some already imported 26.3.2005, but there are more below... %start%%cat=Freedom,Happiness,Liberty,Responsibility, Wisdom//%quote%How I wish that somewhere there existed an island for those who are wise and of goodwill! In such a place even I would be an ardent patriot.//%Author%Albert Einstein//%end% %start%%cat=Freedom,Liberty,Responsibility//%quote%Perfect Freedom is reserved for the man who lives by his own work, and in that work does what he wants to do.//%Author%R. G. Collingwood//%end% %start%%cat=Government,Socialism//%quote%The National Government will regard it as its first and foremost duty to revive in the nation the spirit of unity and cooperation. It will preserve and defend those basic principles on which our nation has been built. It regards Christianity as the foundation of our national morality, and the family as the basis of national life. //%Author%Adolph Hitler//%Source%My New World Order, Proclamation to the German Nation at Berlin, February 1, 1933//%end% %start%%cat=Economics,Government,Military,Socialism//%quote%Were the Soviet Union to sink tomorrow under the waters of the ocean, the American military-industrial establishment would have to go on, substantially unchanged, until some other adversary could be invented. Anything else would be an unacceptable shock to the American economy.//%Author%George F. Kennan//%Date%1987//%Who%Professor Emeritus at the Institute for Advanced Study and former US Ambassador to the Soviet Union.//%end% %start%%cat=Independence,Responsibility//%quote%I believe more follies are committed out of complaisance to the world, than in following our own inclinations. //%Author%Mary Wortley Montagu//%end% %start%%cat=Independence,Responsibility, Proverbs//%quote%If you believe everything you read, you better not read. //%Author%Japanese Proverb//%end% %start%%cat=Independence,Responsibility//%quote%At the bottom of a good deal of bravery... lurks a miserable cowardice. Men will face powder and steel because they cannot face public opinion. //%Author%E.H. Chapin//%end% %start%%cat=Independence,Responsibility//%quote%He who joyfully marches to music in rank and file has already earned my contempt. He has been given a large brain by mistake, since for him the spinal cord would fully suffice. //%Author%Albert Einstein//%end% %start%%cat=Independence,Responsibility//%quote%Most people are other people. Their thoughts are someone else's opinions, their lives a mimicry, their passions a quotation.//%Author%Oscar Wilde//%Source%De Profundis, 1905//%end% %start%%cat=Honesty,Integrity,Responsibility//%quote%The most exhausting thing in life is being insincere. //%Author%Anne Morrow Lindbergh//%end% %start%%cat=Honor,Wisdom,Responsibility//%quote%When you were born, you cried and the world rejoiced. Live your life in such a manner that when you die the world cries and you rejoice.//%Author%Indian Saying//%end% %start%%cat=Reason,Independence,Responsibility//%quote%It is not what a lawyer tells me I may do; but what humanity, reason, and justice tell me I ought to do. //%Author%Edmund Burke//%Source%Second Speech on Conciliation, 1775//%end% %start%%cat=Independence,Responsibility//%quote%If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor. If an elephant has its foot on the tail of a mouse and you say that you are neutral, the mouse will not appreciate your neutrality. //%Author%Bishop Desmond Tutu//%end% %start%%cat=Responsibility//%quote%Never ruin an apology with an excuse.//%Author%Kimberly Johnson//%end% %start%%cat=Proverbs,Responsibility//%quote%Don't look where you fall, but where you slipped. //%Author%African Proverb//%end% %start%%cat=Wisdom//%quote%Time has no divisions to mark its passage, there is never a thunderstorm or blare of trumpets to announce the beginning of a new month or year. Even when a new century begins it is only we mortals who ring bells and fire off pistols. //%Author%Thomas Mann//%end% %start%%cat=Truth//%quote%Ring out the old, ring in the new,/Ring, happy bells, across the snow:/The year is going, let him go;/Ring out the false, ring in the true.