Quotes about going
page 85

Madonna photo

“One must dare to show what he wants. You have to go and ask for things rather than wait for them to happen.”

Madonna (1958) American singer, songwriter, and actress

(Crillon Hotel, Paris, November 1998).

K. R. Narayanan photo
Trent Reznor photo
Hans Arp photo
Michael Swanwick photo
Aubrey Peeples photo
Eugene Rotberg photo

“Never penalize those who work for us for mistakes or reward them for being right about markets. It will go to their heads, is counterproductive and, in any event, material compensation will not correlate with their ability to predict the future next time.”

“'The only perfect hedge is a Japanese garden': Speech to the National Association of Corporate Treasurers." http://www.generotberg.com/speeches/1990s/The%20Only%20Perfect%20Hedge%20is%20a%20Japanese%20Garden.pdf. (1990)

Matthew Good photo

“Good morning, sunshine, time to go.”

Matthew Good (1971) Canadian singer-songwriter

At Last There is Nothing Left to Say

Bill Maher photo
Zainab Salbi photo
Jill Vogel photo
Alastair Reynolds photo
John Harvey Kellogg photo
Steven Chu photo

“I called my mother up when they announced the Nobel Prize, waiting until 7 in the morning. She said, “That’s nice — and when are you going to see me next?””

Steven Chu (1948) American physicist, former United States Secretary of Energy, Nobel laureate

NY Times, April 16, 2009 http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/19/magazine/19wwln-q4-t.html?_r=4

John Lancaster Spalding photo
Salma Hayek photo
William Pulteney, 1st Earl of Bath photo

“The army causes taxes, the taxes cause discontents, & the discontents are alleged to make an army necessary. Thus you go in a circle.”

William Pulteney, 1st Earl of Bath (1684–1764) English politician

Cited in John Brewer, The Sinews of Power 8-10 (1988)

T. B. Joshua photo

“If we fail to see that there are powers that cause people to be bowed down in bondage, we are going to fight the wrong battle.”

T. B. Joshua (1963) Nigerian Christian leader

On the xenophobic attacks in South Africa - "How I Predicted Xenophobic Attacks In South Africa - TB Joshua" http://www.vanguardngr.com/2015/04/how-i-predicted-xenophobic-south-africa-t-b-joshua/ Vanguard Nigeria (April 17 2015)

Ralph Waldo Emerson photo
Julian Assange photo
Lana Turner photo
Herbert Morrison photo

“We are going to build the Tories out of London.”

Herbert Morrison (1888–1965) British Labour politician

An example of this quote being attributed to Morrison is Leo McKinstry, "Labour is stealing your country", The Spectator, 24 July 2004, p. 20.
Allegedly said in the 1930s while Leader of the London County Council, outlining a supposed Morrison policy of building LCC estates in Conservative-voting areas in order to shift elections towards the Labour Party. No source has been found and quote has not been traced earlier than the early 1960s. The Local Government Chronicle once offered a prize to anyone who could find proof that Morrison had said it; the prize remains unclaimed. Morrison's LCC built substantial numbers of homes but a large number of them were outside the County of London entirely.
Disputed

Hunter S. Thompson photo
Milan Kundera photo

“Love is a battle," said Marie-Claude, still smiling. "And I plan to go on fighting. To the end.”

The Unbearable Lightness of Being (1984), Part Three: Words Misunderstood

Nelson Mandela photo
Calvin Coolidge photo
Davey Havok photo
Anand Gandhi photo

“We now remain, at least on paper, one of the last few countries in the world, where if you don’t die successfully, you’ll go to jail for attempting.”

Anand Gandhi (1980) Indian film director

"Landscape of the individual" in Indian Express (14 September 2015) http://indianexpress.com/article/opinion/columns/landscape-of-the-individual/

Norman Vincent Peale photo
Ted Bundy photo

“I'm not looking for anything. I understand now a lot of stuff about myself that I didn't understand then. It makes me realize what was going on. The senselessness of it appalls me although I'm sure not so much as those who were so close to it.”

Ted Bundy (1946–1989) American serial killer

Interview with Detective Dennis Couch, days before his execution. http://www.good4utah.com/contact/marcos-ortiz/ted-bundys-utah-confession

Rihanna photo

“[G]enetically my legs are supposed to be huge. I can't really think about it, or I'll go crazy.”

Rihanna (1988) Barbadian singer, songwriter, and actress

On working out. Allure magazine, January 2008.

