Even MORE Quotes...
"Belief in a cruel God makes a cruel man."
"A long habit of not thinking a thing wrong gives it a superficial appearance of being right."
"An army of principles can penetrate where an army of soldiers cannot."
"The most formidable weapon against errors of every kind is reason."
"It is the direction and not the magnitude which is to be taken into consideration."
"When men yield up the privilege of thinking, the last shadow of liberty quits the horizon."
"Some writers have so confounded society with government, as to leave little or no distinction between them; whereas they are not only different, but have different origins ... Society is in every state a blessing, but Government, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil; in its worst state, an intolerable one."
"A thing moderately good is not so good as it ought to be. Moderation in temper is always a virtue; but moderation in principle is always a vice."
"I love the man that can smile in trouble, that can gather strength from distress, and grow brave by reflection. 'Tis the business of little minds to shrink, but he whose heart is firm, and whose conscience approves his conduct, will pursue his principles unto death."
"If there must be trouble, let it be in my day, that my child may have peace."
"Lead, follow, or get out of the way."
"My country is the world, and my religion is to do good."
"When we are planning for posterity, we ought to remember that virtue is not hereditary."
"If we do not hang together, we shall surely hang separately."
- Thomas Paine
In the letter of May 15, to Mr. Ternant, I mentioned, that, in answer to the complaints of the British minister against the exportation of arms from the United States, it had been observed, that the manufacture of arms was the occupation and livelihood of some of our citizens; that it ought not to be expected that a war among other nations should produce such an internal derangement of the occupations of a nation at peace, as the suppression of a manufacture which is the support of some of its citizens...
- Thomas Jefferson,
(to Edmond Charles Genet, November 30, 1793)
In one of these memorials, it is stated, that arms and military accoutrements are now buying up by a French agent in this Country with an intent to export them to France. We have answered that our Citizens have been always free to make, vend and export arms, that it is the constant occupation and livelihood of some of them. To suppress their callings, the only means, perhaps, of their subsistence, because a war exists in foreign and distant countries, in which we have no concern, would scarcely be expected. It would be hard in principle and impossible in practice. The law of nations, therefore, respecting the rights of those at peace, has not required from them such an internal derangement in their occupations. It is satisfied with the external penalty pronounced in the President's proclamation, that of confiscation of such portion of these arms as shall fall into the hands of any of the belligerent powers, on their way to the ports of their enemies. To this penalty our citizens are warned that they will be abandoned; and that the purchase of arms here, may work no inequality between the parties at war, the liberty to make them will be enjoyed equally by both.
- Thomas Jefferson
(to Jean Baptiste Ternant, May 15, 1793)
"Because the history of mankind, from the earliest ages, with a loud voice calls upon those who draw their swords against a prince deaf to the supplications of [his] people to throw away the scabbard."
- John Jay to the President of Congress, Sept. 29, 1779
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"Any excuse will serve a tyrant."
- Aesop
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"No free government, or the blessings of liberty can be preserved to any people, but by frequent recurrence to fundamental principles."
- George Mason
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"I cannot bring myself to depict the humiliation to which this Government and people might be sooner or later reduced, if the means for defending their rights are to be made dependant upon those who may have the most powerful of motives to impair them."
- President M. Van Buren, Message to the U.S. House of Representatives, Dec. 2, 1839.
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Self-defense is Nature's eldest law.
- John Dryden
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Self-defense is the clearest of all laws, and for this reason: lawyers didn't make it.
- Douglas William Jerrold
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"...legitimate defense can be not only a right but a grave duty for someone responsible for another's life, the common good of the family or of the State. Unfortunately, it happens that the need to render the aggressor incapable of causing harm sometimes involves taking his life."
- Pope John Paul II
EVANGELIUM VITAE
Encyclical Letter 1995
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The best defense against usurpatory government is an assertive citizenry.
- William F. Buckley, Jr.
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"I have not yet begun to fight!"
