Truth from Fiction

Truth hunting is hard work. Sometimes it doesn’t show up at all in the news. Sometimes you have to go to written words—some of them quite old—to find it. Because truth doesn’t change, so the words that bear it will last.

So, today are some things from my other, non-Spherical Model quote file. Today’s collection is mainly about words, or about reading or writing—both of which I do in this truth-hunting life’s work. (The video down a little is our puppy getting her first taste of literature.)

 

 

Fiction gives us empathy: it puts us inside the minds of other people, gives us the gifts of seeing the world through their eyes. Fiction is a lie that tells us true things, over and over.—Neil Gaiman

  

“Some books should be tasted, some devoured, but only a few should be chewed and digested thoroughly.”―Sir Francis Bacon

 

There is no Frigate like a Book

By Emily Dickinson

There is no Frigate like a Book

To take us Lands away

Nor any Coursers like a Page

Of prancing Poetry –

This Traverse may the poorest take

Without oppress of Toll –

How frugal is the Chariot

That bears the Human Soul –

 

 

Fill your paper with the breathings of your heart.—William Wordsworth

 

 

I don’t run out of things to say. I write like I talk. And you never get talker’s block.—Seth Godin

 

 

At the dawn of time, Truth was wandering the world when she came upon a town and first saw people. Delighted, she entered the town to speak to them, but when they saw her, they ran away screaming in terror.

Dismayed and discouraged, she left the town. Soon she came across the most beautiful being she had ever seen, clothed in lovely robes of shimmering color. The being noticed how sad Truth was and asked the reason.

“When I saw the people, I was glad because I had so much to tell them” Truth said. “But when they saw me, they were afraid and ran away.”

“Well, of course, they ran away,” the being said, “for you are naked and people are greatly afraid of the naked truth. My name is Story, and I have many of these beautiful robes. Here, take one and let us go into the town together.”

When the people saw Truth clothed in the beautiful garment of Story, they greeted her warmly and asked her to stay.”

—A folk tale adapted by Tom Burger, 1999 

  

 

Fairy tales do not tell children that dragons exist. Children already know that dragons exist. Fairy tales tell children the dragons can be killed.—G. K. Chesterton

 

 

"Destiny is important, see, but people go wrong when they think it controls them. It's the other way around."—Terry Pratchett, Wyrd Sisters

 

 

If you love to read, or learn to love reading, you will have an amazing life. Period. Life will always have hardships, pressure, and incredibly annoying people, but books will make it all worthwhile. In books, you will find your North Star, and you will find you, which is why you are here.

​

Books are paper ships, to all the worlds, to ancient Egypt, outer space, eternity, into the childhood of your favorite musician, and — the most precious stunning journey of all — into your own heart, your own family, your own history and future and body.

​

Out of these flat almost two-dimensional boxes of paper will spring mountains, lions, concerts, galaxies, heroes. You will meet people who have been all but destroyed, who have risen up and will bring you with them. Books and stories are medicine, plaster casts for broken lives and hearts, slings for weakened spirits. And in reading, you will laugh harder than you ever imagined laughing, and this will be magic, heaven, and salvation. I promise.—Anne Lamott on the value of reading, Source: A Velocity of Being: Letters to A Young Reader

 

 

The only thing that you absolutely have to know, is the location of the library.—Albert Einstein

 

 

Stories of imagination tend to upset those without one.—Terry Pratchett, Introduction to the Encyclopedia of Fantasy

 

 

The phrase “Someone ought to do something” was not, by itself, a helpful one. People who used it never added the rider “and that someone is me.”—Terry Pratchett, The Hogfather

 

 

"It takes considerable knowledge just to realize the extent of your own ignorance."—Thomas Sowell

 

 

The trouble with having an open mind, of course, is that people will insist on coming along and trying to put things in it.—Terry Pratchett

 

 

Rather than reading the works of your mentors, learn who they looked up to and read their works.—Scott Newstok, PhD

 

 

You never truly understand something until you can explain it to your grandmother.—Albert Einstein

 

 

Reading is like breathing in; writing is like breathing out; and storytelling is what links both: it is the soul of literacy.—Pam Allyn

 

 

You can’t go back and change the beginning,

but you can start where you are and change the ending.—C. S. Lewis

 

 