//%Author%Alfred, Lord Tennyson//%Date%1850//%end% %start%%cat=Faith//%quote%Hope is that thing with feathers that perches in the soul and sings the tune without the words and never stops... at all. //%Author%Emily Dickinson//%end% %start%%cat=Faith,Sanity//%quote%Sanity may be madness but the maddest of all is to see life as it is and not as it should be. //%Author%Don Quixote//%end% %start%%cat=Democracy,Responsibility//%quote%I'm tired of hearing it said that democracy doesn't work. Of course it doesn't work. We are supposed to work it. //%Author%Alexander Woollcott//%end% %start%%cat=Independence,Responsibility//%quote%I am not an Athenian or a Greek, I am a citizen of the world. //%Author%Socrates//%end% %start%%cat=Humor,Science//%quote%The knack of flying is learning how to throw yourself at the ground and miss. //%Author%Douglas Adams//%Source%Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy//%end% %start%%cat=Proverbs, Peace, War, Wisdom,Responsibility//%quote%The more we sweat in peace the less we bleed in war. //%Author%Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit//%end% %start%%cat=Liberty,Freedom,Independence,Responsibility//%quote%Nothing is more desirable than to be released from an affliction, but nothing is more frightening than to be divested of a crutch. //%Author%James Baldwin//%end% %start%%cat=Arms,Defense,Power,Freedom,Independence,Responsibility//%quote%"Those who have the command of the arms in a country are masters of the state, and have it in their power to make what revolutions they please.  [Thus,] there is no end to observations on the difference between the measures likely to be pursued by a minister backed by a standing army, and those of a court awed by the fear of an armed people."//%Author%Aristotle//%Source%quoted by John Trenchard (1662-1723) and Walter Moyle (1672-1721), "An Argument, shewing; that a standing Army is Inconsistent with a Free Government and Absolutely Destructive to the Constitution of the English Monarchy," (London, 1697)//%end% %start%%cat=Arms,Defense,Power,Freedom,Independence,Responsibility//%quote%"Here, every private person is authorized to arm himself, and on the strength of this authority, I do not deny the inhabitants had a right to arm themselves at that time, for their defense, not for offense..."//%Author%John Adams//%Source%opening argument for the defense in_Rex. v. Wemms,_a 1770 case arising from the actions of a British soldier in the Boston Massacre, in Lyman H. Butterfield and Hilda B. Zobel, eds., _The Legal Papers of John Adams,_ vol.III, p.248 (MacMillan, 1965)//%end% %start%%cat=Arms,Defense,Power,Freedom,Independence,Responsibility//%quote%"No kingdom can be secured otherwise than by arming the people. The possession of arms is the distinction between a freeman and a slave.  He, who has nothing, and who himself belongs to another, must be defended by him, whose property he is, and needs no arms. But he, who thinks he is his own master, and has what he can call his own, ought to have arms to defend himself and what he possesses; else he lives precariously, and at discretion."//%Author%Andrew Fletcher (1655-1716)//%Source%quoted by James Burgh (1714-1775), in "Political Disquisitions: Or, an Enquiry into Public Errors, Defects, and Abuses," (London, 1774-1775)//%end% %start%%cat=Arms,Defense,Power,Freedom,Independence,Responsibility//%quote%"It is always dangerous to the liberties of the people to have an army stationed among them, over which they have no control."//%Author%Samuel Adams//%Source% letter to Elbridge Gerry, October 29, 1775//%end% %start%%cat=Learning,History,Power//%quote% "His Lordship[ the Lord Sandwich]'s plan [...] amounts to this. [The Americans, quoth this Quixote of modern days, will not fight; therefore we will.]  These people are either too superstitiously religious, or too cowardly for arms; they either cannot or dare not defend; their property is open to any one who has the courage to attack them.  Send but your troops and the prize is ours.  Kill a few and take the whole.  Thus, the peaceable part of mankind will be continually overrun by the vile and abandoned while they neglect the means of self-defense. The supposed quietude of a good man allures the ruffian; while on the other hand, arms like laws discourage and keep the invader and the plunderer in awe, and preserve order in the world, as well as property.  The balance of power is the scale of peace.  The same balance would be preserved were all the world destitute of arms, for all would be alike; but since somewill not, others dare not lay them aside.  And while a single nation refuses to lay them down, it is proper that all should keep them up.  Horrid mischief would ensue were one half the world deprived of the use of them; for while avarice and ambition have a place in the heart of man, the weak will become a prey to the strong.  The history of every age and nation establishes these truths, and facts need but little arguments when they prove themselves." //%Author%Thomas Paine//%Source%"Thoughts on Defensive War," in The Pennsylvania Magazine, July 1775 //%end% %start%%cat=Learning,History,Power//%quote%    "Rebellion to tyrants is obedience to God." //%Author%Thomas Jefferson//%Source%motto found among his papers and on his seal, c.1776 <>    "It is certainly of the last [or, ultimate] Consequence to a free Country that the Militia, which is its natural Strength, should be kept upon the most advantageous Footing.  