What Never Was

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

Not So Much Anymore

It is wisely ordained by nature that private connections should prevail over universal views and considerations, otherwise our affections and action would be dissipated and lost for want of a proper limited object.

-David Hume

The Secret to Survival

The secret to survival is not dying.

-Lemmy Kilmister

Hard Hearts and Hard Fronts

The language of natural rights require nothing but a hard front, a hard heart and an unblushing countenance. It is from beginning to end so much flat assertion: it neither has anything to do with reason nor will endure the mention of it. It lays down as a fundamental and inviolable principal whatever is in dispute: admit it, you are an honest fellow, a true patriot: question it, or so much as ask for the proof of it, you are whatever is most odious, sinning equally against truth and against conscience.

-Jeremy Bentham

Lovers of Lordships

Some gan to gape for greedy governance,
And match themselves with mighty potentates
Lovers of lordships, and troublers of States.

-John Milton

Better in a Fair Than in a Wood Alone

If the mind be possessed with any lust or passion, a man had better be in a fair than in a wood alone. They may, like petty thieves, cheat us perhaps, and pick our pockets in the midst of company; but like robbers they use to strip and bind, or murder us when they catch us alone.

-Abraham Cowley

Natural Scissors

As scissors were made to cut up cloth, so were natural rights invented to cut up law, and legal rights.

- Jeremy Bentham