Posted on 11/05/2007 4:56:47 AM PST by Loud Mime
“If we desire to insult, we must be able to repel it; if we desire to secure peace, one of the most powerful instruments of our rising prosperity, it must be known, that we are at all times ready for War.”
George Washington (fifth annual address to Congress, 13 December 1793)
“Our contest is not only whether we ourselves shall be free, but whether there shall be left to mankind an asylum on earth for civil and religious liberty”
Samuel Adams
“If ye love wealth greater than liberty, the tranquility of servitude greater than the animating contest for freedom, go home from us in peace. We seek not your counsel, nor your arms. Crouch down and lick the hand that feeds you; and may posterity forget that ye were our countrymen.”
Samuel Adams
Other – George Orwell
”Pacifism is objectively pro-fascist. This is elementary common sense. If you hamper the war effort of one side, you automatically help out that of the other.”
”The quickest way to end a war is to lose it.”
”War is evil, but it is often the lesser evil.”
”There are some ideas so wrong that only a very intelligent person could believe in them.”
”Enlightened people seldom, if ever, possess a sense of responsibility.”
”Political language... is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind.”
”But if thought corrupts language, language can also corrupt thought.”
All political thinking for years past has been vitiated in the same way. People can foresee the future only when it coincides with their own wishes, and the most grossly obvious facts can be ignored when they are unwelcome.”
”All the war-propaganda, all the screaming and lies and hatred, comes invariably from people who are not fighting.”
”As I write, highly civilized human beings are flying overhead, trying to kill me.”
”(Mankind) is not likely to salvage civilization unless he can evolve a system of good and evil which is independent of heaven and hell.”
”One does not establish a dictatorship in order to safeguard a revolution; one makes a revolution in order to establish a dictatorship.”
Some in our government should read these.
Thanks, I’ve bookmarked this.
good quote!
While compiling Orwell’s quotes I realized that all the liberals I know had never served in the Military.
My favorite George Washington quote because he was talking directly about my early ancestors............
“If all else fails, I will retreat up the valley of Virginia, plant my flag on the Blue Ridge, rally around the Scotch-Irish of that region, and make my last stand for liberty amongst a people who will never submit to British tyranny whilst there is a man left to draw a trigger.”
George Washington, at Valley Forge.
Thanks for the ping, LM. I, too, am bookmarking this one!
sneakers
ping
-bfl-
Warns against the party system.
“It serves to distract the Public Councils, and enfeeble the Public Administration....
agitates the Community with ill-founded jealousies and false alarms; kindles the animosity of one....
against another....
it opens the door to foreign influence and corruption...
thus the policy and the will of one country are subjected to the policy and will of another.”
Stresses the importance of religion and morality.
“Where is the security for property, for reputation, for life, if the sense of religious obligation desert the oaths,
which are the instruments of investigation in Courts of Justice?”
On stable public credit.
“...cherish public credit.
One method of preserving it is to use it as sparingly as possible...
avoiding likewise the accumulation of debt....
it is essential that you...bear in mind, that towards the payments of debts there must be Revenue,
that to have Revenue there must be taxes;
that no taxes can be devised, which are not...inconvenient and unpleasant...”
Warns against permanent foreign alliances.
“It is our true policy to steer clear of permanent alliances with any portion of the foreign world...”
I’m gonna put some of those quotes from Orwell on a site I’m on, see what the teens have to say.
(mostly teens, few 20 and up)
LOL Good one
A permanent alliance suggests that principle doesn't matter, that if the other member turns to bad ways the alliance will not be severed. Any alliance should be based on doing the right thing, not surrendering or promoting evil.
I view political parties in the same way. Others stay with their party....right or wrong.
“Here I encounter the most popular fallacy of our times. It is not considered sufficient that the law should be just; it must be philanthropic. Nor is it sufficient that the law should guarantee to every citizen the free and inoffensive use of his faculties for physical, intellectual, and moral self-improvement. Instead, it is demanded that the law should directly extend welfare, education, and morality throughout the nation.”
“This is the seductive lure of socialism. And I repeat again: These two uses of the law are in direct contradiction to each other. We must choose between them. A citizen cannot at the same time be free and not free.”
from...”The Seductive Lure of Socialism”, here...
http://bastiat.org/en/the_law.html#SECTION_G1428
Thanks to FReeper raygun for the link.
Brilliant!
Include post #15 with those quotes.
I’d be interested to see how they respond; please let me know?
George Washington was not alone when he shared this wise observation with the Congress and the Nation.
In pace, ut sapiens, aptarit idonea bello. "In peace, as a wise man, he should make suitable preparation for war." Horace
Qui desiderat pacem, preparet bellum. "Who desires peace should prepare for war." Vegetius De Rei Militari III
"Whatever enables us to go to war secures our peace" Thomas Jefferson
"To secure peace is to prepare for war." Carl von Clausewitz
"It is an unfortunate fact that we can secure peace only by preparing for war." John F. Kennedy
"Si Vis Pacem, Para Bellum." (If You Wish For Peace, Prepare For War)
If you doubt this or lack the power to accept it, or it offends your idea of the way things "ought" to be, even for a moment, you do not even deserve freedom and you are not worthy of peace.
You always have great information!
I’ve got the Clausewitz book on my to-read pile; it’s seventh.
Is the last quote from Tacitus?
”(Mankind) is not likely to salvage civilization unless he can evolve a system of good and evil which is independent of heaven and hell.”
Debatable, very debatable.
Will & Ariel Durant discussed this and mentioned that while it is possible for man to live a moral and ethical life without a belief in a higher power, that the vast majority were unable to so do.
True then, true now.
Actually, the American Republic, during its pre-New Deal period, was the best actualization of a secular society wherein each citizen related to his Creator as he so saw fit.
No goober in a black robe decided matters relating to religion.
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