Category: Thought

The second day of July, 1776, will be the most memorable epoch in the history of America. I am apt to believe that it will be celebrated by succeeding generations as the great anniversary festival. It ought to be commemorated as the day of deliverance, by solemn acts of devotion to God Almighty. It ought to be solemnized with pomp and parade, with shows, games, sports, guns, bells, bonfires, and illuminations, from one end of this continent to the other, from this time forward forever more.

Men as a group . . . are different from women as a group. Northerners are different from Southerners. Californians are different from Texans. Catholics are different from Baptists. Blacks are different from whites. Immigrants are different from natives. The rich are different from the poor. These differences should not be denied, but celebrated, for they are the very source of the division of labor.

Yet our central government attempts to stamp out all these differences by forcing individuals and businesses to act as if they do not exist.

The world has arrived at an age of cheap complex devices of great reliability; and something is bound to come of it.

To renounce liberty is to renounce being a man, to surrender the rights of humanity and even its duties. For him who renounces everything no indemnity is possible. Such a renunciation is incompatible with man’s nature; to remove all liberty from his will is to remove all morality from his acts.

Man is born free; and everywhere he is in chains.

An honest man nearly always thinks justly.

In those vernal seasons of the year, when the air is calm and pleasant, it were an injury and sullenness against Nature not to go out, and see her riches, and partake in her rejoicing with heaven and earth.

Peace hath her victories
No less renowned than war.

The career of a politician mainly consists in making one part of the nation do what it does not want to do, in order to please and satisfy the other part of the nation.

If we cannot by reason, by influence, by example, by strenuous effort, and by personal sacrifice, mend the bad places of civilization, we certainly cannot do it by force.