“Politics: distrust all parties but consider capitalism must go.”

Louis MacNeice (1907–1963) poet

MacNeice interview in Twentieth Century Authors, a biographical dictionary of modern literature, edited by Stanley J. Kunitz and Howard Haycraft; (Third Edition). New York: The H.W. Wilson Company, 1950 (p. 889).

Janeane Garofalo photo

“I can't wait for the next fad though, and I predict it's going to be Pennsylvania dutch culture, very Amish. It's going to be bonnets and butter churns.”

Janeane Garofalo (1964) comedian, actress, political activist, writer

self-titled TV comedy special, 1997
after discussing ubiquitious rap influences upon mainstream culture
Standup routines

Don Soderquist photo

“When was the last time you set your mind to wandering beyond today to imagine a brighter tomorrow? Let your mind go, dream a little, and you might just discover that anything is possible.”

Don Soderquist (1934–2016)

Don Soderquist “ The Wal-Mart Way: The Inside Story of the Success of the World's Largest Company https://books.google.com/books?id=mIxwVLXdyjQC&lpg=PR9&dq=Don%20Soderquist&pg=PR9#v=onepage&q=Don%20Soderquist&f=false, Thomas Nelson, April 2005, p. 107.
On Leading Well

Victor Villaseñor photo

“Since taking this job things have happened. I've been spending my free time studying the Word. Each night the Lord seemed to get hold of me a little more. Night before last I was reading in Nehemiah. I finished the book, and read it through again. Here was a man who left everything as far as position was concerned to go do a job nobody else could handle. And because he went the whole remnant back in Jerusalem got right with the Lord. Obstacles and hindrances fell away and a great work was done. Jim, I couldn't get away from it. The Lord was dealing with me. On the way home yesterday morning I took a long walk and came to a decision which I know is of the Lord. In all honesty before the Lord I say that no one or nothing beyond Himself and the Word has any bearing upon what I've decided to do. I have one desire now - to live a life of reckless abandon for the Lord, putting all my energy into it. Maybe He'll send me someplace where the name of Jesus Christ is unknown. Jim, I'm taking the Lord at His word, and I'm trusting Him to prove His Word. It's kind of like putting all your eggs in one basket, but we've already put our trust in Him for salvation, so why not do it as far as our life is concerned? If there's nothing to this business of eternal life we might as well lose everything in one crack and throw our present life away with out life hereafter. But if there is something to it, then everything else the Lord says must hold true likewise. Pray for me, Jim.”

Ed McCully (1927–1956) American Christian missionary
Derren Brown photo
Anthony Burgess photo
John Hodgman photo
Ismail Serageldin photo

“I do believe that encyclopedias are dead as dodos in the old fashioned way. Let me just go back, because earlier around I was interviewed and I said: The book will always be with us. Books - we used to read in scrolls and then they got invented the codex which is basically the form of the book. It has not been improved on. It's like scissors, like a spoon, and like a hammer. It's technology that's perfect in itself and will remain very good. But: What about the content inside of it? Now, there are books that you read for information. And there what you want to do is how to get the information. And it is infinitely more efficient, of higher quality, to use digital sources rather than the published sources for references. So dictionaries and encyclopedias are not going to be done in this very ponderous way of having old books that by the time they come out the information in them is obsolete. Second, you have to search in all of these and open the pages and then you go to an index and come back whereas you can type to search in. […] But if you want to hold in your hand a slim volume, nicely bound, of the love sonnets of Shakespeare or historical romans, that's a different story. There is the book as artifact, there is the joy in holding the book. And there is an efficiency in the book that you can carry with you in different ways. But I think that the encyclopedias and the dictionaries really are providing a service. And that service can be provided so much more efficiently online that they are bound to change. And if they don't change themselves and go online themselves … I mean, the old providers, like Britannica, will go online, will provide it, and will try to, in fact, compete with the model that Wikipedia pioneered.”

Ismail Serageldin (1944) egyptian academic

Wikimania 2008 press conference 0'33 (August 2008).

