"Action springs not from thought, but from a readiness for responsibility."

Bonhoeffer, Dietrich on action
14 fans of this quote   

"Obedience is better than sacrifice."

Bible on obedience   

"Only he who believes is obedient and only he who is obedient believes."

Bonhoeffer, Dietrich on obedience
6 fans of this quote   

"The joy of youth is to disobey; but the trouble is that there are no longer any orders."

Cocteau, Jean on obedience
5 fans of this quote   

"The reason why men do not obey us is because they see the mud at the bottom of our eye."

Emerson, Ralph Waldo on obedience   

This quotation can be viewed in the context of a book

"A god who let us prove his existence would be an idol."

Bonhoeffer, Dietrich on god
13 fans of this quote   

"The mark of solitude is silence, as speech is the mark of community. Silence and speech have the same inner correspondence and difference as do solitude and community. One does not exist without the other. Right speech comes out of silence, and right silence comes out of speech."

Bonhoeffer, Dietrich on solitude
8 fans of this quote   

"It is the nature, and the advantage, of strong people that they can bring out the crucial questions and form a clear opinion about them. The weak always have to decide between alternatives that are not their own."

Bonhoeffer, Dietrich on strength
8 fans of this quote   

"Recession is when a neighbor loses his job. Depression is when you lose yours."

Reagan, Ronald on recession
5 fans of this quote   

"Status quo, you know, that is Latin for the mess we're in."

Reagan, Ronald on status quo
5 fans of this quote   

"It's true hard work never killed anybody, but I figure, why take the chance?"

Reagan, Ronald on work
4 fans of this quote   

"Unemployment insurance is a pre-paid vacation for freeloaders."

Reagan, Ronald on unemployment
5 fans of this quote   

"No government ever voluntarily reduces itself in size. Government programs, once launched, never disappear. Actually, a government bureau is the nearest thing to eternal life we'll ever see on this earth!"

Reagan, Ronald on bureaucracy
5 fans of this quote   

"Propaganda has a bad name, but its root meaning is simply to disseminate through a medium, and all writing therefore is propaganda for something. It's a seeding of the self in the consciousness of others."

Drew, Elizabeth on propaganda   

"Wanting to work is so rare a merit that it should be encouraged."

Lincoln, Abraham on work
6 fans of this quote   

"We enter parliament in order to supply ourselves, in the arsenal of democracy, with its own weapons. If democracy is so stupid as to give us free tickets and salaries for this bear's work, that is its affair. We do not come as friends, nor even as neutrals. We come as enemies. As the wolf bursts into the flock, so we come."

Goebbels, Paul Joseph on fascism   

"We have made the Reich by propaganda."

Goebbels, Paul Joseph on propaganda   

"Propaganda does not deceive people; it merely helps them to deceive themselves."

Hoffer, Eric on propaganda
7 fans of this quote   

"Propaganda is that branch of the art of lying which consists in nearly deceiving your friends without quite deceiving your enemies."

Cornford, Francis on propaganda   

"I confess that there are several parts of this Constitution which I do not at present approve, but I am not sure I shall never approve them. For having lived long, I have experienced many instances of being obliged by better information, or fuller consideration, to change opinions even on important subjects, which I once thought right, but found to be otherwise. "

Franklin, Benjamin on uncategorised   

"Whilst the last members were signing [the Constitution], Doctor Franklin, looking towards the Presidents chair, at the back of which a rising sun happened to be painted, observed to a few members near him, that painters had found it difficult to distinguish in their art, a rising, from a setting, sun. I have, said he, often and often, in the course of the session, and the vicissitudes of my hopes and fears as to its issue, looked at that behind the President, without being able to tell whether it was rising or setting; but now at length, I have the happiness to know, that it is a rising, and not a setting sun. "

Franklin, Benjamin on uncategorised
3 fans of this quote   

"God grant, that not only the Love of Liberty, but a thorough Knowledge of the Rights of Man, may pervade all the Nations of the Earth, so that a Philosopher may set his Foot anywhere on its Surface, and say, This is my Country. "

Franklin, Benjamin on uncategorised   

"We assemble parliaments and councils, to have the benefit of their collected wisdom; but we necessarily have, at the same time, the inconvenience of their collected passions, prejudices, and private interests. By the help of these, artful men overpower their wisdom, and dupe its possessors; and if we may judge by the acts, arrets, and edicts, all the world over, for regulating commerce, an assembly of great men is the greatest fool upon earth. "

Franklin, Benjamin on uncategorised   

"Without Freedom of Thought, there can be no such Thing as Wisdom; and no such Thing as publick Liberty, without Freedom of Speech. "

Franklin, Benjamin on uncategorised
8 fans of this quote   

"I have lived, Sir, a long time, and the longer I live, the more convincing proofs I see of this truththat God governs in the affairs of men. And if a sparrow cannot fall to the ground without his notice, is it probable that an empire can rise without his aid?"

