Michael Crouch > Michael Crouch's Quotes

“If once believers [p 138 ] were to awake to the glory of the work of intercession, and to see that in it, and the definite pleading for definite gifts on definite spheres and persons, lie our highest fellowship with our glorified Lord, and our only real power to bless men, it would be seen that there can be no truer fellowship with God than these definite petitions and their answers, by which we become the channel of His grace and life to men.”
― Andrew Murray, The Ministry of Intercession: A Plea for More Prayer

“But the chief truth He reiterated was ever this: to pray in faith. And He defined that faith, not only as a trust in God’s goodness or power, but as the definite assurance that we have received the very thing we ask. And then, in view of the delay in the answer, He insisted on perseverance and urgency. We must be followers of those “who through faith and patience inherit the promises”—the faith that accepts the promise, and knows it has what it has asked—the patience that obtains the promise and inherits the blessing.”
― Andrew Murray, The Ministry of Intercession: A Plea for More Prayer

“One contemporary wrote of her brother, William Winston, "I have often heard my father, who was intimately acquainted with this William Winston, say, that he was the greatest orator whom he ever heard, Patrick Henry excepted.” The same source also added “that during the last French and Indian war, and soon after Braddock’s defeat, when the militia were marched to the frontiers of Virginia, against the enemy, this William Winston was the lieutenant of a company; that the men, who were indifferently clothed, without tents, and exposed to the rigor and inclemency of the weather, discovered great aversion to the service, and were anxious and even clamorous to return to their families…” At this moment of crisis, Winston stepped forward and “mounting a stump, (the common rostrum, you know, of the field orator of Virginia,) addressed them with such keenness of invective, and declaimed with such force of eloquence, on liberty and patriotism, that when he concluded, the general cry was, 'let us march on; lead us against the enemy;' and they were now willing, nay anxious to encounter all those difficulties and dangers, which, but a few moments before, had almost produced a mutiny." Henry”
― Charles River Editors, Patrick Henry: The Life and Legacy of the Founding Father and Virginia’s First Governor

“His most memorable quote from the case was a persuasive shot at the British king himself: “That a King, by disallowing Acts of this salutary nature, from being the father of his people, degenerated into a Tyrant and forfeits all right to his subjects' obedience." His argument on behalf of the county was so persuasive that the jury awarded the minister the tidy sum of one cent, bringing the Crown’s efforts to naught and discouraging any other clergymen from suing.”
― Charles River Editors, Patrick Henry: The Life and Legacy of the Founding Father and Virginia’s First Governor

“The liberties of a people never were, nor ever will be, secure, when the transactions of their rulers may be concealed from them.” – Patrick Henry In”
― Charles River Editors, Patrick Henry: The Life and Legacy of the Founding Father and Virginia’s First Governor

“As a result, when the British found themselves unsatisfied with the revenue coming from the Sugar Act, Parliament followed it with the Stamp Act of 1765, also known as the “Duties in American Colonies Act of 1765.”  Unlike the Sugar Act, the Stamp Act was a direct tax that required many of the documents produced as part of the everyday legal and business activities of the colony to be printed on specially embossed and stamped paper only produced by the British government.  Among the items required to bear this stamp were legal documents, newspapers and magazines.  To make matters worse, this paper could only be purchased with British sterling certificates, not the paper money used in the colonies.  Since Parliament controlled the exchange rate, they also controlled how much each page actually cost. While”
― Charles River Editors, Patrick Henry: The Life and Legacy of the Founding Father and Virginia’s First Governor

“As Henry had with the Parson’s Cause, he objected strenuously to what he saw as an unjust exercise of power over the colonies. In response, he drew up the Virginia Stamp Act Resolutions, which eventually became known as the Virginia Resolves: “1.”
― Charles River Editors, Patrick Henry: The Life and Legacy of the Founding Father and Virginia’s First Governor

“5. Resolved, therefor that the General Assembly of this Colony have the only and exclusive Right and Power to lay Taxes and Impositions upon the inhabitants of this Colony and that every Attempt to vest such Power in any person or persons whatsoever other than the General Assembly aforesaid has a manifest Tendency to destroy British as well as American Freedom.” In”
― Charles River Editors, Patrick Henry: The Life and Legacy of the Founding Father and Virginia’s First Governor

“Henry faltered not for an instant; but rising to a loftier attitude, and fixing on the speaker an eye of the most determined fire, he finished his sentence with the firmest emphasis) ‘may profit by their example. If this be treason, make the most of it’… “I had frequently heard the above anecdote of the cry of treason, but with such variations of the concluding words, that I began to doubt whether the whole might not be fiction. With a view to ascertain the truth, therefore, I submitted it to Mr. Jefferson, as it had been given to me by judge Tyler, and this is his answer. ‘I well remember the cry of treason, the pause of Mr. Henry at the name of George the III. and the presence of mind with which he closed his sentence, and baffled the charge vociferated.’" The last sentence proved to be too much for the other burgesses to stomach, and they later deleted it from the bill.”
― Charles River Editors, Patrick Henry: The Life and Legacy of the Founding Father and Virginia’s First Governor

