Pete Waldmeir

"Blessed is the person who sees the need, recognizes the responsibility, and actively 
becomes the answer."

William A. Ward

"The mediocre teacher tells. The good teacher explains. The superior teacher demonstrates. 
The great teacher inspires."

William A. Ward

"Some women hold up dresses that are so ugly and they always say the same thing: 'This 
looks much better on.' On what? On fire?"

Marsha Warfield

"If a country develops an economic system that is based on how to pay for the war, and if 
the amounts of fixed capital investment that are apparent are tied up in armaments, and if 
that country is a major exporter of arms, and its industrial fabric is dependent on them, 
then it would be in that country's interests to ensure that it always had a market. It is 
not an exaggeration to say that it is clearly in the interests of the world's leading arms 
exporters to make sure that there is always a war going on somewhere."

Marilyn Waring, Source: Documentary 'Who's Counting', based on her book 'Counting for 
Nothing'

"I had rather do and not promise than promise and not do."

Arthur Warwick

Booker T. Washington

"Our religion must not alone be the concern of the emotions, but must be woven into the warp and woof of our every-day life."

Booker T. Washington

"If you want to lift yourself up, lift up someone else."

Booker T. Washington

"There is a class of colored people who make a business of keeping the troubles, the wrongs and the hardships of the Negro race before the public. Having learned that they are able to make a living out of their troubles, they have grown into the settled habit of advertising their wrongs - partly because they want sympathy and partly because it pays. Some of these people do not want the Negro to lose his grievances, because they do not want to lose their jobs."

Booker T. Washington

"Government is not reason; it is not eloquence; it is force!  Like fire it is a dangerous servant and a fearful master.

George Washington, (1732-1799)

"A passionate attachment of one nation for another produces a variety of evils. Sympathy for the favorite nation, facilitating the illusion of an imaginary common interest in cases where no real common interest exists, and infusing into one the enmities of the other, betrays the former into a participation in the quarrels and wars of the latter without adequate inducement or justification. It leads also to concessions to the favorite nation of privileges denied to others which is apt doubly to injure the nation making the concessions; by unnecessarily parting with what ought to have been retained, and by exciting jealousy, ill-will, and a disposition to retaliate, in the parties from whom equal privileges are withheld.

And it gives to ambitious, corrupted, or deluded citizens (who devote themselves to the favorite nation), facility to betray or sacrifice the interests of their own country, without odium, sometimes even with popularity; gilding, with the appearances of a virtuous sense of obligation, a commendable deference for public opinion, or a laudable zeal for
public good, the base or foolish compliances of ambition, corruption, or infatuation."

Farewell Address, September 17, 1796

"[L]et there be no change [in Constitutional powers] by usurpation; for though this, in 
one instance, may be the instrument of good, it is the customary weapon by which free 
governments are destroyed."

"The preservation of the sacred fire of liberty, and the destiny of the republican model 
of government, are justly considered deeply, perhaps as finally, staked on the experiment 
entrusted to the hands of the American people."

Source: First Inaugural Address, 1789, Ref: George Washington: A Collection, W.B. Allen, 
ed. (462)

"There is but one straight course, and that is to seek truth and pursue it steadily."

Source: letter to Edmund Randolph, 1795

"Associate yourself with men of good quality if you esteem your own reputation; for 'tis 
better to be alone than in bad company."

"Why quit our own to stand upon foreign ground? Why, by interweaving our destiny with that of any part of Europe, entangle our peace and prosperity in the toils of European ambition, rivalship, interest, humor, or caprice?"

Farewell Address [September 17, 1796]

"Observe good faith and justice towards all Nations; cultivate peace and harmony with all. Religion and Morality enjoin this conduct; and can it be, that good policy does not equally enjoin it? It will be worthy of a free, enlightened, and, at no distant period, a great Nation, to give to mankind the magnanimous and too novel example of a people always guided by an exalted justice and benevolence."

"And now, Almighty Father, if it is Thy holy will that we shall obtain a place and name among the nations of the earth, grant that we may be enabled to show our gratitude for Thy goodness by our endeavors to fear and obey Thee.  Bless us with thy wisdom in our counsels, success in battle, and let our victories be tempered with humanity.  Endow, also, our enemies with enlightened minds, that they become sensible of their injustice, and willing to restore our liberty and peace.  Grant the petition of Thy servant, for the sake of whom Thou hast called Thy beloved Son; nevertheless, not my will, but Thine be done."

