QUOTES ON GOVERNMENT

To form a new government requires infinite care and unbounded attention; for if the foundation is badly laid, the superstructure must be bad.




GEORGE WASHINGTON, letter to John Augustine Washington, May 31, 1776

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.

THOMAS JEFFERSON, Declaration of Independence

Prudence ... 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.

THOMAS JEFFERSON, Declaration of Independence

As soon as we abandon our own reason, and are content to rely upon authority, there is no end to our troubles.

BERTRAND RUSSELL, An Outline of Intellectual Rubbish

Frankly, I'm fed up with politicians in Washington lecturing the rest of us about family values. Our families have values. But our government doesn’t.

BILL CLINTON, speech at Democratic National Convention, July 16, 1992

Government is not the solution to our problem. Government is the problem.

RONALD REAGAN, First Inaugural Address, January 20, 1981

I have nothing but contempt for the kind of governor who is afraid, for whatever reason, to follow the course that he knows is best for the State; and as for the man who sets private friendship above the public welfare -- I have no use for him either.

SOPHOCLES, Antigone

Mankind, when left to themselves, are unfit for their own government.

GEORGE WASHINGTON, letter, Oct. 31, 1786

Governments have a tendency not to solve problems, only to rearrange them.

RONALD REAGAN

QUOTES ON ADVERSITY

Prosperity doth best discover vice, but adversity doth best discover virtue.

FRANCIS BACON, Essays

There is in every true woman's heart, a spark of heavenly fire, which lies dormant in the broad daylight of prosperity, but which kindles up and beams and blazes in the dark hour of adversity.

WASHINGTON IRVING, The Sketch Book

Everyone has to have either this or that problem, if he can't find any problem, he loses all reason for living.

GAO XINGJIAN, Nocturnal Wanderer

A little bit of pain is good for you. I feel alive. Everybody needs struggle. Once you overcome an obstacle, you springboard into the future. Life is interesting and short and it's not supposed to be easy, and if it is, you're probably just in denial and you're existing here like a zombie.

PAMELA ANDERSON

If we had no winter, the spring would not be so pleasant: if we did not sometimes taste of adversity, prosperity would not be so welcome.

ANNE BRADSTREET, Meditations Divine and Moral

One must not try to trick misfortune, but resign oneself to it with good grace.

ARISTOPHANES, The Thesmophoriazusae

Man needs difficulties; they are necessary for health.

CARL JUNG, The Transcendent Function

That thorny path, those stormy skies,
Have drawn our spirits nearer;
And rendered us, by sorrow's ties,
Each to the other dearer.

BERNARD BARTON, Not Ours the Vows

Prosperity is the blessing of the Old Testament, adversity is the blessing of the New.

FRANCIS BACON, Essays

It's like in the great stories, Mr. Frodo. The ones that really mattered. Full of darkness and danger they were. And sometimes you didn’t want to know the end… because how could the end be happy? How could the world go back to the way it was when so much bad had happened? But in the end, it’s only a passing thing… this shadow. Even darkness must pass.

SAM, The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers

People never fail to amaze me. They face the unimaginable with a shot of grace and a rush of adrenaline; they steel their nerves; they summon their cool or anger or faith or whatever it takes to pull them through, and they go on to live another day.

OPRAH WINFREY, O Magazine, Apr. 2007

There is an elasticity in the human mind, capable of bearing much, but which will not show itself, until a certain weight of affliction be put upon it; its powers may be compared to those vehicles whose springs are so contrived that they get on smoothly enough when loaded, but jolt confoundedly when they have nothing to bear.

CHARLES CALEB COLTON, Lacon

That which does not kill me makes me stronger.

FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE, Twilight of the Idols

FRIENDSHIP QUOTES

The holy passion of friendship is so sweet and steady and loyal and enduring in nature that it will last through a whole lifetime, if not asked to lend money.

