Quotes From the Past

Sorry to have been MIA. Last week was, well let's not talk about last week.

Thought I'd give you a few quotes from a few people who contributed much to making America not a perfect nation, but surely a great one. What they said years ago counts for a lot with me, what about you? Maybe their words need to be carefully considered between now and election day. Do you want our country to maintain the spirit found in the hearts of these men? Let's pray that it will.

Note: It's especially important that we think about some of these in light of recent developments in the news.

Abraham Lincoln
"Property is the fruit of labor...property is desirable...is a positive good in the world. That some should be rich shows that others may become rich, and hence is just encouragement to industry and enterprise. Let not him who is houseless pull down the house of another; but let him labor diligently and build one for himself, thus by example assuring that his own shall be safe from violence when built."


Booker T. Washington
"Nothing ever comes to one, that is worth having, except as a result of hard work."


George Washington
"Let us with caution indulge the supposition that morality can be maintained without religion. Reason and experience both forbid us to expect that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle. "


Benjamin Franklin
"The longer I live the more convinced I become that God governs in the affairs of men. And have we now forgotten that powerful friend? Or do we imagine we no longer need His assistance. "


Thomas Jefferson
"My reading of history convinces me that most bad government results from too much government."

"Agriculture, manufactures, commerce, and navigation, the four pillars of our prosperity, are then most thriving when left most free to individual enterprise."


Martin Luther King, Jr.
"All labor that uplifts humanity has dignity and importance and should be undertaken with painstaking excellence."

"If a man is called to be a streetsweeper, he should sweep streets even as Michelangelo painted, or Beethoven composed music, or Shakespeare wrote poetry. He should sweep streets so well that all the hosts of heaven and earth will pause to say, here lived a great streetsweeper who did his job well."

James Madison
"The personal right to acquire property, which is a natural right, gives to property, when acquired, a right to protection, as a social right. "

"Americans have the right and advantage of being armed - unlike the citizens of other countries whose governments are afraid to trust the people with arms."

And finally,

Always vote for principle, though you may vote alone, and you may cherish the sweetest reflection that your vote is never lost.

John Quincy Adams
1767-1848, Sixth President of the USA