A standing Army, however necessary it may be at some times, is always dangerous to the Liberties of the People.  Soldiers are apt to consider themselves as a Body distinct from the rest of Citizens. They have their Arms always in their hands.  Their Rules and their Discipline is severe.  They soon become attach[e]d to their officers and dispos[e]d to yield implicit Obedience to their Commands.  Such a Power should be watched with a jealous Eye. I have a good Opinion of the principal officers of our Army. I esteem them as Patriots as well as Soldiers.  But if this War continues, as it may for years yet to come, we know not who may succeed them.  Men who have been long subject to military Laws and inured to military Customs and Habits, may lose the Spirit and Feeling of Citizens.  And even Citizens, having been used to admire the Heroism which the Commanders of their own Army have display[e]d, and look up to them as their Saviors may be prevail[e]d upon to surrender to them those Rights for the protection of which against Invaders they had employ[e]d and paid them.  We have seen too much of this Disposition among some of our Countrymen.  The Militia is compos[e]d of free Citizens. There is therefore no Danger of their making use of their Power to the destruction of their own Rights, or suffering others to invade them.    I earnestly wish that young Gentlemen of a military Genius (& many such I am satified there are in our Colony) might be instructed in the Art of War, and at the same time taught the Principles of a free Government, and deeply impress[e]d with a Sense of the indispensible Obligation which every member is under to the whole Society.  These might be in time fit for officers in the Militia, and being th[ourough]ly acquainted with the Duties of Citizens as well as Soldiers, might be entrusted with a Share in the Command of our Army at such times as Necessity might require so dangerous a Body to exist." //%Author%Samuel Adams//%Source%letter to James Warren, January 7, 1776         "We hold these Truths to be Self evident; that all Men are created equal and independent; that from that equal Creation they derive Rights inherent and unalienable; among which are the Preservation of Life, and Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness; that to secure these Ends, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just Powers from the Consent of the governed; that whenever, any form of Government, Shall become destructive of these Ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government..." //%Author%Thomas Jefferson//%Source%original draft of the U.S. Declaration of Independence, July 1776    "If ye love wealth better than liberty, the tranquillity of servitude better than the animating contest of freedom, go home from us in peace. We ask not your counsels or arms.  Crouch down and lick the hands which feed you.  May your chains set lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that ye were our countrymen." //%Author%attributed to Samuel Adams//%Source%August 1, 1776 <> //%end% %start%%cat=Arms,Defense,Power,Freedom,Independence,Responsibility//%quote%"If I were an American, as I am an Englishman, while a foreign troop was landed in my country, I never would lay down my arms, -- never --never --never!  You cannot conquer America."//%Author%William Pitt (Earl of Chatham)//%Source%speech in the House of Lords, November 18, 1777 //%end% %start%%cat=Learning,History,Power,War//%quote% "To judge from the history of mankind, we shall be compelled to conclude, that the fiery and destructive passions of war, reign in the human breast, with much more powerful sway, than the mild and beneficent sentiments of peace; and, that to model our political systems upon speculations of lasting tranquility, is to calculate on the weaker springs of the human character." //%Author%Alexander Hamilton//%Source%writing as "Publius," in _Federalist No. 34,_January 5, 1788 "But, sir, the people themselves have it in their power effectually to resist usurpation, without being driven to an appeal of arms.  An act of usurpation is not obligatory; it is not law; and any man may be justified in his resistance.  