MARK TWAIN, The Tragedy of Pudd'nhead Wilson

What a thing friendship is, world without end!

ROBERT BROWNING, The Flight of the Duchess

Be courteous to all but intimate with few, and let those few be well tried before you give them your confidence; true friendship is a plant of slow growth, and must undergo and withstand the shocks of adversity before it is entitled to appellation.

GEORGE WASHINGTON

To ensure that the self doesn't shrink, to see that it holds on to its volume, memories have to be watered like potted flowers, and the watering calls for regular contact with the witnesses of the past, that is to say, with friends.

MILAN KUNDERA, Identity

If you can survive 11 days in cramped quarters with a friend and come out laughing, your friendship is the real deal.

OPRAH WINFREY, O Magazine, Aug. 2006

While friendship itself has an air of eternity about it, seeming to transcend all natural limits, there is hardly any emotion so utterly at the mercy of time. We form friendships, and grow out of them. It might almost be said that we cannot retain the faculty of friendship unless we are continually making new friends.

ROBERT HUGH BENSON, The Friendship of Christ

Associate with men of good quality, if you esteem your own reputation; for it is better to be alone than in bad company.

GEORGE WASHINGTON, Incredible Quotations

Friendship can only exist between persons with similar interests and points of view. Man and woman by the conventions of society are born with different interests and different points of view.

AUGUST STRINDBERG, The Son of a Servant

Have no friends not equal to yourself.

CONFUCIUS, The Wisdom of Confucius

[It] is the juvenal period of life when friendships are formed, and habits established, that will stick by one.

GEORGE WASHINGTON, letter to Alexander Hamilton, Sep. 1, 1796

Letters of friendship require no study.

GEORGE WASHINGTON, letter to Major-General Knox, Jan. 5, 1785

I always felt that the great high privilege, relief, and comfort of friendship was that one had to explain nothing.

KATHERINE MANSFIELD, O Magazine, Aug. 2006

"Stay" is a charming word in a friend's vocabulary.

LOUISA MAY ALCOTT, Friendship: A Book of Quotations

Friendship is Love without his wings!

LORD BYRON, Hours of Idleness

The company of just and righteous men is better than wealth and a rich estate.

EURIPIDES, Aegeus [fragment]

Fate chooses our relatives, we choose our friends.

JACQUES DELILLE, Malheur at Pitié (Canto I)

Even the utmost good-will and harmony and practical kindness are not sufficient for Friendship, for Friends do not live in harmony merely, as some say, but in melody. We do not wish for Friends to feed and clothe our bodies--neighbors are kind enough for that--but to do the like office to our spirits.

HENRY DAVID THOREAU, Friendship

I get by with a little help from my friends.

THE BEATLES, With a Little Help from My Friends

Nothing changes your opinion of a friend so surely as success — yours or his.

FRANKLIN P. JONES, Saturday Evening Post, November 29, 1953

Think where man's glory most begins and ends,
And say my glory was I had such friends.

WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS, The Municipal Gallery Re-Visited

Your friends will know you better in the first minute you meet than your acquaintances will know you in a thousand years.

RICHARD BACH, Illusions: The Adventures of a Reluctant Messiah

Your friend is your needs answered. He is your field which you sow with love and reap with thanksgiving. And he is your board and your fireside. For you come to him with your hunger, and you seek him for peace.

KAHLIL GIBRAN, The Prophet

The friend who can be silent with us in a moment of despair or confusion, who can stay with us in an hour of grief and bereavement, who can tolerate not knowing, not curing, not healing, and face with us the reality of our powerlessness, that is a friend who cares.

HENRI NOUWEN, Out of Solitude

Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends.

BIBLE, John 15:13

Each friend represents a world in us, a world possibly not born until they arrive, and it is only by this meeting that a new world is born.

ANAIS NIN, diary entry, March 1937

Every expression of desired friendship has potential bite. Every smile reveals the teeth.

DEAN KOONTZ, Velocity