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The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations
A classic since 1953 with over 20,000 quotes from over 3,000 authors.
Famous Last Words
Apt Observations, Pleas, Curses, Benedictions, Sour Notes, Bons Mots, and Insights from People on the Brink of Departure
Stretch Your Wings
Famous Black Quotations for the Young
American Quotations
An exhaustive collection of profound quotes from the founding fathers, presidents, statesmen, scientists, constitutions, court decisions
The Oxford Dictionary of Humorous Quotations
Last Words of Saints and Sinners
700 Final Quotes from the Famous, the Infamous, and the Inspiring Figures of History
America's God and Country: Encyclopedia of Quotations
Contains over 2,100 profound quotations from founding fathers, presidents, constitutions, court decisions and more
The Law
This 1850 classic is an absolute must read for anyone interested in law, justice, truth, or liberty. A most compelling and revolutionary look at The Law.
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations
A Collection of Passages, Phrases, and Proverbs Traced to Their Sources in Ancient and Modern Literature (17th Edition)
The Stupidest Things Ever Said by Politicians
Rise up, America -- and laugh out loud at the greatest gaffes that no spin doctor could possibly fix!
The 776 Even Stupider Things Ever Said
Another great collection of stupidity
Quotable Quotes
Wit and Wisdom for All Occasions from America's Most Popular Magazine
The Most Brilliant Thoughts of All Time
You don't have to be a genius to sound like one. Here's a collection of the most profound and provocative wit and wisdom in the English language in two lines or less.
2,715 One-Line Quotations for Speakers, Writers & Raconteurs
Invaluable sampler of witticisms, epigrams, sayings, bon mots, platitudes and insights chosen for their brevity and pithiness.
Phillips' Book of Great Thoughts Funny Sayings
A stupendous collection of quotes, quips, epigrams, witticisms, and humorous comments for personal enjoyment and ready reference.
Quick Quips and Quotes; 532 Things I Wish I Had Said
Quick Quips and Quotes is the Ultimate Collection of one liners.
Bartlett's Book of Anecdotes
The ultimate anthology of anecdotes, now revised with over 700 new entries.
Quotations for Public Speakers
A Historical, Literary, and Political Anthology
Liberty - The American Revolution
This compelling series traces the events leading up to the war and America's fight for freedom.
Founding Fathers
The story of how these disparate characters fomented rebellion in the colonies, formed the Continental Congress, fought the Revolutionary War, and wrote the Constitution
Libertarianism: A Primer
David Boaz, director of the Cato Institute, has written a simple introduction to Libertarianism inteneded to appeal to disgruntled Democrats and Republicans everywhere.
The Libertarian Reader
Classic and Contemporary Writings from Lao-Tzu to Milton Friedman
Thomas Paine: Collected Writings
All the classics: Common Sense / The Crisis / Rights of Man / The Age of Reason / Pamphlets, Articles, and Letters |
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| A State Ex Rel. Torryson v. Grey | Where the words of a constitution are unambiguous and in their commonly received sense lead to a reasonable conclusion, it should be read according to the natural and most obvious import of the framers, without resorting to subtle and forced construction for the purpose of limiting or extending its operation. | |
| Peter Abelard | The key to wisdom is this -- constant and frequent questioning ... for by doubting we are led to question and by questioning we arrive at the truth. | |
| John Adams | We think ourselves possessed, or, at least, we boast that we are so, of liberty of conscience on all subjects, and of the right of free inquiry and private judgment in all cases, and yet how far are we from these exalted privileges in fact! There exists, I believe, throughout the whole Christian world, a law which makes it blasphemy to deny or doubt the divine inspiration of all the books of the Old and New Testaments, from Genesis to Revelations. In most countries of Europe it is punished by fire at the stake, or the rack, or the wheel. In England itself it is punished by boring through the tongue with a red-hot poker. In America it is not better; even in our own Massachusetts, which I believe, upon the whole, is as temperate and moderate in religious zeal as most of the States, a law was made in the latter end of the last century, repealing the cruel punishments of the former laws, but substituting fine and imprisonment upon all those blasphemers upon any book of the Old Testament or New. Now, what free inquiry, when a writer must surely encounter the risk of fine or imprisonment for adducing any argument for investigating into the divine authority of those books? Who would run the risk of translating Dupuis? But I cannot enlarge upon this subject, though I have it much at heart. I think such laws a great embarrassment, great obstructions to the improvement of the human mind. Books that cannot bear examination, certainly ought not to be established as divine inspiration by penal laws. It is true, few persons appear desirous to put such laws in execution, and it is also true that some few persons are hardy enough to venture to depart from them. But as long as they continue in force as laws, the human mind must make an awkward and clumsy progress in its investigations. I wish they were repealed. The substance and essence of Christianity, as I understand it, is eternal and unchangeable, and will bear examination forever, but it has been mixed with extraneous ingredients, which I think will not bear examination, and they ought to be separated. Adieu. | |
| John Adams | Liberty, according to my metaphysics, is an intellectual quality, an attribute that belongs not to fate nor chance. Neither possesses it, neither is capable of it. There is nothing moral or immoral in the idea of it. The definition of it is a self-determining power in an intellectual agent. It implies thought and choice and power; it can elect between objects, indifferent in point of morality, neither morally good nor morally evil. | |
| John Adams | Major Greene this evening fell into some conversation with me about the Divinity and satisfaction of Jesus Christ. All the argument he advanced was, "that a mere creature or finite being could not make satisfaction to infinite justice for any crimes," and that "these things are very mysterious." Thus mystery is made a convenient cover for absurdity. | |