Hugo Weaving photo
Jack LaLanne photo
Mahathir bin Mohamad photo

“Sometimes you sit around
Don't know what to do,
don't know where you're going to
All you have to be is you
What else can you do”

Ysabella Brave (1979) American singer

"All You Have to Be is You" (11 December 2007) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WbyUCzBJVe4

Bernie Sanders photo

“Mr. Speaker, in the brief time I have let me give you five reasons why I'm opposed to giving the President a blank check to launch a unilateral invasion and occupation of Iraq and why I will vote against this resolution.One: I have not heard any estimates of how many young American men and women might die in such a war, or how many tens of thousands of women and children in Iraq might also be killed. As a caring nation, we should do everything we can to prevent the horrible suffering that a war will cause. War must be the last recourse in international relations, not the first.Second, I am deeply concerned about the precedent that a unilateral invasion of Iraq could establish in terms of international law and the role of the United Nations. If President Bush believes that the US can go to war at any time against any nation, what moral or legal obligation can our government raise if another country chose to do the same thing.Third, the United States in now involved in a very difficult war against international terrorism, as we learned tragically on September eleventh. We are opposed by Osama Bin Ladin and religious fanatics who are prepared to engage in a kind of warfare that we have never experienced before. I agree with Brent Scowcroft, Republican former national security adviser for President George Bush senior, who stated and I quote, "An attack on Iraq at this time would seriously jeopardize if not destroy the global counter-terrorist campaign we have undertaken."Fourth, at a time when this country has a six-trillion dollar national debt and a growing deficit, we should be clear that a war and a long-term American occupation of Iraq could be extremely expensive.Fifth, I am concerned about the problems with so-called unintended consequences. Who will govern Iraq when Saddam Hussein is removed? And what role will the US play in an ensuing civil war that could develop in that country? Will moderate governments in the regions who have large Islamic fundamentalist populations be overthrown and replaced by extremists? Will the bloody conflict between Israel and the Palestinian Authority be exacerbated? And these are just a few of the questions that remain unanswered.”

Bernie Sanders (1941) American politician, senator for Vermont

Speech on Iraq War Resolution in US House of Representatives https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NdFw1btbkLM (9 October 2002)
2000s

Jair Bolsonaro photo

“If you want a baby so badly, why don’t you go and rent a woman’s belly? Don’t worry, soon homosexuals will be able to have a uterus implanted in them and then you can have a baby.”

Jair Bolsonaro (1955) Brazilian president elect

The Most Misogynistic, Hateful Elected Official in the Democacratic World: Brazil's Jair Bolsonaro https://theintercept.com/2014/12/11/misogynistic-hateful-elected-official-democacratic-world-brazils-jair-bolsonaro/. The Intercept (11 December 2014).

Britney Spears photo

“The only person I do worry about, that I want to be a good person for, I think is my responsibility, is my sister. I'm going to be cool for you, okay. I like, I need to, I like being by myself right now. I think it's good for me.”

Britney Spears (1981) American singer, dancer and actress

Diane Sawyer interview http://sixtyminutes.ninemsn.com.au/sixtyminutes/stories/2003_11_23/story_1024.asp, 60 Minutes (23 November 2003)

Shaun Ellis photo

“When things go wrong and will not come right”

The Third Policeman (1967)

Griff Furst photo

“The interesting part about making these films is that it’s half directing, and half really being a leader, because you have such little time to shoot such a big concept. It’s really like a war against time, and your crew is your platoon. You’re going as hard and as fast as you can to try to get everything on screen.”

Griff Furst (1981) American actor, director and musician

'Ghost Shark' director Griff Furst is ready to ride 'Sharknado' Twitter wave http://www.nola.com/tv/index.ssf/2013/08/ghost_shark_director_griff_fur.html (August 20, 2013)

Kent Hovind photo

“Eight simple steps of what I think caused the Flood and explain all these strange phenomena on the planet. Then we'll go into a little bit more detail and then we'll close this down.
1. Noah and the animals got safely in the ark.
2. A 300 degree below zero ice meteor came flying toward the earth and broke up in space. As it was breaking up, some of the fragments got caught and became the rings around the planets. They made the craters on the Moon, the craters on some of the planets, and what was left over came down and splattered on top of the North and South pole.
3. This super cold snow fell on the poles mostly, burying the mammoths, standing up.
4. The dump of ice on the North and South pole cracked the crust of the earth releasing the fountains of the deep. The spreading ice caused the Ice Age effects. The glacier effects that we see. It buried the mammoths. It made the earth wobble around for a few thousand years. And it made the canopy collapse, which used to protect the earth. And it broke open the fountains of the deep.
5. During the first few months of the flood, the dead animals would settle out, and dead plants, and all get buried. They would become coal, if they were plants, and oil if they're animals. And those are still found today in huge graveyards. Fossils found in graveyards. Oil found in big pockets under the ground.
6. During the last few months of the flood, the unstable plates of the earth would shift around. Some places lifted up; other places sank down. That's going to form ocean basins and mountain ranges. And the runoff would cause incredible erosion like the Grand Canyon in a couple of weeks.
7. Over the next few hundred years, the ice caps would slowly melt back retreating to their current size. The added water from the ice melt would raise the ocean level creating what's called a continental shelf. It would also absorb carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere which allows for radiation to get in which is going to shorten people's life spans. And in the days of Peleg, it finally took affect.
8. The earth still today shows the effects of this devastating flood.”

