Sean > Sean's Quotes

“Beneath the rule of men entirely great, the pen is mightier than the sword.”
― Edward George Bulwer-Lytton

“All the darkness in the world cannot extinguish the light of a single candle.”
― St. Francis Of Assisi, The Little Flowers of St. Francis of Assisi

“How much pain they have cost us, the evils which have never happened. --”
― Thomas Jefferson

“The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.”
― Lao Tzu

“Be Fearful When Others Are Greedy and Greedy When Others Are Fearful”
― Warren Buffett

“The Constitution is not an instrument for the government to restrain the people, it is an instrument for the people to restrain the government - lest it come to dominate our lives and interests.”
― Patrick Henry

“You’ve got to tell the world how to treat you. If the world tells you how you are going to be treated, you are in trouble.”
― James Baldwin

“Nobody is more dangerous than he who imagines himself pure in heart; for his purity, by definition, is unassailable.”
― James Baldwin

“Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!”
― Patrick Henry

“When I despair, I remember that all through history the way of truth and love have always won. There have been tyrants and murderers, and for a time, they can seem invincible, but in the end, they always fall. Think of it--always.”
― Mahatma Gandhi

“The basic difference between an ordinary man and a warrior is that a warrior takes everything as a challenge while an ordinary man takes everything as a blessing or a curse.”
― Carlos Castaneda

“Self-importance is our greatest enemy. Think about it - what weakens us is feeling offended by the deeds and misdeeds of our fellowmen. Our self-importance requires that we spend most of our lives offended by someone.”
― Carlos Castaneda

“I cannot live without books.”
― Thomas Jefferson

“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 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.

Prudence, indeed, 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, The Declaration of Independence

“We the people of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.”
― United States, The United States Constitution

“The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.”
― Edmund Burke

“Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.”
― William Butler Yeats, The Collected Poems of W.B. Yeats

“They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.”
― Benjamin Franklin, Memoirs of the life & writings of Benjamin Franklin

“Fantasy is escapist, and that is its glory. If a soldier is imprisioned by the enemy, don't we consider it his duty to escape?. . .If we value the freedom of mind and soul, if we're partisans of liberty, then it's our plain duty to escape, and to take as many people with us as we can!”
― J.R.R. Tolkien

“Do I contradict myself?
Very well then I contradict myself,
(I am large, I contain multitudes.)”
― Walt Whitman, Leaves of Grass

“As far as we can discern, the sole purpose of human existence is to kindle a light of meaning in the darkness of mere being.”
― Carl Gustav Jung

“Just when I discovered the meaning of life, they changed it.”
― George Carlin

“William Roper: “So, now you give the Devil the benefit of law!”

Sir Thomas More: “Yes! What would you do? Cut a great road through the law to get after the Devil?”

William Roper: “Yes, I'd cut down every law in England to do that!”

Sir Thomas More: “Oh? And when the last law was down, and the Devil turned 'round on you, where would you hide, Roper, the laws all being flat? This country is planted thick with laws, from coast to coast, Man's laws, not God's! And if you cut them down, and you're just the man to do it, do you really think you could stand upright in the winds that would blow then? Yes, I'd give the Devil benefit of law, for my own safety's sake!”
― Robert Bolt, A Man for All Seasons: A Play in Two Acts

“If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear.”
― George Orwell