Let him be considered as a criminal by the general government, yet only his fellow-citizens can convict him; they are his jury, and if they pronounce him innocent, not all the powers of Congress can hurt him; and innocent they certainly will pronounce him, if the supposed law he resisted was an act of usurpation." //%Author%Theophilus Parsons//%Who%(1750-1813)//%Source%in the Massachusetts Convention on the ratification of the Constitution, January 23, 1788, in_Debates in the Several State Conventions on the Adoption of the Federal Constitution,_ Jonathan Elliot, ed., v.2 p.94 (Philadelphia, 1836)  <>   "Is it possible... that an army could be raised for the purpose of enslaving themselves and their brethren?  or, if raised, whether they could subdue a Nation of freemen, who know how to prize liberty, and who have arms in their hands?" //%Author%Rep. Theodore Sedgwick//%Who%(1746-1813)//%Source%in the Massachusetts Convention on the ratification of the Constitution, January 24, 1788, in_Debates in the Several State Conventions on the Adoption of the Federal Constitution,_ Jonathan Elliot, ed., v.2 p.97 (Philadelphia, 1836) "The militia of these free commonwealths, entitled and accustomed to their arms, when compared with any possible army, must be _tremendous and irresistable_.  Who are the militia? _[A]re they not ourselves[?]_ Is it feared, then, that we shall turn our arms _each man against his own bosom[?]_  Congress have no power to disarm the militia.  Their swords, and every other terrible implement of the soldier, are _the birth-right of an American_... [T]he unlimited power of the sword is not in the hands of either the_federal or state governments,_ but, where I trust in God it will ever remain, _in the hands of the people._" //%Author%Tench Coxe//%Who%(1755-1824)//%Source%writing as "A Pennsylvanian," in _Pennsylvania Gazette,_ February 20, 1788 [see_A Documentary History of the Ratification of the Constitution_(Kamiski and Saladino, eds., 1981) p.1778-1780] "Guard with jealous attention the public liberty.  Suspect every one who approaches that jewel.  Unfortunately, nothing will preserve it but downright force.  Whenever you give up that force, you are inevitably ruined." //%Author%Patrick Henry//%Source%in the Virginia Convention on the ratification of the Constitution, June 5, 1788, in_Debates in the Several State Conventions on the Adoption of the Federal Constitution,_ Jonathan Elliot, ed., v.3 p.45 (Philadelphia, 1836)    "I believe there are more instances of the abridgment of the freedom of the people by the gradual and silent encroachments of those in power, than by violent and sudden usurpations." //%Author%James Madison//%Source%June 6, 1788, in the Virginia Convention on the ratification of the Constitution, in_Debates in the Several State Conventions on the Adoption of the Federal Constitution,_ Jonathan Elliot, ed., v.3 p.87 (Philadelphia, 1836)  <> "Are we at last brought to such a humiliating and debasing degradation, that we cannot be trusted with arms for our own defence?  Where is the difference between having our arms in our own possession and under our own direction, and having them under the management of Congress?  If our defence be the_real_object of having those arms, in whose hands can they be trusted with more propriety, or equal safety to us, as in our own hands?" //%Author%Patrick Henry//%Source%June 9, 1788, in the Virginia Convention on the ratification of the Constitution, in_Debates in the Several State Conventions on the Adoption of the Federal Constitution,_ Jonathan Elliot, ed., v.3 p.168 (Philadelphia, 1836)    "To disarm the people...  was the best and most effectual way to enslave them." //%Author%George Mason//%Source%June 14, 1788, in the Virginia Convention on the ratification of the Constitution, in_Debates in the Several State Conventions on the Adoption of the Federal Constitution,_ Jonathan Elliot, ed., v.3 p.380 (Philadelphia, 1836) <>    "The great object is, that every man be armed. [...] Every one who is able may have a gun." //%Author%Patrick Henry//%Source%in the Virginia Convention on the ratification of the Constitution, June 14, 1788, in_Debates in the Several State Conventions on the Adoption of the Federal Constitution,_ Jonathan Elliot, ed., v.3 p.386 (Philadelphia, 1836)    "I ask, Who are the militia?  They consist now of the whole people, except for a few public officers." //%Author%George Mason//%Source%in the Virginia Convention on the ratification of the Constitution, June 16, 1788, in_Debates in the Several State Conventions on the Adoption of the Federal Constitution,_ Jonathan Elliot, ed., v.3 p.425 (Philadelphia, 1836) <> //%end% %start%%cat=Arms,Defense,Power,Freedom,Independence,Responsibility//%quote%"Whenever, therefore, the profession of arms becomes a distinct order in the state... the end of the social compact is defeated... No free government was ever founded, or ever preserved its liberty without uniting the characters of the citizen and soldier in those destined for the defense of the state... Such are a well regulated militia, composed of the freeholders, citizen and husbandman, who take up arms to preserve their property, as individuals, and their rights as freemen."