All you have to do is write one true sentence. Write the truest sentence that you know. So finally I would write one true sentence, and then go on from there. It was easy then, because there was always one true sentence that I knew or had seen or had heard someone say.—Ernest Hemingway

 

 

There are three classes of people: those who see, those who see when they are shown, those who do not see.—Leonardo da Vinci

Founding Wisdom—Part I: Thomas Jefferson

Our country’s birthday is worth celebrating a little longer. In honor of the day I set out to look through my very long quote file for words from our founders. There are a great many words these thoughtful, wise men put to paper or speech—far more than have made their way into my quote file. And there are many good words from people since then, but I need to cut down somewhere to make things sharable, so I limited it to the founders, which leaves out historical wisdom from earlier or later times.

As I scrolled through the file, I found that I had more quotes from Thomas Jefferson than anyone else but probably Thomas Sowell (I used to get a quote from him nearly every week when he was writing his column). I was trying to get a representation from a number of the founders. But every time I told myself that I wasn’t going to include any more from Jefferson, I’d see another that was too good to leave out.

So I made a decision. Today’s quotes all come from Thomas Jefferson—a quiet person who had a way with written words, qualities I relate to (and try to emulate). Then—barring some news event that gets in the way—there will be a part two later in the week with words from several others of the founders. One thing I expect you’ll notice from all of them is how much their belief in God is intertwined with the ideas of freedom they express.

"Declaration of Independence," by John Trumbull
image from Wikipedia

 

Thomas Jefferson

Thomas Jefferson presidential portrait
by Rembrandt Peale
image from Wikipedia

 

“This was the object of the Declaration of Independence. Not to find out new principles, or new arguments, never before thought of, not merely to say things which have never been said before; but to place before mankind the common sense of the subject, in terms so plain and firm as to command their assent, and to justify ourselves in the independent stand we are compelled to take.  Neither aiming at originality of principle or sentiment, nor yet copied from any particular or previous writing, it was intended to be an expression of the American mind, and to give that expression the proper tone and spirit called for by the occasion.”—Thomas Jefferson

 

"Adore God. Reverence and cherish your parents. Love your neighbor as yourself, and your country more than yourself. Be just. Be true. Murmur not at the ways of Providence."—Thomas Jefferson (1825)

 

“The policy of the American government is to leave their citizens free, neither restraining nor aiding them in their pursuits.”—Thomas Jefferson

 

"The issue today is the same as it has been throughout all history, whether man shall be allowed to govern himself or be ruled by a small elite."—Thomas Jefferson

 

"One man with courage is a majority."—Thomas Jefferson

 

Thomas Jefferson portrait by Thomas Sully, 1821
commissioned by West Point faculty and cadets;
image from Wikipedia

"In questions of power, then, let no more be heard of confidence in man, but bind him down from mischief by the chains of the Constitution."—Thomas Jefferson

 

"A wise and frugal government which shall restrain men from injuring one another, which shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned. This is the sum of good government."—Thomas Jefferson (First Inaugural Address, March 4, 1801)

 

“The two enemies of the people are criminals and government, so let us tie the second down with the chains of the Constitution so the second will not become the legalized version of the first.”—Thomas Jefferson

 

“God who gave us life gave us liberty. And can the liberties of a nation be thought secure when we have removed their only firm basis, a conviction in the minds of the people that these liberties are a gift from God?”—Thomas Jefferson

 

Almighty God, Who has given us this good land for our heritage; We humbly beseech Thee that we may always prove ourselves a people mindful of Thy favor and glad to do Thy will. Bless our land with honorable ministry, sound learning, and pure manners. Save us from violence, discord, and confusion, from pride and arrogance, and from every evil way. Defend our liberties, and fashion into one united people, the multitude brought hither out of many kindreds and tongues. Endow with Thy spirit of wisdom those whom in Thy name we entrust the authority of government, that there may be justice and peace at home, and that through obedience to Thy law, we may show forth Thy praise among the nations of the earth. In time of prosperity fill our hearts with thankfulness, and in the day of trouble, suffer not our trust in Thee to fail; all of which we ask through Jesus Christ our Lord, Amen.—Thomas Jefferson (Prayer, March 4, 1801)

 

"Whensoever the General Government assumes undelegated powers, its acts are unauthoritative, void, and of no force"—Thomas Jefferson

 