- John Paul Jones
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Society is pressed to its ancient defense against the violent criminal: the fear of swift and severe punishment. Either we take that road now, or we will live in the sickly twilight of a soulless people too weak to drive predators out of their own house.
- Francis T. Murphy
There is an option still left to the United States of America, that it is in their choice and depends upon their conduct, whether they will be respectable and prosperous or contemptible and miserable as a Nation.
An army of asses led by a lion is better than an army of lions led by an ass.
Experience teaches us that it is much easier to prevent an enemy from posting themselves than it is to dislodge them after they have got possession.
(Now, George, you should have told us this befo....never mind! Sigh!)
If the freedom of speech is taken away then dumb and silent we may be led, like sheep to the slaughter.
I earnestly pray that the Omnipotent Being who has not deserted the cause of America in the hour of its extremest hazard, will never yield so fair a heritage of freedom a prey to "Anarchy" or "Despotism".
When we assumed the Soldier, we did not lay aside the Citizen.
There is nothing so likely to produce peace as to be well prepared to meet the enemy.
Avoiding occasions of expense by cultivating peace, we should remember also that timely disbursements to prepare for danger frequently prevent much greater disbursements to repel it.
(Yeah, George, that's why you wanted THE PEOPLE ARMED, isn't it? Instead of what you, as indicated below, feared happening?)
Over grown military establishments are under any form of government inauspicious to liberty, and are to be regarded as particularly hostile to republican liberty.
It is our true policy to steer clear of permanent alliances with any portion of the foreign world.
Precedents are dangerous things; let the rein of government then be braced and held with a steady hand.
(George, there are some people that, I think, you need to talk with. In fact, many of them have planted themselves in the city that bears your name!)
To err is nature, to rectify error is glory.
Arbitrary power is most easily established on the ruins of liberty abused to licentiousness.
Truth will ultimately prevail where there is pains to bring it to light.
It is impossible to rightly govern a nation without God and the Bible".
I am sure that never was a people, who had more reason to acknowledge a Divine interposition in their affairs, than those of the United States; and I should be pained to believe that they have forgotten that agency, which was so often manifested during our Revolution, or that they failed to consider the omnipotence of that God who is alone able to protect them.
(Gee, I wonder if that's why their attempting to remove Him and the Bible. That way they can further usurp by ever more perverse rule).
In general I esteem it a good maxim, that the best way to preserve the confidence of the people durably is to promote their true interest.
It may be laid down as a primary position, and the basis of our system, that every Citizen who enjoys the protection of a Free Government, owes not only a proportion of his property, but even of his personal services to the defense of it.
(Well, you see George, many of us would be happy to excersize our personal services to the defense. But, alas, our current government is taking the tools used for defense out of the hands of the people. No, George, you see they think themselves superior, to you and the other founders, and that they are the only ones who should have control of the tools for defense. Yes, I know that is NOT what you had intended. But, sadly, that is what they are doing!)
It will be found an unjust and unwise jealousy to deprive a man of his natural liberty upon the supposition he may abuse it.
I am also pleasd to find that the Manufactury of Arms and Ammunition have been attended to with so much care; a plenty of these and unanimity and Fortitude among ourselves must defeat every attempt that a diabolical Ministry can Invent to Inslave this great Continent. In the Manufacturing of Arms for Publick use great care should be taken to make the bores of the same size, that the same Balls may answer, otherwise great disadvantages may arise from a mixture of Cartridges.
- To JOHN AUGUSTINE WASHINGTON Camp at Cambridge, October 13, 1775
Each Non Commissioned Officer, and Soldier, (Drums and Fifes excepted) is to furnish his own Arms; if Arms are found him, he is to allow Six Shillings, at the end of the Campaign for the use thereof.
That each man is to furnish his own Arms (and good ones) or, if Arms is found him he is to allow Six Shillings for the use thereof during the Campaign.
