Now to what higher object, to what greater character, can any mortal aspire than to be possessed of all this knowledge, well digested and ready at command, to assist the feeble and friendless, to discountenance the haughty and lawless, to procure redress to wrongs, the advancement of rights, to assert and maintain liberty and virtue to discourage and abolish tyranny and vice.
Posterity! you will never know how much it cost the present generation to preserve your freedom! I hope you will make a good use of it. If you do not, I shall repent in Heaven that I ever took half the pains to preserve it.
A government of laws, and not of men.
We hear very often declarations on the demoralizing tendency of war, but as much as I hate war, I cannot be of the opinion that frequent wars are so corrupting to human nature as long peaces.
But I am bold to say there is not a fact nor a reason stated in it, which had not been frequently urged in Congress. The temper and wishes of the people supplied every thing at that time; and the phrases, suitable for an emigrant from Newgate, or one who had chiefly associated with such company, such as, “The Royal Brute of England,” “The blood upon his soul,” and a few others of equal delicacy, had as much weight with the people as his arguments.
The national defense must be provided for as well as the support of Government; but both should be accomplished as much as possible by immediate taxes, and as little as possible by loans.
He wrote as a young man that God’s noblest gift was the gift of an inquiring mind.
Statesmen, my dear Sir, may plan and speculate for Liberty, but it is Religion and Morality alone, which can establish the Principles upon which Freedom can securely stand.
Because power corrupts, society’s demands for moral authority and character increase as the importance of the position increases.
Power always thinks it has a great soul and vast views beyond the comprehension of the weak, and that it is doing God’s service when it is violating all His laws.
Of all persecuted sects, the Baptists stand forth as most prominent, simply and only because they aim at a more complete and thorough reform than any others ever attempted. They teach that Christ’s kingdom is not of this world; that the church is not a national, political, or provincial establishment; but a congregation of holy men, separated from the world by the receiving of the Holy Spirit.
A politician in this country must be the man of a party. I would fain be the man of my whole country.
Be a great speaker, become a leader.
They almost killed me.” “I guess they didn’t.
They say you can’t remember pain – the fact of it, yes, but the truth of it, the physical texture of agony? Gone and forgotten. Which makes it easy to forget that pain hurts, that the wounded life isn’t always worth living.
It is only when we have the courage to face things exactly as they are, without any self-deception or illusion, that a light will develop out of events, by which the path to success may be recognized.
The city has millions of stories that I don’t know. Never did and never will.
The lone attendant wasn’t paying any attention to the register; he just stood, mouth half open, holding the remote like maybe if he could change the channel he could change the future. The Moon was gone.
Enjoy the moment. We don’t have forever.
You are so ridiculous,” said the lion. “Thinking that your thinking is worth thinking about.