Normando's Favorite Quotes

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Don't be discouraged by a failure. It can be a positive experience. Failure is, in a sense, the highway to success, inasmuch as every discovery of what is false leads us to seek earnestly after what is true, and every fresh experience points out some form of error which we shall afterwards carefully avoid. – John Keats
The one absolute certain way to bring this nation to ruin... would be to permit it to become a tangle of squabbling nationalities. – Theodore Roosevelt
Maturity is the ability to do a job whether or not you are supervised, to carry money without spending it and to bear an injustice without wanting to get even. – Ann Landers
I have always strenuously supported the right of every man to his own opinion, however different that opinion might be to mine. He who denies another this right makes a slave of himself to his present opinion, because he precludes himself the right of changing it. – Thomas Paine
There can be no fifty-fifty Americanism in this country. There is room here for only 100 % Americanism, only for those who are Americans and nothing else. – Theodore Roosevelt
To admit foreigners indiscriminately to the rights of citizens the moment they put foot in our country would be nothing less than to admit the Grecian horse into the citadel of our liberty and sovereignty. – Alexander Hamilton
The United States has become a place where entertainers and professional athletes are mistaken for people of importance. – Robert A. Heinlein
An armed society is a polite society. Manners are good when one may have to back up his acts with his life. – Robert A. Heinlein
The notion that a radical is one who hates his country is naive and usually idiotic. He is, more likely, one who likes his country more than the rest of us, and is thus more disturbed than the rest of us when he sees it debauched. He is not a bad citizen turning to crime; he is a good citizen driven to despair. – H. L. Mencken
Having blessed with ears does not guarantee that you will understand everything that has been said to you. – Mwanandeke Kindembo
Courage is fear holding on a minute longer. – George S. Patton
In those wretched countries where a man cannot call his tongue his own, he can scarce call anything his own. Whoever would overthrow the liberty of a nation must begin by subduing the freeness of speech. – Benjamin Franklin
Censorship is telling a man he can't have a steak just because a baby can't chew it. – Mark Twain
It is a basic principle of a tyrant to unarm his people of weapons, money, and all means whereby they resist his power. – Sir Walter Raleigh
The right to be heard does not automatically include the right to be taken seriously. – Hubert H. Humphrey
Can anybody point me to that one time in history where the side that was demanding censorship, segregation, propaganda, radical education, papers to move freely in society, plus government forces going door to door to demand compliance were the good guys? – Candace Owens
The further a society drifts from truth the more it will hate those who speak it. – George Orwell
Most men pursue pleasure with such breathless haste that they hurry past it. – Soren Kierkegaard
A poet is an unhappy being whose heart it torn by secret sufferings, but whose lips are so strangely formed that when the sighs and the cries escape them, they sound like beautiful music... and then people crowd about the poet and say to him: "Sing for us soon again;" that is as much as to say. "May new sufferings torment your soul." – Soren Kierkegaard
A man’s natural rights are his own, against the whole world; and any infringement of them is equally a crime… whether committed by one man, calling himself a robber… or by millions, calling themselves a government. – Lysander Spooner
With such (collectivist) systems, the individual has always been a victim, twisted against him or herself and commanded to be “unselfish” in sacrificial service to some allegedly higher value called God or pharaoh or emperor or king or society or the state or the race or the proletariat - or the cosmos. It is a strange paradox of our history that this doctrine - which tells us to regard ourselves, in effect, as sacrificial animals - has been generally accepted as a doctrine representing benevole – Nathaniel Branden
To be GOVERNED is to be kept in sight, inspected, spied upon, directed, law-driven, numbered, enrolled, indoctrinated, preached at, controlled, estimated, valued, censured, commanded, by creatures who have neither the right, nor the wisdom, nor the virtue to do so. . . To be GOVERNED is to be at every operation, at every transaction, noted, registered, enrolled, taxed, stamped, measured, numbered, assessed, licensed, authorized, admonished, forbidden, reformed, corrected, punished. It is, under – Pierre-Joseph Proudhon
The busy bee has no time for sorrow. – William Blake
I make the most of all that comes, and the least of all that goes. – Sara Teasdale
