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55 Quotations

Article VII. Government is instituted for the common good; for the protection, safety, prosperity and happiness of the people; and not for the profit, honor, or private interest of any one man, family, or class of men: Therefore the people alone have an incontestable, unalienable, and indefeasible right to institute government; and to reform, alter, or totally change the same, when their protection, safety, prosperity and happiness require it.

       By John Adams    [fullquote]

Our progress in degeneracy appears to me to be pretty rapid. As a nation, we began by declaring that "all men are created equal.' We now practically read it "all men are created equal, except negroes.' When the Know-Nothings get control, it will read "all men are created equal, except negroes, and foreigners, and catholics.' When it comes to this I should prefer emigrating to some country where they make no pretence of loving liberty -- to Russia, for instance, where despotism can be taken pure, and without the base alloy of hypocracy.

       By Abraham Lincoln    [fullquote]

What is at stake," he said, "is nothing less than the legitimacy of our justice system," adding that the rule of law "loses its meaning when the protection of our laws is available only to those who can afford it.

       By Judge Jonathan Lippman    [fullquote]

It is the eternal struggle between two principles, right and wrong, throughout the world. It is the same spirit that says 'you toil and work and earn bread, and I'll eat it.' No matter in what shape it comes, whether from the mouth of a king who seeks to bestride the people of his own nation, and live by the fruit of their labor, or from one race of men as an apology for enslaving another race, it is the same tyrannical principle." [Lincoln-Douglas debates, 15 October 1858]

       By Abraham Lincoln    [fullquote]

A statesman is he who thinks in the future generations, and a politician is he who thinks in the upcoming elections." -- Abraham Lincoln

       By Abraham Lincoln    [fullquote]

Government exists to protect us from each other. Where government has gone beyond its limits is in deciding to protect us from ourselves." - Ronald Reagan

       By Ronald Reagan    [fullquote]

It will be found an unjust and unwise jealousy to deprive a man of his natural liberty upon the supposition he may abuse it." George Washington

       By George Washington    [fullquote]

Rightful liberty is unobstructed action according to our will within limits drawn around us by the equal rights of others. I do not add 'within the limits of the law' because law is often but the tyrant's will, and always so when it violates the rights of the individual." Thomas Jefferson

       By Thomas Jefferson    [fullquote]

It has perhaps always been the case that the waging of peace is the hardest form of leadership of all," she said. "I know of no single formula for success, but over the years I have observed that some attributes of leadership are universal, and are often about finding ways of encouraging people to combine their efforts, their talents, their insights, their enthusiasm and their inspiration, to work together.

       By Queen Elizabeth    [fullquote]

In the name of Christ, I refuse to be anti-gay. I refuse to be anti-feminist. I refuse to be anti-artificial birth control. I refuse to be anti-Democrat. I refuse to be anti-secular humanism. I refuse to be anti-science. I refuse to be anti-life. In the name of Christ, I quit Christianity and being Christian. Amen.

       By Anne Rice    [fullquote]

I hope our wisdom will grow with our power, and teach us that the less we use our power the greater it will be." - Thomas Jefferson

       By Thomas Jefferson    [fullquote]

..all empires are built on slavery..

       By David Griffith    [fullquote]

the cheapest form of energy is slavery

       By Carl Safina    [fullquote]

When you listen to the otherwordly voice of Robert Johnson hitting those words "Blues Falling Down Like Hail" or Howlin' Wolf riding the rhythm of "Spoonful" with such amazing ease and more than living up to his name at the same time, or Skip James lamenting love, the worst of all human afflictions, in "Devil Got My Woman" or Son House hugging the memory of his dead lover for dear life in the tightly coiled "Death Letter Blues" you're hearing something from way, way back something eternal, elemental, something that defies rational thought, just like all the greatest art." - Martin Scorsese, preface of Martin Scorsese presents the Blues

       By Martin Scorsese    [fullquote]

Peace cannot be kept by force. It can only be achieved by understanding.

       By Albert Einstein    [fullquote]

In my opinion, an autocratic system of coercion soon degenerates; force attracts men of low morality... The really valuable thing in the pageant of human life seems to me not the political state, but the creative, sentient individual, the personality; it alone creates the noble and the sublime, while the herd as such remains dull in thought and dull in feeling.