Kent Hovind (1953) American young Earth creationist

Creation seminars (2003-2005), The Hovind theory

Prem Rawat photo
Donald J. Trump photo
George W. Bush photo

“My plan reduces the national debt, and fast. So fast, in fact, that economists worry that we're going to run out of debt to retire.”

George W. Bush (1946) 43rd President of the United States

Presidential Radio Address (24 February 2001) http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2001/02/24/national/main274334.shtml
2000s, 2001

Derren Brown photo
Margaret Thatcher photo

“The tight thoughts and the loose face will go over the whole world.”

Quoted by Henry Wotton in a letter to John Milton, 13 April 1638, as published in Logan Pearsall Smith, The life and letters of Sir Henry Wotton http://books.google.com/books?id=OrY4AAAAIAAJ&pg=PA381 (1907), Vol. 2, p. 381
Translation: ""Your thoughts close, and your countenance loose..."" attributed to Wotton in Vol. 1, p. 22 http://books.google.com/books?id=vbU4AAAAIAAJ&pg=PA22

Ellen DeGeneres photo
Susie Bright photo

“When AIDS was at its most brutal, frightening, my-God-what-are-we-going-to-do era, that was when vampire stories and stories about blood and trust swept the literary world.”

Susie Bright (1958) American writer and feminist

" Bright Ideas http://www.bostonphoenix.com/boston/news_features/qa/multi_1/documents/04461778.asp", interview by Tamara Wieder, Boston Phoenix, February 11, 2005.

Anatoliy Tymoshchuk photo
Jonathan Swift photo

“I know Sir John will go, though he was sure it would rain cats and dogs.”

Jonathan Swift (1667–1745) Anglo-Irish satirist, essayist, and poet

Polite Conversation (1738), Dialogue 2

Will Rogers photo
Richard Feynman photo
David Fincher photo
Svetlana Alexievich photo
Lesslie Newbigin photo
Joseph Priestley photo
M.I.A. photo
Charles Krauthammer photo

“Obama was quite serious when he said he was going to change the world. And now he has a national crisis, a personal mandate, a pliant Congress, a desperate public -- and, at his disposal, the greatest pot of money in galactic history.”

Charles Krauthammer (1950–2018) American journalist

Column, December 12, 2008, "A democratic Iraq within reach" http://www.jewishworldreview.com/cols/krauthammer121208.php3 at jewishworldreview.com.
2000s, 2008

G. K. Chesterton photo
Glenn Beck photo

“Glenn Beck: But I was standing on the stage with Freedom Works on Friday in a show that we’re going to air tonight at 8:00 on TheBlaze and I was giving a speech and it struck me about halfway through, the similarities of what is being done right now to the beginning of our country— we are repeating, and we're at the very beginning of it, but we're repeating all of the steps that it took for use to be free in— around the time of the Declaration of Independence, don't you think?
David Barton: I agree. And I look—
Glenn Beck: It's starting to happen.”

Glenn Beck (1964) U.S. talk radio and television host

2012-11-05
Will Christians show up this time? Glenn interviews David Barton
http://www.glennbeck.com/2012/11/05/will-christians-show-up-this-time-glenn-interviews-david-barton/
The Glenn Beck Program
Radio, quoted in * 2012-11-05
Beck & Barton Say Romney Will Win Because 'We are Repeating all of the Steps' the Founders Took to Create This Nation
Kyle
Mantyla
RightWingWatch
http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/beck-barton-say-romney-will-win-because-we-are-repeating-all-steps-founders-took-create-nati
2012-11-07
2010s, 2012

Bert McCracken photo

“I'm going to give you a nice, romantic kiss on the lips.”