"It is our true policy to steer clear of any permanent alliances with any portion of the foreign world."

"The nation which indulges toward another an habitual hatred, or an habitual fondness, is in some degree a slave. It is a slave to its animosity or to its affection, either of which is sufficient to lead it astray from its duty and its interest,"

"Your love of liberty -- your respect for the laws -- your habits of industry -- and your practice of the moral and religious obligations, are the strongest claims to national and individual happiness."

"It should be the highest ambition of every American to extend his views beyond himself, and to bear in mind that his conduct will not only affect himself, his country, and his immediate posterity; but that its influence may be co-extensive with the world, and stamp political happiness or misery on ages yet unborn."

"Liberty, when it begins to take root, is a plant of rapid growth."

"Guard against the impostures of pretended patriotism."

"O most glorious God ... Direct my thoughts, words and work, wash away my sins in the immaculate blood of the Lamb, and purge my heart by thy Holy Spirit.... Daily frame me more and more into the likeness of thy Son Jesus Christ.... Thou gavest thy Son to die for me, and hast given me assurance of salvation...."

"It is the duty of all Nations to acknowledge the providence of Almighty God, to obey his will, to be grateful for his benefits, and humbly to implore his protection and favor."

"...The man must be bad indeed who can look upon the events of the American Revolution without feeling the warmest gratitude towards the great author of the Universe whose divine interposition was so frequently manifested in our behalf. And it is my earnest prayer that we may so conduct ourselves as to merit a continuance of those blessings with which we have hitherto been favored."

"My opinion, with respect to emigration, is that except of useful mechanics and some particular descriptions of men or professions, there is no need of encouragement, while the policy or advantage of its taking place in a body...may be much questioned; for, by so doing, they retain the Language, habits, and principles (good or bad) which they bring with them."

letter to John Adams, Nov. 15, 1794

"Few men have virtue to withstand the highest bidder."

"The time is now near at hand which must probably determine whether Americans are to be freemen or slaves; whether they are to have any property they can call their own; whether their houses and farms are to be pillaged and destroyed, and themselves consigned to a state of wretchedness from which no human efforts will deliver them. The fate of unborn millions will now depend on God, on the courage and conduct of this army. Our cruel and unrelenting enemy leaves us only the choice of brave resistance, or the most abject submission. We have, therefore, to resolve to conquer or die."

July 2, 1776, in orders sent to his officers explaining the war effort

"It is well known that Peace has been (to borrow a modern phraze) the order of the day with me, since the disturbances in Europe first commenced. My policy has been, and will continue to be, while I have the honor to remain in the administration of government, to be upon friendly terms with, but independant of, all nations of the earth. To share in the broils of none. To fulfil our own engagements. To supply the wants, and be carriers for them all: being thoroughly convinced that it is our policy and interest to do so; and that nothing short of self respect, and that justice which is essential to a national character, ought to involve us in War; for sure I am, if this country is preserved in tranquility twenty years longer, it may bid defiance, in a just cause, to any power whatever, such, in that time, will be its population, wealth, and resource."

Letter to Gouverneur Morris [December 22, 1795]

"The spirit of encroachment tends to consolidate the powers of all the departments in one, and thus to create whatever the form of government, a real despotism. A just estimate of that love of power, and proneness to abuse it, which predominates in the human heart is sufficient to satisfy us of the truth of this position."

Source: Farewell Address, September 17, 1796, Ref: George Washington: A Collection, W.B. Allen, ed. (521)

"While, then, every part of our country thus feels an immediate and particular interest in Union, all the parts combined cannot fail to find in the united mass of means and efforts greater strength, greater resource, proportionably greater security from external danger, a less frequent interruption of their peace by foreign nations... Hence, likewise, they will avoid the necessity of those overgrown military establishments, which, under any form of government, are inauspicious to liberty, and which are to be regarded as particularly hostile to Republican Liberty. In this sense it is, that your Union ought to be considered as a main prop of your liberty, and that the love of the one ought to endear to you the preservation of the other."

Source: Farewell Address, September 17, 1796, Ref: George Washington: A Collection, W.B. Allen, ed. (521)

"You should only be opening this letter in the event of (my) death. When God calls there are no regrets.... I wasn't called to a place. I was called to Him. To obey was my objective, to suffer was expected, His glory was my reward, His glory is my reward."