       By Albert Einstein    [fullquote]

The World As I See It" by Einstein Einstein at his home in Princeton, New Jersey "How strange is the lot of us mortals! Each of us is here for a brief sojourn; for what purpose he knows not, though he sometimes thinks he senses it. But without deeper reflection one knows from daily life that one exists for other people -- first of all for those upon whose smiles and well-being our own happiness is wholly dependent, and then for the many, unknown to us, to whose destinies we are bound by the ties of sympathy. A hundred times every day I remind myself that my inner and outer life are based on the labors of other men, living and dead, and that I must exert myself in order to give in the same measure as I have received and am still receiving... "I have never looked upon ease and happiness as ends in themselves -- this critical basis I call the ideal of a pigsty. The ideals that have lighted my way, and time after time have given me new courage to face life cheerfully, have been Kindness, Beauty, and Truth. Without the sense of kinship with men of like mind, without the occupation with the objective world, the eternally unattainable in the field of art and scientific endeavors, life would have seemed empty to me. The trite objects of human efforts -- possessions, outward success, luxury -- have always seemed to me contemptible. "My passionate sense of social justice and social responsibility has always contrasted oddly with my pronounced lack of need for direct contact with other human beings and human communities. I am truly a 'lone traveler' and have never belonged to my country, my home, my friends, or even my immediate family, with my whole heart; in the face of all these ties, I have never lost a sense of distance and a need for solitude..." "My political ideal is democracy. Let every man be respected as an individual and no man idolized. It is an irony of fate that I myself have been the recipient of excessive admiration and reverence from my fellow-beings, through no fault, and no merit, of my own. The cause of this may well be the desire, unattainable for many, to understand the few ideas to which I have with my feeble powers attained through ceaseless struggle. I am quite aware that for any organization to reach its goals, one man must do the thinking and directing and generally bear the responsibility. But the led must not be coerced, they must be able to choose their leader. In my opinion, an autocratic system of coercion soon degenerates; force attracts men of low morality... The really valuable thing in the pageant of human life seems to me not the political state, but the creative, sentient individual, the personality; it alone creates the noble and the sublime, while the herd as such remains dull in thought and dull in feeling. "This topic brings me to that worst outcrop of herd life, the military system, which I abhor... This plague-spot of civilization ought to be abolished with all possible speed. Heroism on command, senseless violence, and all the loathsome nonsense that goes by the name of patriotism -- how passionately I hate them! "The most beautiful experience we can have is the mysterious. It is the fundamental emotion that stands at the cradle of true art and true science. Whoever does not know it and can no longer wonder, no longer marvel, is as good as dead, and his eyes are dimmed. It was the experience of mystery -- even if mixed with fear -- that engendered religion. A knowledge of the existence of something we cannot penetrate, our perceptions of the profoundest reason and the most radiant beauty, which only in their most primitive forms are accessible to our minds: it is this knowledge and this emotion that constitute true religiosity. In this sense, and only this sense, I am a deeply religious man... I am satisfied with the mystery of life's eternity and with a knowledge, a sense, of the marvelous structure of existence -- as well as the humble attempt to understand even a tiny portion of the Reason that manifests itself in nature." Albert Einstein (signature) See also Einstein's Third Paradise, an essay by Gerald Holton The text of Albert Einstein's copyrighted essay, "The World As I See It," was shortened for our Web exhibit. The essay was originally published in "Forum and Century," vol. 84, pp. 193-194, the thirteenth in the Forum series, Living Philosophies. It is also included in Living Philosophies (pp. 3-7) New York: Simon Schuster, 1931. For a more recent source, you can also find a copy of it in A. Einstein, Ideas and Opinions, based on Mein Weltbild, edited by Carl Seelig, New York: Bonzana Books, 1954 (pp. 8-11). How you can support our work Previous: Science and Philosophy II Next: Einstein's Third Paradise by G. Holton Also: More Essays Exhibit Info | Exhibit Home Brought to you by The Center for History of Physics Copyright 1996 - 2010 American Institute of Physics

       By Albert Einstein    [fullquote]

The world is too much with us; late and soon, Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers; Little we see in Nature that is ours; We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon! This Sea that bares her bosom to the moon, The winds that will be howling at all hours, And are up-gathered now like sleeping flowers, For this, for everything, we are out of tune; It moves us not.--Great God! I'd rather be A Pagan suckled in a creed outworn; (1) So might I, standing on this pleasant lea, (2) Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn; Have sight of Proteus (3) rising from the sea; Or hear old Triton (4) blow his wreathed horn. (1) Brought up in an outdated religion. (2) Meadow. (3) Greek sea god capable of taking many shapes.

