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In the end, the state of the Union comes down to the character of the people. ... I sought for the greatness and genius of America in her commodious harbors, her ample rivers, and it was not there. I sought for it in the fertile fields, and boundless prairies, and it was not there. I sought it in her rich mines, and vast world commerce, and it was not there. Not until I went into the churches of America and heard her pulpits aflame with righteousness did I understand the secret of her genius and power.more Alexis de Tocqueville quotes |
Where are we then? The religionists are the enemies of liberty, and the friends of liberty attack religion; the high-minded and the noble advocate subjection, and the meanest and most servile minds preach independence; honest and enlightened citizens are opposed to all progress, whilst men without patriotism and without principles are the apostles of civilization and intelligence. Has such been the fate of the centuries which have preceded our own? and has man always inhabited a world like the present, where nothing is linked together, where virtue is without genius, and genius without honor; where the love of order is confounded with a taste for oppression, and the holy rites of freedom with a taste for law; where the light thrown by conscience on human actions is dim, and where nothing seems to be any longer forbidden or allowed, honorable or shameful, false or true?more Alexis de Tocqueville quotes |
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I know of no other country where love of money
has such a grip on men's hearts or
where stronger scorn is expressed for
the theory of permanent equality of property.more Alexis de Tocqueville quotes |
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A man who lies to himself, and believes his own lies, becomes unable to recognize truth, either in himself or in anyone else, and he ends up losing respect for himself and for others. When he has no respect for anyone, he can no longer love, and in him, he yields to his impulses, indulges in the lowest form of pleasure, and behaves in the end like an animal in satisfying his vices. And it all comes from lying to others and to yourself.more Fyodor Dostoyevsky quotes |
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Excellence is an art won by training and habituation: we do not act rightly because we have virtue or excellence, but we rather have these because we have acted rightly; 'these virtues are formed in man by his doing the actions'; we are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act but a habit: 'the good of man is a working of the soul in the way of excellence in a complete life... for as it is not one swallow or one fine day that makes a spring, so it is not one day or a short time that makes a man blessed and happy.more Will Durant quotes |
Great spirits have always found violent opposition from mediocrities. The latter cannot understand it when a man does not thoughtlessly submit to hereditary prejudices but honestly and courageously uses his intelligence.more Albert Einstein quotes |
We have never stopped sin by passing laws; and in the same way, we are not going to take a great moral ideal and achieve it merely by law.more Dwight D. Eisenhower quotes |
Blessed is the man who, having nothing to say, abstains from giving us wordy evidence of the fact.more George Eliot quotes |
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In a civilized society, all crimes are likely to be sins, but most sins are not and ought not to be treated as crimes.more Geoffrey Fisher quotes |
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How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world.more Anne Frank quotes |
Trusting too much to others' care is the ruin of many; for, as the almanac says, in the affairs of this world men are saved not by faith, but by the want of it; but a man's own care is profitable; for, saith Poor Dick, learning is to the studious, and riches to the careful, as well as power to the bold, and Heaven to the virtuous.more Benjamin Franklin quotes |
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As to Jesus of Nazareth, my opinion of whom you particularly desire, I think the system of Morals and his Religion, as he left them to us, the best the World ever saw or is likely to see; but I apprehend it has received various corrupting Changes; and I have, with most of the present Dissenters in England, some doubts as to his divinity.more Benjamin Franklin quotes |
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The things that will destroy us are: politics without principle; pleasure without conscience; wealth without work; knowledge without character; business without morality; science without humanity; and worship without sacrifice.more Mahatma Mohandas K. Gandhi quotes |
Once one assumes an attitude of intolerance, there is no knowing where it will take one. Intolerance, someone has said, is violence to the intellect and hatred is violence to the heart.more Mahatma Mohandas K. Gandhi quotes |
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It is not the business of government to make men virtuous or religious, or to preserve the fool from the consequences of his own folly. Government should be repressive no further than is necessary to secure liberty by protecting the equal rights of each from aggression on the part of others, and the moment governmental prohibitions extend beyond this line they are in danger of defeating the very ends they are intended to serve.more Henry George quotes |
The evils we experience flow from the excess of democracy. The people do not want virtue, but are the dupes of pretended patriots.more Elbridge Gerry quotes |
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[It is not the purpose nor right of Congress] to attend to what generosity and humanity require, but to what the Constitution and their duty require.more William Branch Giles quotes |
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I would remind you that extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice. And let me remind you also that moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue.more Barry Goldwater quotes |
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I often wonder whether we do not rest our hopes too much upon constitutions, upon law and upon courts. These are false hopes, believe me, these are false hopes. Liberty lies in the hearts of men and women; when it dies there, no constitution, no law, no court can save it; no constitution, no law, no court can even do much to help it. While it lies there it needs no constitution, no law, no courts to save it.more Judge Learned Hand quotes |
We have not passed that subtle line between childhood and adulthood until we move from the passive voice to the active voice -- that is, until we have stopped saying, "It got lost," and say, "I lost it.more Sydney J. Harris quotes |
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No man, for any considerable period,
can wear one face to himself and another to the multitude,
without finally getting bewildered as to which one is true.more Nathaniel Hawthorne quotes |
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It is indeed probable that more harm and misery have been caused by men determined to use coercion to stamp out a moral evil than by men intent on doing evil.more Friedrich August von Hayek quotes |
