Henrik Ibsen
-
It is inexcusable for scientists to torture animals; let them
make their experiments on journalists and politicians.
- Away with the State! I will take part in the revolution.
Undermine the whole conception of a State, declare free choice
and spiritual kinship to be the only all-important condition of
any union, and you will have the commencement of a liberty that
is worth something.
William Ralph Inge
-
It is useless for the sheep to pass resolutions in favor of
vegetarianism while the wolf remains of a different opinion.
Robert Ingersoll
-
With soap, baptism is a good thing.
- In all ages, hypocrites, called priests, have put crowns upon
the heads of thieves, called kings.
- An honest God id the noblest work of man.
- A false friend, an unjust judge, a braggart, hypocrite,
and tyrant, sincere in hatred, jealous, vain and revengeful,
false in promise, honest in curse, suspicious, ignorant, infamous
and hideous--such is the God of the Pentateuch.
- Is it possible that an infinite God created this world
simply to be the dwelling place of slaves and serfs?
Simply for the purpose of raising orthodox Christians?
The he did a few miracles to astonish them?
That all the evils of life are simply his punishments, and that
he is finally going to turn heaven into a kind of religious museum
filled with Baptist barnacles, petrified Presbyterians, and
Methodist mummies?
- Give every other human being every right you claim for yourself.
- (Christmas Wish) "I would have all the nobility drop their
titles and give their lands back to the people. I would have
the pope throw away his tiara, take off his sacred vestments,
and admit that he is not acting for God--is not infallible--but is
just an ordinary Italian. I would have all the cardinals, archbishops,
bishops, priests and clergymen admit that they know nothing about
theology, nothing about hell or heaven, nothing about the destiny
of the human race, nothing about devils or ghosts, gods or angels."
Thomas d' Invilliers
-
Then wear the gold hat, if that will move her; If you can bounce
high, bounce for her too. Till she cry "Lover, gold-hatted,
high-bouncing lover, I must have you!"
Washington Irving
-
There is a certain relief in change, even though it ebb from bad
to worse; as I have found travelling in a stagecoach, that it is
often a comfort to shift one's position and be bounced in a new place.
- The Almighty Dollar, that great object of universal devotion
throughout our land.
- He who thinks much says but little in proportion to his thoughts.
He tries to compress as much thought as possible into a few words.
Thomas Jacobson
-
Politics is spending your life planning other people's lives.
Thomas Jefferson
-
All experience hath shown that mankind are disposed to suffer while
evils are sufferable, then to right themselves by abolishing the
forms to which they are accustomed.
- No man has a natural right to commit aggression on the equal
rights of another, and this is all from which the laws ought to
restrain him.
- We should all then, like the Quakers, live without an order of
priests, moralize for ourselves, follow the oracle of conscience,
and say nothing about what no man can understand, nor therefore
believe.
- The earth belongs to the living, not the dead.
- That the earth belongs in usufruct to the living; that the dead
have no powers nor right over it. That portion occupied by any
individual ceases to be his when he himself ceases to be, and
reverts to society.
- No nation is drunken where wine is cheap.
- Peace, commerce and honest friendship with all nations,
entangling alliances with none.
- Were it left to me to decide whether we should have government
without newspapers or newspapers without government, I should not
hesitate to prefer the latter.
- Sometimes it is said that man cannot be trusted with the government
of himself. Can he, then, be trusted with the government of
others?
- ... the mass of men has not been born with saddles on their
backs, nor a favored few booted and spurred ready to ride them
legitimately by the grace of God.
- It is not only vain, but wicked, in a legislator to frame laws
in opposition to the laws of nature, and to arm them with the
terrors of death. This is truly creating crimes in order to punish
them.
- I believe ... that every human mind feels pleasure in doing
good to another.
- I have never submitted the whole system of my opinions to the
creed of any party of men whatever, in religion, in philosophy,
in politics, or in anything else, where I was capable of thinking
for myself. Such an addiction is the last degradation of a free
and moral agent. If I could not go to Heaven but with a party,
I would not go there at all.
- Were we directed from Washington when to sow, and when to reap,
we should soon want bread.
- I have never been able to conceive how any rational being could
propose happiness to himself from the exercise of power over others.
- Wherever there is, in any country, uncultivated land and unemployed
poor, it is clear that the laws of property have been so far extended
as to violate natural rights.
- Fix reason firmly in her seat, and call on her tribunal for every
fact, every opinion. Question with boldness even the existence of a
God; because, if there is one, he must more approve of the homage of
reason than that of blindfolded fear.
