Quotable Quotes!

John Adams - (1735 – 1826) was the first (1789–1797) Vice President of the United States, and the second President of the United States. He was a major sponsor of the American Revolutionary War in Massachusetts, and a key diplomat in the 1770s. He was a driving force for independence in 1776. As a statesman and author Adams helped define republicanism as the core American political value, meaning overthrow of monarchy and, especially, rule by the people, hatred of corruption, and devotion to civic duty. Regarded as one of the Founding Fathers of the United States.

Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.

Emphasis added - Gene

Rabbi Shmuley Boteach - (b: 1966) is an American Orthodox rabbi, radio show host, and author.

While the rest of the world will strive to be loved, you strive to be holy. Do what's right even it costs you friendship. Do what's virtuous even if it leaves you lonely. Seek to impress not your fellow man, but none but God alone.

"Never fear being hated".
Commentator for World Net Daily, www.worldnetdaily.com

"The right of a citizen to bear arms, in lawful defense of himself or the State, is absolute. He does not derive it from the State government. It is one of the 'High Powers' delegated directly to the citizen by the United States Constitution, Amendment II, and "is excepted out of the general powers of government". A law cannot be passed to infringe upon it or impair it, because it is above the law, and independent of the law-making power.

Texas Supreme Court Decision, Cockrum vs State of Texas, 1859

Charles Robert Darwin - (1809 - 1882) was an English naturalist who proposed and provided evidence for the scientific theory that all species have evolved over time from one or a few common ancestors through the process of natural selection. This theory became widely accepted by the scientific community in the 1930s, and now forms the basis of modern evolutionary theory. In modified form, Darwin's theory remains a cornerstone of biology, as it provides a unifying explanation for the diversity of life.

We must, however, acknowledge as it seems to me, that a man with all his noble qualities...still bears in his bodily frame the indelible stamp of his lowly origin. - -Charles Darwin

Mohandas K. Gandhi - (1869 – 1948) was a major political and spiritual leader of India, and the Indian independence movement. He was the pioneer and perfector of the resistance of tyranny through mass civil disobedience strongly founded upon total non-violence, which led India to independence, and has inspired movements for civil rights and freedom across the world. Gandhi is commonly known and addressed in India and across the world as Mahatma Gandhi and as Bapu (in many Indian languages, Father).

I have been repeating over and over again that he who cannot protect himself or his nearest and dearest or their honor by non-violently facing death may and ought to do so by violently dealing with the oppressor. He who can do neither of the two is a burden. He has no business to be the head of a family. He must either hide himself, or must rest content to live for ever in helplessness and be prepared to crawl like a worm at the bidding of a bully.

Young India, 11-10-1928, p342

Courage is contagious. When a brave man takes a stand, the spines of others are often stiffened.

David Grossman:  The author of several book including the Pulitzer Prize-nominated "On Killing: The Psychological Cost of Learning to Kill in War and Society.”

But if you are authorized to carry a weapon, and you walk outside without it, just take a deep breath, and say this to yourself…"Baa."

"On Sheep, Wolves, and Sheepdogs"

"If they are not going to permit their citizens (students and faculty) to carry lifesaving tools (firearms), then they must provide those lifesaving tools, in the hands of trained professionals. This is a moral, legal obligation."

Virginia Tech Tragedy Report Misses Point
June 20, 2007
NewsMax.com

Thomas Jefferson - (1743 – 1826) was the third President of the United States (1801–1809), principal author of the Declaration of Independence (1776), and an influential Founding Father of the United States.

No man has a natural right to commit aggression on the equal rights of another, and this is all from which the laws ought to restrain him.

Jesus - (8–2 BC to 29–36 AD), also known as Jesus of Nazareth, is the central figure of Christianity. He is commonly referred to as Jesus Christ, where "Christ" is a title derived from the Greek christós, meaning the "Anointed One", which corresponds to the Hebrew-derived "Messiah". The name "Jesus" is an Anglicization of the Greek Iesous, itself believed to be a transliteration of the Hebrew יהושע Yehoshua or Hebrew-Aramaic ישוע Yeshua, meaning "YHWH is salvation."

...and he that hath no sword, let him sell his garment, and buy one.

Luke 22:36 KJV

Blessed be the Lord my rock
 Who trains my hands for war
 And my fingers for battle
 
 Psalm 144:1

King Solomon(essentially meaning "peace") is a figure described in the Bible as a wise ruler of an empire centered on the united Kingdom of Israel. Legends say he was born in Jerusalem about 1000 BC and reigned over Israel from about 970 to 928 BC.

1.To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven:

3. A time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up;

8. A time to love, and a time to hate; a time of war, and a time of peace.

Ecclesiastes 3: 1, 3, 8

C. S. Lewis - Clive Staples Lewis (1898–1963), commonly referred to as C. S. Lewis.  Lewis is known for his work on medieval literature, for his Christian apologetics and for his fiction, especially the children’s series entitled The Chronicles of Narnia and his science fiction Space Trilogy. He was also a leading figure in an Oxford literary group called the Inklings.