The snow doesn't give a soft white damn whom it touches. – E. E. Cummings
Forty is the old age of youth while fifty is the youth of old age. – Victor Hugo
How can a universe of mindless matter produce beings with intrinsic ends, self replicating capabilities, and coded chemistry? – Antony Flew
Even if I knew that tomorrow the world would go to pieces, I would still plant my apple tree. – Martin Luther
One of the hardest things to teach a child is that the truth is more important than the consequences. – O. A. Battista
Honor is like an island, rugged and without a beach; once we have left it, we can never return. – Nicolas Boileau-Despréaux
Live your life so that whenever you lose, you are ahead. – Will Rogers
When I walk with you I feel as if I had a flower in my buttonhole. – William Makepeace Thackeray
To love and win is the best thing. To love and lose, the next best. – William Makepeace Thackeray
The First Amendment says nothing about a right not to be offended. The risk of finding someone else's speech offensive is the price each of us pays for our own free speech. Free people don't run to court, or to the principal, when they encounter a message they don't like. They answer it with one of their own. – Jeff Jacoby
If there is a bedrock principle of the First Amendment, it is that the government may not prohibit the expression of an idea simply because society finds the idea itself offensive or disagreeable. – Justice William J. Brennan
In my youth I travelled much, and I observed in different countries, that the more public provisions were made for the poor, the less they provided for themselves, and of course became poorer. And, on the contrary, the less was done for them, the more they did for themselves, and became richer. There is no country in the world where so many provisions are established for them; so many hospitals to receive them when they are sick or lame, founded and maintained by voluntary charities; so many alm – Benjamin Franklin
When you talk, you repeat what you already know. When you listen, you often learn something. – Jared Sparks
Never separate the life you live from the words you speak. – Paul Wellstone
The secret of being miserable is to have the leisure to bother about whether you are happy or not. The cure is occupation. – George Bernard Shaw
Don’t be in a hurry to condemn because he doesn’t do what you do or think as you think or as fast. There was a time when you didn’t know what you know today. – Malcolm X
I for one believe that if you give people a thorough understanding of what confronts them and the basic causes that produce it, they’ll create their own program, and when the people create a program, you get action. – Malcolm X
Give a man secure possession of a bleak rock and he will turn it into a garden; give him nine years lease of a garden and he will turn it into a desert. – Arthur Young
When government accepts responsibility for people, then people no longer take responsibility for themselves. – George Pataki
...So long as the people do not care to exercise their freedom, those who wish to tyrannize will do so; for tyrants are active and ardent, and will devote themselves in the name of any number of gods, religious and otherwise, to put shackles upon sleeping men. – Voltaire
[A] deep-rooted culture of incompetence and corruption has made it virtually impossible for government to function fairly and efficiently. And because most government employees are shielded by layers of protection, they couldn't care less. Never before in the history of this nation has there been a greater divide between a self-serving federal leviathan and millions of Americans... 'Government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem,' Ronald Reagan reminded us during his in – Arnold Ahlert
I want to sing like the birds sing, not worrying about who hears or what they think. – Rumi
Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety. – Benjamin Franklin
Those who control the present, control the past and those who control the past control the future. – George Orwell
Sometimes I think we're alone in the universe, and sometimes I think we're not. In either case, the idea is quite staggering. – Arthur C. Clarke
A government that is big enough to give you all you want is big enough to take it all away. – Barry Goldwater
Our forefathers found the evils of free thinking more to be endured than the evils of inquest or suppression. This is because thoughtful, bold and independent minds are essential to the wise and considered self-government. – Justice Robert H. Jackson
An insincere and evil friend is more to be feared than a wild beast - a wild beast may wound your body, but an evil friend will wound your mind. – Buddha
The difference of race is one of the reasons why I fear war may always exist because race implies difference, difference implies superiority, and superiority leads to predominance. – Benjamin Disraeli
We have never stopped sin by passing laws; and in the same way, we are not going to take a great moral ideal and achieve it merely by law. – Dwight D. Eisenhower