No Soldier whenever dismissed, is to carry away any Arms with him, that are good, and fit for service, if the Arms are his own private property, they will be appraised, and he will receive the full Value thereof: Proper persons when necessary, will be appointed to inspect, and value, the Arms, so detained.
- George Washington 1732-1799: The writings of George Washington from the original manuscript sources: Volume 4, 1745-1799
- George Washington
I bet after seeing us, George Washington would sue us for calling him "father".
If America ever passes out as a great nation, we ought to put on our tombstone: America died from a delusion she had Moral Leadership.
- Will Rogers
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The war is coming to the streets of America and if you are not keeping and bearing and practicing with your arms then you will be helpless and you will be the victim of evil. | |
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- Ted Nugent ********** "I am rather tired of hearing about our rights and privileges as American citizens. The time is come...when we ought to hear about the duties and responsibilities of our citizenship. America's future depends upon her accepting and demonstrating God's government." - Peter Marshall ********** "America does not go abroad in search of monsters to destroy. She is the well-wisher to the freedom and independence of all. She well knows that by one enlisting under other banners than her own, were they even the banners of foreign independence, she would involve herself beyond the power of extrication in all the wars of interest and intrigue, of individual avarice, envy and ambition, which assume the colors and usurp the standards of freedom." - John Quincy Adams, (1821) ********** "My kind of loyalty was loyalty to one's country, not to its institutions or its officeholders." - Mark Twain ********** |
National defense is the usual pretext for the policy of fleecing the people.
- John Taylor
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Before all else, be armed.
- Niccolo Machiavelli
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"A nation can survive its fools, and even the ambitious. But it cannot survive treason from within. An enemy at the gates is less formidable, for he is known and carries his banner openly. But the traitor moves amongst those within the gate freely, his sly whispers rustling through all the alleys, heard in the very halls of government itself. For the traitor appears not a traitor; he speaks in accents familiar to his victims, and he wears their face and their arguments, he appeals to the baseness that lies deep in the hearts of all men. He rots the soul of a nation, he works secretly and unknown in the night to undermine the pillars of the city, he infects the body politic so that it can no longer resist. A murderer is less to fear."
If our lives are endangered by plots or violence or armed robbers or enemies, any and every method of protecting ourselves is morally right
- Marcus Tullius Cicero
The means of defense against foreign danger historically have become the instruments of tyranny at home.
- James Madison
(Really James? I never would have guessed!)
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He only is my rock and my salvation: He is my defence; I shall not be moved.
- King David, Psalm 62:6
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A vote is like a rifle; its usefulness depends upon the character of the user.
- Theodore Roosevelt
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Nip the shoots of arbitrary power in the bud, is the only maxim which can ever preserve the liberties of any people.
- John Quincy Adams
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"It is a fine thing to face machine guns for immortality and a medal, but isn't it a fine thing, too, to face calumny, injustice and loneliness for the truth which makes men free?"
- Henry Louis Mencken
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Right is its own defense.
- Bertolt Brecht
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Paramount among the responsibilities of a free press is the duty to prevent any part of the government from deceiving the people"...
- Hugo Black
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"Two basic reasons underlie the attempt to separate America from its spiritual roots. First, the liberal goal of state socialism is incompatible with a citizenry who look to themselves and to God, rather than the state, for the satisfaction of their needs. Socialism requires that citizens do obeisance to the state as the Source from which all blessings flow. The supreme State can have no other God before it. The second reason for outlawing religion derives from the lobbying of those who wish their sins declared virtues. They seek the validation of the law, in the futile belief that the legal right to be wrong makes wrong right."
- Linda Bowles
Our defense is in the preservation of the spirit which prizes liberty as a heritage of all men, in all lands, everywhere. Destroy this spirit and you have planted the seeds of despotism around your own doors.
"Whenever I hear anyone arguing for slavery, I feel a strong impulse to see it tried on him personally."
"We the people are the rightful masters of both Congress and the courts, not to overthrow the Constitution but to overthrow the men who pervert the Constitution."
"America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter, and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves."
