Men Quotes - Page 629

For as this appalling ocean surrounds the verdant land, so in the soul of man there lies one insular Tahiti, full of peace and joy, but encompassed by all the horrors of the half known life.

Feudalism, serfdom, slavery — all tyrannical institutions, are merely the most vigorous kinds of rule, springing out of, and necessary to, a bad state of man. The progress from these is in all cases the same — less government.

If a man cannot be a Christian in the place where he is, he cannot be a Christian anywhere.

A thoughtful mind, when it sees a Nation's flag, sees not the flag only, but the Nation itself; and whatever may be its symbols, its insignia, he reads chiefly in the flag the Government, the principles, the truths, the history which belongs to the Nation that sets it forth.

It is remarkable how closely the history of the apple tree is connected with that of man.

The imposition of taxes has its limits. There is a maximum which cannot be transcended. Suppose the citizen to be taxed by the general government to the utmost extent of his ability, or a thing as much as it can possibly bear, and the state imposes a tax at the same time, which authority is to take it?

The man who has no inner-life is a slave to his surroundings.

A Polish man had his vasectomy done at Sears. Now when he makes love, the garage door goes up.

A Jewish man pulls up to the curb and asks the policeman, "Can I park here?" "No" says the cop. "What about all these other cars?" "They didn't ask!"

I am just as deaf as I am blind. The problems of deafness are deeper and more complex, if not more important than those of blindness. Deafness is a much worse misfortune. For it means the loss of the most vital stimulus- the sound of the voice that brings language, sets thoughts astir, and keeps us in the intellectual company of man.

Men are fine, love is fine, it's marriage I'm a little disappointed in.

I couldn't remember ever having seen a young man with such power, so many facets of expression, so much sheer invention as an actor.

There are some issues that are not in control of the government. Two of those issues are human rights and personal freedoms are in the domain of Iran's conservative judicial system.

If we can muster up that degree of commitment and get away from the uniquely American perception that if something can't be done immediately it isn't worth doing, then I think the Hunger Movement, this small but growing minority of us, can have a truly significant impact.

I have learned that in all negotiations nothing matters except the will to reach agreement.

No citizen enjoys genuine freedom of religious conviction until the state is indifferent to every form of religious outlook from Atheism to Zoroastrianism.

To be calm is the highest achievement of the best of what you have.

Don't thank the lord, I gave you that compliment... Thank me.

the greater the bureaucratization of public life, the greater will be the attraction of violence. In a fully developed bureaucracy there is nobody left with whom one can argue, to whom one can represent grievances, on whom the pressures of power can be exerted. Bureaucracy is the form of government in which everybody is deprived of political freedom, of the power to act; for the rule by Nobody is not no-rule, and where all are equally powerless we have a tyranny without a tyrant.

Lobbyists in Washington are making six figure salaries selling our government out to the corporate interests and we just sit and smile as if nothing is happening while the poor folks are getting poorer and their pharmaceutical bills rise.

Nowadays this is the way everyone loves himself; people wish to live with God in consolations and repose, in wealth and power, and to share the fruition of his glory. We all indeed wish to be God with God, but God knows there are few of us who want to live as men with his Humanity, or want to carry his cross with him, or want to hang on the cross with him and pay humanity's debt to the full.

Men are generally right in what they affirm and wrong in what they deny. What we deny is generally something that lies outside our experience, and about which we can therefore say nothing.

Government is actually the worst failure of civilized man.

The legislature, like the executive, has ceased to be even the creature of the people: it is the creature of pressure groups, and most of them, it must be manifest, are of dubious wisdom and even more dubious honesty. Laws are no longer made by a rational process of public discussion; they are made by a process of blackmail and intimidation, and they are executed in the same manner. The typical lawmaker of today is a man wholly devoid of principle...

We (men) would rather lose an arm out a city bus window than tell you simply, “You’re not the one.” We are quite sure you will kill us or yourself or both—or even worse, cry and yell at us.