| John Adams | Spent an hour in the beginning of the evening at Major Gardiner's, where it was thought that the design of Christianity was not to make men good riddle-solvers, or good mystery-mongers, but good men, good magistrates, and good subjects, good husbands and good wives, good parents and good children, good masters and good servants. The following questions may be answered some time or other, namely, — Where do we find a precept in the Gospel requiring Ecclesiastical Synods? Convocations? Councils? Decrees? Creeds? Confessions? Oaths? Subscriptions? and whole cart-loads of other trumpery that we find religion incumbered with in these days? | |
| John Adams | The United States of America have exhibited, perhaps, the first example of governments erected on the simple principles of nature; and if men are now sufficiently enlightened to disabuse themselves of artifice, imposture, hypocrisy, and superstition, they will consider this event as an era in their history. Although the detail of the formation of the American governments is at present little known or regarded either in Europe or in America, it may hereafter become an object of curiosity. It will never be pretended that any persons employed in that service had interviews with the gods, or were in any degree under the influence of Heaven, more than those at work upon ships or houses, or laboring in merchandise or agriculture; it will forever be acknowledged that these governments were contrived merely by the use of reason and the senses. | |
| John Adams | Twenty times in the course of my late reading have I been on the point of breaking out, "This would be the best of all possible worlds, if there were no religion in it!!!" But in this exclamation I would have been as fanatical as Bryant or Cleverly. Without religion this world would be something not fit to be mentioned in polite company, I mean hell. | |
| John Quincy Adams | Civil liberty can be established on no foundation of human reason which will not at the same time demonstrate the right of religious freedom. | |
| John Quincy Adams | Law logic -- an artificial system of reasoning, exclusively used in courts of justice, but good for nothing anywhere else. | |
| Aesop | Beware lest you lose the substance by grasping at the shadow. | |
| Ethan Allen | There is not anything, which has contributed so much to delude mankind in religious matters, as mistaken apprehensions concerning supernatural inspiration or revelation; not considering that all true religion originates from reason, and cannot otherwise be understood, but by the exercise and improvement of it. | |
| Lisa Alther | I’ve always felt that a person’s intelligence is directly reflected by the number of conflicting points of view he can entertain simultaneously on the same topic. | |
| American Library Association | Intellectual freedom is the right of every individual to both seek and receive information from all points of view without restriction. It provides for free access of all expressions of ideas through which any and all sides of a question, cause or movement may be explored. | |
| American Library Association | Why is Intellectual Freedom Important? Intellectual freedom is the basis of our democratic system. We expect our people to be self-governors. But to do so responsibly, our citizenry must be well informed. Libraries provide the ideas and information, in a variety of formats, to allow people to inform themselves. | |
| Hannah Arendt | The moment we no longer have a free press, anything can happen. What makes it possible for a totalitarian or any other dictatorship to rule is that people are not informed; how can you have an opinion if you are not informed? If everybody always lies to you, the consequence is not that you believe the lies, but rather that nobody believes anything any longer. This is because lies, by their very nature, have to be changed, and a lying government has constantly to rewrite its own history. On the receiving end you get not only one lie -- a lie which you could go on for the rest of your days -- but you get a great number of lies, depending on how the political wind blows. And a people that no longer can believe anything cannot make up its mind. It is deprived not only of its capacity to act but also of its capacity to think and to judge. And with such a people you can then do what you please. | |
| Aristotle | It is the mark of an educated man to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it. | |
| Matthew Arnold | The freethinking of one age is the common sense of the next. | |
| Isaac Asimov | If knowledge can create problems, it is not through ignorance that we can solve them. | |
| Marcus Aurelius | The opinion of ten thousand men is of no value if none of them know anything about the subject. | |
| Francis Bacon | Read not to contradict and confute, nor to believe and take for granted, nor to find talk and discourse, but to weigh and consider. | |
| Sir Francis Bacon | For whatever deserves to exist deserves also to be known, for knowledge is the image of existence, and things mean and splendid exist alike. | |
| Ben H. Bagdikian | Letting a maximum number of views be heard regularly is not just a nice philosophical notion. It is the best way any society has yet discovered to detect maladjustments quickly, to correct injustices, and to discover new ways to meet our continuing stream of novel problems that rise in a changing environment. | |
| Carl Friedrich Bahrdt | The freedom to share one’s insights and judgments verbally or in writing is, just like the freedom to think, a holy and inalienable right of humanity that, as a universal human right, is above all the rights of princes. | |
| Robert Baird | The freedom allowed in the United States to all sorts of inquiry and discussion necessarily leads to a diversity of opinion, which is seen not only in there being different denominations, but different opinions also in the same denomination. | |
| Matsuo Basho | Do not seek to follow in the footsteps of the wise. Seek what they sought. | |
| Frederic Bastiat | There is in all of us a strong disposition to believe that anything lawful is also legitimate. This belief is so widespread that many persons have erroneously held that things are “just” because the law makes them so. | |
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