"Whatever you are, be a good one."
"When I do bad, I feel bad. When I do good, I feel good. That is my religion."
"Give me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe."
- Abraham Lincoln
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Defense is superior to opulence.
- Adam Smith
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And where is the Prince who can afford to so cover his country with troops for its defense, as that ten thousand men descending from the clouds, might not in many places do an infinite deal of mischief, before a force could be brought together to repel them?
- Benjamin Franklin
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A weapon which you don't have in your hand won't kill a snake
- African Proverb
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Above all, we must realize that no arsenal, or no weapon in the arsenals of the world, is so formidable as the will and moral courage of free men and women. It is a weapon our adversaries in today's world do not have.
Nations do not mistrust each other because they are armed; they are armed because they mistrust each other.
- Ronald Reagan
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We are twice armed if we fight with faith.
- Plato
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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.
- Barry Goldwater
An armed society is a polite society. Manners are good when one may have to back up his acts with his life.
- Robert A. Heinlein
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"The love of justice and the love of country plead equally the
cause of these people, and it is a moral reproach to us that they
should have pleaded it so long in vain."
- Thomas Jefferson
(letter to Edward Coles, 25 August 1814)
None but an armed nation can dispense with a standing army.
- Thomas Jefferson
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There are more instances of the abridgement of the freedom of the people by the gradual and silent encroachment of those in power, than by violent and sudden usurpation.
- James Madison
(I guess, after the founders, the mold used to fashion men such as them, must have been broken. Now we only have the very rare instance of a righteous man arising to perform dutifully, honor-bound service to his country!)
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"The camera doesn't remind me of a gun, but it does remind me of a weapon. I believe the revolution will be fought with a camera, with films, and at a certain point guns will be unfeasible. Minds will be won in the theatre instead of on the battlefield."
- Dennis Hopper,
The American Dreamer, 1971
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A funeral eulogy is a belated plea for the defense delivered after the evidence is all in.
- Irvin S. Cobb
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God is not on the side of the big battalions, but on the side of those who shoot best
- Voltaire
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"Democracy is a form of government that substitutes election by the incompetent many for appointment by the corrupt few."
- George Bernard Shaw
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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.
- James Burgh,
Political Disquisitions: Or, an Enquiry into Public Errors, Defects, and Abuses [London, 1774-1775]
The inalienable dignity of every human being and the rights which flow from that dignity - in the first place the right to life and the defense of life - are at the heart of the church's message."
- Pope John Paul II
(Whether out of context, or not, the meaning is universal!)
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Goodness, armed with power, is corrupted; and pure love without power is destroyed.
- Reinhold Niebuhr
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The provision in the Constitution granting the right to all persons to bear arms is a limitation upon the power of the Legislature to enact any law to the contrary. The exercise of a right guaranteed by the Constitution cannot be made subject to the will of the sheriff.
[People vs. Zerillo, 219 Mich. 635, 189 N.W. 927, at 928 (1922)]
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Your heaviest artillery will be your will to live. Keep that big gun going.
- Norman Cousins
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The most formidable weapon against errors of every kind is reason.
- Thomas Paine
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Silence is the ultimate weapon of power.
- Charles de Gaulle
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There are lone figures armed only with ideas, sometimes with just one idea, who blast away whole epochs in which we are enwrapped like mummies. Some are powerful enough to resurrect the dead. Some steal on us unawares and put a spell over us which it takes centuries to throw off. Some put a curse on us, for our stupidity and inertia, and then it seems as if God himself were unable to lift it.
- Henry Miller
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Knowledge is a weapon. I intend to be formidably armed.
- Terry Goodkind
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And still the question, "What shall be done with our ex-Presidents?" is not laid at rest; and I sometimes think Watterson's solution of it, "Take them out and shoot them," is worthy of attention.
- Grover Cleveland,
(22nd and 24th President of the U.S.A., 1837-1908)
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However incompatible the spirit of Jesus and armed force may be, and however unpleasant it may be to acknowledge the fact, as a matter of plain history the latter has often made it possible for the former to survive.