- I hold a little rebellion now and then is a good thing, and as
necessary in the political world as storms in the physical.
- When wrongs are pressed because it is believed they will be
borne; resistance becomes morality.
- We are not to expect to be translated from despotism to liberty
in a featherbed.
- We hold these truths to be sacred and undeniable; that all men
are created equal and independent, that from that equal creation
they derive rights inherent and inalienable, among which are the
preservation of life, and liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
- Equal rights for all, special privileges for none.
- It is too late in the day for men of sincerity to pretend they
believe in the Platonic mysticism that three are one, and one is
three; and yet that the one is not three, and the three are not
one ... But this constitutes the craft, the power and the profit
of the priests.
- It is error alone which needs the support of government.
Truth can stand by itself.
- In every country and in every age, the priest has been
hostile to liberty. He is always in alliance with
the despot, abetting his abuses in return for protection for his own.
It is easier to acquire wealth and power
by this combination than by deserving them, and to effect this, they
have perverted the purest religion ever
preached to man into mystery and jargon, unintelligible to all mankind,
and therefore the safer engine for
their purpose.
- You judge truly that I am not afraid of priests.
They have tried upon me all their various batteries, of
pious whining, hypocritical canting, lying & slandering,
without being able to give me one moment of
pain. I have contemplated their order from Magi of the East
to the Saints of the West and I have found no
difference of character, but of more or less caution,
in proportion to their information or ignorance on
whom their interested duperies were to be plaid off.
- The legitimate powers of government extend to such acts only as are injurious to others. But it does
me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods, or no god. It neither picks my pocket nor
breaks my leg.
- The strongest reason for the people to retain the right to bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect
themselves against tyranny in government.
- Of liberty I would say that, in the whole plenitude of its extent,
it is unobstructed action according to our will.
But rightful liberty is unobstructed action according to our will within
limits drawn around us by the equal rights of others.
I do not add 'within the limits of the law,' because law is often but
the tyrant's will, and always so when it violates the right of an
individual.
- The majority, oppressing an individual, is guilty of a crime,
abuses its strength, and by acting on the law of the strongest breaks
up the foundations of society.
- If we can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the
people under the pretense of taking care of them, they must become happy.
Jesus of Nazareth
-
when thou doest thine alms, do not sound a trumpet before thee,
as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets,
that they may have glory of men.
- There is nothing from without a man, that entering into
him can defile him: but the things which come out of him,
those are they that defile the man.
- Woe unto you also, ye lawyers! for ye lade men with
burdens grievous to be borne, and ye yourselves touch
not the burdens with one of your fingers.
- Woe unto you, lawyers! for ye have taken away the key
of knowledge: ye entered not in yourselves, and them that
were entering in ye hindered.
- Greater love hath no man that this, that a man lay down
his life for his friends.
- Blessed are the merciful for they shall obtain mercy.
- Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep’s
clothing, but inwardly are wolves.
- Behold, I send you forth as sheep in the midst of
wolves: be ye therefore wise as serpents, and harmless as doves.
But beware of men: for they will deliver you up to
the councils, and they will scourge you in their synagogues.
And ye shall be brought before governors and kings
for my sake, for a testimony against them and the Gentiles.
- when thou prayest, thou shalt not be as the hypocrites are:
for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and in the
corners of the streets, that they may be seen of men.
Verily, I say unto you, They have their reward.
But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when
thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret;
and thy Father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly.
But when ye pray, use not vain repititions, as the heathen do:
for they think that they shall be heard for their much speaking.
Be not ye therefore like unto them: for your Father knoweth
what things ye have need of, before ye ask him.
After this manner therefore pray ye: Our Father which are in
heaven, Hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come.
Thy will be done in earth,as it is in heaven.
Give us this day out daily bread. And forgive us our debts,
as we forgive our debtors. And lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from evil: For thine is the kingdom, and the
power, and the glory, for ever. Amen.
- So when even was come, the lord of the vineyard saith
unto his steward, Call the labourers, and give them their
hire, beginning from the last unto the first.
And when they came that were hired about the eleventh hour,
they received every man a penny. But when the first came,
they supposed that they should have received more; and they
likewise received every man a penny. And when they had
received it, they murmured against the goodman of the house,
Saying, These last have wrought but one hour, and thou hast
made them equal unto us, which have borne the burden and
heat of the day. But he answered one of them and said, Friend,
I do thee no wrong; didst not thou agree with me for a penny?
