Kevin Stilley

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May 14, 2011 by kevinstilley

Thomas Jefferson – select quotes

Thomas Jefferson Quotes

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The Christian god can easily be pictured as virtually the same god as the many ancient gods of past civilizations. The Christian god is a three-headed monster; cruel, vengeful and capricious. If one wishes to know more of this raging, three-headed beast-like god, one only needs to look at the caliber of people who say they serve him. They are always of two classes: fools and hypocrites.
~ in a letter to his nephew Peter Carr

The spirit of resistance to government is so valuable on certain occasions that I wish it to be always kept alive. It will often be exercised when wrong, but better so than no to be exercised at all. I like a little rebellion now and then. It is like a storm in the atmosphere.
~ in a letter to Abigail Adams, 1787)

I hold it, that a little rebellion now and then is a good thing, and as necessary in the political world as storms in the physical.
~ in a letter to James Madison after Shay’s rebellion

The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time, with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is their natural manure.
~ in a letter to Col. William S. Smith, 1787

No man can bring out of the Presidency the reputation which carries him into it.
~ in a letter to Rutledge, 1795

I have said and always will say, that the studious perusal of the Sacred Volume will make better citizens, better fathers, and better husbands.
~ Quoted by A.W. Pink in What Follows from Divine Inspiration

Books constitute capital. A library book lasts as long as a house, for hundreds of years. It is not, then, an article of mere consumption but fairly of capital, and often in the case of professional men, setting out in life, it is their only capital.

He who knows nothing is closer to the truth than he whose mind is filled with falsehoods and errors.

Sometimes it is said that man cannot be trusted with the government of himself. Can he then be trusted with the government of others.

To compel a man to furnish funds for the propagation of ideas he disbelieves and abhors is sinful and tyrannical.

Indeed, I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just; that his justice cannot sleep forever. (in reference to slavery)

God who gave us life gave us liberty. Can the liberties of a nation be secure when we have removed a conviction that these liberties are the gift of God?

As our enemies have found we can reason like men, so now let us show them we can fight like men also.

I have sworn upon the alter of God, eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man.

Resistance to tyrants is obedience to God.

The price of freedom is eternal vigilance.

No man can bring out of the Presidency the reputation which carries him into it. ( in a letter to Rutledge, 1795)

There is a natural aristocracy among men. The grounds of this are virtue and talents.

A democracy is nothing more than mob rule, where fifty-one percent of the people may take away the rights of the other forty-nine.

All, too, will bear in mind this sacred principle, that though the will of the majority is in all cases to prevail, that will to be rightful must be reasonable; that the minority possess their equal rights, which equal law must protect, and to violate would be oppression.

Great innovations should not be forced on slender majorities.

Every government degenerates when trusted to the rulers of the people alone. The people themselves are its only safe depositories.

A wise and frugal government, which shall leave men free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor and bread it has earned – this is the sum of good government.

Sometimes it is said that man cannot be trusted with the government of himself. Can he, then be trusted with the government of others? Or have we found angels in the form of kings to govern him? Let history answer this question.

That government is best which governs the least, because its people discipline themselves.

The natural progress of things is for liberty to yield and government to gain ground.

I predict future happiness for Americans if they can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them.

I do not take a single newspaper, nor read one a month, and I feel myself infinitely the happier for it.

Advertisements contain the only truths to be relied on in a newspaper.

I never considered a difference of opinion in politics, in religion, in philosophy, as cause for withdrawing from a friend.

An injured friend is the bitterest of foes.

Be polite to all, but intimate with few.

Do not bite at the bait of pleasure, till you know there is no hook beneath it.

The moment a person forms a theory, his imagination sees in every object only the traits which favor that theory.

Do you want to know who you are? Don’t ask. Act! Action will delineate and define you.

I find that the harder I work, the more luck I seem to have.

Whenever you do a thing, act as if all the world were watching.

I find that he is happiest of whom the world says least, good or bad.

Nothing gives one person so much advantage over another as to remain always cool and unruffled under all circumstances.

I have seen enough of one war never to wish to see another.

It is our duty still to endeavor to avoid war; but if it shall actually take place, no matter by whom brought on, we must defend ourselves. If our house be on fire, without inquiring whether it was fired from within or without, we must try to extinguish it.

War is an instrument entirely inefficient toward redressing wrong; and multiplies, instead of indemnifying losses.

There is not a sprig of grass that shoots uninteresting to me.

A democracy is nothing more than mob rule, where fifty-one percent of the people may take away the rights of the other forty-nine.

No man has a natural right to commit aggression on the equal rights of another, and this is all from which the laws ought to restrain him.

A wise and frugal government, which shall leave men free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor and bread it has earned — this is the sum of good government.

I have no fear that the result of our experiment will be that men may be trusted to govern themselves without a master.

I never submitted the whole system of my opinions to the creed of any party of men whatever, in religion, in philosophy, in politics or in anything else, where I was capable of thinking for myself. Such an addiction is the last degradation of a free and moral agent. If I could not go to Heaven but with a party, I would not go there at all.

Determine never to be idle. It is wonderful how much may be done if we are always doing.

Delay is preferable to error.

Nothing can stop the man with the right mental attitude from achieving his goal; nothing on earth can help the man with the wrong mental attitude.