//%Author%M. T. Cicero//%Source%in Charleston_State Gazette,_ September 8, 1788//%end% %start%%cat=Learning,History,Power//%quote%    "The right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed; a well armed and well regulated militia being the best security of a free country; but no person religiously scrupulous of bearing arms shall be compelled to render military service in person." //%Author%James Madison//%Source%I Annals of Congress 434, June 8, 1789  <> "As civil rulers, not having their duty to the people duly before them, may attempt to tyrannize, and as the military forces which must be occasionally raised to defend our country, might pervert their power to the injury of their fellow-citizens, the people are confirmed by the next article in their right to keep and bear their private arms." //%Author%Tench Coxe//%Source%writing as "A Pennsylvanian," in "Remarks On The First Part Of The Amendments To The Federal Constitution,"  in the _Philadelphia Federal Gazette,_ June 18, 1789, p.2 col.1 <>    "The people are not to be disarmed of their weapons. They are left in full possession of them." //%Author%Zachariah Johnson//%Source%in the Virginia Convention on the ratification of the Constitution, June 25, 1788, in_Debates in the Several State Conventions on the Adoption of the Federal Constitution,_ Jonathan Elliot, ed., v.3 p.646 (Philadelphia, 1836) "This declaration of rights, I take it, is intended to secure the people against the mal-administration of the government; if we could suppose that, in all cases, the rights of the people would be attended to, the occasion for guards of this kind would be removed.  Now, I am apprehensive, sir, that this clause would give an opportunity to the people in power to destroy the constitution itself.  They can declare who are those religiously scrupulous, and prevent them from bearing arms.    What, sir, is the use of a militia?  It is to prevent the establishment of a standing army, the bane of liberty.  Now, it must be evident, that under this provision, together with their other powers, Congress could take such measures with respect to a militia, as make a standing army necessary.  Whenever Government[s] mean to invade the rights and liberties of the people, they always attempt to destroy the militia, in order to raise an army upon their ruins.  This was actually done by Great Britain at the commencement of the late revolution.  They used every means in their power to prevent the establishment of an effective militia to the eastward.  The Assembly of Massachusetts, seeing the rapid progress that [the British] administration were making to divest them of their inherent privileges, endeavored to counteract them by the organization of the militia; but they were always defeated by the influence of the Crown." //%Author%Rep. Elbridge Gerry//%Source%Annals of Congress, vol.I, p.750, August 17, 1789 [in _The Bill of Rights: A Documentary History,_ Schwartz, ed.] <>    //%end% %start%%cat=Learning,History,Power//%quote%"That the said Constitution shall never be 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..." //%Author%Samuel Adams//%Source%in_Debates and Proceedings in the Convention of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts,_ pp.86-87, (Pierce & Hale, Boston, 1850), also in Philadelphia_Independent Gazetteer,_ August 20, 1789 //%end% %start%%cat=Learning,History,Power//%quote%    "Firearms stand next in importance to the Constitution itself.  They are the American people's liberty teeth and keystone under independence.  The church, the plow, the prarie wagon, and citizen's firearms are indelibly related.  From the hour the Pilgrims landed, to the present day, events, occurrences, and tendencies prove that to insure peace, security and happiness, the rifle and the pistol are equally indispensable.  Every corner of this land knows firearms, and more than 99 99/100 percent of them by their silence indicate they are in safe and sane hands.  The very atmosphere of firearms anywhere and everywhere restrains evil interference; they deserve a place with all that's good.  