Quote Digest

[Uboa]

There are those who struggle for a day and they are good.
There are those who struggle for a year and they are better.
There are those who struggle for many years, and they are better still.
But there are those who struggle all their lives.
These are the indispensable ones.

[Thought]

Someone ever tries to kill you, you try to kill 'em right back! Wife or no, you are no one's property to be tossed aside. You got the right same as anyone to live and try to kill people.

Some men are great enough that they can love a whole woman, and not just part of her.

Are you the strongest of all men, so strong that you can be merciful to me, a weak woman? Here is the undoing of your strength: I am not a weak woman. I am not a little queen.

Money only buys the illusion of power. Real power is in the force of will — will strong enough that others bend to it for its own sake, and follow it willingly. Power that is won through deception will evaporate under the hot light of truth.

[ZeaLitY]

I've noticed that both leaders I like and dislike often have at least some quotable things in their history. I need to re-educate myself about his period and actions to have a better opinion of FDR, but his number came up on my latest Wikiquote harvest.

Unhappy events abroad have retaught us two simple truths about the liberty of a democratic people. The first truth is that the liberty of a democracy is not safe if the people tolerate the growth of private power to a point where it becomes stronger than their democratic State itself. That, in its essence, is fascism — ownership of government by an individual, by a group or by any other controlling private power.

The second truth is that the liberty of a democracy is not safe if its business system does not provide employment and produce and distribute goods in such a way as to sustain an acceptable standard of living. Both lessons hit home. Among us today a concentration of private power without equal in history is growing.

Simple Truths message to Congress (1938)

They (who) seek to establish systems of government based on the regimentation of all human beings by a handful of individual rulers... call this a new order. It is not new and it is not order.

The hours men and women worked, the wages they received, the conditions of their labor — these had passed beyond the control of the people, and were imposed by this new industrial dictatorship. The savings of the average family, the capital of the small-businessmen, the investments set aside for old age — other people's money — these were tools which the new economic royalty used to dig itself in. Those who tilled the soil no longer reaped the rewards which were their right. The small measure of their gains was decreed by men in distant cities. Throughout the nation, opportunity was limited by monopoly. Individual initiative was crushed in the cogs of a great machine. The field open for free business was more and more restricted. Private enterprise, indeed, became too private. It became privileged enterprise, not free enterprise.

For too many of us the political equality we once had won was meaningless in the face of economic inequality. A small group had concentrated into their own hands an almost complete control over other people's property, other people's money, other people's labor — other people's lives. For too many of us life was no longer free; liberty no longer real; men could no longer follow the pursuit of happiness.

Against economic tyranny such as this, the American citizen could appeal only to the organized power of government. The collapse of 1929 showed up the despotism for what it was. The election of 1932 was the people's mandate to end it. Under that mandate it is being ended.

These economic royalists complain that we seek to overthrow the institutions of America. What they really complain of is that we seek to take away their power. Our allegiance to American institutions requires the overthrow of this kind of power. In vain they seek to hide behind the flag and the Constitution. In their blindness they forget what the flag and the Constitution stand for. Now, as always, they stand for democracy, not tyranny; for freedom, not subjection; and against a dictatorship by mob rule and the over-privileged alike.

There is a mysterious cycle in human events. To some generations much is given. Of other generations much is expected. This generation of Americans has a rendezvous with destiny.

I have seen war. I have seen war on land and sea. I have seen blood running from the wounded. I have seen men coughing out their gassed lungs. I have seen the dead in the mud. I have seen cities destroyed. I have seen two hundred limping exhausted men come out of line-the survivors of a regiment of one thousand that went forward forty-eight hours before. I have seen children starving. I have seen the agony of mothers and wives. I hate war.

I wish I could keep war from all Nations; but that is beyond my power. I can at least make certain that no act of the United States helps to produce or to promote war. I can at least make clear that the conscience of America revolts against war and that any Nation which provokes war forfeits the sympathy of the people of the United States.

Many causes produce war. There are ancient hatreds, turbulent frontiers, the "legacy of old forgotten, far-off things, and battles long ago." There are new-born fanaticisms. Convictions on the part of certain peoples that they have become the unique depositories of ultimate truth and right.

A dark old world was devastated by wars between conflicting religions. A dark modern world faces wars between conflicting economic and political fanaticisms in which are intertwined race hatreds.

[Lord J Esq]

Well, my days of disagreeing with you are certainly coming to a middle.

I'm not sure who originated that quote, but I think it's cute.

[Thought]

Well, my days of disagreeing with you are certainly coming to a middle.

I'm not sure who originated that quote, but I think it's cute.

That sounds like a corruption of a Firefly quote:

Well, my days of not taking you seriously are certainly comin' to a middle.

[Truthordeal]

Marriage is like a bank account. You put it in, you take it out, you lose interest.

Irwin Corey.

[SinisterSpade]

"...I swear by my pretty floral bonnet: I will end you."

Malcolm Reynolds.

[Lord J Esq]

Well, if that isn't the horn's toot!

~ Joshalonian euphemism for "Cool!"

[Lord J Esq]

The adventure for tomorrow. ... The camaraderie; people caring about people. Man unashamedly loving man. Learning to understand the motivations of others, who in turn will often end up being not your enemy but your friend.

[Romana]

"You feel that pounding in your heart? That tightness in the pit of your stomach? The blood rushing to your head? You know what that is? That's adventure, the thrill and the fear of stepping into the unknown. That's why we're all here, and that's why we're alive!"

[Lord J Esq]

Islam will dominate! Freedom can go to hell.

~ NYT

[Sajainta]

I've quoted this here before, but I need to write it again, and remind myself of it again.

The willow knows what the storm does not--that the power to endure harm outlives the power to inflict it.

[Truthordeal]

What is going on in America? It is amazing, and disturbing, to ride on a road and see street signs that are printed not only in English but in other languages as well. What's more, even legal documents are no being written in foreign languages. How unnerving to walk down an American street and not understand what people are talking about. Maybe this isn't America. I feel like a stranger in my own land. Why don't they learn to speak English?

-Benjamin Franklin, 1750's.

I don't have any particular agenda with this quote. I found it in my Foundations of Education textbook about instructing bilingual students, and I found it interesting.

[Thought]

Let's get dangerous!

We're the Rescue Rangers, a small, but efficient, battalion of do-gooders devoted to helping those in trouble. Would you like to see our news clippings?

Why is it every time I need to get somewhere, we get waylaid by jackassery?

It is the nature of humankind to fear what they do not understand. Their ways are not our ways.

The written word is all that stands between memory, and oblivion. Without books as our anchors, we are cast adrift neither teaching, nor learning. They are windows on the past, mirrors on the present and prisms reflecting all possible futures. Books, are lighthouses erected in the dark sea of time

I come from the Net - through systems, peoples, and cities - to this place: MAINFRAME. My format: Guardian. To mend and defend - to defend my new found friends, their hopes and dreams, and to defend them from their enemies. They say The User lives outside the Net and inputs games for pleasure. No one knows for sure, but I intend to find out. ReBoot!

[Sajainta]

Hahaha ReBoot!  Crazy show.

How many loved your moments of glad grace,
And loved your beauty with love false or true;
But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you,
And loved the sorrows of your changing face.