Karen Watson, martyred for her faith while adminstering aid in Iraq. This is from a letter to her pastors. Sister Freaks, p. 3 (Christ's joyful bride, modern-day Tabitha, sold out for Jesus)

"Civilization - and by this I do not mean talking cinemas and tinned food, nor even 
surgery and hygienic houses, but the whole moral and artistic organization of Europe - 
has not in itself the power of survival. It came into being through Christianity, and 
without it has no significance or power to command allegiance ... It is no longer 
possible, as it was in the time of Gibbon, to accept the benefits of civilization and at 
the same time deny the supernatural basis on which it rests ... Christianity ... is in 
greater need of combative strength than it has been for centuries."

Evelyn Waugh, 1930

Bill Watterson, (1958-) Calvin & Hobbes

Calvin: I'm a genius, but I'm a misunderstood genius.
Hobbes: What's misunderstood about you?
Calvin: Nobody thinks I'm a genius.

Bill Watterson

"History is the fiction we invent to persuade ourselves that events are knowable and that 
life has order and direction. That's why events are always reinterpreted when values 
change. We need new versions of history to allow for our current prejudices."

Bill Watterson

Henry Grady Weaver (1889-1949) American author, General Motors marketing executive who made the cover of Time in 1938

"Hold on, my friends, to the Constitution and to the Republic for which it stands. Miracles do not cluster, and what has happened once in 6000 years, may not happen again. Hold on to the Constitution, for if the American Constitution should fail, there will be anarchy throughout the world." Daniel Webster "A free government with an uncontrolled power of military conscription is the most ridiculous and abominable contradiction and nonsense that ever entered into the heads of men." Speech in the House of Representatives, January 14, 1814

"Where is it written in the Constitution, in what article or section is it contained, that you may take children from their parents and parents from their children, and compel them to fight the battles of any war in which the folly and wickedness of the government may engage itself?

"Under what concealment has this power lain hidden, which now for the first time comes forth, with a tremendous and baleful aspect, to trample down and destroy the dearest right of personal liberty? Who will show me any Constitutional injunction which makes it the duty of the American people to surrender everything valuable in life, and even life, itself, whenever the purposes of an ambitious and mischievous government may require it? . . .

"Good intentions will always be pleaded for every assumption of authority. It is hardly too strong to say that the Constitution was made to guard the people against the dangers of good intentions. There are men in all ages who mean to govern well, but they mean to govern. They promise to be good masters, but they mean to be masters."

"Whatever government is not a government of laws is a despotism, be it called what it may." (1835)

"A country cannot subsist well without liberty, nor liberty without virtue."

"Failure is more frequently from want of energy than want of capital."

"God grants liberty only to those who love it, and are always ready to guard and defend it."

"He who tampers with the currency robs labor of its bread."

"How little do they see what really is, who frame their hasty judgment upon that which seems."

"I apprehend no danger to our country from a foreign foe... Our destruction, should it come at all, will be from another quarter. From the inattention of the people to the concerns of their government, from their carelessness and negligence, I must confess that I do apprehend some danger."

"I mistrust the judgment of every man in a case in which his own wishes are concerned."

"It is my living sentiment, and by the blessing of God it shall be my dying sentiment, independence now and independence forever."

"Justice, sir, is the great interest of man on earth. It is the ligament which holds civilized beings and civilized nations together."

"Let us not forget that the cultivation of the earth is the most important labor of man. When tillage begins, other arts will follow. The farmers, therefore, are the founders of civilization."

"If the states were not left to leave the Union when their rights were interfered with, the government would have been National, but the (Constitutional) Convention refused to baptize it by the name .... If the Union was formed by the accession of States then the Union may be dissolved by the secession of States."

U.S. Senate, Feb. 15, 1833

"The Union is a Union of States founded upon Compact. How is it to be supposed that when different parties enter into a compact for certain purposes either can disregard one provision of it and expect others to observe the rest? If the Nortern States willfully and deliberately refuse to carry out their part of the Constitution, the South would be no longer bound to keep the compact. A bargain broken on one side is broken on all sides."

Capon Springs Speech, 1851

"The contest, for ages, has been to rescue liberty from the grasp of executive power."

"Our ancestors established their system of government on morality and religious sentiment. Moral habits, they believed, cannot safely be trusted on any other foundation than religious principle, not any government secure which is not supported by moral habits.... Whatever makes men good Christians, makes them good citizens."

