Brian Bridgeforth > Brian's Quotes

“Never discourage anyone...who continually makes progress, no matter how slow.”
― Plato

“The absence of alternatives clears the mind marvelously.
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― Henry Kissinger

“The rights of every man are diminished when the rights of one man are threatened.”
― John F. Kennedy

“If there is no struggle, there is no progress.”
― Fredrick Douglass, Narrative of the Life of Fredrick Douglass

“War is cruelty. There is no use trying to reform it. The crueler it is, the sooner it will be over.”
― William Tecumseh Sherman, The Complete Memoirs of General W. T. Sherman: With original illustrations

“There is nothing more corrupting, nothing more destructive of the noblest and finest feelings of our nature, than the exercise of unlimited power.”
― William Henry Harrison

“America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves.”
― Abraham Lincoln

“I have conquered an empire but I have not been able to conquer myself.”
― Peter the Great

“What I cannot understand about the Russian is the way he will lie when he knows perfectly well that you know he is lying.”
― Theodore Roosevelt

“There are decades where nothing happens; and there are weeks where decades happen.”
― Vladimir Ilyich Lenin

“I never forgot that he had as much reason to fear my forces as I had his.”
― Ulysses S. Grant

“The greatness of America lies not in being more enlightened than any other nation, but rather in her ability to repair her faults.”
― Alexis de Tocqueville

“Statesmen are not called upon to only settle easy questions. These often settle themselves. It is where the balance quivers, and the proportions are veiled in mist, that the opportunity for world-saving decisions presents itself.”
― Winston Churchill

“Study history. In history lies all the secrets of statecraft.”
― Winston Churchill

“Neither a wise man nor a brave man lies down on the tracks of history to wait for the train of the future to run over him.”
― Dwight D. Eisenhower

“It's not what happens to you, but how you react to it that matters.”
― Epictetus

“If an injury has to be done to a man it should be so severe that his vengeance need not be feared.”
― Niccolo Machiavelli, The Prince

“It is not enough to win a war; it is more important to organize the peace.”
― Aristotle

“I observe and remain silent.”
― Queen Elizabeth I

“The word 'freedom' means for me not a point of departure but a genuine point of arrival. The point of departure is defined by the word 'order.' Freedom cannot exist without the concept of order.”
― Klemens von Metternich

“If [Congress] be ignorant, reckless, and corrupt, it is because the people tolerate ignorance, recklessness, and corruption. If it be intelligent, brave, and pure, it is because the people demand those high qualities.”
― James Garfield

“[A Republic] is productive of every Thing which is great and excellent among Men. But its Principles are as easily destroyed as human Nature is corrupted.”
― John Adams

“If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary.”
― James Madison

“God has a special providence for fools, drunkards, and the USA.”
― Otto von Bismarck