Friday, December 11. 2009
"Were we directed from Washington when to sow, and when to reap, we should soon want bread."
Thomas Jefferson
Tuesday, December 8. 2009
Thursday, November 26. 2009
George Washington's 1789 Thanksgiving Proclamation
Whereas it is the duty of all nations to acknowledge the providence of Almighty God, to obey His will, to be grateful for His benefits, and humbly to implore His protection and favor; and Whereas both Houses of Congress have, by their joint committee, requested me to "recommend to the people of the United States a day of public thanksgiving and prayer, to be observed by acknowledging with grateful hearts the many and signal favors of Almighty God, especially by affording them an opportunity peaceably to establish a form of government for their safety and happiness:"
Now, therefore, I do recommend and assign Thursday, the 26th day of November next, to be devoted by the people of these States to the service of that great and glorious Being who is the beneficent author of all the good that was, that is, or that will be; that we may then all unite in rendering unto Him our sincere and humble thanks for His kind care and protection of the people of this country previous to their becoming a nation; for the signal and manifold mercies and the favorable interpositions of His providence in the course and conclusion of the late war; for the great degree of tranquility, union, and plenty which we have since enjoyed; for the peaceable and rational manner in which we have been enabled to establish constitutions of government for our safety and happiness, and particularly the national one now lately instituted for the civil and religious liberty with which we are blessed, and the means we have of acquiring and diffusing useful knowledge; and, in general, for all the great and various favors which He has been pleased to confer upon us.
And also that we may then unite in most humbly offering our prayers and supplications to the great Lord and Ruler of Nations and beseech Him to pardon our national and other transgressions; to enable us all, whether in public or private stations, to perform our several and relative duties properly and punctually; to render our National Government a blessing to all the people by constantly being a Government of wise, just, and constitutional laws, discreetly and faithfully executed and obeyed; to protect and guide all sovereigns and nations (especially such as have shown kindness to us), and to bless them with good governments, peace, and concord; to promote the knowledge and practice of true religion and virtue, and the increase of science among them and us; and, generally to grant unto all mankind such a degree of temporal prosperity as He alone knows to be best.
Given under my hand, at the city of New York, the 3d day of October, A.D. 1789.
Wednesday, November 25. 2009
"The makers of the Constitution conferred, as against the government, the Right to be left alone; the most comprehensive of rights, and the right most valued by civilized men.”
United States Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis, Olmstead v. United States (1928). h/t, reader.
Wednesday, November 18. 2009
"People who enjoy meetings should not be in charge of anything."
Thomas Sowell, via Dr. Sanity's One Big Fathead
Tuesday, November 17. 2009
There is no such thing as society: there are individual men and women, and there are families.
Maggie Thatcher
Monday, November 16. 2009
"Some of the Great Goods cannot live together. That is a conceptual truth. We are doomed to choose, and every choice may entail an irreparable loss."
Isaiah Berlin, from Isaiah Berlin, Beyond the Wit at Chronicle. I would have said "does," not "may."
Monday, October 26. 2009
The Dems are the fast road to Socialism and the Republicans are the slow road to Socialism.
Many people say this, but heard most recently from my son and one of my daughters (the Ron Paul one at Kenyon - not the McCain one in NYC). We observed during our drives yesterday, with irony, that the only reason China has been able to slowly, step-wise get rid of Socialism is by having an authoritarian, police-state government. Places like France, England, and Germany will never be able to do that, with so many people sucking on the government teats. They are screwed economically, spiritually, and humanly. Their people with verve and ambition still come to America...for now.
Friday, October 16. 2009
Do not blame Caesar, blame the people of Rome who have so enthusiastically acclaimed and adored him and rejoiced in their loss of freedom and danced in his path and gave him triumphal processions. … Blame the people who hail him when he speaks in the Forum of the "new, wonderful good society" which shall now be Rome’s, interpreted to mean "more money, more ease, more security, more living fatly at the expense of the industrious.”
Marcus Tullius Cicero (106-43 B.C.) h/t, reader.
Monday, October 12. 2009
External freedom is only an aspect of interior freedom. Political freedom, as the Western world has known it, is only a political reading of the Bible. Religion and freedom are indivisible. Without freedom the soul dies. Without the soul there is no justification for freedom.…
Sunday, October 11. 2009
Hebrews 12: 1-3
1Wherefore seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us,
2Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith; who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God.
3For consider him that endured such contradiction of sinners against himself, lest ye be wearied and faint in your minds.
Wednesday, October 7. 2009
Isn't accusing Muslims of homophobia a bit Islamophobic?
Mark Steyn
Monday, October 5. 2009
"Please understand. God's goal is not to make you happy. His goal is to make you His."
I do not know who said that.
Friday, September 25. 2009
"The problem with having the Americans as your allies is that you never know when they'll turn around and stab themselves in the back."
Bernard Lewis, as quoted in a David Warren piece on Honduras
Thursday, September 24. 2009
"Persons attempting to find a motive in this narrative will be prosecuted; persons attempting to find a moral in it will be banished; persons attempting to find a plot in it will be shot."
Mark Twain, at the beginning of Huckleberry Finn, quoted in an excellent piece on Joyce's Ulysses (I have read the book twice - love it) in The Chronicle, James Joyce for Ordinary Blokes
Sunday, September 20. 2009
"Ask yourself as you start your day, "Are you incorporating God into your plan?". And if you are, then why are you not incorporating yourself into God's plan?"
via Slower Pace
Sunday, September 13. 2009
"The conflict is not against sin. Jesus conquered that. The conflict is waged over turning our natural life into a spiritual life."
Wednesday, September 9. 2009
Atheism turns out to be too simple. If the whole universe has no meaning, we should never have found out that it has no meaning.
Tuesday, September 8. 2009
"Please understand. God's goal is not to make you happy. His goal is to make you His."
Max Lucado
Thursday, September 3. 2009
Don't pick a fight with an old man. If he is too old to fight, he'll just kill you.
Anon. h/t, Old Misery Guts, whose site quote is:
"Life is mostly froth and bubble, Two things stand like stone, KINDNESS in another's trouble, COURAGE in your own."
- Adam Lindsay Gordon
Monday, August 31. 2009
"I assure you that the most winning woman I ever knew was hanged for poisoning three little children for their insurance-money...."
Sherlock Holmes
"If you need to foresee the future, you are doing something badly wrong."
From Stumbing and Mumbling in a piece on the inability of economists and other social scientists to make predictions.
Friday, August 28. 2009
If I had asked people what they wanted, they'd have said a faster horse.
Henry Ford
"A professional politician is a professionally dishonorable man. In order to get anywhere near high office he has to make so many compromises and submit to so many humiliations that he becomes indistinguishable from a streetwalker."
H. L. Mencken, quoted at Am Digest
Wednesday, August 26. 2009
From PJ O'Rourke in our link this morning:
...And never mind that his writing is more than uninformative, it is informationally subtractive. Read him and you'll know less than you know now about what the government is going to do to you and your doctor. Read him carefully and you'll know nothing.
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