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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| Edward Abbey | Fantastic doctrines (like Christianity or Islam or Marxism) require unanimity of belief. One dissenter casts doubt on the creed of millions. Thus the fear and the hate; thus the torture chamber, the iron stake, the gallows, the labor camp, the psychiatric ward. | |
| Lord Acton | Liberty and good government do not exclude each other; and there are excellent reasons why they should go together. Liberty is not a means to a higher political end. It is itself the highest political end. | |
| Lord Acton | Liberty, next to religion has been the motive of good deeds and the common pretext of crime... | |
| Lord Acton | Liberty is the prevention of control by others. This requires self-control and, therefore, religious and spiritual influences; education, knowledge, well-being. | |
| Lord Acton | By liberty I mean the assurance that every man shall be protected in doing what he believes his duty against the influence of authority and majorities, custom and opinion. | |
| Henry Brooks Adams | Politics, as a practise, whatever its professions, has always been the systematic organization of hatreds. | |
| John Adams | The priesthood have, in all ancient nations, nearly monopolized learning.... And, even since the Reformation, when or where has existed a Protestant or dissenting sect who would tolerate A FREE INQUIRY? The blackest billingsgate, the most ungentlemanly insolence, the most yahooish brutality is patiently endured, countenanced, propagated, and applauded. But touch a solemn truth in collision with a dogma of a sect, though capable of the clearest proof, and you will soon find you have disturbed a nest, and the hornets will swarm about your legs and hands, and fly into your face and eyes. | |
| John Adams | Banks have done more injury to the religion, morality, tranquility, prosperity, and even wealth of the nation than they can have done or ever will do good. | |
| John Adams | | |
| John Adams | The Revolution was effected before the War commenced. The Revolution was in the minds and hearts of the people; a change in their religious sentiments of their duties and obligations ... This radical change in the principles, opinions, sentiments, and affections of the people, was the real American Revolution. | |
| John Adams | | |
| 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 | Statesmen, my dear Sir, may plan and speculate for liberty, but it is religion and morality alone, which can establish the principles upon which freedom can securely stand. The only foundation of a free Constitution is pure virtue, and if this cannot be inspired into our People in a greater Measure than they have it now, they may change their rulers and the forms of government, but they will not obtain a lasting liberty. | |
| 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 | But what do we mean by the American Revolution? Do we mean the American war? The Revolution was effected before the war commenced. The Revolution was in the minds and hearts of the people; a change in their religious sentiments, of their duties and obligations…This radical change in the principles, opinions, sentiments, and affections of the people was the real American Revolution. | |
| 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 Europeans are all deeply tainted with prejudices, both ecclesiastical and temporal, which they can never get rid of. They are all infected with episcopal and presbyterian creeds, and confessions of faith. They all believe that great Principle which has produced this boundless universe, Newton’s universe and Herschell’s universe, came down to this little ball, to be spit upon by Jews. And until this awful blasphemy is got rid of, there never will be any liberal science in the world. | |
| John Adams | The divinity of Jesus is made a convenient cover for absurdity. Nowhere in the Gospels do we find a precept for Creeds, Confessions, Oaths, Doctrines, and whole car-loads of other foolish trumpery that we find in Christianity. | |
| John Adams | Let them revere nothing but religion, morality and liberty. | |
| John Adams | We have no government armed in power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion. Our Constitution was made only for a religious and moral people. It is wholly inadequate for the government of any other. | |
| 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 | The highest glory of the American Revolution was this; it connected, in one indissoluble bond the principles of civil government with the principles of Christianity. | |
| Samuel Adams | And that the said Constitution be never construed to authorize Congress to infringe the just liberty of the press, or the rights of conscience; or to prevent the people of the United States, who are peaceable citizens, from keeping their own arms; or to raise standing armies, unless necessary for the defense of the United States, or of some one or more of them; or to prevent the people from petitioning, in a peaceable and orderly manner, the federal legislature, for a redress of grievances; or to subject the people to unreasonable searches and seizures of their persons, papers or possessions. | |
| Felix Adler | Dogma is the convictions of one man imposed authoritatively upon others. | |
| Saul Alinksy | How to create a socialist state by Saul Alinsky:\\
There are 8 levels of control that must be obtained before you are able to create a socialist state. The first is the most important.\\\\
1) Healthcare — Control healthcare and you control the people.\\
2) Poverty — Increase the Poverty level as high as possible, poor people are easier to control and will not fight back if you are providing everything for them to live.\\
3) Debt — Increase the debt to an unsustainable level. That way you are able to increase taxes, and this will produce more poverty.\\
