The Quote File

The Political Sphere

I continue to keep a quote file. It’s about the size of a book now, growing since 2010 or so, but I haven’t shared much of it in a while. It’s random. I add on whatever I happen to come across. All the quotes in this collection relate in some way to the Spherical Model—either to political freedom, economic prosperity, or civilization, or sometimes how they interrelate, and sometimes to specific events in the news that relate somehow.

Today’s post isn’t an organized, themed collection of quotes. It’s just the random last few pages, more or less unedited and without comment. Just a glimpse into some of the thoughts accumulated here at the Spherical Model, in hopes they will be enlightening.

Nobody can be a great economist who is only an economist….and I am even tempted to add that the economist who is only an economist is likely to become a nuisance if not a positive danger.—F. A. Hayek

You know, in the oath that brand-new citizens take, it contains six different references to ‘the law.’ If it’s good enough for us to ask brand-new citizens to affirm their devotion to the law, is it too much to ask that the president do the same?—Trey Gowdy, speech before Congress, July 2014

Mr. Speaker, the House of Representatives does not exist to pass ‘suggestions.’ We do not exist to pass ‘ideas.’ We make LAW. And, while you are free to stand and clap when any president comes into this hallowed chamber and promises to ‘do it’ with or without you, I will NEVER stand and clap when ANY president, no matter whether he is your party or mine, promises to  make us a Constitutional anomaly and an afterthought. WE…MAKE…LAW.—Trey Gowdy, (same as above) speech before Congress, July 2014

While not all Muslims or all leftists seek, or support those who seek, Israel’s destruction, virtually all those who do are either Muslim or on the left.—Dennis Prager, “The Genocide Label,” July 29, 2014

Truth withers when freedom dies, however righteous the authority that kills it; and free individualism uninformed by moral value rots at its core.—Frank Meyer

Newark, Detroit, Chicago, Los Angeles—and Philadelphia, Cleveland, and a dozen or more other cities—have a great deal in common: They are the places in which the progressive vision of government has reached its fullest expressions. They are the hopeless reality that results from wishful thinking.—Kevin D. Williamson, “Who Lost the Cities?” August 15, 2014

Blacks are only 12 percent of the population in America. But 36 percent of the babies aborted are black. That means that of the more than 3000 babies aborted per day in America over 1000 of them are black.—Mike Adams, “Hands Up! Don’t Abort” 8-25-2014

In the words of one distinguished ambassador, General Carlos Romulo, as he left our shores after serving his government here for nearly a score of years. He said, “I admire and love America…. What I have to say in parting is both a tribute and a warning. Never forget, Americans, that yours is a spiritual country. Yes, I know that you are a practical people. Like others, I have marveled at your factories, your skyscrapers, and your arsenals. But underlying everything else is the fact that America began as a God-loving, God-fearing, God-worshiping people, knowing that there is a spark of the divine in each of us. It is this respect for the dignity of the human spirit which makes America invincible.”

 And this, too, is my tribute to America. We all know that material and physical things are not the source and substance of safety, strength, and freedom of our beloved country."—Elder Joseph B. Wirthlin, General Conference 1976

Improve your community by active participation and service. Remember in your civic responsibility that “the only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing” (Edmund Burke). Do something meaningful in defense of your God-given freedom and liberty.—President Ezra Taft Benson, April 1988

Your love of liberty, your respect for the laws, your habits of industry, and your practice of the moral and religious obligations, are the strongest claims to national and individual happiness.—George Washington

Everyone wants to live at the expense of the state. They forget that the state lives at the expense of everyone.—Frederic Bastiat

Men cannot improve a society by setting it to fire: they must seek out its old virtues and bring them back into the light.—Russell Kirk

I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too much liberty than those attending too small a degree of it.—Thomas Jefferson

A good moral character is the first essential in a man[…] It is therefore highly important that you should endeavor not only to be learned but virtuous.—George Washington

Truth will ultimately prevail where there is pains taken to bring it to light.—George Washington

People demand freedom of speech as a compensation for the freedom of thought which they seldom use.—Soren Kierkegaard

All the opportunity for self-government through the rule of the people depends upon one single factor. That is the ballot box. . . . The people of our country are sovereign. If they do not vote they abdicate that sovereignty, and they may be entirely sure that if they relinquish it other forces will seize it, and if they fail to govern themselves some other power will rise up to govern them. The choice is always before them, whether they will be slaves or whether they will be free. The only way to be free is to exercise actively and energetically the privileges, and discharge faithfully the duties which make freedom. It is not to be secured by passive resistance. It is the result of energy and action. . . .

Persons who have the right to vote are trustees for the benefit of their country and their countrymen. They have no right to say they do not care. They must care! They have no right to say that whatever the result of the election they can get along. They must remember that their country and their countrymen cannot get along, cannot remain sound, cannot preserve its institutions, cannot protect its citizens, cannot maintain its place in the world, unless those who have the right to vote do sustain and do guide the course of public affairs by the thoughtful exercise of that right on election day.—President Calvin Coolidge

Socialism is the philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance, and the gospel of envy.—Winston Churchill

It is not the business of government to make men virtuous or religious, or to preserve the fool from the consequences of his own folly. Government should be repressive no further than is necessary to secure liberty by protecting the equal rights of each from aggression on the part of others, and the moment governmental prohibitions extend beyond this line they are in danger of defeating the very ends they are intended to serve.—Henry George (1839-1897)

We’ve got a choice. You grow the government economy, or grow the American economy.—Bobby Jindal. Presidential debate October 28, 2015

Long after Barack Obama is gone and ensconced in warm-weather golf-course mansions, the country will remain divided. The them/us splits are the real Obama legacy that tops even his $20 trillion in debt, chronic zero interest rates, a wrecked Middle East, stagnant growth, a hemorrhaging medical system, and record labor non-participation rates.—Victor Davis Hanson, “Community Organizing America,” Nov. 1, 2015

  

We must not let our rulers load us with perpetual debt. We must make our election between economy and liberty or profusion and servitude. If we run into such debt, as that we must be taxed in our meat and in our drink, in our necessaries and our comforts, in our labors and our amusements, for our calling and our creeds ... [we will] have no time to think, no means of calling our mis-managers to account but be glad to obtain subsistence by hiring ourselves to rivet their chains on the necks of our fellow-sufferers....

And this is the tendency of all human governments. A departure from principle in one instance becomes a precedent for [another] ... till the bulk of society is reduced to be mere automatons of misery.... And the fore-horse of this frightful team is public debt. Taxation follows that, and, in its train, wretchedness and oppression.—Thomas Jefferson