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Famous Quotes
 
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The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations
A classic since 1953 with over 20,000 quotes from over 3,000 authors.


Famous Last Words
Apt Observations, Pleas, Curses, Benedictions, Sour Notes, Bons Mots, and Insights from People on the Brink of Departure


Stretch Your Wings
Famous Black Quotations for the Young


American Quotations
An exhaustive collection of profound quotes from the founding fathers, presidents, statesmen, scientists, constitutions, court decisions


The Oxford Dictionary of Humorous Quotations


Last Words of Saints and Sinners
700 Final Quotes from the Famous, the Infamous, and the Inspiring Figures of History


America's God and Country: Encyclopedia of Quotations
Contains over 2,100 profound quotations from founding fathers, presidents, constitutions, court decisions and more


The Law
This 1850 classic is an absolute must read for anyone interested in law, justice, truth, or liberty. A most compelling and revolutionary look at The Law.


Bartlett's Familiar Quotations
A Collection of Passages, Phrases, and Proverbs Traced to Their Sources in Ancient and Modern Literature (17th Edition)


The Stupidest Things Ever Said by Politicians
Rise up, America -- and laugh out loud at the greatest gaffes that no spin doctor could possibly fix!


The 776 Even Stupider Things Ever Said
Another great collection of stupidity


Quotable Quotes
Wit and Wisdom for All Occasions from America's Most Popular Magazine


The Most Brilliant Thoughts of All Time
You don't have to be a genius to sound like one. Here's a collection of the most profound and provocative wit and wisdom in the English language in two lines or less.


2,715 One-Line Quotations for Speakers, Writers & Raconteurs
Invaluable sampler of witticisms, epigrams, sayings, bon mots, platitudes and insights chosen for their brevity and pithiness.


Phillips' Book of Great Thoughts Funny Sayings
A stupendous collection of quotes, quips, epigrams, witticisms, and humorous comments for personal enjoyment and ready reference.


Quick Quips and Quotes; 532 Things I Wish I Had Said
Quick Quips and Quotes is the Ultimate Collection of one liners.


Bartlett's Book of Anecdotes
The ultimate anthology of anecdotes, now revised with over 700 new entries.


Quotations for Public Speakers
A Historical, Literary, and Political Anthology


Liberty - The American Revolution
This compelling series traces the events leading up to the war and America's fight for freedom.


Founding Fathers
The story of how these disparate characters fomented rebellion in the colonies, formed the Continental Congress, fought the Revolutionary War, and wrote the Constitution


Libertarianism: A Primer
David Boaz, director of the Cato Institute, has written a simple introduction to Libertarianism inteneded to appeal to disgruntled Democrats and Republicans everywhere.


The Libertarian Reader
Classic and Contemporary Writings from Lao-Tzu to Milton Friedman


Thomas Paine: Collected Writings
All the classics: Common Sense / The Crisis / Rights of Man / The Age of Reason / Pamphlets, Articles, and Letters