“The great point of resistance to British taxation was universally established in the colonies. Thus I brought on the war, which finally separated the two countries, and gave independence to ours…Whether this will prove a blessing or a curse, will depend upon the use our people make of the blessings which a gracious God hath bestowed on us. If they are wise, they will be great and happy. If they are of a contrary character, they will be miserable. — Righteousness alone can exalt them as a nation. Reader! whoever thou art, remember this; and in thy sphere, practise virtue thyself, and encourage it in others.” Henry”
― Charles River Editors, Patrick Henry: The Life and Legacy of the Founding Father and Virginia’s First Governor

“With that, several British soldiers began firing into the crowd as well, despite not being ordered to, killing or mortally wounding five people. People throughout the colonies were livid and began once more to complain of the deteriorating relationship they had with Great Britain. Hoping to mollify the angry citizens, the Crown repealed the Townshend and Quartering Acts. While”
― Charles River Editors, Patrick Henry: The Life and Legacy of the Founding Father and Virginia’s First Governor

“Of the Greek authors who at the Renaissance brought a new life into the world Plato has had the greatest influence.”
― Plato, The Republic

“The Republic of Plato is also the first treatise upon education, of which the writings of Milton and Locke, Rousseau, Jean Paul, and Goethe are the legitimate descendants.”
― Plato, The Republic

“The first care of the rulers is to be education, of which an outline is drawn after the old Hellenic model, providing only for an improved religion and morality, and more simplicity in music and gymnastic, a manlier strain of poetry, and greater harmony of the individual and the State.”
― Plato, The Republic

“we should also consider the remoter analogy of the animals. Many birds and animals, especially the carnivorous, have only one mate, and the love and care of offspring which seems to be natural is inconsistent with the primitive theory of marriage. If we go back to an imaginary state in which men were almost animals and the companions of them, we have as much right to argue from what is animal to what is human as from the barbarous to the civilized man. The record of animal life on the globe is fragmentary,—the connecting links are wanting and cannot be supplied; the record of social life is still more fragmentary and precarious. Even if we admit that our first ancestors had no such institution as marriage, still the stages by which men passed from outer barbarism to the comparative civilization of China, Assyria, and Greece, or even of the ancient Germans, are wholly unknown to us. Such”
― Plato, The Republic

“We ask what is the origin of marriage, and we are told that like the right of property, after many wars and contests, it has gradually arisen out of the selfishness of barbarians.”
― Plato, The Republic

“The civilized East is immeasurably in advance of any savage tribes; the Greeks and Romans have improved upon the East; the Christian nations have been stricter in their views of the marriage relation than any of the ancients.”
― Plato, The Republic

“Not by the Platonic device of uniting the strong and fair with the strong and fair, regardless of sentiment and morality, nor yet by his other device of combining dissimilar natures (Statesman), have mankind gradually passed from the brutality and licentiousness of primitive marriage to marriage Christian and civilized. Few”
― Plato, The Republic

“There is another aspect of the marriage question to which Plato is a stranger. All the children born in his state are foundlings. It never occurred to him that the greater part of them, according to universal experience, would have perished. For children can only be brought up in families. There is a subtle sympathy between the mother and the child which cannot be supplied by other mothers, or by 'strong nurses one or more' (Laws). If Plato's 'pen' was as fatal as the Creches of Paris, or the foundling hospital of Dublin, more than nine-tenths of his children would have perished. There would have been no need to expose or put out of the way the weaklier children, for they would have died of themselves.”
― Plato, The Republic

“But to Plato in his present mood of mind the family is only a disturbing influence which, instead of filling up, tends to disarrange the higher unity of the State. No organization is needed except a political, which, regarded from another point of view, is a military one.”
― Plato, The Republic

“I replied: There is nothing which for my part I like better, Cephalus, than conversing with aged men; for I regard them as travellers who have gone a journey which I too may have to go, and of whom I ought to enquire, whether the way is smooth and easy, or rugged and difficult.”
― Plato, The Republic

“For certainly old age has a great sense of calm and freedom; when the passions relax their hold, then, as Sophocles says, we are freed from the grasp not of one mad master only, but of many. The truth is, Socrates, that these regrets, and also the complaints about relations, are to be attributed to the same cause, which is not old age, but men's characters and tempers; for he who is of a calm and happy nature will hardly feel the pressure of age, but to him who is of an opposite disposition youth and age are equally a burden. I”
― Plato, The Republic

