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2012 November 30
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"The more prohibitions you have, the less virtuous people will be." |
"If, then, it became so difficult, so nearly impossible, in most cases, to determine what is, and what is not, vice; and especially if it be so difficult, in nearly all cases, to determine where virtue ends, and vice begins; and if these questions, which no one can really and truly determine for anybody but himself, are not to be left free and open for experiment by all, each person is deprived of the highest of all his rights as a human being, to wit: his right to inquire, investigate, reason, try experiments, judge, and ascertain for himself, what is, to him,virtue, and what is, to him, vice; in other words: what, on the whole, conduces to his happiness, and what, on the whole, tends to his unhappiness. If this great right is not to be left free and open to all, then each man’s whole right, as a reasoning human being, to "liberty and the pursuit of happiness," is denied him. " |
"If moral behavior were simply following rules,
we could program a computer to be moral." |
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2012 November 29
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"Those who cast the votes decide nothing.
Those who count the votes decide everything." |
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2012 November 28
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"Any single man must judge for himself whether circumstances warrant
obedience or resistance to the commands of the civil magistrate; we are
all qualified, entitled, and morally obliged to evaluate the conduct of
our rulers. This political judgment, moreover, is not simply or
primarily a right, but like self-preservation, a duty to God. As such it
is a judgment that men cannot part with according to the God of Nature.
It is the first and foremost of our inalienable rights without which we
can preserve no other." |
"The average age of the world's greatest civilizations
has been two hundred years.
These nations have progressed through this sequence:
From bondage to spiritual faith;
from spiritual faith to great courage;
from courage to liberty;
from liberty to abundance;
from abundance to selfishness;
from selfishness to complacency;
from complaceny to apathy;
from apathy to dependence;
from dependency back again into bondage." |
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2012 November 27
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"An elective despotism was not the government we fought for, but one which should not only be founded on true free principles, but in which the powers of government should be so divided and balanced among general bodies of magistracy, as that no one could transcend their legal limits without being effectually checked and restrained by the others." |
"When the people find they can vote themselves money,
that will herald the end of the republic." |
"When truth is divided, errors multiply." |
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2012 November 26
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"If the true spark of religious and civil liberty be kindled, it will burn." |
"The love of liberty with life is given,
And life itself the inferior gift of Heaven." |
"O liberty,
Parent of happiness, celestial born
When the first man became a living soul;
His sacred genius thou." |
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