When firearms, go all goes; we need them every hour." //%Author%George Washington//%Source%falsely attributed, address to the second session of the first U.S. Congress <>    "He that would make his own liberty secure, must guard even his enemy from oppression; for if he violates this duty, he establishes a precedent that will reach to himself." //%Author%Thomas Paine//%Source%conclusion,_Dissertation on First Principles of Government,_(Paris, July [4?,]1795) <> //%end% %start%%cat=Learning,History,Power//%quote%"If, for example, a law be passed by congress, prohibiting the free exercise of religion, according to the dictates, or persuasions of a man's own conscience; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press, or the right of the people to assemble peaceably, or to keep and bear arms; it would, in any of these cases, be the province of the judiciary to pronounce whether any such act were constitutional, or not; and if not, to acquit the accused from any penalty which might be annexed to the breach of such unconstitutional act."//%Author%Henry St. George Tucker//%Who%(1780-1848)//%Source%ed., _Blackstone's Commentaries: with Notes of Reference, to the Constitution and Laws of the Federal Government of the United States; and of the Commonwealth of Virginia,_vol.1 p.357 (Philadelphia, 1803)//%end% %start%%cat=Learning,History,Power//%quote%"The Greeks by their laws, and the Romans by the spirit of their people, took care to put into the hands of their rulers no such engine of oppression as a standing army.  Their system was to make every man a soldier, and oblige him to repair to the standard of his country whenever that was reared.  This made them invincible; and the same remedy will make us so."//%Author%Thomas Jefferson//%Source% letter to Thomas Cooper (from Monticello, September 10, 1814)//%end% %start%%cat=Learning,History,Power//%quote%"Next to having stout and friendly comrades, a man is chiefly emboldened by finding himself well armed in case of need."//%Author%Sir Walter Scott//%Source%(1771-1832)//%Source%The Fortunes of Nigel, 1822//%end% %start%%cat=Learning,History,Power//%quote%"Tho[ugh] aware of the danger of universal suffrage in a future state of Society such as the present state in Europe: he [Madison] would have extended it so far as to secure in every event and change in the state of Society a majority of people on the side of power.  A Government resting on a minority, is an aristocracy not a Republic, and could not be safe with a numerical [and] physical force against it, without a standing Army, and enslaved press, and a disarmed populace." //%Author%James Madison//%Source%from an autobiographical sketch, ca. 1831-1836, published as "James Madison's Autobiography," in_William and Mary Quarterly,_3rd series, vol. 2, p. 208, (1945) <>    "[S] 1889. The next amendment is: 'A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.'    [S] 1890.  The importance of this article will scarcely be doubted by any persons who have duly reflected upon the subject. The militia is the natural defence of a free country against sudden foreign invasions, domestic insurrections, and domestic usurpations of power by rulers.  It is against sound policy for a free people to keep up large military establishments and standing armies in time of peace, both from the enourmous expenses, with which they are attended, and the facile means, which they afford to ambitious and unprincipled rulers, to subvert the government, or trample upon the rights of the people. The right of the citizens to keep and bear arms has justly been considered, as the palladium of the liberties of a republic; since it offers a strong moral check against the usurpation and arbitrary power of rulers; and will generally, even if these are successful in the first instance, enable the people to resist and triumph over them.  And yet, though this truth would seem so clear, and the importance of a well regulated militia would seem so undeniable, it cannot be disguised, that among the American people there is a growing indifference to any system of militia discipline, and a strong disposition, from a sense of its burthens, to be rid of all regulations.  How is it practicable to keep the people duly armed without some organization, it is difficult to see.  There is certainly no small danger, that indifference may lead to digust, and disgust to contempt; and thus gradually undermine all the protection intended by this clause of our national bill of rights.    [S] 1891.  A similar provision in favour of protestants (for to them it is confined) is to be found in the bill of rights of 1688, it being declared, 'that the subjects, which are protestants, may have arms for their defence suitable to their condition, and as allowed by law.'  