“Congress has not unlimited powers to provide for the general welfare, but only those specifically enumerated.”—Thomas Jefferson

inside the Jefferson Memorial,
from a trip in 2014

 

“I predict future happiness for America if they can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them.”—Thomas Jefferson

 

What country can preserve its liberty if their rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance? —Thomas Jefferson (November 13, 1787)

 

‎"The democracy will cease to exist when you take away from those who are willing to work and give to those who would not."—Thomas Jefferson

 

“I have sworn, upon the altar of God, eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man.”—Thomas Jefferson

 

“When once a republic is corrupted, there is no possibility of remedying any of the growing evils but by removing the corruption and restoring its lost principles; every other correction is either useless or a new evil."—Thomas Jefferson

 

“The time to guard against corruption and tyranny is before they shall have gotten hold on us. It is better to keep the wolf out of the fold, than to trust to drawing his teeth and talons after he shall have entered.”—Thomas Jefferson (1781)

 

An honest man can feel no pleasure in the exercise of power over his fellow citizens.—Thomas Jefferson

inside the Jefferson Memorial,
 from a trip in 2014

 

"A question of some doubt might be raised...as to the rights and duties of society towards its members, infant and adult. Is it a right or a duty in society to take care of their infant members in opposition to the will of the parent? How far does this right and duty extend? To guard the life of the infant, his property, his instruction, his morals? The Roman father was supreme in all these; we draw the line, but where? Public sentiment does not seem to have traced it precisely. Nor is it necessary in the present case. It is better to tolerate the rare instance of a parent refusing to let his child be educated than to shock the common feelings and ideas by the forcible asportation and education of the infant against the will of the father."—Thomas Jefferson (1817, Bill for Establishing Elementary Schools, The Writings of Thomas Jefferson, edited by Albert Ellery Bergh)

 

"No free man shall ever be debarred the use of arms. The strongest reason for the people to retain the right to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in government."-- Thomas Jefferson (Thomas Jefferson Papers, 334)

The last hope of human liberty in this world 

rests in us.

—Thomas Jefferson, 1811

From the Other Quote File

The last post was long and arduous. So I wanted something of a respite today. Occasionally on such days I do a quote file post. I have a very large quote file related to the interrelationships of the political, economic, and social spheres. Enough for a book.

But I also have another quote file. More personal. Related to things of interest to me, rather than specifically related to the Spherical Model. I haven’t shared these before. But today’s a good day for a sampling. This quote file tends toward the religious, but also just things I want to save because they’re well said. I hope you can take a moment away from the news of the day and enjoy these, for respite.

_________________________

Let us weigh the gain and the loss in wagering that God is. Let us estimate these two chances. If you gain, you gain all; if you lose, you lose nothing. Wager, then, without hesitation that He is.—Blaise Pascal

Albert Einstein
(image from Getty Images)

We should take care not to make the intellect our God; it has, of course, powerful muscles, but no personality.—Albert Einstein

Keep studying the scriptures, keep doing the things that build your faith in Jesus Christ and then notice the wise choices you are naturally drawn to make.—Russell M. Nelson

When obstacles arise, you change your direction to reach your goal; you do not change your decision to get there.—Zig Ziglar

You can’t go back and change the beginning, but you can start where you are and change the ending.—C. S. Lewis

It’s a lot easier to change your beliefs about the world than it is to change reality itself.—Rob Scott

It’s a problem when words like Turnt, Fleek or Bae are more understandable than actual words like Ethics, Morals, Respect and Integrity.—Will Smith, “House of Leaders”

If you think you’ve blown God’s plan for your life, rest in this:

You, my beautiful friend, are not that powerful.—Lisa Bever

You will continue to suffer if you have an emotional reaction to everything that is said to you. True power is sitting back and observing things with logic. True power is restraint. If words control you that means everyone else can control you. Breathe and allow things to pass.—Warren Buffett

Scared is what you're feeling. Brave is what you're doing.― Emma Donoghue

Some believe it is only great power that can hold evil in check, but that is not what I have found. I found it is the small everyday deeds of ordinary folk that keep the darkness at bay…small acts of kindness and love.

