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1. "I created a weapon to defend the borders of my motherland. It's not my fault that it's being used where it shouldn't be. The politicians are more to blame for this." - Mikhail Kalashnikov (10 Nov 1919 – 23 Dec 2013) designer of the AK-47 assault rifle. Another version: "My aim was to create armaments to protect the borders of my motherland. It is not my fault that the Kalashnikov was used in many troubled places. I think the policies of these countries are to blame, not the designers."
2. "What is the use of living, if it be not to strive for noble causes and to make this muddled world a better place for those who will live in it after we are gone?" - Winston Churchill, Speech at Kinnaird Hall, Dundee, Scotland ("Unemployment"), October 10, 1908
3. “Everyone is a genius. But if you judge a fish on its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid.” - Albert Einstein
4. "Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from religious conviction." - Blaise Pascal
5. "If I could have entertained the slightest apprehension that the Constitution framed in the Convention, where I had the honor to preside, might possibly endanger the religious rights of any ecclesiastical Society, certainly I would never have placed my signature to it; and if I could now conceive that the general Government might ever be so administered as to render the liberty of conscience insecure, I beg you will be persuaded that no one would be more zealous than myself to establish effectual barriers against the horrors of spiritual tyranny, and every species of religious persecution." - George Washington, letter to the United Baptists in Virginia, 1789
6. "As there are some people, who, from religious principles, cannot bear arms in any case, this Congress intend no violence to their consciences, but earnestly recommend it to them, to contribute liberally in this time of universal calamity, to the relief of their distressed brethren in the several colonies, and to do all other services to their oppressed Country, which they can consistently with their religious principles." - Continental Congress resolution, 1775.
7. “The happiness of your life depends on the quality of your thoughts. Therefore, guard accordingly.” - Marcus Aurelius.
8. "You cannot shake hands with a clenched fist." - Indira Priyadarshini Gandhi
9. "Is freedom anything else than the right to live as we wish? Nothing else." - Epictetus
10. "Too often the strong, silent man is silent only because he does not know what to say, and is reputed strong only because he has remained silent." - Winston S. Churchill, from His Complete Speeches (1974), Chelsea House, Volume IV: 1922-1928, p. 3462.
11. “The only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven’t found it yet, keep looking. Don’t settle. As with all matters of the heart, you’ll know when you find it.” - Steve Jobs
12. "Distrust & caution are the parents of security." - Benjamin Franklin, Poor Richard's Almanack, 1733
13. "I see a beautiful city and a brilliant people rising from this abyss, and, in their struggles to be truly free, in their triumphs and defeats, through long years to come, I see the evil of this time and of the previous time of which this is the natural birth, gradually making expiation for itself and wearing out." - Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities, p. 329
14. "Things have come to a pretty pass when religion is allowed to invade public life." - Lord Melbourne (opposing abolition of the slave trade)
15. "The real tragedy is that both sides are so deeply entrenched that neither can listen to the other. Invective and name calling have replaced dialogue. Nothing less than obliteration of the enemy will suffice; either Christianize or secularize America." - Charles Colson, Kingdoms in Conflict, p. 46
16. "Justice being taken away, then, what are kingdoms but great robberies? For what are robberies themselves, but little kingdoms? The band itself is made up of men; it is ruled by the authority of a prince, it is knit together by the pact of the confederacy; the booty is divided by the law agreed on. If, by the admittance of abandoned men, this evil increases to such a degree that it holds places, fixes abodes, takes possession of cities, and subdues peoples, it assumes the more plainly the name of a kingdom, because the reality is now manifestly conferred on it, not by the removal of covetousness, but by the addition of impunity. Indeed, that was an apt and true reply which was given to Alexander the Great by a pirate who had been seized. For when that king had asked the man what he meant by keeping hostile possession on the sea, he answered with bold pride, 'What thou meanest by seizing the whole earth; but because I do it with a petty ship, I am called a robber, whilst thou who dost it with a great fleet art styled emperor.'" - St. Augustine, City of God, Bk IV, ch. 4
17. "Why not go out on a limb? Isn't that where the fruit is?" - Frank Scully
18. "God does not play dice with the cosmos." - Albert Einstein
19. "We are a religious people whose institutions presuppose a Supreme Being." - SCOTUS Justice William O. Douglas, in Zorach v. Clauson, 1952
20. "As soon as ever I had arrived thus far in my investigation of the slave trade, so enormous, so dreadful, so irremediable did its wickedness appear that my own mind was completely made up for the abolition. A trade founded in iniquity and carried on as this was must be abolished." - William Wilberforce, 1787
21. "It is out of the question that there should be a Christian government even over one land ... since the wicked always outnumber the good. Hence a man who would venture to govern ... with the gospel would be like a shepherd who should place in one fold wolves, lions, eagles and sheep together and let them freely mingle." - Martin Luther
22. "Bring me my Bow of burning gold:
Bring me my Arrows of desire:
Bring me my Spear: O clouds unfold!
Bring me my Chariot of Fire!
I will not cease from Mental Fight,
Nor shall my Sword sleep in my hand,
Till we have built Jerusalem
In England's green and pleasant Land."
- William Blake
23. "But feeling that valour and devotion could accomplish nothing that could compensate for the loss that must have attended the continuance of the contest, I have determined to avoid the useless sacrifice of those whose past services have endeared them to their countrymen." - Robert E. Lee, in General Order No. 9, announcing his surrender
24. "A grain of truth is needed to make a mountain of lies believable." - unknown
25. "Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent." - Isaac Asimov
26. "Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to a political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports. In vain would that man claim that tribute of patriotism, who should labor to subvert these great pillars of human happiness." - George Washington
27. "A little neglect may breed mischief: for want of a nail, the shoe was lost; for want of a shoe the horse was lost; and for want of a horse the rider was lost." - Benjamin Franklin
28. "Will the shutting out of foreign goods increase the total amount of wealth in this country? Can foreign nations grow rich at our expense by selling us goods under cost price? Can a people tax themselves into prosperity? Can a man stand in a bucket and lift himself up by the handle?" - Winston Churchill, Speech at the Free Trade Hall, Manchester, England (1904)
29. "As we peer into society’s future, we — you and I, and our government — must avoid the impulse to live only for today, plundering for our own ease and convenience the precious resources of tomorrow. We cannot mortgage the material assets of our grandchildren without risking the loss also of their political and spiritual heritage. We want democracy to survive for all generations to come, not to become the insolvent phantom of tomorrow.” - Dwight D Eisenhower, Farewell Address, 17 Jan 1961
30. "Reason directs those who are truly pious and philosophical to honor and love only what is true, declining to follow the opinions of the ancients, if these be worthless. For not only does sound reason direct us to refuse the guidance of those who did or taught anything wrong, but it is incumbent on the lover of truth, by all means, and if death be threatened, even before his own life, to choose to do and say what is right." - Justin Martyr, First Apology, addressed to Emperor Titus AElius Adrianus Antoninus Pius Augustus Caesar, c. 140
31. "Error, indeed, is never set forth in its naked deformity, lest, being thus exposed, it should at once be detected. But it is craftily decked out in an attractive dress, so as, by outward form, to make it appear to the inexperienced (ridiculous as the expression may seem) more true than the truth itself." - Irenaeus of Lyons, "A Refutation and Subversion of Knowledge Falsely So Called", c. 185
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