"While I trust that liberty and free institutions, as we have experienced them, may ultimately spread over the globe, I am by no means sure that all people are fit for them; nor am I desirous of imposing or forcing our peculiar form upon any other nation that does not wish to embrace them." (1847)

"One chief pillar in the republican fabric is the spirit of patriotism. But patriotism hath, in these days, become a good deal questionable. It hath been so often counterfeited that even the genuine coin doth not pass without suspicion. If one proclaims himself a patriot, this uncharitable, misjudging world is pretty likely to set him down for a knave, and it is pretty likely to be right in this opinion. The rage for being patriots hath really so much of the ridiculous in it that it is difficult to treat it seriously." (1802)

"No power but Congress can declare war, but what is the value of this constitutional provision, if the President of his own authority may make such military movements as must bring on war?"

"God grants liberty only to those who love it, and are always ready to guard and defend it."

"All government originates in families, and if neglected there, it will hardly exist in society...The foundation of all free government and of all social order must be laid in families and in the discipline of youth."

Noah Webster, (1758-1843)

"...[T]he Scriptures...furnish the best principles of civil liberty, and the most effectual support of republican government."

Noah Webster

"The moral principles and precepts contained in the Scripture ought to form the basis of all our civil constitutions and laws. All the miseries and evil men suffer from vice, crime, ambition, injustice, oppression, slavery, and war, proceed from their despising or neglecting the precepts contained in the Bible."

Noah Webster

"The virtue of men are of more consequence to society than their abilities; and for this 
reason, the heart should be cultivated with more assiduity than the head."

Noah Webster

"Before a standing army can rule, the people must be disarmed; as they are in almost every kingdom 
in Europe. The supreme power in America cannot enforce unjust laws by the sword; because the whole 
body of the people are armed, and constitute a force superior to any band of regular troops that 
can be, on any pretense, raised in the United States. A military force, at the command of Congress, 
can execute no laws, but such as the people perceive to be just and constitutional; for they will 
possess the power, and jealousy will instantly inspire the inclination, to resist the execution of 
a law which appears to them unjust and oppressive. 
 
Noah Webster, An Examination of the Leading Principles of the Federal Constitution [1787] 

Graham J. Weeks

"Force is as pitiless to the man who possesses it, or thinks he does, as it is to his 
victim. The second it crushes; the first it intoxicates."

Simone Weil

"Humanism was not wrong in thinking that truth, beauty, liberty, and equality are of 
infinite value, but in thinking that man can get them for himself without grace."

Simone Weil

"Evil when we are in its power is not felt as evil but as a necessity, or even a duty."

Simone Weil

"It matters not whether you win or lose; what matters is whether I win or lose."

Darrin Weinberg

"The real freedom of any individual can always be measured by the amount of responsibility
which he must assume for his own welfare and security."

Robert Welch, (1899-1985)

"My doctor told me to stop having intimate dinners for four. Unless there are three other people."

Orson Welles

"I am an historian, I am not a believer, but I must confess as a historian that this 
penniless preacher from Nazareth is irrevocably the very center of history. Jesus Christ 
is easily the most dominant figure in all history."

H.G. Wells, British author (1866-1946)

"The great trouble with you Americans is that you are still under the influence of that 
second-rate -- shall I say third-rate? -- mind, Karl Marx."

H. G. Wells

Arthur Wellesley (1769-1852)

John Wesley, Journal, Aug 1, 1777

"Do all the good you can. By all the means you can. In all the ways you can. In all the places you can. At all the times you can. To all the people you can. As long as ever you can."

John Wesley

"Great occasions do not make heroes or cowards; they simply unveil them to the eyes of men. Silently and imperceptibly, as we wake or sleep, we grow strong or weak; and at last some crisis shows what we have become."

Brooke Foss Westcott, (1825-1901)

Paul Weyrich, chairman and CEO of the Free Congress Foundation

"Because of the War on Terrorism, America may be on the verge of becoming a national security state. ... That means citizens will allow the state to do almost anything it wants so long as it justifies its actions in terms of 'national security.' In effect, the Constitution and the rule of law itself go out the window, along with our liberties."

Paul Weyrich

"When we tire of well-worn ways, we seek for new. This restless craving in the souls of 
men spurs them to climb, and to seek the mountain view."

Ella Wheeler-Wilcox

"Analyzing humor is like dissecting a frog. Few people are interested and the frog dies of 
it."

E. B. White

"Liberty is the only thing you cannot have unless you are willing to give it to others."

William Allen White, 1940

"Put fear out of your heart. This nation will survive, this state will prosper, the orderly business of life will go forward if only men can speak in whatever way given them to utter what their hearts hold -- by voice, by posted card, by letter, or by press. Reason never has failed men. Only force and oppression have made the wrecks in the world."

