A fitting quote for Tax Day:

"If we run into such debts, as that we must be taxed in our meat and in our drink, in our necessaries and our comforts, in our labors and our amusements, for our callings and our creeds, as the people of England are, our people, like them, must come to labor sixteen hours in the twenty-four, give the earnings of fifteen of these to the government for their debts and daily expenses; and the sixteenth being insufficient to afford us bread, we must live, as they now do, on oatmeal and potatoes; have no time to think, no means of calling the mismanagers to account; but be glad to obtain subsistence by hiring ourselves to rivet their chains on the necks of our fellow-sufferers."

---Thomas Jefferson

When things seem grim, there's a great Churchill quote on the subject. This was written and broadcast to the desperate Britons in the middle of World War II, with London being pounded by German bombs every day and night and a very real possibility of the obliteration of his country threatened by the Nazis (who were certainly trying):

"These are not dark days; these are great days--the greatest days our country has ever lived; and we must all thank God that we have been allowed, each of us according to our stations, to play a part in making these days memorable in the history of our race."

---Winston Churchill

"Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate.

"Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us.

"We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented and fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be?

"You are the child of God. Your playing small doesn't serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are born to make manifest the Glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us, it's in everyone, and as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are enlightened from our fear, our presence automatically liberates others."

-- Marianne Williamson
from Return to Love
frequently attributed to
Nelson Mandella

"If all the good people were clever,
And all clever people were good,
The world would be nicer than ever
We thought that it possibly could.
But somehow, 'tis seldom or never
The two hit it off as they should;
The good are so harsh to the clever,
The clever so rude to the good!"

-- Elizabeth Wordsworth (1840-1932)

"We journalists make it a point to know very little about an extremely wide variety of topics; this is how we stay objective."

---Dave Barry

"A lie gets halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to get its pants on."

-- Winston Churchill

"If you are going through hell, keep going."

-- Winston Churchill

"You have enemies? Good. That means you've stood up for something, sometime in your life."

-- Winston Churchill

"The truth is incontrovertible, malice may attack it, ignorance may deride it, but in the end; there it is."

-- Winston Churchill

"In their various guises, courses on ethics at all educational levels have tended to promote moral relativism, undermining the very concept of right and wrong. In other words, many ethics courses are themselves frauds. Right and wrong are not rocket science."

-- Thomas Sowell

"When we no longer hold people responsible for their choices, civility and common sense will be diminished."

-- Robert A. Levy

"Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch. Liberty is a well-armed lamb contesting the vote."

-- Benjamin Franklin

"Success is going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm."

--Sir Winston Churchill

"Reading, reflection and time have convinced me that the interests of society require the observation of those moral precepts ... in which all religions agree."

--Thomas Jefferson

"The true measure of an individual is how he treats a person who can do him absolutely no good."

--Ann Landers

"There is no dignity quite so impressive, and no independence quite so important, as living within your means."

--Calvin Coolidge

"If we are forced, at every hour, to watch or listen to horrible events, this constant stream of ghastly impressions will deprive even the most delicate among us of all respect for humanity."

--Cicero

"Never explain. Your friends do not need it and your enemies will not believe it anyway."

--Elbert Hubbard

(Written in Iraq May 2003). It's interesting to watch how the people change their attitudes the longer we're in town. When we first got into the city, all the people were hiding. They were afraid for the most part and stayed out of our way. [Later,] Wherever we were, we were mobbed by kids, teenagers, as well as by the older generation. Once our presence is established, they love to come up to us. It is much like I would imagine towns in Europe were during the Second World War as people were liberated by the U.S. I'll tell you, no matter what the world says, the looks these people give us, the hope for the future that we bring with us is a testament to what we're doing. It transcends politics, or oil, or anything else. These people have been oppressed, some severely wronged and we're here to do a humane, good and honorable thing. So in short, we're making a difference for the people that matters. So anyone who opposes this thing, just tell them they can come on down, walk in my boots, see what I see, and if it doesn't change their minds then it will at least make them realize how lucky they are to live where they live and to have the very right to oppose that which allows them the freedoms they have."

-- written by a 1st Leutenant
with the 101st Airborne,
a graduate of the 2000
class of West Point