Favourite Quotes
- Thread starter J.R.R.Tokin'
- Start date
Tranquility
Well-Known Member
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.--Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.
--Thomas Jefferson, Declaration of Independence
--Thomas Jefferson, Declaration of Independence
His_Highness
In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king
"Thanks for the great show on the 4th AZZHOLES!!! ............ Must have been buy 1 get 1000 at the firework stands this year."
--Facebook friend with 4 rescue dogs
--Facebook friend with 4 rescue dogs
Tranquility
Well-Known Member
To unite the country, we need honesty and courage by Robert P. George and Cornel West
Fellow Citizens:
Honesty and courage alone can save our wounded, disunited country now.
We need the honesty and courage to speak the truth — including painful truths that unsettle not only our foes but also our friends and, most especially, ourselves.
We need the honesty and courage to honor the contributions of the great men and women who have come before us — those who articulated and defended true principles of justice and the common good, built or helped to preserve worthy institutions, and modeled important virtues.
We need the honesty and courage to recognize the faults, flaws, and failings of even the greatest of our heroes — and to acknowledge our own faults, flaws, and failings.
We need the honesty and courage to recognize progress toward the ideal of equal justice and movement toward the common good that our civilization and nation have made — and the blows against injustice, oppression, and tyranny we as a people have struck, sometimes at incalculable costs of blood and treasure.
We need the honesty and courage to recognize the blights on our history, the grave wrongs that have been done, reflecting the failure of our leaders and institutions — and our own failures — to honor our principles of liberty and justice for all.
We need the honesty and courage to express dissent — to say, “No, I will not go along” — when conscience tells us that our own ideological or political tribe has gone astray or gone too far or become fanatical and blind to integrity and the dignity of all.
We need the honesty and courage to stand up — to stand alone, if necessary — to speak the truth, as God gives us to see the truth, to the politically, economically, and culturally powerful as well as to the relatively powerless.
We need the honesty and courage to think first of the weak, the poor, the vulnerable, and the impact on them, for good or for ill, of our own actions; the actions of institutions — be they economic, social, educational, or philanthropic — in which we play a role; and the actions of government at all levels. This will not generate unanimity as to what policies are best. Reasonable people of good will will often disagree. But this can — and we believe must — be a starting point on which there is common ground.
We need the honesty and courage not to compromise our beliefs or go silent on them out of a desire to be accepted, or out of fear of being ostracized, excluded, or canceled.
We need the honesty and courage to consider with an open mind and heart points of view that challenge our beliefs — even our deepest, most cherished identity-forming beliefs. We need the intellectual humility to recognize our own fallibility — and that, too, requires honesty and courage.
We need the honesty and courage to recognize and acknowledge that there are reasonable people of good will who do not share even some of our deepest, most cherished beliefs. This is true for Christians, like ourselves, or members of other traditions of faith, as well as for religious skeptics and atheists. It is true for conservatives as well as progressives, for libertarians as well as socialists.
We need the honesty and courage to treat decent and honest people with whom we disagree — even on the most consequential questions — as partners in truth-seeking and fellow citizens of our republican order, not as enemies to be destroyed. And we must always respect and protect their human rights and civil liberties.
We need the honesty and courage to be willing to change our beliefs and stances if evidence, reason, and compelling argument persuade us that they are in need of revision — even at the cost of alienating us from communities in which we are comfortable and rely on for personal affirmation, solidarity, and support.
We need the honesty and courage to love, in the highest and best sense: to will the good of the other for the sake of the other, to treat even our adversaries as precious members of the human family. We need the honesty and courage to resist the hatred — the spirit of hatred — that the zeal even for good causes can induce in we frail, fallen, fallible human beings, and that corrupts the human soul and leads inexorably to spiritual emptiness and to tyranny, even among those who began as sincere advocates of freedom and justice.
To President Trump and former vice president Joe Biden: We hope you will consider our plea, though we, from our different vantage points, have been critical of both of you. You must hold yourselves to higher standards. We plead with you to exemplify the honesty and courage that all of us must embody if we are to reunite this nation and rebuild the civic friendship — what Abraham Lincoln called the “bonds of affection” — without which no republican democracy “can long endure.” Where you have failed or fallen short, as we all fail and fall short, strive with God’s help to do better. Remember that victories can be pyrrhic, destroying the very thing for which the combatants struggle. When that thing is our precious American experiment in ordered liberty and republican democracy, its destruction would be a tragedy beyond all human powers of reckoning.
Honesty and courage could finally give this nation, under God, the blessing for which Harriet Tubman struggled and sacrificed and Abraham Lincoln prayed and acted: a new birth of freedom. To our leaders and to all our fellow citizens, we say with all our hearts, as two dear brothers and friends: Let us rededicate ourselves to these virtues, and let us not fail in fidelity to them.
Fellow Citizens:
Honesty and courage alone can save our wounded, disunited country now.
We need the honesty and courage to speak the truth — including painful truths that unsettle not only our foes but also our friends and, most especially, ourselves.
We need the honesty and courage to honor the contributions of the great men and women who have come before us — those who articulated and defended true principles of justice and the common good, built or helped to preserve worthy institutions, and modeled important virtues.
We need the honesty and courage to recognize the faults, flaws, and failings of even the greatest of our heroes — and to acknowledge our own faults, flaws, and failings.
