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

The Conceit of Ignorance

If a man is to pursue Philosophy, his first task is to throw away conceit. For it is impossible for a man to begin to learn what he has a conceit that he already knows.

-Epictetus

Royalty

Royalty is a good burial shroud.

-Procopius

Virtue

Virtue is never tried but by some difficulty and some struggle.

-Edmund Burke

Splendid in Ashes

Man is a noble animal, splendid in ashes, and pompous in the grave, solemnizing nativities and deaths with equal lustre, nor omitting ceremonies of bravery in the infamy of his nature.

-Sir Thomas Browne

Arbitrary Power

Arbitrary power is most easily established on the ruins of liberty abused to licentiousness.

-George Washington

Political Penalty

One of the penalties of not participating in politics is that you will be governed by your inferiors.

-Plato

The Parson's Preaching

In preaching, they do by men as writers of romances do by their chief knights, bring them into many dangers, but still fetch them off; so they put men in fear of Hell, but at last bring them to Heaven.

- John Seldon

Death and Wisdom

It is death that puts into man all the wisdom of the world without speaking a word. Death, which hateth and destroyeth man, is believed; God, which hath made him and loves him is always deferred.

-Sir Walter Raleigh

Good Actions

The great majority of good actions are intended not for the benefit of the world, but for that of individuals, of which the good of the world is made up; and the thoughts of the most virtuous man need not on these occasions travel beyond the particular persons concerned, except so far as is necessary to assure himself that in benefiting them he is not violating the rights, that is, the legitimate and authorized expectations, of anyone else.

- John Stuart Mill

A Kingly Thing

It is a kingly thing to do well... and to be evil spoken of.

- Antisthenes

Stubborn Believers

Those who feel predestined to see but not believe will find all believers too noisy and obtrusive: they fend him off.

- Friedrich Nietzsche

Vicious Luxury

By banishing vicious luxury, without curing sloth and indifference to others, you only diminish industry in the state, and add nothing to men's charity or their generosity.

-David Hume

Fear and Horror

It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God; but to fall out of the hands of the living God is a horror beyond our expression, beyond our imagination.

-John Donne