Quote of the Day

"Each State, in ratifying the Constitution, is considered as a sovereign body, independent of all others, and only to be bound by its own voluntary act. In this relation, then, the new Constitution will, if established, be a FEDERAL, and not a NATIONAL constitution."

-- James Madison (Federalist No. 39, 1788)

Quote of the Day

We're not prepared to deal with it.

-- Michael McConnell, director of national intelligence, asked during a Senate hearing if the United States is fully equipped to handle cyberwarfare

Quote of the Day

"All of us who were engaged in the struggle must have observed frequent instances of superintending providence in our favor. To that kind providence we owe this happy opportunity of consulting in peace on the means of establishing our future national felicity. And have we now forgotten that powerful friend? Or do we imagine that we no longer need his assistance? I have lived, Sir, a long time, and the longer I live, the more convincing proofs I see of this truth-that God governs in the affairs of men. And if a sparrow cannot fall to the Ground without his Notice, is it probable that an Empire can rise without his Aid?"

-- Benjamin Franklin (To Colleagues at the Constitutional
Convention)

Quote of the Day

Quote of the Day

"It is the duty of every good citizen to use all the opportunities which occur to him, for preserving documents relating to the history of our country."

-- Thomas Jefferson (letter to Hugh P. Taylor, 4 October 1823)

Quote of the Day

"Like all politics, all terrorism is local."

-- Chet Lunner

Quote of the Day

"The prosperity of commerce is now perceived and
acknowledged by all enlightened statesmen to be
the most useful as well as the most productive
source of national wealth, and has accordingly
become a primary object of its political cares."

-- Alexander Hamilton (Federalist No. 12, 27 November 1787)

Quote of the Day

"In such a performance you may lay the foundation of national happiness only in religion, not by leaving it doubtful "whether morals can exist without it," but by asserting that without religion morals are the effects of causes as purely physical as pleasant breezes and fruitful seasons."

-- Benjamin Rush (letter to John Adams, 20 August 1811)

Quote of the Day...

We're really beginning a period where, from now until the end of 2009, the federal government is a ghost town.

-- Paul Light, a professor at New York University, on the increasingly slow rate of confirmation of President Bush's appointees.

Quote of the Day...

"It should be your care, therefore, and mine, to elevate the minds of our children and exalt their courage; to accelerate and animate their industry and activity; to excite in them an habitual contempt of meanness, abhorrence of injustice and inhumanity, and an ambition to excel in every capacity, faculty, and virtue. If we suffer their minds to grovel and creep in infancy, they will
grovel all their lives."

-- John Adams (Dissertation on the Canon and Feudal Law, 1756)

Quote of the Day...

"We lay it down as a fundamental, that laws, to be just, must give a reciprocation of right; that, without this, they are mere arbitrary rules of conduct, founded in force, and not in
conscience."




-- Thomas Jefferson (Notes on the state of Virginia, 1782)

Quote of the Day...

"How many observe Christ's birth-day! How few, his precepts!
O! 'tis easier to keep Holidays than Commandments."

-- Benjamin Franklin (Poor Richards Almanack, 1743)