Quote-a-palooza
"Somewhere in our growing up we began to be aware of the meaning of days and with that awareness came the birth of patriotism. July Fourth is the birthday of our nation. I believed as a boy, and believe even more today, that it is the birthday of the greatest nation on earth... In recent years, however, I've come to think of that day as more than just the birthday of a nation. It also commemorates the only true philosophical revolution in all history. Oh, there have been revolutions before and since ours. But those revolutions simply exchanged one set of rules for another. Ours was a revolution that changed the very concept of government. Let the Fourth of July always be a reminder that here in this land, for the first time, it was decided that man is born with certain God-given rights; that government is only a convenience created and managed by the people, with no powers of its own except those voluntarily granted to it by the people. We sometimes forget that great truth, and we never should. Happy Fourth of July." - Ronald Reagan
"In its main features the Declaration of Independence is a spiritual document. It is a declaration not of material but spiritual conceptions. Equality, liberty, popular sovereignty, the rights of man- these are not elements which we can see and touch. They are ideals. They have their source and their roots in religious convictions. They belong to the unseen world. Unless the faith of the American people in these religious convictions is to endure, the principles of our Declaration will perish. We cannot continue to enjoy the result if we neglect and abandon the cause. If all men are created equal, that is final. If they are endowed with inalienable rights, that is final. If governments derive their just power from the consent of the governed, that is final. No advance, no progress can be made beyond these propositions. If anyone wishes to deny their truth and their soundness, the only direction in which he can proceed historically is not forward, but backward toward the time when there was no equality, no rights of the individual, no rule of the people. Those who wish to proceed in that direction cannot lay claim to progress." - Calvin Coolidge
"[W]hen push comes to shove- when we have to make real-life decisions and not theoretical ones- we know that at least in America, the dominant Judeo-Christian values and the religions that adhere to them have generally made better people. This does not mean that all religious Jews and Christians in America have been, or are today, good people, and it certainly does not mean that all irreligious people are bad. It means simply that if our lives were hanging in the balance, we would be inexpressively happy to know that 10 men we did not know, walking toward us in a bad neighborhood, had just come out of a Bible class. But that is no small thing. And nothing has ever replaced that book and the American religious expressions based on it to make good people in the same numbers that it has." - Dennis Prager
"America became an economic power despite, not because of, Hamiltonian intervention. Hong Kong and much of East Asia went from abject poverty to affluence in a few decades not because their governments gave people ‘tools they need to compete' - they didn't- but because they exercised limited powers. I wish... Hamiltonian conservatives understood that freedom and prosperity have nothing to do with bureaucrats managing society through schooling and tax manipulation. Prosperity comes from leaving people free in a legal system that respects their persons and property so they can pursue their dreams while taking responsibility for their actions. Free people find their own tools if the state leaves them alone. In the era of big government, the last thing we need are champions of the statist Hamilton. What we need now are champions of the libertarian Jefferson, who said in a very un-Hamiltonian way: ‘I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too much liberty than to those attending too small a degree of it'."- John Stossel
"I've never understood all the nonsense about how we should be sympathetic toward illegals who came here to work and find a better life. We don't extend such sympathy to other people who routinely break the law. We aren't sympathetic, for instance, toward people who break into banks or hold up grocery stores in order to support their families and get a fresh start in life. We don't get teary-eyed about folks who engage in insider trading or bribery in order to send their kids to college and enjoy the American dream. We feel sorry for these lawbreakers, and than clap them into prison. I'm an immigrant myself, and I'm pro-immigration, but that means legal immigration. America can afford to take in a decent number of immigrants every year. We need workers in certain fields, and should admit those kinds of workers."- Dinesh D'Souza