Great Throughts Treasury

"The United States maintains a globe-spanning network of over 800 military bases that formerly represented tokens of security to regimes throughout the world " - Richard Heinberg

"Man is naturally more desirous of a quiet and approving, than of a vigilant and tender conscience--more desirous of security than of safety." - Richard Whately

"The best security against revolution is in constant correction of abuses and the introduction of needed improvements. It is the neglect of timely repair that makes rebuilding necessary." - Richard Whately

"The student who invades an administration building, roughs up a dean, rifles the files and issues 'non-negotiable demands' may have some of his demands met by a permissive university administration. But the greater his 'victory' the more he will have undermined the security of his own rights." - Richard Nixon, fully Richard Milhous Nixon

"We have educated ourselves into a world from which wonder, and he fear and dread and splendor and freedom of wonder have been banished. Of course wonder is costly. You couldn't incorporate it into a modern state, because it is the antithesis of the anxiously worshiped security which is what a modern state is asked to give. Wonder is marvelous but it is also cruel, cruel, cruel. It is undemocratic, discriminatory and pitiless." - Robertson Davies

"Congress should be approving a more robust homeland security bill." - Robert Byrd, fully Robert Carlyle Byrd

"The money the president wants to borrow for Iraq will come directly out of the American taxpayer wallets in the form of Medicare and Social Security receipts. That's your money." - Robert Byrd, fully Robert Carlyle Byrd

"When the power inherent in a position of authority is used to fortify that position, the institution's purpose is subverted. Behaviors are not aligned with the institution';s professed goals; rather they are skewed to preserve the rank, power, salaries, and security of rank-holders." - Robert W. Fuller, fully Robert Works Fuller

"I considered the prevention of war as the test of our security policy; in addition to being able to rapidly and forcefully end any war forced upon us." - Yitzhak Shamir, born Icchak Jaziernicki

"Is there a sea between me and you, that I should not turn aside to be with you, that I should not run with a troubled heart to sit at your grave-side? Truly, if I did not do so, I would be a traitor to our brotherly love. O my brother, here I am, facing you, sitting by your grave, and the grief in my heart is as great as on the day you died. If I greeted you, I would hear no reply. You do not come out to meet me when I visit your grounds. You will not laugh in my company, nor I in yours. You cannot see my face, nor I yours, for the pit is your home, the grave your dwelling-place! First-born of my father, son of my mother, may you have peace in your final rest, and may the spirit of God rest upon your spirit and your soul! I am returning to my own soil, for you have been locked under the soil. Sometimes I shall sleep, sometimes wake—while you lie in your sleep forever. But until my last day, the fire of your loss will remain in my heart!" - Samuel ha-Nagid, born Samuel ibn Naghrela or Naghrillah

"It's not how old you are, it's how hard you work at it." - Jonah Barrington, Sir Jonah Barrington

"A tree's a tree. How many more do you need to look at?" - Ronald Reagan, fully Ronald Wilson Reagan

"I recently learned something quite interesting about video games. Many young people have developed incredible hand, eye, and brain coordination in playing these games. The air force believes these kids will be our outstanding pilots should they fly our jets." - Ronald Reagan, fully Ronald Wilson Reagan

"My fellow Americans, there's an old saying that nothing spreads so quickly as a rumor, so I thought it was time to speak with you directly, to tell you first-hand about our dealings with Iran." - Ronald Reagan, fully Ronald Wilson Reagan

"The history of our civilization, the great advances that made it possible, is not a story of cynics or doom criers. It is a gallant chronicle of the optimists, the determined people, men and women, who dreamed great dreams and dared to try whatever it took to make them come true." - Ronald Reagan, fully Ronald Wilson Reagan

"The size of the federal budget is not an appropriate barometer of social conscience or charitable concern." - Ronald Reagan, fully Ronald Wilson Reagan

"We don't have a trillion-dollar debt because we haven't taxed enough; we have a trillion-dollar debt because we spend too much" - Ronald Reagan, fully Ronald Wilson Reagan

"We who live in free market societies believe that growth, prosperity and ultimately human fulfillment, are created from the bottom up, not the government down. Only when the human spirit is allowed to invent and create, only when individuals are given a personal stake in deciding economic policies and benefiting from their success -- only then can societies remain economically alive, dynamic, progressive, and free. Trust the people. This is the one irrefutable lesson of the entire postwar period contradicting the notion that rigid government controls are essential to economic development." - Ronald Reagan, fully Ronald Wilson Reagan

"You and I have a rendezvous with destiny. We will preserve for our children this, the last best hope of man on earth, or we will sentence them to take the first step into a thousand years of darkness. If we fail, at least let our children and our children's children say of us we justified our brief moment here. We did all that could be done." - Ronald Reagan, fully Ronald Wilson Reagan

"What each individual really needs can only be known by himself; what he should contribute he can determine through his insight into the situation as a whole." - Rudolf Steiner, fully Rudolf Joseph Lorenz Steiner

"You could afford your house without the government if it weren't for the government." - Rush Limbaugh

"In this darkness faith alone – which is dark also – should be the light we use. (not visions)" - Saint John of the Cross, born Juan de Yepes Álvarez NULL

"Perhaps the story you finish is never the one you begin." - Salman Rushdie, fully Sir Ahmed Salman Rushdie

"The seeds of knowledge may be planted in solitude, but must be cultivated in public." - Samuel Johnson, aka Doctor Johnson