- Kenneth Scott Latourette
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There is a principle which is a bar against all information, which is proof against all arguments and which cannot fail to keep a man in everlasting ignorance - that principle is contempt prior to investigation.
- Herbert Spencer,
English Philosopher (1820-1903)
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"Not the owner of many possessions will you be right to call happy: he more rightly deserves the name of happy who knows how to use the Gods' gifts wisely and to put up with rough poverty, and who fears dishonor more than death."
-Horace
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The most potent weapon in the hands of the oppressor is the mind of the oppressed.
- Steven Biko
"The ideal set up by the Party was something huge, terrible, and glittering - a world of steel and concrete, of monstrous machines and terrifying weapons - a nation of warriors and fanatics, marching forward in perfect unity, all thinking the same thoughts and shouting the same slogans, perpetually working, fighting, triumphing, persecuting - three hundred million people all with the same face." (Nineteen Eighty-Four)
In our time, political speech and writing are largely the defense of the indefensible.
- George Orwell
(You know George, I think you have a point!)
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One cannot legislate the maniacs off the street... these maniacs can only be shut down by an armed citizenry. Indeed bad things can happen in nations where the citizenry is armed, but not as bad as those which seem to be threatening our disarmed citizenry in this country at this time.
Remember the first rule of gunfighting... "have a gun."
- Jeff Cooper
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A free people ought not only to be armed, but disciplined; to which end a uniform and well-digested plan is requisite.
- George Washington
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It's all the mirror, mirror on the wall because beauty is power the same way money is power the same way a gun is power.
- Chuck Palahniuk
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America is at that awkward stage; it's too late to work within the system, but too early to shoot the bastards.
- Claire Wolfe
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Gun control means being able to hit your target. If I have a 'hot button' issue, this is definitely it. Don't even think about taking my guns. My rights are not negotiable, and I am totally unwilling to compromise when it comes to the Second Amendment.
- Michael Badnarik
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Ideas pull the trigger, but instinct loads the gun.
- Don Marquis
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The strength of the Constitution lies entirely in the determination of each citizen to defend it. Only if every single citizen feels duty bound to do his share in this defense are the constitutional rights secure.
- Albert Einstein
(Not bad, for a Nuclear Physicist, not bad at all Albert!)
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Nationality is respectable only when it is on the defense, when it is waging wars of liberation it is sacred; when those of domination it is accursed.
- Rabindranath Tagore
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The whole of the Bill of Rights is a declaration of the right of the people at large or considered as individuals. It establishes some rights of the individual as unalienable and which consequently, no majority has a right to deprive them of.
- Albert Gallatin,
New York Historical Society, October 7, 1789
I have a lifetime appointment and I intend to serve it. I expect to die at 110, shot by a jealous husband.
- Thurgood Marshall
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It is important when you haven't got any ammunition to have a butt on your rifle.
- Winston Churchill
"If you will not fight for the right when you can easily win without bloodshed,
if you will not fight when your victory will be sure and not too costly, you may
come to the moment when you will have to fight with all the odds against you and
only a small chance of survival. There may even be a worse case: you may have to
fight when there is no hope of victory, because it is better to perish than to
live as slaves."
- Winston Churchill
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The right of a citizen to bear arms, in lawful defense of himself or the State, is absolute. He does not derive it from the State government. It is one of the high powers" delegated directly to the citizen, and `is excepted out of the general powers of government.' A law cannot be passed to infringe upon or impair it, because it is above the law, and independent of the lawmaking power."
- Cockrum v. State,
24 Tex. 394, at 401-402 (1859)
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I do not wish to give up the power of personal arms and be defenseless against those who will ever and always keep and bear arms those in crime and those in government. | |
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- Robert W. Burke ********** |
I knew one thing: as soon as anyone said you didn't need a gun, you'd better take one along that worked.
