"To
acquire the habit of reading is to construct for yourself a
refuge from
almost all of the miseries of life."
W. Somerset Maugham
"Wherever
they burn books they will also, in the end, burn human beings. "
Heinrich Heine, Almansor, 1823
"To
the man who is afraid everything rustles."
Sophocles, Fragment
58, Acrisius, 5th Century, B.C.
"The
contest, for ages, has been to rescue Liberty from the grasp of executive
power."
Daniel Webster, Speech in U.S. Senate, May 27, 1834
"If
a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization,
it expects what never was and never will be."
Thomas Jefferson,
Letter to Col. Charles Yancey, January 6, 1816
"Although
volume upon volume is written to prove slavery a very good thing,
we never hear of the man who wishes to take the good of it, by being
a slave himself."
Abraham Lincoln, Notes, July 1, 1854
"Progress,
far from consisting in change, depends on retentiveness.
Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it."
George Santayana, The Life of Reason, 1905
"The
first casualty when war comes is truth."
Hiram Warren Johnson,
Speech, US Senate, 1917
"Each
day provides its own gifts."
Martial, Epigrams, 86 A.D.
"A
sword never kills anybody; it's a tool in the killer's hand."
Seneca
(the Younger), Letters to Lucilius, circa 63-65 A.D.
"You
have not converted a man because you have silenced him."
John Morley,
Rousseau, 1876
"The
face of tyranny is always mild at first."
Racine, Britannicus,
1669
"We
must indeed all hang together, or most assuredly, we shall all hang
separately."
Benjamin Franklin, Remark on signing the Declaration
of Independence, July 4, 1776.
"Necessity
is the plea for every infringement of human freedom.
It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves."
William
Pitt the Younger, Speech, House of Commons. November 18, 1783.
"In
this world nothing is certain but death and taxes."
Benjamin Franklin,
Letter to M Leroy, 1789
"They
that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety
deserve neither liberty nor safety." Benjamin Franklin, Historical
Review of Pennsylvania, 1759
"We
are drowning in information but starved for knowledge."
John Naisbitt
"I
have often reflected upon the new vistas that reading opened to me.
I knew right there in prison that reading had changed forever the course
of my life. As I see it today, the ability to read awoke in me
some long dormant craving to be mentally alive."
Malcolm X
"My
mother and my father were illiterate immigrants from Russia. When
I was a child they were constantly amazed that I could go to a building
and take a book on any subject. They couldn't believe this access to
knowledge we have here in America. They couldn't believe that it was
free."
Kirk Douglas
"When
I get a little money I buy books; and if any is left I buy food and
clothes."
Erasmus
"We
read to know we are not alone."
C. S. Lewis
"If
you get up one more time than you fall, you will make it through."
Chinese Proverb
"We
have not inherited the earth from our ancestors, we have only borrowed it from our children."
Ancient Proverb
"We
shouldn't teach great books; we should teach a love of reading."
B. F. Skinner
"Let
me never fall into the vulgar mistake of dreaming that I am persecuted
whenever I am contradicted."
Ralph Waldo Emerson, Journals,
1838