—Gandalf (Lord of the Rings, J. R. R. Tolkien)

Gandalf, from Lord of the Rings movie
image found here

There is more individuality in those who are more holy. Sin, on the other hand, brings sameness; it shrinks us to addictive appetites.—Neal A. Maxwell

God assumed from the beginning that the wise of the world would view Christians as fools…. And He has not been disappointed…. If I have brought any message today, it is this: Have the courage to have your wisdom regarded as stupidity. Be fools for Christ. And have the courage to suffer the contempt of the sophisticated world.—Justice Antonin Scalia

The biggest mistake in communication is assuming that it has taken place.

—Jon Erwin

Do not overpack the luggage you plan to take with you when you leave this world, for we simply cannot get most mortal things by celestial customs; only the eternal things are portable.—Neal A. Maxwell

Endurance is patience concentrated.—Thomas Carlisle

I will not let anyone walk through my mind with their dirty feet.

—Mahatma Ghandi

You do not have to believe everything you think.

(seen on Mindvalley Facebook page July 21, 2019, original reference unknown)

Being a Christian is less about cautiously avoiding sin than it is about courageously and relentlessly doing God’s will.—Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Dietrich Bonhoeffer
image from Brittanica

 The person who’s in love with their vision of community will destroy community. But the person who loves the people around them will create community everywhere they go.—Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Danger of Government's Good Intentions--from the Quote File

Occasionally I take a look at what I’ve recently added to the quote file. I add randomly, depending on what I’ve happened upon that strikes me as worth saving. But sometimes there seems to be a theme. As I read through some recent additions, I saw these interconnected ideas: 

·         Government’s purpose is protecting life, liberty, and property. Anything else government attempts is tyranny. And we need to be constantly vigilant to prevent that.

·         Liberty and property are subsets of valuing life. Liberty is the freedom to make your life choices, think and say what you believe, simply to live your life. And property is what you accumulate by productively living your life. So to take what you have accumulated through your work—the way you spend your life—is to take those hours, days, or years of your life. In other words, to enslave you.

·         Government isn’t capable of charity, or even good intentions. It is only power.

·         No one can coerce income redistribution without enslaving some to serve whoever the slave driver deigns to benefit.

Words like these quotes are worth reading, and maybe re-reading, from time to time.

The urge to save humanity is almost always only a false-face for the urge to rule it.—H. L. Mencken, Minority Report: H.L. Mencken’s Notebooks, 1956

The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by an endless series of hobgoblins, most of them imaginary.—H. L. Mencken, In Defense of Women

Thomas Jefferson statue
in the Jefferson Memorial

I predict future happiness for Americans if they can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them.

—Thomas Jefferson

No compact among men…can be pronounced everlasting and inviolable, and if I may so express myself, that no Wall of words, that no mound of parchment can be so formed as to stand against the sweeping torrent of boundless ambition on the one side, aided by the sapping current of corrupted morals on the other.—George Washington (1798)

It has been fundamental to our way of life that charity must be voluntary if it is to be charity. Compulsory benevolence is not charity. Today's egalitarians are using the federal government to redistribute wealth in our society, not as a matter of voluntary charity, but as a matter of right.—Ezra Taft Benson, This Nation Shall Endure, p. 91

The duty of the true patriot is to protect his country from its government.

—Thomas Paine

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

Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.―C. S. Lewis

One of the great mistakes is to judge policies and programs by their intentions rather than their results—Milton Friedman

In these days of uncertainty and unrest, liberty-loving people’s greatest responsibility and paramount duty is to preserve and proclaim freedom of the individual, his relationship to Deity, and the necessity of obedience to the principles of the Gospel of Christ—only thus will mankind find peace and happiness—David O. McKay, Conference Report, Apr. 1950, p. 37.

The champions of socialism call themselves progressives, but they recommend a system which is characterized by rigid observance of routine and by a resistance to every kind of improvement. They call themselves liberals, but they are intent upon abolishing liberty. They call themselves democrats, but they yearn for dictatorship. They call themselves revolutionaries, but they want to make the government omnipotent. They promise the blessings of the Garden of Eden, but they plan to transform the world into a gigantic post office. Every man but one a subordinate clerk in a bureau.—Ludwig von Mises

This relationship between a spiritual faith—a religious faith—and our form of government is so clearly defined and so obvious that we should really not need to identify a man as unusual because he recognizes it.—Dwight D. Eisenhower

The government of the United States is a definite government, confined to specified objects. It is not like the state governments, whose powers are more general. Charity is no part of the legislative duty of the government.—James Madison, 1794

Collectivism leads to concentration camps, leader worship, and war.