 
Doctor WhoYou know, the very powerful and the very stupid have one thing in common, they don't alter their views to fit the facts, they alter the facts to fit their views, which can be uncomfortable, if you happen to be one of the facts that needs altering. 
Tom WickerIf the true freedom of the press is to decide for itself what to publish and when to publish it, the true responsibility of the press must be to assert and defend that freedom… What the press in America needs is less inhibition, not more restraint. 
Norbert WienerProgress imposes not only new possibilities for the future but new restrictions. 
Elie WieselThere may be times when we are powerless to prevent injustice, but there must never be a time when we fail to protest. 
Elie WieselUltimately, the only power to which man should aspire is that which he exercises over himself. 
Elie WieselThe opposite of love is not hate, it's indifference. 
Albert Edward WigginIntelligence appears to be the thing that enables a man to get along without education. Education enables a man to get along without the use of his intelligence. 
Oscar WildeAs one reads history, not in the expurgated editions written for schoolboys and passmen, but in the original authorities of each time, one is absolutely sickened, not by the crimes that the wicked have committed, but by the punishments that the good have inflicted; and a community is infinitely more brutalised by the habitual employment of punishment than it is by the occasional occurrence of crime. 
Oscar WildeMost people are other people. Their thoughts are someone else's opinions, their lives a mimicry, their passions a quotation. 
Oscar WildeI think that God in creating man somewhat overestimated his ability. 
Oscar WildeI forgot that every little action of the common day makes or unmakes character, and that therefore what one has done in the secret chamber one has some day to cry aloud on the house-tops. 
Oscar WildeArt is individualism, and individualism is a disturbing and disintegrating force. There lies its immense value. For what it seeks is to disturb monotony of type, slavery of custom, tyranny of habit, and the reduction of man to the level of a machine. 
Oscar WildeSelfishness is not living as one wishes to live, it is asking others to live as one wishes to live. 
Oscar WildeAll authority is quite degrading. 
Oscar WildeTo believe is very dull. To doubt is intensely engrossing. To be on the alert is to live, to be lulled into security is to die. 
Oscar WildeA cynic is a man who knows the price of everything, and the value of nothing. 
Oscar WildeThe pure and simple truth is rarely pure and never simple. 
Oscar WildeThe form of government that is most suitable to the artist is no government at all. ... One might point out how the Renaissance was great, because it sought to solve no social problem, and busied itself not about such things, but suffered the individual to develop freely, beautifully, and naturally, and so had great and individual artists, and great, individual men. One might point out how Louis XIV, by creating the modern state, destroyed the individualism of the artist ... 
Oscar WildeMan is a rational animal who always loses his temper when he is called upon to act in accordance with the dictates of reason. 
Oscar WildeMan is least himself when he talks in his own person. Give him a mask, and he will tell you the truth. 
Oscar WildeHe hasn't one redeeming vice. 
Oscar WildeDemocracy means simply the bludgeoning of the people by the people for the people. 
Oscar WildeWe are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars. 
Oscar WildeSociety produces rogues, and education makes one rogue cleverer than another. 
Oscar WildeA man cannot be too careful in the choice of his enemies. 
Oscar WildeDisobedience, in the eyes of anyone who has read history, is man’s original virtue. It is through disobedience that progress had been made, through disobedience and through rebellion. 
Oscar WildeNewspapers have degenerated. They may now be absolutely relied upon. 
Oscar WildeUltimately the bond of all companionship, whether in marriage or in friendship, is conversation. 
Oscar WildeLawyers have been known to wrest from reluctant juries triumphant verdicts of acquittal for their clients, even when those clients, as often happens, were clearly and unmistakably innocent. 
Oscar Wilde[T]hough of all poses a moral pose is the most offensive, still to have a pose at all is something. 
Oscar WildePerhaps, after all, America never has been discovered. I myself would say that it had merely been detected. 
Oscar WildeWickedness is a myth invented by good people to account for the curious attractiveness of others. 
George WillProgressives understand that their program for a government-centered society becomes more plausible the more people believe that work -- individual striving -- is unavailing. Government grows as fatalism grows, and fatalism grows as progressivism inculcates in people the demoralizing -- make that de-moralizing -- belief that they are victims of circumstances. 
George WillIt has been well said that really up-to-date liberals do not care what people do, as long as it is compulsory. 