William Allen White, Emporia Gazette [July 27, 1922]

"The renewal of our natures is a work of great importance. It is not to be done in a day. 
We have not only a new house to build up, but an old one to pull down."

George Whitefield, letter of March 6, 1735

"Man is nothing: he hath a free will to go to hell, but none to go to heaven, till God 
worketh in him to will and to do his good pleasure"

George Whitefield

Alfred North Whitehead, English philosopher and mathematician (1861-1947)

"War can protect; it cannot create."

Alfred North Whitehead

John W. Whitehead, The Second American Revolution, p. 20

Walt Whitman

"There is no week nor day nor hour when tyranny may not enter upon this country - if the 
people lose their confidence in themselves - and lose their roughness and spirit of 
defiance."

Walt Whitman

"Peace is not God's gift to his creatures. It is our gift to each other."

Elie Wiesel

Michael Wikoff

"Take away the shephard and the sheep will follow wolves."

Michael Wikoff

"School a hundred years ago was about teaching children to repeat something they didn't 
understand. Today, it is about teaching them to repeat something they don't understand and 
convincing them that they do."

Michael Wikoff

"America is the only country that has gone from barbarism to decadence without civilization in between."

Oscar Wilde (1854-1900)

"The worst vice of a fanatic is his sincerity."

"Action: the last resource of those who know not how to dream."

"Laughter is not at all a bad beginning for a friendship, and it is far the best ending 
for one."

"I am not young enough to know everything."

"In America the President reigns for four years, and Journalism governs forever and ever."

"Some cause happiness wherever they go; others whenever they go."

"Lawyers have been known to wrest from reluctant juries triumphant verdicts of acquittal for their clients, even when those clients, as often happens, were clearly and unmistakably innocent."

"There is much to be said in favor of modern jounalism. By giving us the opinions of the 
uneducated, it keeps us in touch with the ignorance of the community."

"It is the sin of pride which has always destroyed men. I had risen too high, and I fell 
sprawling in the mire."

[Nov 22, 1897]

"What is a cynic? A man who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing."

"We have really everything in common with America nowadays except, of course, language."

"Memory... is the diary that we all carry about with us."

The Importance of Being Earnest

"Biography lends to death a new terror."

"It is better to have a permanent income than to be fascinating."

"One can survive everything, nowadays, except death, and live down everything except a 
good reputation."

"Fashion is a form of ugliness so intolerable that we have to alter it every six months."

"The only thing one can do with good advice is to pass it on. It is never of any use to 
oneself."

"I must decline your invitation due to a subsequent engagement."

"It is a very sad thing that nowadays there is so little useless information."

"A thing is not necessarily true because a man dies for it."

"All bad poetry springs from genuine feeling."

"Be yourself. Everyone else is taken."

"Society produces rogues, and education makes one rogue cleverer than another." 

"To love oneself is the beginning of a lifelong romance."

"We can only be said to be alive in those moments when our hearts are conscious of our 
treasures."

Thornton Wilder

"There is a land of the living and a land of the dead, and the bridge is love."

Thornton Wilder

"You can pick out actors by the glazed look that comes into their eyes when the 
conversation wanders away from themselves."

Michael Wilding

"We've heard that a million monkeys at a million keyboards coud produce the complete works 
of Shakespeare; now, thanks to the Internet, we know that is not true."

Robert Wilensky

George Will

"Thoughtful people who recoil from many repugnant aspects of contemporary politics should 
squarely face the fact that big government begets bad politics."

George Will

"Ronald Reagan has held the two most demeaning jobs in the country - President of the United States and radio broadcaster for the Chicago Cubs."

George Will

"Correct thinkers think that "baseball trivia" is an oxymoron: nothing about baseball is trivial."

George Will

"Chicago Cubs fans are ninety percent scar tissue."

George Will

"The First Amendment...begins with the five loveliest words in the English language: 'Congress shall make no law'."

George Will

"In democracy, as quaintly understood, voters pick their representatives. American democracy increasingly reverses that.  Legislative districts are drawn to protect incumbents who, effectively, pick their voters."

George Will

"The NEA represents, and presumably reflects the mentality of, the people who are delivering -- inflicting? -- public education.  That is as frightening, in its way, as any foreign threat."

George Will

"There was never a night or a problem that could defeat sunrise or hope."

