“If a nation expects to be ignorant and free in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be.”
–Thomas Jefferson
Category Archives: Quotations
Can we be different?
“Democracy… while it lasts is more bloody than either aristocracy or monarchy. Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There is never a democracy that did not commit suicide.”
—John Adams, second President of The United States
Dear readers: Are we, as Americans, somehow different? Are we prepared to pull ourselves together in the crucible of crisis – to forge a rational, humane, and sustainable future?
Tom
The way to get started…
“If the present Congress errs in too much talking, how can it be otherwise in a body to which the people send one hundred and fifty lawyers, whose trade it is to question everything, yield nothing, and talk by the hour?”
–Thomas Jefferson
“Any fool can criticize, condemn and complain – and most fools do.”
–Benjamin Franklin
“The way to get started is to quit talking and begin doing.”
–Walt Disney
Man’s capacity for justice…
“Man’s capacity for justice makes democracy possible, but man’s inclination to injustice makes democracy necessary.”
–Reinhold Niebuhr
Freedom and Tolerance…
“Laws alone cannot secure freedom of expression; in order that every man present his views without penalty there must be spirit of tolerance in the entire population.”
–Albert Einstein
All your strength is in union…
“All your strength is in union, all your danger is in discord.”
–Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
For myself, alone…
“It is not for me to judge another man’s life. I must judge, I must choose, I must spurn, purely for myself. For myself, alone.”
–Hermann Hesse
The American Idea
The integrity of the American Idea is founded upon honesty and the strength of diversity. This nobility is the desire of the world. It will live on – generous, tolerant, and fair – long after foolishness and irresponsibility have been left to the dregs of memory.
–Tom Harriman
Compassion is hard…
“Let us not underestimate how hard it is to be compassionate. Compassion is hard because it requires the inner disposition to go with others to the place where they are weak, vulnerable, lonely, and broken. But this is not our spontaneous response to suffering. What we desire most is to do away with suffering by fleeing from it or finding a quick cure for it….
“Compassion asks us to go where it hurts, to enter into the places of pain…. Compassion means full immersion in the condition of being human.”
–Henri J.M. Nouwen
Indulgence, pride, a lack of shame…
“Self-centered indulgence, pride, and a lack of shame over sin are now emblems of the American lifestyle.”
–Billy Graham
“Liberty cannot be established without morality, nor morality without faith.”
–Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America (1840)
Our greatest glory…
“Our greatest glory is not in never failing, but in rising up every time we fail.”
–Ralph Waldo Emerson
The power which knowledge gives…
“Knowledge will forever govern ignorance; and a people who mean to be their own governors must arm themselves with the power which knowledge gives.”
–James Madison
“If a nation expects to be ignorant and free in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be.”
–Thomas Jefferson
Liberty and the American Idea 