Of all tyrannies, a tyranny exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may 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.

Fr. Dwight Longenecker - Author of Adventures in Orthodoxy and is chaplain of St Joseph’s in Greenville, South Carolina.
www.dwightlongenecker.com

When religion becomes a function to produce happiness here and now, hymns become comforting, banal songs about us and our problems and how God will make us happy.

When the quest for holiness is replaced with the quest for happiness, the priest ceases to be an agent of God’s supernatural grace in the world and becomes a therapist, a social worker or simply an avuncular administrator of the mutual self-help group.

When religion is expected to merely produce happiness, then worship is stripped of mystery and it must become entertaining.

When religion is expected to simply make people feel better instead of being better, no one preaches on the difficult or hard hitting subjects. The pulpit becomes a platform for pious platitudes that make people feel nice, and the confessional ends up empty.

In the end, it is not only the confessional which is empty.

People are not stupid.
http://ncregister.com/site/article/7979/

Roy Stewart Moore - (b: 1947) is a controversial American jurist and politician noted for his refusal, as the elected Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Alabama, to remove a monument of the Ten Commandments from the courthouse despite orders from a federal court judge to do so. On November 13, 2003 Alabama's Court of the Judiciary unanimously removed him from his post as Chief Justice. In the years preceding his election to the Alabama Supreme Court, Moore had successfully resisted previous attempts to have a display of the Ten Commandments removed from his courtroom.

. . . "the crucial role pastors played in our war for independence from Great Britain. In real life, in January of 1776, while preaching on Ecclesiastes 3:1 ("To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven"), Rev. John Peter Muhlenberg threw off his robe to reveal the uniform of a Virginia military officer and proclaimed, "A time of war, and a time of peace ... and this is the time for war!" He then led 300 men from the church to fight in the war. Later, Gen. Muhlenberg was elected as a United States senator and helped frame our Bill of Rights. His monument now stands proudly in the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C., as a perpetual testimony of the role of pastors in the cause of liberty." - Politics and pulpits, WorldNetDaily.com, 10/25/06

There is a toleration which is treachery. There is a peace which issues in paralysis. There are hours when the Church must say NO to those who should ask communion with her, in the doing of her work, upon the basis of compromise. Such standing aloof may produce ostracism and persecution; but it will maintain power and influence...The reason why men do not look to the Church today is that she has destroyed her own influence by compromise. ...
 

Dr. J.I. Packer - (b. 1926) is a British-born Canadian Christian theologian in the Calvinistic Anglican tradition. He currently serves as the Board of Governors' Professor of Theology at Regent College in Vancouver, British Columbia. He is considered to be one of the most important evangelical theologians of the late 20th century.

Liberal theology, without the gospel, proves to be the smell of death rather than of life.

George Smith Patton Jr. - (1885 – 1945) was a leading U.S. Army general in World War II in campaigns in North Africa, Sicily, France and Germany, 1943-45. In World War I he was a senior commander of the new tank corps and saw action in France. After the war he was an advocate of armored warfare but was reassigned to the cavalry. In World War II he commanded major units of North Africa, Sicily, and the European Theater of Operations. The popular image of "Old Blood and Guts", contrasts with the historians' image of a brilliant military leader whose record was also marred by insubordination and some periods of apparent instability.

“Sir, this is Patton talking … You have just got to make up Your mind whose side You’re on. You must come to my assistance, so that I may dispatch the entire German Army as a birthday present to your Prince of Peace …” — Prayer of Gen. George S. Patton, Dec. 23, 1944

"It¹ has demanded us to deliver up our arms, which are essential for our defence, the rightful property of freemen, and formidable only to tyrannical Governments." March 2, 1836

¹  The tyrannical government in question was Mexico under dictator Generalissimo Antonio de Padua Maria Severino López de Santa Anna y Pérez de Lebrón (1794 - 1876) - Gene

Unknown - I have no idea who is to blame for each of these statements.

"Declaring that violence never solves anything is just as ignorant as claiming that violence solves everything."

Only two defining forces have ever offered to die for you:

1. Jesus Christ

2. The American G. I.

One died for your soul, the other for your freedom.

~Semper Fi~

[Wilson v. State, 33 Ark. 557, at 560, 34 Am. Rep. 52, at 54 (1878)]

To prohibit a citizen from wearing or carrying a war arm . . . is an unwarranted restriction upon the constitutional right to keep and bear arms. If cowardly and dishonorable men sometimes shoot unarmed men with army pistols or guns, the evil must be prevented by the penitentiary and gallows, and not by a general deprivation of constitutional privilege.

[Wilson v. State, 33 Ark. 557, at 560, 34 Am. Rep. 52, at 54 (1878)]