Bern Williams

"Baseball is the only field of endeavor where a man can succeed three times out of ten and be considered a good performer." Ted Williams "All I want out of life is when I walk down the street people say, 'There goes the greatest hitter that ever lived.'" Ted Williams

"A vacuum is a hell of a lot better than some of the stuff that nature replaces it with."

Tenessee Williams

Dr. Walter Williams, It's time to part company, Sept. 9, 2000

"The War between the States settled by force whether states could secede. Once it was established that states cannot secede, the federal government, abetted by a Supreme Court unwilling to hold it to its constitutional restraints, was able to run amok over states' rights, so much so that the protections of the Ninth and Tenth Amendments mean little or nothing today; Not only did the war lay the foundation for eventual nullification or weakening of basic constitutional protections against central government abuses, but it also laid to rest the great principle enunciated in the Declaration of Independence that "Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed."

Dr. Walter Williams, The Real Lincoln, March 28, 2002

"[T]he threat to liberty in the 21st century is the same as it has been throughout mankind's history. That threat is use of the coercive powers of government, under the color of law, to take the rightful property of some people and give to others, and the forcible imposition of the will of one group of people on another group. Such acts, most often done in the name of good, explain the ugliest portions of human history. The question is whether America will degenerate into what has been mankind's standard fare throughout history. We have yet to see the kind of arbitrary control, abuse and violation of basic human rights seen elsewhere. But if we ask ourselves which way are we heading, tiny steps at a time: toward more personal liberty or toward greater government control over our lives, the answer would unambiguously be the latter. We Americans face an awesome challenge and responsibility because if liberty dies here, it's probably dead for all places and all times."

"Communism and socialism is [sic] seductive. It promises us that people will contribute
according to ability and receive according to needs. Everybody is equal. Everybody has a right to decent housing, decent food and affordable medical care. History should have taught us that when we hear people talk this stuff -- watch out!"

"A right is something that exists simultaneously among people and imposes no obligation on another."

"The Framers had a deathly fear of federal government abuse.  They saw State sovereignty as a protection.  That's why they gave us the 9th and 10th Amendments.  They saw secession as the ultimate protection against Washington tyranny."

"There's such a broad ignorance or contempt for constitutional principles among the 
American people that any politician who bore true faith and allegiance to the Constitution 
would commit political suicide."

"Short of aerial bombardment, the best way to destroy a city is through rent control."

"Western values are superior to all others. Why? The indispensable achievement of the West was the concept of individual rights. It's the idea that individuals have certain inalienable rights and individuals do not exist to serve government but governments exist to protect these inalienable rights. It took until the 17th century for that idea to arrive on the scene and mostly through the works of English philosophers such as John Locke and David Hume. While Western values are superior to all others, one need not be a Westerner to hold Western values. A person can be Chinese, Japanese, Jewish, African or Arab and hold Western values. It's no accident that Western values of reason and individual rights have produced unprecedented health, life expectancy, wealth and comfort for the ordinary person. There's an indisputable positive relationship between liberty and standards of living. Western values are by no means secure. They're under ruthless attack by the academic elite on college campuses across America. These people want to replace personal liberty with government control; they want to replace equality with entitlement; they want to halt progress in the name of protecting the environment. As such, they pose a much greater threat to our way of life than any terrorist or rogue nation. Multiculturalism and diversity are a cancer on our society, and, ironically, with our tax dollars and charitable donations, we're feeding it."

"What's in the interests of the bureaucratic and intellectual elite often works against the interests of the ordinary person attempting to move himself and his family a few steps up the economic ladder."

"In my opinion, there is nothing that opens the closed minds of academic administrators better than sounds of pocketbooks snapping shut."

"If the framers of the Constitution were somehow to come back, (Congressman) Ron Paul (Texas Republican) is one of possibly only three people in Congress that they'd even talk to."
 
Political Diary, 2/15/07

"...[W]e have ceded Washington the right to control our lives in the name of safety, health-care costs and protecting children. There is no logical end to what Washington can do in the name of those goals."

"Experts and the educated elite have...replaced what worked with what sounded good. Society was far more civilized before they took over our schools, prisons, welfare programs, police departments and courts. It's high time we ran these people out of our lives and went back to common sense."

"History is not going to be kind to liberals. With their mindless programs, they've managed to do to Black Americans what slavery, Reconstruction, and rank racism found impossible: destroy their family and work ethic."