George WillThe cultivation -- even celebration -- of victimhood by intellectuals, tort lawyers, politicians and the media is both cause and effect of today's culture of complaint. 
George WillFreedom is not only the absence of external restraints. It is also the absence of irresistible internal compulsions, unmanageable passion, and uncensorable highlights. 
George WillThe business of America is not business. Neither is it war. The business of America is justice and securing the blessings of liberty. 
George WillThe Framers of the First Amendment were not concerned with preventing government from abridging their freedom to speak about crops and cockfighting, or with protecting the expressive activity of topless dancers, which of late has found some shelter under the First Amendment. Rather, the Framers cherished unabridged freedom of political communication. 
George WillThe primary goal of collectivism -- of socialism in Europe and contemporary liberalism in America -- is to enlarge governmental supervision of individuals' lives. This is done in the name of equality.   People are to be conscripted into one large cohort, everyone equal (although not equal in status or power to the governing class) in their status as wards of a self-aggrandizing government. 
Joseph WillardThere is sufficient evidence that a number of societies, of the Illuminati, have been established in this land of Gospel light and civil liberty, which were first organized from the grand society, in France. They are doubtless secretly striving to undermine all our ancient institutions, civil and sacred. These societies are closely leagued with those of the same Order, in Europe; they have all the same object in view. The enemies of all order are seeking our ruin. Should infidelity generally prevail, our independence would fall of course. Our republican government would be annihilated. 
Hank WilliamsIf you mind your own business, you won't be minding mine. 
Juan WilliamsI am not a conservative but I have spoken out for years against the staggering amount of blind hatred directed at black conservatives by liberals. Liberals are shockingly quick to demean and dismiss brilliant black people like Rice, Carson, Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, U.S. Senator Tim Scott (R-SC), Professor Walter E. Williams and economist Thomas Sowell because they don’t fit into the role they have carved out for a black person in America. Black Americans must be obedient liberals on all things or risk being called a race traitor or an Uncle Tom. 
Roger WilliamsGod requireth not a uniformity of religion. 
Tad WilliamsWe tell lies when we are afraid... afraid of what we don't know, afraid of what others will think, afraid of what will be found out about us. But every time we tell a lie, the thing that we fear grows stronger. 
Tad WilliamsWe tell lies when we are afraid... afraid of what we don't know, afraid of what others will think, afraid of what will be found out about us. But every time we tell a lie, the thing that we fear grows stronger. 
Tenessee WilliamsThe mistake you make is in trying to figure it out. 
Walter E. WilliamsCommunism and socialism is [sic] seductive. It promises us that people will contribute according to ability and receive according to needs. Everybody is equal. Everybody has a right to decent housing, decent food and affordable medical care. History should have taught us that when we hear people talk this stuff -- watch out! 
Walter E. WilliamsThe bottom line is that we've become a nation of thieves, a value rejected by our founders. James Madison, the father of our Constitution, was horrified when Congress appropriated $15,000 to help French refugees. He said, "I cannot undertake to lay my finger on that article of the Constitution which granted a right to Congress of expending, on objects of benevolence, the money of their constituents." Tragically, today's Americans would run Madison out of town on a rail. 
Walter E. WilliamsRecent school shootings have lured ill-informed Americans into a war on our Second Amendment guarantees, led by the nation’s tyrants and their useful idiots. ... The Second Amendment was given to us as protection against tyranny by the federal government and the Congress of the United States. 
Walter E. WilliamsWhat’s “just” has been debated for centuries, but let me offer you my definition of social justice: I keep what I earn and you keep what you earn. Do you disagree? Well then, tell me how much of what I earn “belongs” to you -- and why? 
Walter E. WilliamsAll we have to do now is to inform the public that the payment of social security taxes is voluntary and watch the mass exodus. 
Walter E. WilliamsLiberalism is a moral manipulation that exaggerates inequity and unfairness in American life in order to justify overreaching public policies and programs. Liberalism undermines the spirit of self-help and individual responsibility. For liberals in academia, the fact that black college students earn lower grades and have a higher dropout rate than any group besides reservation Indians means that blacks remain stymied and victimized by white racism. Thus, their push for affirmative action and other race-based programs is to assuage their guilt and shame for America’s past by having people around with black skin color. The heck with the human being inside that skin. 
