence which in private life would forbid our paying money for unexplained projects, forbids it in the disposition of public money. We are endeavoring to reduce the government to the practice of rigid economy to avoid burdening the people …” – Thomas Jefferson

“Educate your children to self-control, to the habit of holding passion and prejudice and evil tendencies subject to an upright and reasoning will, and you have done much to abolish misery from their future and crimes from society.” – Benjamin Frankin

“The entire argument for gun control is built upon a false premise. The second amendment is not about self-defense from criminals. As unpleasant as it may be for this modern society to say out loud, historically and constitutionally speaking, the right of the people to keep and bear arms has always been a right to protect yourself from those in power who want to enslave you. If America wants to engage in a real factual debate on the right to keep and bear arms, then it must be approached from the proper perspective. A proper debate on one’s right to …

“Historians of the future will have a hard time figuring out how so many organized groups of strident jackasses succeeded in leading us around by the nose and morally intimidating the majority into silence.” –  Thomas Sowell

“Unless the people, through unified action, arise and take charge of their government, they will find that their government has taken charge of them. Independence and liberty will be gone, and the general public will find itself in a condition of servitude to an aggregation of organized and selfish interest.” – Calvin Coolidge

“And I say unto you my friends, Be not afraid of them that kill the body, and after that have no more that they can do. But I will forewarn you whom ye shall fear: Fear him, which after he hath killed hath power to cast into hell; yea, I say unto you, Fear him. Are not five sparrows sold for two farthings, and not one of them is forgotten before God? But even the very hairs of your head are all numbered. Fear not therefore: ye are of more value than many sparrows. Also I say unto you, Whosoever …

“Fear thou not; for I am with thee: be not dismayed; for I am thy God: I will strengthen thee; yea, I will help thee; yea, I will uphold thee with the right hand of my righteousness.” – Isaiah 41:10 (KJV)

“Many of the greatest tyrants on the records of history have begun their reigns in the fairest manner. But the truth is, this unnatural power corrupts both the heart and the understanding.” –  Edmund Burke

“Beto’s copy of the Bill of Rights goes from one to three. Mine includes the Second Amendment. But there are a whole host of people here in Washington… they would be happy to confiscate America’s guns. And if you don’t believe that, then you probably also still believe in Bigfoot.”  –  Congressman John Neely Kennedy of Louisiana

“Since the earliest colonial days, Americans have been busily manufacturing and repairing arms. In the colonies, the ability to defend one’s home and community, hunt, fight wars, and ultimately win American independence depended largely on the ability to produce arms. For the newly independent nation, arms production was critical to repel invasions and insurrections, and eventually, to western expansion. The skill was always valued and in demand, and many Americans made their own arms rather than depend on others. Americans continued producing their own arms in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, leading to some of the greatest technological breakthroughs in …

“We’ve always been one catastrophic failure away from the end of it all, and this just makes everyone conscious of it. Maybe that’s not a bad thing. Makes you appreciate the day you have.” – Will Patton as Deputy Marnes, in Silo, Episode 3, Machines. (Screenplay by Ingrid Escajeda, based on the novel Dust, by Hugh Howey.)

“The reason fat men are good-natured is they can neither fight nor run.” –  Theodore Roosevelt