Quotes

This page is devoted to my favorite quotes, anecdotes, and philosophical statements. Some are serious, some humorous ranging from politics to life.

Life

And we should consider every day lost on which we have not danced at least once. And we should call every truth false which was not accompanied by at least one laugh. ~Friedrich Nietzsche

And in the end, it’s not the years in your life that count. It’s the life in your years. ~Abraham Lincoln

When you have only two pennies left in the world, buy a loaf of bread with one, and a lily with the other. ~Chinese Proverb

A useless life is an early death. ~Goethe

Science is organized knowledge. Wisdom is organized life. ~Immanuel Kant

Only a life lived for others is a life worthwhile. ~ Albert Einstein

We are all related. ~Lakota Proverb

Philosophy and Religion

History is Philosophy teaching by examples. ~Thucydides

The heresy of one age becomes the orthodoxy of the next. ~Helen Keller

Faith is not belief. Belief is passive. Faith is active. ~Edith Hamilton

All religions, arts and sciences are branches of the same tree. All these aspirations are directed toward ennobling man’s life, lifting it from the sphere of mere physical existence and leading the individual towards freedom. ~ Albert Einstein

A myth is a religion in which no one any longer believes. ~James Feibleman

Religious factions will go on imposing their will on others unless the decent people connected to them recognize that religion has no place in public policy. They must learn to make their views known without trying to make their views the only alternatives. ~Barry Goldwater, retired Arizona senator

As to the gods, I have no means of knowing either that they exist or do not exist. ~Protagoras

The religion that is afraid of science dishonors God and commits suicide. ~Ralph Waldo Emerson

Is man one of God’s blunders? Or is God one of man’s blunders? ~Friedrich Nietzsche

Politics and Governance

Truth is not determined by majority vote. ~Doug Gwyn

Firearms are second only to the Constitution in importance; they are the peoples’ liberty’s teeth. ~George Washington

If the freedom of speech is taken away then dumb and silent we may be led, like sheep to the slaughter. ~George Washington

Concentrated power has always been the enemy of liberty. ~Ronald Reagan

Government’s first duty is to protect the people, not run their lives. ~Ronald Reagan

The mania for giving the Government power to meddle with the
private affairs of cities or citizens is likely to cause endless trouble,
through the rivalry of schools and creeds that are anxious to obtain official
recognition, and there is great danger that our people will lose our
independence of thought and action which is the cause of much of our greatness,
and sink into the helplessness of the Frenchman or German who expects his
government to feed him when hungry, clothe him when naked, to prescribe when his
child may be born and when he may die, and, in time, to regulate every act of
humanity from the cradle to the tomb, including the manner in which he may seek
future admission to paradise. – Mark Twain

The government is merely a servant — merely a temporary servant; it cannot be its prerogative to determine what is right and what is wrong, and decide who is a patriot and who isn’t. Its function is to obey orders, not originate them. ~ Mark Twain

All of us who are concerned for peace and triumph of reason and justice must be keenly aware how small an influence reason and honest good will exert upon events in the political field. ~Albert Einstein

Those who are too smart to engage in politics are punished by being governed by those who are dumber. ~Plato

A government that is big enough to give you all you want is big enough to take it all away. ~Barry Goldwater, retired Arizona senator

I think it’s about time we voted for senators with breasts. After all, we’ve been voting for boobs long enough. ~Clarie Sargent, Arizona senatorial candidate

A civil servant is sometimes like a broken cannon – it won’t work and you can’t fire it. ~George S. Patton

Politicians are the same all over. They promise to build a bridge even where they is no river. ~Nikita Khrushchev

Fire, water, and government know nothing of mercy. ~Proverb

Under capitalism man exploits man; under socialism the reverse is true. ~Polish Proverb

Politics is war without bloodshed, while war is politics with bloodshed. ~Mao Zedong

What is conservatism? Is it not the adherence to the old and tried against the new and untried? ~Abraham Lincoln

No man is good enough to govern another man without that other’s consent. ~Abraham Lincoln

To rule is easy, to govern difficult. ~Johann W. von Goethe

Information is the currency of democracy. ~Thomas Jefferson

We hang the petty thieves and appoint the great ones to public office. ~Aesop

Those who seek absolute power, even though they seek it to do what they regard as good, are simply demanding the right to enforce their own version of heaven on earth. And let me remind you, they are the very ones who always create the most hellish tyrannies. Absolute power does corrupt, and those who seek it must be suspect and must be opposed. ~Barry Goldwater, retired Arizona senator

Religious factions will go on imposing their will on others unless the decent people connected to them recognize that religion has no place in public policy. They must learn to make their views known without trying to make their views the only alternatives. ~Barry Goldwater, retired Arizona senator

We are not afraid to entrust the American people with unpleasant facts, foreign ideas, alien philosophies, and competitive values. For a nation that is afraid to let its people judge the truth and falsehood in an open market is a nation that is afraid of its people. ~ John F. Kennedy

A wise and frugal government, which shall leave men free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor and bread it has earned — this is the sum of good government. ~ Thomas Jefferson

It is dangerous to be right when the government is wrong. ~ Voltaire

There are horrible people who, instead of solving a problem, tangle it up and make it harder to solve for anyone who wants to deal with it. Whoever does not know how to hit the nail on the head should be asked not to hit it at all. ~Friedrich Nietzsche

Associate with men of good quality if you esteem your own reputation; for it is better to be alone than in bad company. ~ George Washington

Any society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both. ~ Benjamin Franklin

For every action there is an equal and opposite government program. ~Bob Wells

Many forms of Government have been tried, and will be tried in this world of sin and woe. No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise. Indeed, it has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all those other forms that have been tried from time to time. ~ Winston Churchill

Politics, n. Strife of interests masquerading as a contest of principles. ~Ambrose Bierce

War and Militarism

We make war that we may live in peace. ~Aristotle

History teaches that war begins when governments believe the price of aggression is cheap. ~Ronald Reagan

There never was a good war or a bad peace. ~Benjamin Franklin

Till the war-drum throbb`d no longer, and the battle-flags were furl`d; In the parliament of man; the Federation of the world. ~Alfred Tennyson

An army of sheep led by a lion would defeat an army of lions led by a sheep. ~Arabic Proverb

Miscellaneous

Those who will play with cats must expect to be scratched. ~Cervantes

Give me a lever long enough and a fulcrum on which to place it, and I shall move the world. ~Archimedes

In this house, we obey the laws of thermodynamics! ~Homer Simpson, The Simpsons

Mock not the fallen, for slippery is the road ahead of you. ~Russian Proverb

You cannot shake hands with a clenched fist. ~Indira Gandhi

If you believe everything you read, better not read. ~Japanese Proverb

If you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you. ~Friedrich Nietzsche

When you have given nothing, ask for nothing. ~Proverb

Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime. ~ Proverb