“But then, I said, speaking the truth and paying your debts is not a correct definition of justice. Quite correct, Socrates, if Simonides is to be believed, said Polemarchus interposing. I”
― Plato, The Republic

“Simonides, then, after the manner of poets, would seem to have spoken darkly of the nature of justice; for he really meant to say that justice is the giving to each man what is proper to him, and this he termed a debt. That”
― Plato, The Republic

“I am speaking, as before, of injustice on a large scale in which the advantage of the unjust is most apparent; and my meaning will be most clearly seen if we turn to that highest form of injustice in which the criminal is the happiest of men, and the sufferers or those who refuse to do injustice are the most miserable—that is to say tyranny, which by fraud and force takes away the property of others, not little by little but wholesale; comprehending in one, things sacred as well as profane, private and public; for which acts of wrong, if he were detected perpetrating any one of them singly, he would be punished and incur great disgrace—they who do such wrong in particular cases are called robbers of temples, and man-stealers and burglars and swindlers and thieves. But when a man besides taking away the money of the citizens has made slaves of them, then, instead of these names of reproach, he is termed happy and blessed, not only by the citizens but by all who hear of his having achieved the consummation of injustice. For mankind censure injustice, fearing that they may be the victims of it and not because they shrink from committing it. And thus, as I have shown, Socrates, injustice, when on a sufficient scale, has more strength and freedom and mastery than justice; and, as I said at first, justice is the interest of the stronger, whereas injustice is a man's own profit and interest.”
― Plato, The Republic

“Then now, Thrasymachus, there is no longer any doubt that neither arts nor governments provide for their own interests; but, as we were before saying, they rule and provide for the interests of their subjects who are the weaker and not the stronger—to their good they attend and not to the good of the superior. And this is the reason, my dear Thrasymachus, why, as I was just now saying, no one is willing to govern; because no one likes to take in hand the reformation of evils which are not his concern without remuneration. For, in the execution of his work, and in giving his orders to another, the true artist does not regard his own interest, but always that of his subjects; and therefore in order that rulers may be willing to rule, they must be paid in one of three modes of payment, money, or honour, or a penalty for refusing. What”
― Plato, The Republic

“Now the worst part of the punishment is that he who refuses to rule is liable to be ruled by one who is worse than himself. And the fear of this, as I conceive, induces the good to take office, not because they would, but because they cannot help—not under the idea that they are going to have any benefit or enjoyment themselves, but as a necessity, and because they are not able to commit the task of ruling to any one who is better than themselves, or indeed as good. For there is reason to think that if a city were composed entirely of good men, then to avoid office would be as much an object of contention as to obtain office is at present; then we should have plain proof that the true ruler is not meant by nature to regard his own interest, but that of his subjects; and every one who knew this would choose rather to receive a benefit from another than to have the trouble of conferring one. So far am I from agreeing with Thrasymachus that justice is the interest of the stronger.”
― Plato, The Republic

“They say that to do injustice is, by nature, good; to suffer injustice, evil; but that the evil is greater than the good. And so when men have both done and suffered injustice and have had experience of both, not being able to avoid the one and obtain the other, they think that they had better agree among themselves to have neither; hence there arise laws and mutual covenants; and that which is ordained by law is termed by them lawful and just. This they affirm to be the origin and nature of justice;—it is a mean or compromise, between the best of all, which is to do injustice and not be punished, and the worst of all, which is to suffer injustice without the power of retaliation; and justice, being at a middle point between the two, is tolerated not as a good, but as the lesser evil, and honoured by reason of the inability of men to do injustice. For no man who is worthy to be called a man would ever submit to such an agreement if he were able to resist; he would be mad if he did. Such is the received account, Socrates, of the nature and origin of justice. Now”
― Plato, The Republic

“For all men believe in their hearts that injustice is far more profitable to the individual than justice, and he who argues as I have been supposing, will say that they are right. If you could imagine any one obtaining this power of becoming invisible, and never doing any wrong or touching what was another's, he would be thought by the lookers-on to be a most wretched idiot, although they would praise him to one another's faces, and keep up appearances with one another from a fear that they too might suffer injustice. Enough of this. Now,”
― Plato, The Republic

“So let the unjust make his unjust attempts in the right way, and lie hidden if he means to be great in his injustice: (he who is found out is nobody:) for the highest reach of injustice is, to be deemed just when you are not. Therefore I say that in the perfectly unjust man we must assume the most perfect injustice; there is to be no deduction, but we must allow him, while doing the most unjust acts, to have acquired the greatest reputation for justice.”
― Plato, The Republic