But under various pretences the effect of this provision has been greatly narrowed; and it is at present in England more nominal than real, as a defensive privilege." //%Author%U.S. Supreme Court Justice Joseph Story//%Who%(1779-1845)//%Source%"Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States; With a Preliminary Review of the Constitutional History of the Colonies and States before the Adoption of the Constitution" pp.746-747 (Boston, 1833) //%end% %start%%cat=Learning,History,Power//%quote%"God grants liberty only to those who love it, and are always ready to guard and defend it."//%Author%Daniel Webster//%Who%(1782-1852)//%Source%speech, June 3, 1834//%end% %start%%cat=Learning,History,Power//%quote%"War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things: the decayed and degraded sense of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks nothing _worth_ a war, is worse.  When a people are used as mere human instruments for firing cannon or thrusting bayonets, in the service and for the selfish purposes of a master, such war degrades a people.  A war to protect other human beings against tyrannical injustice; a war to give victory to their own ideas of right and good, and which is their own war, carried on for an honest purpose by their free choice, --is often the means of their regeneration.  A man who has nothing which he is willing to fight for, nothing which he cares about more than he does about his personal safety, is a miserable creature who has no chance of being free, unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself.  As long as justice and injustice have not terminated _their_ ever-renewing fight for ascendancy in the affairs of mankind, human beings must be willing, when need is, to do battle for the one against the other." //%Author%John Stuart Mill//%Who%(1806-1873)//%Source%"The Contest In America," Fraser's Magazine, February 1862 [reprinted in Mill's_Dissertations and Discussions, vol.1 p.26 (1868)] <>//%end% %start%%cat=Learning,History,Power//%quote%    "I am not hurt." //%Author%Ulysses S. Grant//%Who%(1822-1885)//%Source%to his family and officers after accidentally discharging a new breechloading rifle into his own hand (the only gunshot wound the general suffered in his entire military career), February 25, 1866 //%end% %start%%cat=Learning,History,Power//%quote%"I declare to you that woman must not depend upon the protection of man, but must be taught to protect herself, and there I take my stand."//%Author%Susan B. Anthony//%Who%(1820-1906)//%Source%speech in San Franscisco, July 1871//%end%    "I was armed to the teeth with a pitiful little Smith & Wesson's seven-shooter, which carried a ball like a homeopathic pill, and it took the whole seven to make a dose for an adult.  But I thought it was grand.  It appeared to me to be a dangerous weapon.  It had only one fault-- you could not hit anything with it." //%Author%Mark Twain//%Source%Roughing It, (1872)    "The right of the people to peaceably assemble for lawful purposes existed long before the adoption of the Constitution.  In fact, it is, and always has been, one of the attributes of citizenship under a free government.  It 'derives its source,' to use the language of Chief Justice Marshall... 'from those laws whose authority is acknowledged by civilized man throughout the world.'  It is found wherever civilization exists.  It is not, therefore, a right granted to the people by the Constitution.  The government of the United States when established found it in existence, with the obligation on the part of the states to afford it protection.  As no direct power over it was granted to Congress, it remains... subject to State jurisdiction.  Only such existing rights were committed by the people to the protection of Congress as came within the general scope of the authority granted to the national government. * * *    The second and tenth counts [of the indictment] are equally defective.  The right there [in the Second Amendment] specified is that of 'bearing arms for a lawful purpose.' This is not a right granted by the Constitution.  Neither is it in any manner dependent upon that instrument for its existence.  The second amendment declares that it shall not be infringed; but this, as has been seen, means no more than that it shall not be infringed by Congress.  This is one of the amendments that has no other effect than to restrict the powers of the national government, leaving the people to look for their protection against any violation by their fellow- citizens of the rights it recognizes, to what is called... the 'powers which relate to merely municipal legislation, or what was, perhaps, more properly called internal police,' [powers] 'not surrendered or restrained' by the Constitution of the United States." //%Author%Justice Morrison R. Waite//%Who%(1816-1888) U.S. Supreme Court Chief
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