"The bottom line is that if politicians weren't in the business of granting favors and exacting tribute, every single issue surrounding campaign finance reform would be irrelevant. After all, why would anyone spend money for influence, access, favors and tribute if the only thing that politicians do is to live up to their oaths to uphold and defend the Constitution? But, I'm afraid, most Americans want congressmen to do something else -- to violate the Constitution in order to make it possible for them to live at the expense of others."

"[I]n thinking we can solve the world's problems by turning our military into peacekeepers and social workers, we've tragically betrayed the wise counsel of our founders. We fail to bring harmony among people who've been trying to slaughter one another for centuries, but we succeed in getting them to hate us."

"Who is this guy we call the market?  If he raises so much havoc in people's lives, shouldn't we find a way to make him behave? If we're going to straighten out this market guy, we should start first by identifying him.... What we call the market is really a democratic process involving millions, and in some markets billions, of people making personal decisions that express their preferences.  When you hear someone say that he doesn't trust the market, and wants to replace it with government edicts, he's really calling for a switch from a democratic process to a totalitarian one.  An excellent example is when people demand that government confiscate the earnings of wealthier Americans to give to poorer Americans."

"When you read in the newspaper that the government has taken Walter Williams' guns, then you will know that Walter Williams is dead."

"Each July 4, we celebrate the founding of our nation, but how many Americans understand, much less respect, the founding principles?"

"The War between the States... produced the foundation for the kind of government we have today: consolidated and absolute, based on the unrestrained will of the majority, with force, threats, and intimidation being the order of the day. Today's federal government is considerably at odds with that envisioned by the framers of the Constitution.... [The War] also laid to rest the great principle enunciated in the Declaration of Independence that 'Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed'."

"Today's blacks clearly benefited from slavery. My wealth is far greater and I have far greater liberties than if my ancestors had remained in Africa."

"It is from weakness that people reach for dictators and concentrated government power. 
Only the strong can be free. And only the productive can be strong."

Wendell Willkie

"Government is legitimate in just so far as it rests upon consent, that is, the people accede to the government. The opposite of accede is secede - the withdrawal of consent. The right to self-government rests on the right to withdraw consent from an oppressive government. That is the only really effective restriction on power, in the final analysis." Professor Clyde Wilson in 'From Union to Empire: Essays in the Jeffersonian Tradition'

"War creates peace like hate creates love."

David L. Wilson

"Marxism is the opiate of the intellectuals."

Edmund Wilson

James Wilson

"This system (the Constitution) will not hurry us into war; it is calculated to guard against it. It will not be in the power of a single man, or a single body of men, to involve us in such distress; for the important power of declaring war is vested in the legislature at large: this declaration must be made with the concurrence of the House of Representatives: from this circumstance we may draw a certain conclusion that nothing but our interest can draw us into war."

James Wilson, in a speech to the Pennsylvania Ratifying Convention

"Since I entered politics, I have chiefly had men's views confided to me privately. Some of the biggest men in the U. S., in the field of commerce and manufacturing, are afraid of somebody, are afraid of something. They know that there is a power somewhere so organized, so subtle, so watchful, so interlocked, so complete, so pervasive, that they had better not speak above their breath when they speak in condemnation of it." President Woodrow Wilson prior to the passage of the Federal Reserve Act 1913

"God was working out in His own way the method by which we should best serve human freedom - by making this nation a great united, indivisible, indestructible instrument in His hands for the accomplishment of these great things."

address to the national convention of the United Confederate Veterans

"We have found one another again as brothers and comrades in arms, enemies no longer, generous friends rather... How complete the union has become and how dear to all of us, how unquestioned, how benign and majestic."

speech at the July 4, 1913, commemoration of the 50th anniversary of the battle of Gettysburg

"Let us first heal our own divisions. Let us first see that we are a united and irresistible nation, and then let us put all that force at the service of humanity."

1913 speech at the dedication of the monument to Southerners at Arlington National Cemetery

"Jesus Christ so far (has) not succeeded in inducing the world to follow his teachings because He taught the ideal without devising any practical scheme to carry out his aims."

"Once lead this people into war, and they'll forget there ever was such a thing as tolerance. To fight, you must be brutal and ruthless, and the spirit of ruthless brutality will enter into the very fiber of our national life, infecting Congress, the courts, the policeman on the beat, the man in the street."

quoted in Mr. Wilson's War, pt. 3, ch. 12, John Dos Passos (1917)

"I am a most unhappy man. I have unwittingly ruined my country. A great industrial nation is controlled by its system of credit. Our system of credit is concentrated. The growth of the nation, therefore, and all our activities are in the hands of a few men. We have come to be one of the worst ruled, one of the most completely controlled and dominated governments in the civilized world. No longer a government by free opinion, no longer a government by conviction and the vote of the majority, but a government by the opinion and duress of a small group of dominant men."