__________

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Book Cover Book Cover Book Cover Book Cover Book Cover

Filed Under: Blog, Front Page, History, Politics, Quotes Tagged With: American History, Autobiography, Blog, Christianity, Founding fathers, Freedom, letters, memoirs, Quotes, religion, revolution, sayings, Thomas Jefferson, wisdom

February 27, 2009 by kevinstilley

What Do You Think?

If you were to write a book about your life, what would it be called?

(Share your answers in the comments below.)

Filed Under: Blog Tagged With: Autobiography, Blog, book, What Do You Think?

December 1, 2008 by kevinstilley

Biographies – Select Quotes

Autobiography is an unrivalled vehicle for telling the truth about other people.
~ Philip Guedalla

Biographies are bu the clothes and buttons of the man–the biography of the man himself cannot be written.
~ Mark Twain

Every great man nowadays has his disciples, and it is always Judas who writes the biography.
~ Oscar Wilde

Filed Under: Blog Tagged With: Autobiography, biography, Blog, Books, Graffiti, literature, Mark Twain, Oscar Wilde, quips, Quotes, wisdom

November 30, 2008 by kevinstilley

Biography & Autobiography – Select Quotes

Autobiography is an unrivaled vehicle for telling the truth about other people.
~ Philip Guedalla

Biographies are bu the clothes and buttons of the man–the biography of the man himself cannot be written.
~ Mark Twain

Every great man nowadays has his disciples, and it is always Judas who writes the biography.
~ Oscar Wilde

Filed Under: Blog Tagged With: Autobiography, biographical, biography, Blog, Quotes

August 23, 2008 by kevinstilley

What Do You Think?

If you were to write a book about your life, what would it be called?

(Share your answers in the comments below.)

Filed Under: Blog Tagged With: Autobiography, What Do You Think?

August 16, 2008 by kevinstilley

Free Confessions

Augustine’s Confessions is one of my favorite books.  Christian Audio is now offering free audio downloads of the book through the end of August.  I have downloaded and listened to the Mp3 files and they are well done.

Click here to get your free Confessions.

Filed Under: Blog Tagged With: audio download, Augustine, Autobiography, biography, Blog, Books, Church Fathers, Confessions, Medieval Period, Mp3

May 24, 2008 by kevinstilley

Harvest Poems, by Carl Sandburg

Like most people, I enjoy particular poems. But, try as I may, I have never been able to cultivate a love for the genre of poetry. And, I have seriously tried.

I make it a point to read a book of poetry at least once each year. I know that I probably didn’t like cabbage the first time that I ate it, but I love it now. So, I am hoping that through continued exposure I will develop the same kind of taste for poetry.

Thus, it was that I came to Carl Sandburg’s book Harvest Poems: 1910-1960. [Read more…]

Filed Under: Blog Tagged With: Autobiography, biography, Blog, Books, Lincoln, poetry, prose, Pulitzer, Sandburg

December 12, 2007 by kevinstilley

Thomas Sowell’s Christmas Book Recommendations

Thomas Sowell recently suggested the following books would make excellent Christmas gifts. In his own words:

— “The Immigration Solution” is an excellent new book that discusses illegal immigration without the political rhetoric, spin, demagoguery, and unsubstantiated claims that have become all too common in the media and among politicians.

— “Mugged by Reality” by John Agresto is an eyewitness account of life inside Iraq by someone who does not take either the Bush administration line or the Congressional Democrats’ line. Nor does he hesitate to admit that what he saw in Iraq changed the opinions with which he first entered the country.

— “The Prince of Darkness” by Robert Novak is a big book detailing half a century of his experiences in Washington, dealing with both political figures and other members of the print and broadcast media. He names names.

— For those who like history, there is a new history of one of the most decisive decades in American history — the decade of the Great Depression of the 1930s — titled “The Forgotten Man” by Amity Shlaes.

— For those who want more in-depth analysis of the economic consequences of New Deal policies, Jim Powell’s book “FDR’s Folly” would make an excellent supplement to Amity Shlaes’ book.

— “Until Proven Innocent” by Stuart Taylor and K.C. Johnson is an account of the Duke University “rape” case that goes far beyond the misdeeds of the disgraced District Attorney Michael Nifong.

— An excellent present for those parents and students who want to find academic institutions that have not succumbed to the ideological corruption found at Duke and other colleges and universities would be the book “Choosing the Right College.“

— A very moving account of the life of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas can be found in his very readable and insightful memoir, “My Grandfather’s Son,” which has been on the best-seller list for eight weeks thus far.

Filed Under: Blog Tagged With: Autobiography, biography, Book Recommendations, Political Books, Thomas Sowell

November 8, 2007 by kevinstilley

Harper Lee’s "To Kill A Mockingbird" and the Memoirs of Clarence Thomas

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Filed Under: Blog Tagged With: Autobiography, biography, fiction, Harper Lee, memoir

November 3, 2007 by kevinstilley

Slash / Memoirs From His Days With Guns N’ Roses

Slash, lead guitarist for Gun’s N Roses and Velvet Revolvers has penned his memoirs. As Bob Hughes says in the interview below, it is amazing that he can remember anything from those daze days of excess.

Filed Under: Blog Tagged With: Autobiography, biography, memoir, Music

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