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Words of Inspiration
On Governance
No
one can read our Constitution without concluding that the people who wrote it
wanted their government severely limited; the words 'no' and 'not' employed in
restraint of government power occur 24 times in the first seven articles of the
Constitution and 22 more times in the Bill of Rights.
Rev. Edmund A.
Opitz
(1914-2006) American minister, author
The
government of the absolute majority is but the government of the strongest
interests; and when not effectively checked, is the most tyrannical and
oppressive that can be devised. [To read the Constitution is to realize that] no
free system was ever farther removed from the principle that the absolute
majority, without check or limitation, ought to govern.
John C.
Calhoun
- (1782-1850) American statesman
Now those who seek
absolute power, even though they seek it to do what they regard as good, are
simply demanding the right to enforce their own version of heaven on earth, and
let me remind you they are the very ones who always create the most hellish
tyranny.
Barry
Goldwater
The
modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral
philosophy: that is the search for a superior moral justification for
selfishness.
John
Kenneth Galbraith, Economist
Today
the real test of power is not capacity to make war but capacity to prevent
it.
Anne
O'Hare McCormick: First woman to win a Pulitzer Prize in journalism for
her work as a foreign correspondent.
Today's
human rights violations are the causes of tomorrow's conflicts.
Mary
Robinson, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (Retired)
Justice in the life
and conduct of the State is possible only as first it resides in the hearts and
souls of the citizens.
Plato, Greek
philosopher (428/427-348/347 B.C.)
A
really efficient totalitarian state would be one in which the all-powerful
executive of political bosses and their army of managers control a population of
slaves who do not have to be coerced, because they love their servitude.
Aldous
Huxley, from Brave New World
Every
collectivist revolution rides in on a Trojan horse of 'emergency'. It was the
tactic of Lenin, Hitler, and Mussolini. In the collectivist sweep over a dozen
minor countries of Europe, it was the cry of men striving to get on horseback.
And 'emergency' became the justification of the subsequent steps. This technique
of creating emergency is the greatest achievement that demagoguery attains.
Herbert
Hoover, (1874-1964), 31st U.S. President
And so, to the end
of history, murder shall breed murder, always in the name of right and honor and
peace.
George
Bernard Shaw, Irish playwright, from "Caesar and
Cleopatra"
In
reviewing the history of the English Government, its wars and its taxes, a
bystander, not blinded by prejudice nor warped by interest, would declare that
taxes were not raised to carry on wars, but that wars were raised to carry on
taxes.
Thomas
Paine
On
Corruption
There
is no week nor day nor hour when tyranny may not enter upon this country - if
the people lose their confidence in themselves - and lose their roughness and
spirit of defiance.
Walt
Whitman
The moment a man
claims a right to control the will of a fellow being by physical force, he is at
heart a slaveholder.
Henry C.
Wright, from The Liberator, 7 April 1837
...the
people shall become so corrupted as to need despotic Government, being incapable
of any other.
Benjamin
Franklin,
1787
The
strongest passions and most dangerous weaknesses of the human breast; ambition,
avarice, vanity, the honorable or venal love of fame, are all in conspiracy
against the desire and duty of peace.
James
Madison
Just as love for one
individual which excludes the love for others is not love, love for one's
country which is not part of one's love for humanity is not love, but idolatrous
worship.
Erich
Fromm (1900-1980), U.S. psychologist.
On Being Human
Africans
have this thing called UBUNTU.
It is
about the essence of being human,
it is
part of the gift that Africa will give the world.
It
embraces hospitality, caring about others,
being able to go the extra mile
for the sake of others.
We
believe that a person is a person through another person,
that
my humanity is caught up, bound up, inextricably, with yours.
When I
dehumanize you, I inexorably dehumanize myself.
The
solitary human being is a contradiction in terms and therefore you seek to work
for the common good because your humanity comes into its own in belonging.
Desmond
Tutu, Archbishop Emeritus of South Africa
I do
not believe that women are better than men. We have not wrecked railroads, nor
corrupted legislature, nor done many unholy things that men have done; but then
we must remember that we have not had the chance.
Jane
Addams, Social Reformer, Author, Sociologist, Peace Activist,
Suffragist and a founding member of the NAACP
What
after all has maintained the human race on this old globe despite all the
calamities of nature and all the tragic failings of mankind, if not faith in new
possibilities and the courage to advocate them.
Jane
Addams (1860-1935)
Posted March 17,
2008
URL:
www.thecitizenfsr.org
SM 2000-2011
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