1916, Source: in reference to signing the Federal Reserve Act in 1913

"A conservative is a man who sits and thinks, mostly sits."

"The War Between the States established... This principle that the Federal Government is, 
through its courts, this final judge of its own powers." 

"A conservative is someone who makes no changes and consults his grandmother when in 
doubt."

"Absolute identity with one's cause is the first and great condition of successful 
leadership."

"America is not anything if it consists of each of us. It is something only if it consists 
of all of us."

"America was established not to create wealth but to realize a vision, to realize an ideal 
- to discover and maintain liberty among men."

"At every crisis in one's life, it is absolute salvation to have some sympathetic friend 
to whom you can think aloud without restraint or misgiving."

"Business underlies everything in our national life, including our spiritual life. Witness 
the fact that in the Lord's Prayer, the first petition is for daily bread. No one can 
worship God or love his neighbor on an empty stomach."

"By 'radical,' I understand one who goes too far; by 'conservative,' one who does not go 
far enough; by 'reactionary,' one who won't go at all."

"Every man who takes office in Washington either grows or swells, and when I give a man an 
office, I watch him carefully to see whether he is growing or swelling."

"Golf is a game in which one endeavors to control a ball with implements ill adapted for 
the purpose."

"I have long enjoyed the friendship and companionship of Republicans because I am by 
instinct a teacher, and I would like to teach them something."

Robert C. Winthrop

"There is a tide in the affairs of men, a nick of time. We perceive it now before us. To hesitate is to consent to our own slavery. That noble instrument upon your table(The Declaration of Independence), which insures immortality to its author, should be subscribed this very morning by every pen in this house. He that will not respond to its accents and strain every nerve to carry into effect its provisions is unworthy of the name of freeman. For my own part, of property I have some, of reputation more. That reputation is staked, that property is pledged, on the issue of this contest; and although these gray hairs must soon descend into the sepulchre, I would infinitely rather that they descend thither by the hand of the executioner than desert at this crisis the sacred cause of my country."

Dr. John Witherspoon, July 4, 1776

"Whoever is an avowed enemy of God, I scruple not to call him an enemy of his country."

John Witherspoon

"A Republic must either preserve its virtue or lose its liberty...."

John Witherspoon

"There is not a single instance in history in which civil liberty was lost, and religious liberty preserved entire.  If therefore we yield up our temporal property, we at the same time deliver the conscience into #######."

Dr. John Witherspoon

"The fascination of shooting as a sport depends almost wholly on whether you are at the 
right or wrong end of the gun."

P. G. Wodehouse

"Americans are childish in many ways and about as subtle as a Wimpy burger; but in the 
long run it doesn't make any difference. They just turn on the power."

Tom Wolfe, (1931- ) Author

"I think all foreigners should stop interfering in the internal affairs of Iraq. Those who want to come and help are welcome. Those who come to interfere and destroy are not."   Paul Wolfowitz, (anagram: Wow, fallout zip!) statement made after the invasion

Natalie Wood (1938 - 1981)

George E. Woodberry

My heart leaps up when I behold
A rainbow in the sky:
So was it when my life began,
So is it now I am a man,
So be it when I shall grow old
Or let me die!
The child is father of the man:
And I could wish my days to be
Bound each to each by natural piety.

William Wordsworth

"Income tax returns are the most imaginative fiction being written today."

Herman Wouk, (1915 - )

"There's a fine line between fishing and just standing on the shore like an idiot."

Steven Wright

"You can't have everything. Where would you put it?"

Steven Wright

"When I woke up this morning my girlfriend asked me, 'Did you sleep good?' I said 'No, I 
made a few mistakes.'"

Steven Wright

"My theory of evolution is that Darwin was adopted."

Steven Wright

"I went to a restaurant that serves 'breakfast at any time'. So I ordered French Toast 
during the Renaissance."

Steven Wright

"It's a small world, but I wouldn't want to paint it."

Steven Wright

"I bought some batteries, but they weren't included."

Steven Wright

"You know how it is when you're walking up the stairs, and you get to the top, and you 
think there's one more step? I'm like that all the time."

Steven Wright 

John Wycliffe, in the General Prologue of his 1384 translation of the Bible