—George Orwell, The Observer, April 9, 1944

The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command.—George Orwell, Nineteen Eighty-Four

Socialists cry “Power to the people,” and raise the clenched fist as they say it. We all know what they really mean—power over the people, power to the State.—Margaret Thatcher

David O. McKay
image from here

Our immediate concern, however, is not with parties, groups, or persons, but with principles. We therefore commend and encourage every person and every group who are sincerely seeking to study Constitutional principles and awaken a sleeping and apathetic people to the alarming conditions that are rapidly advancing about us. We wish all of our citizens throughout the land were participating in some type of organized self-education in order that they could better appreciate what is happening and know what they can do about it.—David O. McKay, Improvement Era, June 1966

Whoever claims the right to redistribute the wealth produced by others is claiming the right to treat human beings as chattel.—Ayn Rand

When the resolution of enslaving America was formed in Great Britain, the British Parliament was advised…to disarm the people; that it was the best and most effectual way to enslave them; but that they should not do it openly, but weaken them, and let them sink gradually.—George Mason, address to the Virginia Ratifying Convention, June 14, 1788

"There are four ways in which you can spend money. You can spend your own money on yourself. When you do that, why then you really watch out what you’re doing, and you try to get the most for your money. Then you can spend your own money on somebody else. For example, I buy a birthday present for someone. Well, then I’m not so careful about the content of the present, but I’m very careful about the cost. Then, I can spend somebody else’s money on myself. And if I spend somebody else’s money on myself, then I’m sure going to have a good lunch! Finally, I can spend somebody else’s money on somebody else. And if I spend somebody else’s money on somebody else, I’m not concerned about how much it is, and I’m not concerned about what I get. And that’s government. And that’s close to 40 percent of our national income.

—Milton Friedman in Fox News interview, May 2004

The Constitution is not neutral. It was designed to take the government off the backs of people.—Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas

Words to Inspire Wise Voting

Here it is the day before Voting Day in America. There’s a great deal of interest for a midterm election. Other than 2010, when there was a backlash against the underhanded, unilateral imposition of Obamacare on us, I don’t remember interest being so high for such an election. It could be that I’m just paying more attention, but I think a lot of us recognize there’s a lot at stake.

There has been record amounts of early voting in many states, including my own. We don’t actually know the results of those early votes, but when those particular voters have voted in a primary, we have their party affiliation as an indicator. Right now, that data tells us there’s more Republican interest than Democrat, and more rural and suburban interest in most places—with my state as an exception, where urban voting has surged. I don’t know how they measure that, because Houston is definitely urban, but it’s also huge and made up more of suburban areas than urban. So we'll see.

chart from NBC News

There’s a lot at stake. After a very long near decade of economic malaise and social decay, we’ve been getting our hopes up that improving freedom and prosperity are more than just temporary. But that’s at risk.

A lot of our future depends on how we and the people around us vote.

So, maybe this is a day for inspiring words, pulled from my ever growing Spherical Model quote file, about this experiment in self-rule called the United States of America. Remind yourself how vital it is to vote wisely. Then go forth and do your duty tomorrow.

Samuel Adams
painting by J. S. Copley

Here therefore is the truest friend to the liberty of his country who tries most to promote its virtue, who, so far as his power and influence extend, will not suffer a man to be chosen into any office of power and trust who is not a wise and virtuous man.—Samuel Adams (The Life of Samuel Adams, 1:22)

What country can preserve its liberty if their rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance? —Thomas Jefferson, November 13, 1787

I go on this great republican principle, that the people will have virtue and intelligence to select men of virtue and wisdom.—James Madison, Federalist Paper 11:163, June 20, 1788

The power under the Constitution will always be in the people. It is entrusted for certain defined purposes, and for a certain limited period, to representatives of their own choosing; and whenever it is executed contrary to their interest, or not agreeable to their wishes, their servants can, and undoubtedly will, be recalled.—George Washington

Let it be told to the future world, that in the depth of winter, when nothing but hope and virtue could survive, that the city and the country, alarmed at one common danger, came forth to meet and to repulse it.—Thomas Paine, “The American Crisis”