Prohibition was introduced as a fraud; it has been nursed as a fraud. It is wrapped in the livery of Heaven, but it comes to serve the devil. It comes to regulate by law our appetites and our daily lives. It comes to tear down liberty and build up fanaticism, hypocrisy, and intolerance. It comes to confiscate by legislative decree the property of many of our fellow citizens. It comes to send spies, detectives, and informers into our homes; to have us arrested and carried before courts and condem – Roger Quarles Mills
Finally, the fundamental flaw, which will ultimately destroy this prohibition as it did the last one, is that criminal sanctions cannot, and should not attempt to, prohibit personal conduct which does no harm to others. – Robert Sweet
For of all sad words of tongue or pen, the saddest are these, "It might have been!" – John Greenleaf Whittier
Bad law is the worst sort of tyranny. – Edmund Burke
The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing. – Edmund Burke
There is all the difference in the world between treating people equally and attempting to make them equal. While the first is the condition of a free society, the second means as DeTocqueville describes it, a new form of servitude. – Friedrich August von Hayek
I have always found that mercy bears richer fruits than strict justice. – Abraham Lincoln
We have a system that increasingly taxes work and subsidizes nonwork. – Milton Friedman
History suggests that Capitalism is a necessary condition for political freedom. – Milton Friedman
I'm in favor of legalizing drugs. According to my values system, if people want to kill themselves, they have every right to do so. Most of the harm that comes from drugs is because they are illegal. – Milton Friedman
I am in favor of cutting taxes under any circumstances and for any excuse, for any reason, whenever it's possible. – Milton Friedman
Sweat more during peace: bleed less during war – Sun Tzu
Laws disarming honest citizens proclaim that the government is the master, not the servant, of the people. – Jeffrey R. Snyder
For a truly religious man nothing is tragic. – Ludwig Wittgenstein
I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived. – Henry David Thoreau
To be always fortunate, and to pass through life with a soul that has never known sorrow, is to be ignorant of one half of nature. – Seneca
Become a possibilitarian. No matter how dark things seem to be or actually are, raise your sights and see the possibilities -- always see them, for they're always there. – Norman Vincent Peale
War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things. The decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks that nothing is worth war is much worse. The person who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself. – John Stuart Mill
He who does not bellow the truth when he knows the truth makes himself the accomplice of liars and forgers. – Charles Peguy
Musical training is a more potent instrument than any other, because rhythm and harmony find their way into the inward places of the soul, on which they mightily fasten imparting grace. – Plato
Why does no one confess his sins? Because he is yet in them. It is for a man who has awoke from sleep to tell his dreams. – Lucius Annaeus Seneca
He who comes to a conclusion when the other side is unheard, may have been just in his conclusion, but yet has not been just in his conduct. – Lucius Annaeus Seneca
Never make fun of someone who speaks broken English. It means they know another language. – H. Jackson Brown Jr.
Better than a thousand hollow words, is one word that brings peace. – Buddha
The shaft of the arrow had been feathered with one of the eagle's own plumes. We often give our enemies the means of our own destruction. – Aesop
It is with our passions, as it is with fire and water, they are good servants but bad masters. – Aesop
The gods help them that help themselves. – Aesop
It is easy to be brave from a safe distance. – Aesop
It is not only fine feathers that make fine birds. – Aesop
On the whole human beings want to be good, but not too good and not quite all the time. – George Orwell
It is a commonplace that the history of civilisation is largely the history of weapons. In particular, the connection between the discovery of gunpowder and the overthrow of feudalism by the bourgeoisie has been pointed out over and over again. And though I have no doubt exceptions can be brought forward, I think the following rule would be found to be generally true that ages in which the dominant weapon is expensive or difficult to make will be ages of despotism, whereas when the dominant weap – George Orwell
All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others. – George Orwell
People sleep peacably in their beds at night only because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf. – George Orwell
An autobiography is only to be trusted when it reveals something disgraceful. A man who gives a good account of himself is probably lying, since any life when viewed from the inside is simply a series of defeats. – George Orwell