Walter E. WilliamsConservatives and liberals are kindred spirits as far as government spending is concerned. ... Since government has no resources of its own, and since there’s no Tooth Fairy handing Congress the funds for the programs it enacts, we are forced to recognize that government spending is no less than the confiscation of one person’s property to give it to another to whom it does not belong -- in effect, legalized theft. 
Walter E. WilliamsHow does something immoral, when done privately, become moral when it is done collectively? Furthermore, does legality establish morality? Slavery was legal; apartheid is legal; Stalinist, Nazi, and Maoist urges were legal. Clearly, the fact of legality does not justify these crimes. Legality, alone, cannot be the talisman of moral people. 
Walter E. WilliamsThe War between the States... produced the foundation for the kind of government we have today: consolidated and absolute, based on the unrestrained will of the majority, with force, threats, and intimidation being the order of the day. Today's federal government is considerably at odds with that envisioned by the framers of the Constitution. ... [The War] also laid to rest the great principle enunciated in the Declaration of Independence that 'Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed'. 
Walter E. WilliamsThe framers gave us the Second Amendment not so we could go deer or duck hunting but to give us a modicum of protection against congressional tyranny. 
Walter E. WilliamsWealth comes from successful individual efforts to please one’s fellow man ... that’s what competition is all about: “out pleasing” your competitors to win over the consumers. 
Walter E. WilliamsMany politicians and pundits claim that the credit crunch and high mortgage foreclosure rate is an example of market failure and want government to step in to bail out creditors and borrowers at the expense of taxpayers who prudently managed their affairs. These financial problems are not market failures but government failure. ... The credit crunch and foreclosure problems are failures of government policy. 
Walter E. WilliamsTry this thought experiment. Pretend you're a tyrant. Among your many liberty-destroying objectives are extermination of blacks, Jews and Catholics. Which would you prefer, a United States with political power centralized in Washington, powerful government agencies with detailed information on Americans and compliant states or power widely dispersed over 50 states, thousands of local jurisdictions and a limited federal government? 
Walter E. WilliamsExperts and the educated elite have replaced what worked with what sounded good. Society was far more civilized before they took over our schools, prisons, welfare programs, police departments and courts. It's high time we ran these people out of our lives and went back to common sense. 
Walter E. WilliamsWe should view our government the way we should a friendly, cuddly lion. Just because he’s friendly and cuddly shouldn’t blind us to the fact that he’s still got teeth and claws. 
Walter E. WilliamsDemocracy and liberty are not the same. Democracy is little more than mob rule, while liberty refers to the sovereignty of the individual. 
Walter E. WilliamsPeople want government to do all manner of things, things that if done privately would lead to condemnation and jail sentences. Some want government to give money to farmers, poor folk, college students, senior citizens and businesses. There’s no Santa Claus or tooth fairy. The only way government can give money to one person is to forcibly take it from another person. If I privately used the same method to raise money for a “deserving” college student, homeless person or businessman, I’d face theft charges. Others among us want government to protect wild wolves, bears and the Stephens kangaroo rat even if it results in gross violations of private property and loss of lives. The problem is that some people disagree with having their earnings taken to satisfy someone else’s wishes. They don’t want the Corps of Engineers and Fish and Wildlife Service dictating to them what they can and cannot do with their property to ensure a habitat for the kangaroo rat. Force and threats must be used. Here’s the question: Could the average American kill a person who resolutely refuses to give up his earnings so Congress can give it to farmers? Could you kill a person who insists on using all of his property, even though some wolves have set up a den on it? You say, “What do you mean, Williams— kill?” Here’s the scenario: The Corps of Engineers commands me not to remove debris from a drainage ditch on my property, placed there by beavers building a dam, because the debris creates a wetland. I remove it anyway. The Corps of Engineers fines me. I refuse to pay the unjust fine. The Corps of Engineers threatens to seize my land. I say no, you won’t: it’s my land, and I’ll protect it. A politician sends marshals to take it, and I get killed defending it. 