Benjamin Franklin
painting by Joseph Duplessis, 1778

In the beginning of the contest with Great Britain, when we were sensible of danger, we had daily prayers in this room for divine protection. Our prayers, sir, were heard; and they were graciously answered. All of us who were engaged in this struggle must have observed frequent instances of a superintending Providence in our favor. To that kind Providence we owe this happy opportunity of consulting in peace on the means of establishing our future national felicity. And have we now forgotten that powerful Friend? Or do we imagine that we no longer need His assistance? I have lived, sir, a long time; and the longer I live the more convincing proofs I see of this truth—that God governs in the affairs of men; and if a sparrow cannot fall to the ground without his notice, is it probable that an empire can rise without His aid? We have been assured, sir, in sacred writings, that except the Lord build the house they labor in vain that build it I firmly believe this; and I also believe that without his concurring aid we shall succeed in this political building no better than the builders of Babel.—Benjamin Franklin, Debates in the Congress of the Confederation, from February 19, 1787, to April 25, 1787, p. 984

[T]he framers of the Constitution probably assumed that religious freedom would establish religion as a watchdog over government, and believed that free churches would inevitably stand and speak against immoral and corrupt legislation. All churches not only have the right to speak out on public moral issues, but they have the solemn obligation to do so.—M. Russell Ballard, Ensign, October 1992

Men can exercise freedom only if they possess the following:

(1) life, (2) liberty (the absence of restraint), (3) property, and (4) knowledge.

When men become wicked, they act to destroy these necessary elements rather than preserve them, and freedom becomes impossible to maintain no matter what the form of government. There is an inexorable law of nature in operation which decrees that no man can act with the purpose of destroying another’s freedom without losing his own. The operation of this divine law of retribution is easily observed in a society of self-governing people.

Selfish, needful man is restrained from forcibly taking the life, liberty or property of his neighbor by these considerations:

(1) conscience, (2) fear of retaliation (3) fear of condemnation of others.

When men act through government, they do so without fear of retaliation or condemnation, and conscience alone remains to curb the propensity to abuse power.

Therefore, when a nation of people who have had the power of government placed in their hands become evil and without conscience, they will use that power to plunder and enslave one another until freedom is destroyed. It is a truism taught by the sages and prophets and proved repeatedly in the history of nations that wickedness and liberty cannot exist side by side.

Equally fatal to freedom is the ignorance or indifference of the voting majority. Unless they perceive with clarity that line which divides right from wrong in government action, and resist with firmness any attempt to cross it, the natural tendency of men to abuse power will cause those in office to enlarge their functions until liberty is crushed under the weight of bureaucratic despotism.

Therefore a nation must not only remain moral to remain free, but it must also be alert and informed. Furthermore the people must have a standard by which to distinguish with precision those functions which preserve freedom from those which destroy it. The standard which is used must be widely known, universally acceptable to moral people, and easily applied.—H. Verlan Andersen, Many Are Called, But Few Are Chosen, Ezra Taft Benson Society, special re-printing: 2017, ch. 1

Take Social Justice. Justice means getting what you deserve without favor. Social justice means getting what you don’t deserve because you are favored.

—Michael Knowles, “Control the Words, Control the Culture,” PragerU

We need to become more tolerant of the imperfections that come with freedom, and we need to give up the illusion that somehow putting government in charge of anything is going to improve its workings, much less bring on utopia.—Ron Paul

No people can be bound to acknowledge and adore the Invisible Hand which conducts the affairs of men more than those of the United States. Every step by which they have advanced to the character of an independent nation seems to have been distinguished by some token of providential agency.—George Washington, First Inaugural Address

The hand of Heaven appears to have led us on to be, perhaps, humble instruments and means in the great Providential dispensation which is completing. We have fled from the political Sodom; let us not look back, lest we perish and become a monument of infamy and derision to the world!—Samuel Adams, speech at Philadelphia state house, August 1, 1776

Government, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil; in its worst state, an intolerable one.

—Thomas Paine

The powers delegated by the proposed Constitution to the federal government are few and defined…[and] will be exercised principally on external objects, as war, peace, negotiation, and foreign commerce.

—James Madison, Federalist Paper 45

Albert Einstein
image from here

I am not bound to win, but I am bound to be true. I am not bound to succeed, but I am bound to live by the light that I have. I must stand with anybody that stands right, and stand with him while he is right, and part with him when he goes wrong.

—Abraham Lincoln

The strength of the Constitution lies entirely in the determination of each citizen to defend it.—Albert Einstein