Take that thine is, and go thy way: I will give unto this last,
even as unto thee. Is it not lawful for me to do what I will
with mine own?
- He that is without sin among you, let him cast the first stone.
- A prophet is not without honour, save in his own country,
and in his own house.
- Give not that which is holy unto the dogs, neither cast ye
your pearls before swine, lest they trample them under their
feet, and turn again and rend you.
- And the chief priests and the scribes the same hour sought
to lay hands on him; and they feared the people: for they
perceived that he had spoken this parable against them.
And they watched him, and sent forth spies, which would feign
themselves just men, that they might take hold of his words,
that so they mught deliver him unto the power and authority
of the governor. And they asked him, saying Master, we know
that thou sayest and teachest rightly, neither acceptest thou
the person of any, but teachest the way of God truly:
Is it lawful for us to give tribute unto Caesar, or not?
But he perceived their craftiness, and said unto them,
Why tempt ye me? Shew me a penny. Whose image and superscription
hath it? They answered and said, Caesar’s. And he said unto
them, Render therefore unto Caesar the things which be Caesar’s;
and unto God the things which be God’s. And they could not take
hold of his words before the people: and they marvelled at his
answer, and held their peace.--The Gospel According to Luke
- Put up again thy sword into his place: for all they that
take the sword shall perish with the sword.
Lyndon B. Johnson
-
But we are not about to send American boys nine or ten thousand
miles away from home to do what Asian boys ought to be doing
for themselves.
Philip Johnson
-
(Architecture)...the art of how to waste space.
Samuel Johnson
-
Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel.
David Star Jordan
-
When a dog barks at the moon, then it is religion; but when he
barks at strangers, it is patriotism!
Franz Kafka
-
The meaning of life is that it stops.
- Every revolution evaporates and leaves behind only the slime of
a new bureaucracy.
Kenneth B. Keating
-
Roosevelt proved a man could be president for life; Truman proved
anybody could be president; Eisenhower proved you don't need to
have a president.
Helen Keller
-
The country is governed for the richest, for the corporations, the
bankers, the land speculators, and for the exploiters of labor.
John F. Kelly
- Of course the popular judgment may be in error as to what is
really moral; of course priests and others claiming to be the official
guardians of morality have committed great outrages in its name; but
our very protests against these outrages and errors are proofs of the
existence of something just and true, of some standard to which human
action ought to conform.
Murray Kempton
-
As an organized political group, the Communists have done nothing to
damage our society a fraction as much as what their enemies have
done in the name of defending us against subversion.
John Fitzgerald Kennedy
- In Berlin, JFK said, "I take pride in the words, Ich bin ein
Berliner." It meant "I am a doughnut."
John Maynard Keynes
-
The ideas of economists and political philosophers, both when they
are right and when they are wrong, are more powerful than is
commonly understood. Indeed, the world id ruled by little else.
Nikita Khrushchev
-
Politicians are the same all over. They promise to build a bridge
even where there is no river.
Martin Luther King, Jr.
-
I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in
a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their
skin but by the content of their character.
W. L. Mackenzie King
- The politician's promises of yesterday are the taxes of today.
Rudyard Kipling
-
A woman is only a woman, but a good cigar is a smoke.
Henry Kissinger
-
Ninety percent of the politicians give the other ten percent a
bad reputation.
Fletcher Knebel
-
Our forefathers made one mistake. What they should have fought
for was representation without taxation.
Arthur Koestler
-
People don't mind if you betray humanity, but if you betray your
club, you are considered a renegade.
Peter Kropotkin
-
Mutual aid is as much a law of animal life as mutual struggle.
- Anarchism is the name given to a principle or theory of
life and conduct under which society is conceived without
government--harmony in such a society being obtained not by
submission to law or obedience to any authority, but by free
agreements concluded between the various groups, territorial
and professional, freely contributed for the sake of protection
and consumption, as also for the satisfaction of the infinite
variety of needs and aspirations of a civilized being.
- The law is an adroit mixture of customs that are beneficial
to society, and could be followed even if no law existed, and
others that are of advantage to a ruling minority, but harmful
to the masses of men, and can be enforced on them only by terror.
Stanley Kubrick
-
The great nations have always acted like gangsters, and the
small nations like prostitutes.
Arthur Kudner
-
The greatest security to be found on earth is in the grave.
And the next greatest security is to be found in the penitentiary.
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