Franklin, Benjamin on uncategorised   

"The small progress we have made after four or five weeks close attendance and continual reasonings with each other is, methinks, a melancholy proof of the imperfection of the human understanding. We indeed seem to feel our own want of political wisdom, since we have been running about in search of it. We have gone back to ancient history for models of government, and examined the different forms of those republics which, having been formed with seeds of their own dissolution, now no longer exist. "

Franklin, Benjamin on uncategorised   

"In these sentiments, sir, I agree to this Constitution, with all its faults, if they are such; because I think a General Government necessary for us, and there is no form of government, but what may be a blessing to the people if well administered; and believe further, that this is likely to be well administered for a course of years, and can only end in despotism, as other forms have done before it, when the people shall become so corrupted as to need despotic government, being incapable of any other. "

Franklin, Benjamin on uncategorised
3 fans of this quote   

"Has not the famous political Fable of the Snake, with two Heads and one Body, some useful Instruction contained in it? She was going to a Brook to drink, and in her Way was to pass thro a Hedge, a Twig of which opposed her direct Course; one Head chose to go on the right side of the Twig, the other on the left, so that time was spent in the Contest, and, before the Decision was completed, the poor Snake died with thirst. "

Franklin, Benjamin on uncategorised   

"Well, Doctor, what have we got? A republic or a monarchy? A republic, if you can keep it"

Franklin, Benjamin on uncategorised
3 fans of this quote   

"We must not in the course of public life expect immediate approbation and immediate grateful acknowledgment of our services. But let us persevere through abuse and even injury. The internal satisfaction of a good conscience is always present, and time will do us justice in the minds of the people, even those at present the most prejudiced against us. "

Franklin, Benjamin on uncategorised   

"A plural Legislature is as necessary to good Government as a single Executive. It is not enough that your Legislature should be numerous; it should also be divided. Numbers alone are not a sufficient Barrier against the Impulses of Passion, the Combinations of Interest, the Intrigues of Faction, the Haste of Folly, or the Spirit of Encroachment. One Division should watch over and controul the other, supply its Wants, correct its Blunders, and cross its Designs, should they be criminal or erroneous. Wisdom is the specific Quality of the Legislature, grows out of the Number of the Body, and is made up of the Portions of Sense and Knowledge which each Member brings to it. "

Franklin, Benjamin on uncategorised   

"Dr. Franklin was for retaining the clause [on impeachment], as favorable to the executive. History furnishes one example only of a first magistrate being formally brought to public justice. Every body cried out against this as unconstitutional. What was the practice before this, in cases where the chief magistrate rendered himself obnoxious? Why, recourse was had to assassination, in which he was not only deprived of his life, but of the opportunity of vindicating his character. It would be the best way, therefore, to provide in the Constitution for the regular punishment of the executive, where his misconduct should deserve it, and for his honorable acquittal, where he should be unjustly accused. "

Franklin, Benjamin on uncategorised   

"That it is better 100 guilty Persons should escape than that one innocent Person should suffer, is a Maxim that has been long and generally approved. "

Franklin, Benjamin on uncategorised
3 fans of this quote   

"Rather go to bed with out dinner than to rise in debt."

Franklin, Benjamin on debt
12 fans of this quote   

"If we do not hang together, we will all hang separately."

Franklin, Benjamin on cooperation
3 fans of this quote   

"We must, indeed, all hang together or, most assuredly, we shall all hang separately."

Franklin, Benjamin on cooperation   

"Well done, is better than well said."

Franklin, Benjamin on example
23 fans of this quote   

This quotation can be viewed in the context of a book

"I have met the enemy, and it is the eyes of other people."

Franklin, Benjamin on enemies
11 fans of this quote   

"If a man empties his purse into his head, no man can take it away from him. An investment in knowledge always pays the best interest."

Franklin, Benjamin on education
14 fans of this quote   

"No nation was ever ruined by trade."

Franklin, Benjamin on economy and economics
6 fans of this quote