Month: May 2018

My country, right or wrong,” is a thing that no patriot would think of saying except in a desperate case. It is like saying, “My mother, drunk or sober. – G.K. Chesterton On this day, when we’re celebrating our constitutional heritage, I urge you to be faithful to that heritage – to impose on our fellow citizens only the restrictions that are there in the Constitution, not invent new ones, not to invent the right because it’s a good idea. – Justice Antonin Scalia

If it be asked, What is the most sacred duty and the greatest source of our security in a Republic? The answer would be, An inviolable respect for the Constitution and Laws — the first growing out of the last…. A sacred respect for the constitutional law is the vital principle, the sustaining energy of a free government. – Alexander Hamilton, Essay in the American Daily Advertiser, Aug 28, 1794 The greatest patriotism is to tell your country when it is behaving dishonorably, foolishly, viciously. – Julian Barnes

Every person seems to acknowledge his greatness. He blends together the profound politician with the scholar. – William Pierce, on James Madison, 1787 Although in the circle of his friends, where he might be unreserved with safety, he took a free share in conversation his colloquial talents were not above mediocrity, possessing neither copiousness of ideas, nor fluency of words. In public, when called on for a sudden opinion, he was unready, short and embarrassed. – Thomas Jefferson, on Thomas Jefferson in a letter to Dr. Walter Jones, January 2, 1814

Society doesn’t have values. People have values. – Milton Friedman If mankind were to resolve to agree in no institution of government, until every part of it had been adjusted to the most exact standard of perfection, society would soon become a general scene of anarchy, and the world a desert. – Alexander Hamilton, Federalist No. 65, March 7, 1788