If people cannot write well, they cannot think well, and if they cannot think well, others will do their thinking for them. – George Orwell
Political language. . . is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind. – George Orwell
He wipes tears off my face and then snot. He uses his hands. He loves me that much. – Nina LaCour
So long as a man rides his hobbyhorse peaceably and quietly along the King's highway, and neither compels you or me to get up behind him - pray, Sir, what have either you or I to do with it? – Laurence Sterne
[T]here is a wide difference between closing the door altogether and throwing it entirely open; between a postponement of fourteen years and an immediate admission to all the rights of citizenship. Some reasonable term ought to be allowed to enable aliens to get rid of foreign and acquire American attachments; to learn the principles and imbibe the spirit of our government; and to admit of at least a probability of their feeling a real interest in our affairs. – Alexander Hamilton
To each there comes in their lifetime a special moment when they are figuratively tapped on the shoulder and offered the chance to do a very special thing, unique to them and fitted to their talents. What a tragedy if that moment finds them unprepared or unqualified for that which could have been their finest hour. – Sir Winston Churchill
It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society. – J. Krishnamurti
Anyone who clings to the historically untrue - and thoroughly immoral - doctrine that violence never settles anything I would advise to conjure up the ghosts of Napoleon Bonaparte and the duke of Wellington and let them debate it. The ghost of Hitler would referee. Violence, naked force, has settled more issues in history than any other factor, and the contrary opinion is wishful thinking at its worst. Breeds that forgot this basic truth have always paid for it with their lives and there freedom – Robert Heinlein
I would rather be ashes than dust I would rather that my spark should burn out in a brilliant blaze than it should be stifled by dry-rot. I would rather be a superb meteor, every atom of me in magnificent glow, than a sleepy and permanent planet. The proper function of man is to live, not to exist. I shall not waste my days in trying to prolong them. I shall use my time. – Jack London
It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it. – Aristotle
Do not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail. – Ralph Waldo Emerson
The reason why kids are crazy is because nobody can face the responsibility of bringing them up. – John Lennon
Gossip is only the lack of a worthy memory. – Elbert Hubbard
People change and forget to tell each other. – Lillian Hellman
The man who craves disciples and wants followers is always more or less of a charlatan. The man of genuine worth and insight wants to be himself; and he wants others to be themselves, also. – Elbert Hubbard
The woman who cannot tell a lie in defense of her husband is unworthy of the name of wife. – Elbert Hubbard
There is something that is much more scarce, something finer far, something rarer than ability. It is the ability to recognize ability. – Elbert Hubbard
I’m a kind person, I’m kind to everyone, but if you are unkind to me, then kindness is not what you’ll remember me for. – Al Capone
Be polite, be professional, but have a plan to kill everyone you meet. – James Mattis
I come to you in peace. I did not bring artillery, but I am pleading with you, with tears in my eyes; if you f* with me, I will kill you all. – James Mattis**
It's absolutely gorgeous, i don't get (the author's take) at all. This is very impressive. – Abraham Lincoln
A ship in harbor is safe, but that is not what ships are built for. – John A. Shedd
And those who were seen dancing were thought to be insane by those who could not hear the music. – Friedrich Neitzsche
I wish to have no connections to a ship that does not sail fast; for I intend to go into harm's way. – John Paul Jones
To give anything less than your best is to sacrifice the Gift. – Steve Prefontaine
Courage is being scared to death - but saddling up anyway. – John Wayne
Now what I contend is that my body is my own, at least I have always so regarded it. If I do harm through my experimenting with it, it is I who suffers, not the state. – Mark Twain
In the clearing stands a boxer and a fighter by his trade and he carries the reminders of every glove that laid him down and cut him till he cried out in his anger and his shame “I am leaving, I am leaving” but the fighter still remains. – Paul Simon
It isn’t the mountains to climb that wear you out; it’s the pebble in your shoe. – Muhammad Ali
When I was five years old my mother told me that happiness was the key to life. When I went to school, they asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up. I wrote down “happy.” They told me I didn’t understand the assignment. I told them they didn’t understand life. – John Lennon