"The human soul has need of security and also of risk. The fear of violence or of hunger or of any other evil is a sickness of the soul. The boredom produced by a complete absence of risk is also a sickness of the soul." - Simone Weil

"The human soul has need of some solitude and privacy and also of some social life." - Simone Weil

"Whatever debases the intelligence degrades the entire human being." - Simone Weil

"When we abolish the slavery of half of humanity, together with the whole system of hypocrisy it implies, then the 'division' of humanity will reveal its genuine significance and the human couple will find its true form." - Simone de Beauvoir, fully Simone-Ernestine-Lucie-Marie Bertrand de Beauvoir

"Today is the day of salvation for the world." - Gregory Nazianzen, aka Saint Gregory of Nazianzus or Gregory the Theologian

"I am one of those who would rather sink with faith than swim without it." - Stanley Baldwin, 1st Earl of Bewdley

"God is a Spirit infinitely happy, therefore we must approach to him with cheerfulness; he is a Spirit of infinite majesty, therefore we must come before him with reverence; he is a Spirit infinitely holy, therefore we must address him with purity; he is a Spirit infinitely glorious, we must therefore acknowledge his excellency in all that we do, and in our measures contribute to his glory, by having the highest aims in his worship; he is a Spirit infinitely provoked by us, therefore we must offer up our worship in the name of a pacifying Mediator and Intercessor." - Stephen Charnock

"That which acts for an end unknown to itself, depends upon some overruling wisdom that knows that end. Who should direct them in all those ends, but He that bestowed a being upon them for those ends; who knows what is convenient for their life, security, and propagation of their natures? An exact knowledge is necessary both of what is agreeable to them, and the means whereby they must attain it, which, since it is not inherent in them, is in that wise God who puts those instincts into them, and governs them in the exercise of them to such ends." - Stephen Charnock

"I still believe that the mildest and most obscure of Americans can be rescued from oblivion by good luck, sudden changes in fortune, sudden encounters with heroes. I believe it because I lived it." - Ted Sorensen, fully Theodore Chalkin "Ted" Sorensen

"To say unpleasant things, when we have nice ones,is like eating unripe fruit, ignoring sweet ripe fruits." - Thiruvalluvar NULL

"As to the crook in your lot, God has made it; and it must continue while He will have it so. Should you ply your utmost force to even it, or make it straight, your attempt will be vain: it will not change for all you can do. Only He who made it can mend it, or make it straight. This consideration, this view of the matter, is a proper means at once to silence and to satisfy men, and so bring them to a dutiful submission to their Maker and Governor, under the crook in their lot." - Thomas Boston

"The giving way to a less sin makes way for the committing of a greater." - Thomas Brooks

"Whatsoever therefore is consequent to a time of Warre, where every man is Enemy to every man; the same is consequent to the time, wherein men live without other security, than what their own strength, and their own invention shall furnish them withall. In such condition, there is no place for Industry; because the fruit thereof is uncertain: and consequently no Culture of the Earth; no Navigation, nor use of the commodities that may be imported by Sea; no commodious Building; no Instruments of moving, and removing, such things as require much force; no Knowledge of the face of the Earth; no account of Time; no Arts; no Letters; no Society; and which is worst of all, continual fear, and danger of violent death; And the life of man, solitary, poore, nasty, brutish, and short." - Thomas Hobbes

"Above all things, lose no occasion of exercising your dispositions to be grateful, to be generous, to be charitable, to be humane, to be true, just, firm, orderly, courageous, and consider every act of this kind, as an exercise which will strengthen your moral faculties and increase your worth." - Thomas Jefferson

"Any woodsman can tell you that in a broken and sundered nest, one can hardly find more than a precious few whole eggs. So it is with the family." - Thomas Jefferson

"I am entirely persuaded that the agitations of the public mind advance its powers, and that at every vibration between the points of liberty and despotism, something will be gained for the former. As men become better informed, their rulers must respect them the more." - Thomas Jefferson

"May I never get too busy in my own affairs that I fail to respond to the needs of others with kindness and compassion." - Thomas Jefferson

"Men have differed in opinion, and been divided into parties by these opinions, from the first origin of societies, and in all governments where they have been permitted freely to think and to speak." - Thomas Jefferson

"Our people shall be free." - Thomas Jefferson

"The firmness with which the people have withstood the late abuses of the press, the discernment they have manifested between truth and falsehood, show that they may safely be trusted to hear everything true and false, and to form a correct judgment between them." - Thomas Jefferson

"The mass of mankind 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." - Thomas Jefferson

"The only thing a man can take beyond this lifetime is his ethics." - Thomas Jefferson

"The people, especially when moderately instructed, are the only safe, because the only honest, depositaries of the public rights, and should therefore be introduced into the administration of them in every function to which they are sufficient; they will err sometimes and accidentally, but never designedly, and with a systematic and persevering purpose of overthrowing the free principles of the government." - Thomas Jefferson

"Never had he felt the joy of the word more sweetly, never had he known so clearly that Eros dwells in language." - Thomas Mann, fully Paul Thomas Mann

"Contradictions have always existed in the soul of [individuals]. But it is only when we prefer analysis to silence that they become a constant and insoluble problem. We are not meant to resolve all contradictions but to live with them and rise above them and see them in the light of exterior and objective values which make them trivial by comparison." - Thomas Merton

"For the birds there is not a time that they tell, but the point vierge between darkness and light, between being and nonbeing. You can tell yourself the time by their waking, if you are experienced. But that is your folly, not theirs." - Thomas Merton