Walter E. WilliamsThe path we’re embarked upon, in the name of good, is a familiar one. The unspeakable horrors of Nazism, Stalinism, and Maoism did not begin in the ‘30s and ‘40s with the men usually associated with those names. Those horrors were simply the end result of a long evolution of ideas leading to the consolidation of power in central government in the name of “social justice.” It was decent but misguided Germans, who would have cringed at the thought of extermination and genocide, who built the Trojan Horse for Hitler to take over. We Americans promote disrespect for our Constitution, rule of law and private property in our pursuit of “social justice.” But the scum that rises to the top has an agenda of command and control that’s leading toward totalitarianism. And, incidentally, it’s no coincidence that most of those at the top are lawyers -- people with a special, seemingly tutored, contempt for our Constitution and rule of law. 
Walter E. WilliamsIn what sense are women equal to men? .... I’ve never seen sexually integrated professional boxing matches, football games, basketball games, 100-yard dashes or ice hockey games. Is that because male chauvinists deny women the chance to compete? The military response to the conspicuous absence of women in male-dominated areas suggests a remedy for professional sports. Army fitness standards call for 80 push-ups for men and 56 for women. Male soldiers ages 17 to 25 must run two miles in 17 minutes and 55 seconds. Females are given 22 minutes and 14 seconds. Male Marine trainees must climb 20 feet of rope in 30 seconds; women are given 50 seconds. The military’s “gender-norming” might be implemented in sports. In football, new rules might allow the offensive team’s female pass receiver to take up an uncovered position one-half the distance to the goal behind the defensive team’s line. In the 100-yard dash, women could get a 25-yard head start. In baseball, a mid-field hit might count as a home run. I’m at a loss for what can be done to gender-norm boxing. All that I come up with to level the playing field between a woman and George Foreman or Mike Tyson is to give the woman a gun. ... Feminists themselves wouldn’t want sports desegregated and gender-normed. The folly and disastrous consequences would be obvious to all. For them, gender-norming is best left to areas where its effects are more readily concealed. The fact of business is that we humans are not equal. Some of us are women and some are men. Some are smart and some are not so smart. Some are colored, others are uncolored. Some are tall, and some are short. Some of us are poor, and others wealthy. The differences -- inequalities -- are endless. Equality before the general rules of law is the only kind of equality conducive to liberty that can be secured without destroying liberty. It is an equality that neither requires nor assumes people are, in fact, equal. Our attempt to make people equal by rigging law to produce results destroys civility and generalized respect for the law. Government cannot create an advantage for one person without simultaneously creating a disadvantage for another. ... Government agencies have no right telling one American he or she can go into a business and another, who is just as able, that he or she cannot. 
Marianne WilliamsonAnd as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our fear, our presence automatically liberates others. 
Wendell L. WillkieThe constitution does not provide for first and second class citizens. 
Wendell L. WillkieWhenever we take away the liberties of those whom we hate, we are opening the way to loss of liberty for those we love. 
Wendell L. WillkieFreedom is an indivisible word. If we want to enjoy it, and fight for it, we must be prepared to extend it to everyone, whether they are rich or poor, whether they agree with us or not, no matter what their race or the color of their skin. 
Wendell L. WillkieTo suppress minority thinking and minority expression would tend to freeze society and prevent progress… Now more than ever, we must keep in the forefront of our minds the fact that whenever we take away the liberties of those we hate, we are opening the way to loss of liberty for those we love. 
Charles E. WilsonThe revulsion against war ... will be an almost insuperable obstacle for us to overcome. For that reason, I am convinced that we must begin now to set the machinery in motion for a permanent wartime economy. 
Colin WilsonThe average man is a conformist, accepting miseries and disasters with the stoicism of a cow standing in the rain. 
Harold WilsonThe monarchy is a labor intensive industry. 
James WilsonSlavery, or an absolute and unlimited power in the master over the life and fortune of the slave, is unauthorized by the common law. Indeed, it is repugnant to the principles of natural law, that such a state should subsist in any social system. The reasons which we sometimes see assigned for the origin and the continuance of slavery appear, when examined to the bottom, to be built upon a false foundation. In the enjoyment of their persons and of their property, the common law protects all. 
James WilsonEvery prudent and cautious judge ... will remember, that his duty and his business is, not to make the law, but to interpret and apply it. 


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