Bert McCracken (1982) American musician

Statement made to the audience before diving into the crowd at a concert, reported in Thomas Lake (February 21, 2005) "It may look like chaos, but it's music to their ears The Taste of Chaos concert draws a lively crowd and continues today", The Florida Times-Union, p. B-1.

“You can, after all, produce an orgasm yourself if that's what you want, so we must go to bed for something more.”

Merle Shain (1935–1989) Canadian writer

Some Men are More Perfect Than Others (1973)

Tom Baker photo
Han Han photo
Siddharth Katragadda photo
Janeane Garofalo photo
David Berg photo
Leo Tolstoy photo

“We cannot pretend that we do not see the armed policeman who marches up and down beneath our window to guarantee our security while we eat our luxurious dinner, or look at the new piece at the theater, or that we are unaware of the existence of the soldiers who will make their appearance with guns and cartridges directly our property is attacked.
We know very well that we are only allowed to go on eating our dinner, to finish seeing the new play, or to enjoy to the end the ball, the Christmas fete, the promenade, the races or, the hunt, thanks to the policeman's revolver or the soldier's rifle, which will shoot down the famished outcast who has been robbed of his share, and who looks round the corner with covetous eyes at our pleasures, ready to interrupt them instantly, were not policeman and soldier there prepared to run up at our first call for help.
And therefore just as a brigand caught in broad daylight in the act cannot persuade us that he did not lift his knife in order to rob his victim of his purse, and had no thought of killing him, we too, it would seem, cannot persuade ourselves or others that the soldiers and policemen around us are not to guard us, but only for defense against foreign foes, and to regulate traffic and fetes and reviews; we cannot persuade ourselves and others that we do not know that the men do not like dying of hunger, bereft of the right to gain their subsistence from the earth on which they live; that they do not like working underground, in the water, or in the stifling heat, for ten to fourteen hours a day, at night in factories to manufacture objects for our pleasure. One would imagine it impossible to deny what is so obvious. Yet it is denied.”

Leo Tolstoy (1828–1910) Russian writer

Source: The Kingdom of God is Within You (1894), Chapter 12

William Empson photo

“p>It is this deep blankness is the real thing strange.
The more things happen to you the more you can't
Tell or remember even what they were.The contradictions cover such a range.
The talk would talk and go so far aslant.
You don't want madhouse and the whole thing there.”

William Empson (1906–1984) English literary critic and poet

"Let It Go" (1949), line 1; cited from John Haffenden (ed.) The Complete Poems (London: Allen Lane, 2000) p. 99.
The Complete Poems

Mitt Romney photo

“So we started a new business called Bain Capital. The only problem was, while WE believed in ourselves, nobody else did. We were young and had never done this before and we almost didn't get off the ground. In those days, sometimes I wondered if I had made a really big mistake. I had thought about asking my church's pension fund to invest, but I didn't. I figured it was bad enough that I might lose my investors' money, but I didn't want to go to hell too. Shows what I know. Another of my partners got the Episcopal Church pension fund to invest. Today there are a lot of happy retired priests who should thank him. That business we started with 10 people has now grown into a great American success story. Some of the companies we helped start are names you know. An office supply company called Staples – where I'm pleased to see the Obama campaign has been shopping; The Sports Authority, which became a favorite of my sons. We started an early childhood learning center called Bright Horizons that First Lady Michelle Obama rightly praised. At a time when nobody thought we'd ever see a new steel mill built in America, we took a chance and built one in a corn field in Indiana. Today Steel Dynamics is one of the largest steel producers in the United States.”

Mitt Romney (1947) American businessman and politician

2012-08-31
http://www.npr.org/2012/08/30/160357612/transcript-mitt-romneys-acceptance-speech
Transcript: Mitt Romney's Acceptance Speech
NPR
[2012-08-30, gopconvention2012, Mitt Romney: Introduction (video), YouTube, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J_cGyPwt5UI]
2012

“Jake Holman knew he was a strange bird and he was used to going aboard new ships.”

Source: The Sand Pebbles (1962), Ch. 1
Context: Jake Holman knew he was a strange bird and he was used to going aboard new ships. By the time they realized they were in a struggle Jake Holman would already have made for himself the place he wanted on their ship and they could never dislodge him. Or wish to.