4) Gun Control — Remove the ability to defend themselves from the Government. That way you are able to create a police state.\\
5) Welfare — Take control of every aspect of their lives (Food, Housing, and Income).\\
6) Education — Take control of what people read and listen to — take control of what children learn in school.\\
7) Religion — Remove the belief in the God from the Government and schools.\\
8) Class Warfare — Divide the people into the wealthy and the poor. This will cause more discontent and it will be easier to take (Tax) the wealthy with the support of the poor.\\ | |
| 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. | |
| Woody Allen | If only God would give me some clear sign! Like making a large deposit in my name at a Swiss Bank. | |
| Woody Allen | The lion and the calf shall lie down together, but the calf won't get much sleep. | |
| Fisher Ames | The happiness of a people, and the good order and preservation of civil government, essentially depend on piety, religion, and morality. | |
| Henri-Frédéric Amiel | The test of every religious, political, or educational system is the man that it forms. | |
| Henri Frederic Amiel | Philosophy means the complete liberty of the mind, and therefore independence of all social, political or religious prejudice... It loves one thing only... truth. | |
| Henri Frederic Amiel | The test of every religious, political, or educational system, is the man which it forms. If a system injures the intelligence it is bad. If it injures the character it is vicious. If it injures the conscience it is criminal. | |
| Laurie Anderson | Paradise is just like where you are right now, only much better. | |
| Saint Thomas Aquinas | Because of the diverse conditions of humans, it happens that some acts are virtuous to some people, as appropriate and suitable to them, while the same acts are immoral for others, as inappropriate to them. | |
| Aristotle | It makes no difference whether a good man has defrauded a bad man, or a bad man defrauded a good man, or whether a good or bad man has committed adultery: the law can look only to the amount of damage done. | |
| Aristotle | A tyrant must put on the appearance of uncommon devotion to religion. Subjects are less apprehensive of illegal treatment from a ruler whom they consider god-fearing and pious. | |
| Margot Asquith | What a pity, when Christopher Columbus discovered America, that he ever mentioned it. | |
| Margaret Atwood | The use of “religion” as an excuse to repress the freedom of expression and to deny human rights is not confined to any country or time. | |
| Saint Augustine | Near our vineyard there was a pear tree laden with fruit that was not attractive in either flavor or form. One night, when I [at the age of sixteen] had played until dark on the sandlot with some other juvenile delinquents, we went to shake that tree and carry off its fruit. From it we carried off huge loads, not to feast on, but to throw to the pigs, although we did eat a few ourselves. We did it just because it was forbidden. | |
| Saint Augustine | Give me chastity and self-restraint, but do not give it yet. | |
| Walter Bagehot | So long as there are earnest believers in the world, they will always wish to punish opinions, even if their judgment tells them it is unwise and their conscience tells them it is wrong. | |
| 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. | |
| James Baldwin | The price one pays for pursuing any profession, or calling, is an intimate knowledge of its ugly side. | |
| William Barr | I will not dwell on all the bitter results of new secular age. Suffice it to say that the campaign to destroy the traditional moral order has brought with it immense suffering, wreckage, and misery. And yet, the forces of secularism, ignoring these tragic results, press on with even greater militancy. Among these militant secularists are many so-called “progressives.” But where is the progress? We are told we are living in a post-Christian era. But what has replaced the Judeo-Christian moral system? What is it that can fill the spiritual void in the hearts of the individual person? And, what is a system of values that can sustain human social life? The fact is that no secular creed has emerged capable of performing the role of religion. | |
| William Barr | In the past, when societies are threatened by moral chaos, the overall social costs of licentiousness and irresponsible personal conduct becomes so high that society ultimately recoils and reevaluates the path they are on. But today – in the face of all the increasing pathologies – instead of addressing the underlying cause, we have the State in the role of Alleviator of Bad Consequences. We call on the State to mitigate the social costs of personal misconduct and irresponsibility. So the reaction to growing illegitimacy is not sexual responsibility, but abortion. The reaction to drug addiction is safe injection sites. The solution to the breakdown of the family is for the State to set itself up as the ersatz husband for single mothers and the ersatz father to their children. The call comes for more and more social programs to deal with the wreckage. While we think we are solving problems, we are underwriting them. We start with an untrammeled freedom and we end up as dependents of a coercive state on whom we depend. | |
| William Barr | One of the ironies, as some have observed, is that the secular project has itself become a religion, pursued with religious fervor. It is taking on all the trappings of a religion – including inquisitions and excommunication. Those who defy the creed risk a figurative burning at the stake – social, educational, and professional ostracism and exclusion waged through lawsuits and savage social media campaigns. | |
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