I used to do Civil War re-enacting between the ages of 15 and 19. I was part of a unit that was considered very authentic. We would source the right wools, the right buttons for the costumes. We had the right look.
Well, Italy had been overrun by the War, there had practically been civil war, north and south of the Gothic Line, heavy bombing, the northern industrial cities had been bombed heavily and we had political disorder before 1948.
I used to think that the Civil War was our country's greatest tragedy, but I do remember that there were some redeeming features in the Civil War in that there was some spirit of sacrifice and heroism displayed on both sides. I see no redeeming featu...
But my point is these Civil War songs were gruesome. The hatred that's so bad in this country today, and for the past 10 or 15 years, bad as it is, is nothing compared to the kind of things people would write down and sing back in the Civil War.
This young century will be liberty's century.
There can be no liberty without the law.
Liberty has restraints but no frontiers.
In monarchies, each man's desire to do what was right in his own eyes could be restrained by beer, or force, by patronage, or by honor, and by professional standing armies. By contrast, republics had to hold themselves together from the bottom up, ul...
The grandest ambition that any man can possibly have, is to so live, and so improve himself in heart and brain, as to be worthy of the love of some splendid woman; and the grandest ambition of any girl is to make herself worthy of the love and adorat...
Call me infidel, call me atheist, call me what you will, I intend so to treat my children, that they can come to my grave and truthfully say: 'He who sleeps here never gave us a moment of pain. From his lips, now dust, never came to us an unkind word...
The mechanic, when a wheel refuses to turn, never thinks of dropping on his knees and asking the assistance of some divine power. He knows there is a reason. He knows that something is too large or too small; that there is something wrong with his ma...
When I think of how much this world has suffered; when I think of how long our fathers were slaves, of how they cringed and crawled at the foot of the throne, and in the dust of the altar, of how they abased themselves, of how abjectly they stood in ...
And the bummer thing is, ghosts never leave. They might leave you alone sometimes, but they're always there deep down, whispering lies in your ear. They echo the lies others told you: That you're not smart enough; that you're not pretty; that you'll ...
Liberty is not about class war, income war, race war, national war, a war between the sexes, or any other conflict apart from the core conflict between individuals and those who would seek power and control over the human spirit. Liberty is the dream...
[Doniphon has just faced down Valance in the diner] Tom Doniphon: Well, now; I wonder what scared 'em off? Dutton Peabody: [poking fun at Stoddard for his idealism] You know what scared 'em - the spectacle of law and order here, risin' up out of the ...
Dutton Peabody: [protesting his nomination to the statehood convention] Good people of Shinbone; I, I'm your conscience, I'm the small voice that thunders in the night, I'm your watchdog who howls against the wolves, I, I'm your father confessor! I -...
As government expands, liberty contracts.
Liberty is security. Freedom is security.
Is not liberty the destruction of all despotism - including, of course, legal despotism?
All government, of course, is against liberty.
In the emerging world of ethnic conflict and civilizational clash, Western belief in the universality of Western culture suffers three problems: it is false; it is immoral; and it is dangerous.