We need the honesty and courage to recognize progress toward the ideal of equal justice and movement toward the common good that our civilization and nation have made — and the blows against injustice, oppression, and tyranny we as a people have struck, sometimes at incalculable costs of blood and treasure.
We need the honesty and courage to recognize the blights on our history, the grave wrongs that have been done, reflecting the failure of our leaders and institutions — and our own failures — to honor our principles of liberty and justice for all.
We need the honesty and courage to express dissent — to say, “No, I will not go along” — when conscience tells us that our own ideological or political tribe has gone astray or gone too far or become fanatical and blind to integrity and the dignity of all.
We need the honesty and courage to stand up — to stand alone, if necessary — to speak the truth, as God gives us to see the truth, to the politically, economically, and culturally powerful as well as to the relatively powerless.
We need the honesty and courage to think first of the weak, the poor, the vulnerable, and the impact on them, for good or for ill, of our own actions; the actions of institutions — be they economic, social, educational, or philanthropic — in which we play a role; and the actions of government at all levels. This will not generate unanimity as to what policies are best. Reasonable people of good will will often disagree. But this can — and we believe must — be a starting point on which there is common ground.
We need the honesty and courage not to compromise our beliefs or go silent on them out of a desire to be accepted, or out of fear of being ostracized, excluded, or canceled.
We need the honesty and courage to consider with an open mind and heart points of view that challenge our beliefs — even our deepest, most cherished identity-forming beliefs. We need the intellectual humility to recognize our own fallibility — and that, too, requires honesty and courage.
We need the honesty and courage to recognize and acknowledge that there are reasonable people of good will who do not share even some of our deepest, most cherished beliefs. This is true for Christians, like ourselves, or members of other traditions of faith, as well as for religious skeptics and atheists. It is true for conservatives as well as progressives, for libertarians as well as socialists.
We need the honesty and courage to treat decent and honest people with whom we disagree — even on the most consequential questions — as partners in truth-seeking and fellow citizens of our republican order, not as enemies to be destroyed. And we must always respect and protect their human rights and civil liberties.
We need the honesty and courage to be willing to change our beliefs and stances if evidence, reason, and compelling argument persuade us that they are in need of revision — even at the cost of alienating us from communities in which we are comfortable and rely on for personal affirmation, solidarity, and support.
We need the honesty and courage to love, in the highest and best sense: to will the good of the other for the sake of the other, to treat even our adversaries as precious members of the human family. We need the honesty and courage to resist the hatred — the spirit of hatred — that the zeal even for good causes can induce in we frail, fallen, fallible human beings, and that corrupts the human soul and leads inexorably to spiritual emptiness and to tyranny, even among those who began as sincere advocates of freedom and justice.
To President Trump and former vice president Joe Biden: We hope you will consider our plea, though we, from our different vantage points, have been critical of both of you. You must hold yourselves to higher standards. We plead with you to exemplify the honesty and courage that all of us must embody if we are to reunite this nation and rebuild the civic friendship — what Abraham Lincoln called the “bonds of affection” — without which no republican democracy “can long endure.” Where you have failed or fallen short, as we all fail and fall short, strive with God’s help to do better. Remember that victories can be pyrrhic, destroying the very thing for which the combatants struggle. When that thing is our precious American experiment in ordered liberty and republican democracy, its destruction would be a tragedy beyond all human powers of reckoning.
Honesty and courage could finally give this nation, under God, the blessing for which Harriet Tubman struggled and sacrificed and Abraham Lincoln prayed and acted: a new birth of freedom. To our leaders and to all our fellow citizens, we say with all our hearts, as two dear brothers and friends: Let us rededicate ourselves to these virtues, and let us not fail in fidelity to them.
Tranquility
Well-Known Member
His_Highness
In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king
"The spread of Covid-19 is based on two factors: 1. How dense the population is and 2. How dense the population is."
I have no idea who said it first.....and I debated whether this belonged in the Joke thread but it ain't really funny.
I have no idea who said it first.....and I debated whether this belonged in the Joke thread but it ain't really funny.
Tranquility
Well-Known Member
“It was ‘We, the People,’ not ‘We, the white male citizens’…who formed this Union, and we formed it, not to give the blessings of liberty, but to secure them. Not to the half of ourselves and half of our posterity, but to the whole people -- women as well as men.”
--Susan B. Anthony after being convicted of illegal voting.
--Susan B. Anthony after being convicted of illegal voting.
Sam Harris
==========================================================================================
“Every great cause begins as a movement, becomes a business, and eventually degenerates into a racket.”
― Eric Hoffer, The Temper of Our Time
Last edited:
Tranquility
Well-Known Member
"You're correct - I was not invited to participate in any way."
--Tulsi Gabbard
(The only democratic "person of color" who won ANY delegates for president.)
--Tulsi Gabbard
(The only democratic "person of color" who won ANY delegates for president.)
Tranquility
Well-Known Member
“I think that this salon owes me an apology, for setting me up.”
--Nancy Pelosi
Pelosi says San Francisco salon 'owes me an apology for setting me up'
--Nancy Pelosi
Pelosi says San Francisco salon 'owes me an apology for setting me up'
Tranquility
Well-Known Member
How big a bumper do you have?
Tranquility
Well-Known Member
We need to reimagine how we do policing. But to take all policing off is something a latte liberal may go for as they sit around the Hamptons discussing this as an academic problem. But people living on the ground need proper policing.
--Al Sharpton
--Al Sharpton