       By William Wordsworth    [fullquote]

Old age hath yet his honour and his toil; Death closes all: but something ere the end, Some work of noble note, may yet be done, Not unbecoming men that strove with Gods. The lights begin to twinkle from the rocks: The long day wanes: the slow moon climbs: the deep Moans round with many voices. Come, my friends, 'Tis not too late to seek a newer world. Push off, and sitting well in order smite The sounding furrows; for my purpose holds To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths Of all the western stars, until I die. It may be that the gulfs will wash us down: It may be that we shall touch the Happy Isles, And see the great Achilles, whom we knew. Tho' much is taken, much abides; and tho' We are not now that strength which in old days Moved heaven and earth; that which we are, we are; One equal temper of heroic hearts, Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield. Alfred, Lord Tennyson

       By Tennyson    [fullquote]

* My faith in human dignity consists in the belief that man is the greatest scamp on earth. Human dignity must be associated with the idea of a scamp and not with that of an obedient, disciplined and regimented soldier. o Ch. I : The Awakening * I am doing my best to glorify the scamp or vagabond. I hope I shall succeed. For things are not so simple as they sometimes seem. In this present age of threats to democracy and individual liberty, probably only the scamp and the spirit of the scamp alone will save us from being lost in serially numbered units in the masses of disciplined, obedient, regimented and uniformed coolies. The scamp will be the last and most formidable enemy of dictatorships. He will be the champion of human dignity and individual freedom, and will be the last to be conquered. All modern civilization depends entirely upon him.

       By Lin Yutang    [fullquote]

An unjust law is a code that a numerical or power majority group compels a minority group to obey but does not make binding on itself.

       By Martin Luther King    [fullquote]

Just as Socrates felt that it was necessary to create a tension in the mind so that individuals could rise from the bondage of myths and half truths to the unfettered realm of creative analysis and objective appraisal, so must we see the need for nonviolent gadflies to create the kind of tension in society that will help men rise from the dark depths of prejudice and racism to the majestic heights of understanding and brotherhood.

       By Martin Luther King    [fullquote]

A prohibition law strikes a blow at the very principles upon which our government was founded." Abraham Lincoln

       By Abraham Lincoln    [fullquote]

I see in the near future a crisis approaching that unnerves me and causes me to tremble for the safety of my country; corporations have been enthroned, an era of corruption in High Places will follow, and the Money Power of the Country will endeavor to prolong its reign by working upon the prejudices of the People, until the wealth is aggregated in a few hands, and the Republic is destroyed." Abraham Lincoln

       By Abraham Lincoln    [fullquote]

Prohibition goes beyond the bounds of reason in that it attempts to control a man's appetite by legislation, and makes a crime out of things that are not crimes." Abraham Lincoln

       By Abraham Lincoln    [fullquote]

The government should create, issue, and circulate all the currency and credit needed to satisfy the spending power of the government and the buying power of consumers. The privilege of creating and issuing money is not only the supreme prerogative of government, but it is the government's greatest creative opportunity. The financing of all public enterprise, and the conduct of the treasury will become matters of practical administration. Money will cease to be master and will then become servant of humanity." Abraham Lincoln

       By Abraham Lincoln    [fullquote]

If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their currency, first by inflation, then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around them will deprive the people of all property until their children wake up homeless on the continent their Fathers conquered...I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies... The issuing power should be taken from the banks and restored to the people, to whom it properly belongs.

       By Thomas Jefferson    [fullquote]

History records that the money changers have used every form of abuse, intrigue, deceit and violent means possible to maintain their control over governments.