The first step to achieving your goal is to take a moment to respect your goal. Know what it means to you to achieve it. – Dwayne Johnson
Never ruin an apology with an excuse. – Benjamin Franklin
Freedom can exist only in the society of knowledge. Without learning, men are incapable of knowing their rights. – Benjamin Rush
All truly wise thoughts have been thought already thousands of times, but to make them truly ours, we must think them over again honestly, til they take root in our personal experience. – Johan Wolfgang von Goethe
Everyday in Africa, a gazelle wakes up. It knows it must outrun the fastest lion or it will be killed. Everyday in Africa, a lion wakes up. It knows it has to run faster than the slowest gazelle, or it will starve. It doesn’t matter if you’re the lion or a gazelle - when the sun comes up, you’d better be running. – Charles McDougall
It is health that is real wealth and not pieces of gold and silver. – Mahatma Gandhi
Unnecessary laws are not good laws, but traps for money. – Thomas Hobbes
It is easy to think the State has a lot of different objects -- military, political, economic, and what not. But in a way things are much simpler than that. The State exists simply to promote and to protect the ordinary happiness of human beings in this life. A husband and wife chatting over a fire, a couple of friends having a game of darts in a pub, a man reading a book in his own room or digging in his own garden -- that is what the State is there for. And unless they are helping to increase – C. S. Lewis
Some old wounds never truly heal, and bleed again at the slightest word. – George R.R. Martin
Give me honorable enemies rather than ambitious ones, and I'll sleep more easily by night. – George R.R. Martin
Opening your eyes is all that is needing. The heart lies and the head plays tricks with us, but the eyes see true. Look with your eyes. Hear with your ears. Taste with your mouth. Smell with your nose. Feel with your skin. Then comes the thinking, afterward, and in that way knowing the truth. – George R.R. Martin
In a free society, standards of public morality can be measured only by whether physical coercion, violence against persons, or property occurs. There is no right not to be offended by words, actions, or symbols. – Richard E. Sincere Jr
You should be allowed to do whatever you want with your own person and property, as long as you don't physically harm the person or property of a nonconsenting other. – Peter McWilliams
We don't seem to be able to check crime, so why not legalize it and then tax it out of business? – Will Rogers
They say night's beauties fade at dawn, and the children of wine are oft disowned in the morning light. – George R.R. Martin
Let us revise our views and work from the premise that all laws should be for the welfare of society as a whole and not directed at the punishment of sins. – John Biggs Jr
That's the trouble, of course: we have taken sins out of God's domain, where they can be forgiven, and put them in the domain of law, where they can only be plea-bargained. – Peter McWilliams
It is not enough to know; we must apply what we know. It is not enough to will; we must also act. – Goethe
Tolerance is the positive and cordial effort to understand another's beliefs, practices, and habits without necessarily sharing or accepting them. – Joshua Liebman
The beauty of the second amendment is that it will not be needed until they try to take it. – Thomas Jefferson
William Somerset: Ernest Hemingway once wrote, "The world is a fine place and worth fighting for." I agree with the second part. – Se7en

Don't be discouraged by a failure. It can be a positive experience. Failure is, in a sense, the highway to success, inasmuch as every discovery of what is false leads us to seek earnestly after what is true, and every fresh experience points out some form of error which we shall afterwards carefully avoid.

– John Keats

The one absolute certain way to bring this nation to ruin... would be to permit it to become a tangle of squabbling nationalities.

– Theodore Roosevelt

Maturity is the ability to do a job whether or not you are supervised, to carry money without spending it and to bear an injustice without wanting to get even.

– Ann Landers

I have always strenuously supported the right of every man to his own opinion, however different that opinion might be to mine. He who denies another this right makes a slave of himself to his present opinion, because he precludes himself the right of changing it.

– Thomas Paine

There can be no fifty-fifty Americanism in this country. There is room here for only 100 % Americanism, only for those who are Americans and nothing else.

– Theodore Roosevelt

To admit foreigners indiscriminately to the rights of citizens the moment they put foot in our country would be nothing less than to admit the Grecian horse into the citadel of our liberty and sovereignty.

– Alexander Hamilton