- Raymond Chandler
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Education must have two foundations - morality as a support for virtue, prudence as a defense for self against the vices of others. By letting the balance incline to the side of morality, you only make dupes or martyrs; by letting it incline to the other, you make calculating egoists.
- Sιbastien-Roch Nicolas De Chamfort
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After a shooting spree, they always want to take the guns away from the people who didn't do it. I sure as hell wouldn't want to live in a society where the only people allowed guns are the police and the military.
- William S. Burroughs
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They'll have to shoot me first to take my gun
- Roy Rogers
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Taking my gun away because I might shoot someone is like cutting my tongue out because I might yell 'Fire!' in a crowded theater
- Peter Venetoklis
Many interviewers when they come to talk to me, think they're being progressive by not mentioning in their stories any longer that I'm black. I tell them, 'Don't stop now. If I shot somebody you'd mention it.'
- Colin Powell
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Citizens have the natural right and the common sense duty to protect themselves, their families, their communities, and their property...guns are the equalizing tools of self-protection, utopian lamentations notwithstanding.
- Edgar A. Suter
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Irreverence is the champion of liberty and its only sure defense.
- Mark Twain
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All you need for happiness is a good gun, a good horse, and a good wife.
- Daniel Boone
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The Clinton administration launched an attack on people in Texas because those people were religious nuts with guns. Hell, this country was founded by religious nuts with guns. Who does Bill Clinton think stepped ashore on Plymouth Rock?
- P. J. O'Rourke
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Americans always try to do the right thing after they've tried everything else.
- Winston Churchill
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Commonly they must use their feet for defense whose only weapon is their tongue.
- Sir Philip Sidney
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Our last and best defense, despair; Despair, by which the gallantest feats have been achieved in greatest straits.
- Samuel Butler
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"We were not beaten on the battlefield by dint of superior arms. We were defeated in a spiritual contest by a nobler idea."
- Japanese diplomat negotiating his nations surrender in WWII
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Many times have we seen evil's finest hour, when shall we see that of good?
Lies, like paper sacks, only 'hold water' for so long!
- EDQ
The Palladium of Liberty:
"This may be considered as the true palladium of liberty....The right of self-defense is the first law of nature..."
- St. George Tucker, Blackstone's Commentaries, (1803).
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"They ought to be restrained Within proper bounds. With respect to the freedom of the press, I need say nothing; for it is hoped that the gentlemen who shall compose Congress will take care to infringe as little as possible the rights of human nature. This will result from their integrity. They should, from prudence, abstain from violating the rights of their constituents. They are not, however, expressly restrained. But whether they will INTERMEDDLE with that PALLADIUM of our liberties or not, I leave you to determine."
- Patrick Henry, Virginia Ratifying Convention, (06/16/1788).
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"The militia is the natural defense of a free country against sudden foreign invasions, domestic insurrections, and domestic Usurpation of Power by rulers. The Right of the Citizens to Keep and Bear Arms has JUSTLY been considered, as the PALLADIUM of the LIBERTIES of The Republic; since it offers a strong moral check AGAINST the Usurpation and Arbitrary Power of rulers; and will generally...ENABLE the PEOPLE to RESIST and TRIUMPH OVER THEM."
- Joseph Story, Supreme Court Justice, Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States, p. 3:746-7, 1833.
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"This was the famous Palladium, said to have been brought by Ζneas from Troy, and preserved, with most religious care, in the temple of Vesta. What it was, (so sacredly was it kept from the public eye,) no one ever certainly knew: supposing it however, to have resembled the one stolen by Diomede and Ulysses, as mentioned by Sinon in the Ζnead, then it must have been an image of Minerva, armed."
- Titus Livius (Livy), The History of Rome by Titus Livius. Translated from the Original with Notes and Illustrations by George Baker, A.M.. First American, from the Last London Edition, in Six Volumes (New York: Peter A. Mesier et al., 1823). Vol. 3. [Footnote - *]
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