       By James Madison    [fullquote]

Let me issue and control a nation's money and I care not who writes the laws.

       By Mayer Amschel Rothschild    [fullquote]

Money has no motherland; financiers are without patriotism and without decency; their sole object is gain.

       By Napoleon Bonaparte    [fullquote]

Let me issue and control a nation's money and I care not who writes the laws.

       By Mayer Amschel Rothschild    [fullquote]

Money has no motherland; financiers are without patriotism and without decency; their sole object is gain.

       By Napoleon Bonaparte    [fullquote]

History records that the money changers have used every form of abuse, intrigue, deceit, and violent means possible to maintain their control over governments.

       By James Madison    [fullquote]

The rancher strings barbed wire across the range, drills wells and bulldozes stock ponds everywhere, drives off the elk and antelope and bighorn sheep, poisons coyotes and prairie dogs, shoots eagle and bear and cougar on sight, supplants the native bluestem and grama grass with tumbleweed, cow sh*t, cheat grass, snakeweed, anthills, poverty weed, mud and dust and flies--and then leans back and smiles broadly at the Tee Vee cameras and tells us how much he loves the West.

       By Edward Abbey    [fullquote]

Priests and politicians, Bah! Babies cry, drought and storms, Yet you eat well.

       By Marty Weiss    [fullquote]

I hope we shall crush in its birth the aristocracy of our monied corporations which dare already to challenge our government to a trial by strength, and bid defiance to the laws of our country. "-- Thomas Jefferson --

       By Thomas Jefferson    [fullquote]

You who are without sorrow for the suffering of others, You do not deserve to be called human.

       By Sa'di    [fullquote]

...when women speak truly they speak subversively--they can't help it: if you're underneath, if you're kept down, you break out, you subvert. We are volcanoes. When we women offer our experience as our truth, as human truth, all the maps change. There are new mountains. That's what I want--to hear you erupting. You young Mount St. Helenses who don't know the power in you--I want to hear you." -- Ursula K. Le Guin

       By Ursula K. LeGuin    [fullquote]

Don't go scurrying about for inner peace, you will lose your inner peace.

       By Lao T'zu    [fullquote]

Security is mostly a superstition. It does not exist in nature, nor do the children of men as a whole experience it. Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. Life is either a daring adventure or nothing. To keep our faces toward change and behave like free spirits in the presence of fate is strength undefeatable.

       By Helen Keller    [fullquote]

Reason has seldom failed us because it has seldom been tried.

       By Edward Abbey    [fullquote]

The sleep of reason produces monsters.

       By Francisco Goya    [fullquote]

Where the mystery is the deepest is the source of all that is subtle and wonderful.

       By Lao T'zu    [fullquote]

Reason has seldom failed us because it has seldom been tried.

       By Edward Abbey    [fullquote]

The sleep of reason produces monsters.

       By Francisco Goya    [fullquote]

where the mystery is the deepest is the source of all that is subtle and wonderful.

       By Lao T'zu    [fullquote]

Prayer is Israel's only weapon,..

       By Assembly Of Rabbis    [fullquote]

The temple bell stops. But the sound keeps coming out of the flowers.

       By Matsuo Basho    [fullquote]

All partake of the universal divinity: the scorpion and the packrat, the Junebug and the pismire, and even human beings.

       By Edward Abbey    [fullquote]

Anarchism is not a romantic fable but the hardheaded realization, based on five thousand years of experience, that we cannot entrust the management of our lives to kings, priests, politicians, generals, and county commissioners.

       By Edward Abbey    [fullquote]

Grown men don't need leaders.

       By Edward Abbey    [fullquote]

Rule a large country as one would cook a small fish-- with very little stirring, else everything turns to paste.

       By Confucius    [fullquote]

Language seems to me intrinsically comic — noises of the tongue, lips, larynx, and palate rendered in ink on paper with the deepest and airiest thoughts in mind and the harshest and tenderest feelings at heart.

       By Roy Blount Jr    [fullquote]

only the cricket's song penetrates stones of ruined temple

       By Matsuo Basho    [fullquote]

A thicket of summer grass Is all that remains Of the dreams of ancient warriors.

       By Matsuo Basho    [fullquote]