Robert J. Shiller photo
Hillary Clinton photo

“I have been consistent and committed to comprehensive immigration reform with a path to citizenship. I think our best chance was in 2007, when Ted Kennedy led the charge on comprehensive immigration reform. We have Republican support. We had a president willing to sign it. I voted for that bill. Senator Sanders voted against it. Just think, imagine where we would be today is we had achieved comprehensive immigration reform nine years ago. Imagine how much more secure families would be in our country, no longer fearing the deportation of a loved one; no longer fearing that they would be found out. … In 2006, when Senator Sanders was running for the Senate from Vermont, he voted in the House with hard-line Republicans for indefinite detention for undocumented immigrants, and then he sided with those Republicans to stand with vigilantes known as Minute Men who were taking up outposts along the border to hunt down immigrants. So I think when you were running for the Senate, you made it clear by your vote, Senator, that you were going to stand with the Republicans. When you got to the Senate in 2007, one of the first things you did was vote against Ted Kennedy’s immigration reform which he’d been working on for years before you ever arrived.”

Hillary Clinton (1947) American politician, senator, Secretary of State, First Lady

Presidential campaign (April 12, 2015 – 2016), Democratic Presidential Debate in Miami (March 9, 2016)

Zakir Hussain (musician) photo
Samuel Butler photo
Tom McCarthy (writer) photo
Richard Henry Lee photo

“The military forces of a free country may be considered under three general descriptions — 1. The militia. 2. the navy — and 3. the regular troops — and the whole ought ever to be, and understood to be, in strict subordination to the civil authority; and that regular troops, and select corps, ought not to be kept up without evident necessity. Stipulations in the constitution to this effect, are perhaps, too general to be of much service, except merely to impress on the minds of the people and soldiery, that the military ought ever to be subject to the civil authority, &c. But particular attention, and many more definite stipulations, are highly necessary to render the military safe, and yet useful in a free government; and in a federal republic, where the people meet in distinct assemblies, many stipulations are necessary to keep a part from transgressing, which would be unnecessary checks against the whole met in one legislature, in one entire government. — A militia, when properly formed, are in fact the people themselves, and render regular troops in a great measure unnecessary. The powers to form and arm the militia, to appoint their officers, and to command their services, are very important; nor ought they in a confederated republic to be lodged, solely, in any one member of the government. First, the constitution ought to secure a genuine and guard against a select militia, by providing that the militia shall always be kept well organized, armed, and disciplined, and include, according to the past and general usuage of the states, all men capable of bearing arms; and that all regulations tending to render this general militia useless and defenceless, by establishing select corps of militia, or distinct bodies of military men, not having permanent interests and attachments in the community to be avoided. I am persuaded, I need not multiply words to convince you of the value and solidity of this principle, as it respects general liberty, and the duration of a free and mild government: having this principle well fixed by the constitution, then the federal head may prescribe a general uniform plan, on which the respective states shall form and train the militia, appoint their officers and solely manage them, except when called into the service of the union, and when called into that service, they may be commanded and governed by the union. This arrangement combines energy and safety in it; it places the sword in the hands of the solid interest of the community, and not in the hands of men destitute of property, of principle, or of attachment to the society and government, who often form the select corps of peace or ordinary establishments: by it, the militia are the people, immediately under the management of the state governments, but on a uniform federal plan, and called into the service, command, and government of the union, when necessary for the common defence and general tranquility. But, say gentlemen, the general militia are for the most part employed at home in their private concerns, cannot well be called out, or be depended upon; that we must have a select militia; that is, as I understand it, particular corps or bodies of young men, and of men who have but little to do at home, particularly armed and disciplined in some measure, at the public expence, and always ready to take the field. These corps, not much unlike regular troops, will ever produce an inattention to the general militia; and the consequence has ever been, and always must be, that the substantial men, having families and property, will generally be without arms, without knowing the use of them, and defenceless; whereas, to preserve liberty, it is essential that the whole body of the people always possess arms, and be taught alike, especially when young, how to use them; nor does it follow from this, that all promiscuously must go into actual service on every occasion. The mind that aims at a select militia, must be influenced by a truly anti-republican principle; and when we see many men disposed to practice upon it, whenever they can prevail, no wonder true republicans are for carefully guarding against it. As a farther check, it may be proper to add, that the militia of any state shall not remain in the service of the union, beyond a given period, without the express consent of the state legislature.”

Richard Henry Lee (1732–1794) American statesman

Additional Letters From The Federal Farmer, 169 (1788)

Prem Rawat photo
Donald J. Trump photo