| Quotations - General |
[Quote No.38327] Need Area: Friends > General
"One hundred years ago, Abraham Lincoln stood on a battlefield and spoke of a 'government of the people, by the people, for the people.' Too often since then, we have become a nation of the Government, by the Government, for the Government." - Richard Nixon
Member of US Republican Party and 37th US President. Quote from his 1971 Annual Message to the Congress on the State of the Union.
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[Quote No.38328] Need Area: Friends > General
"I realize that what I am asking is that not only the executive branch in Washington but that even this Congress will have to change by giving up some of its power... Giving up power is hard. But I would urge all of you, as leaders of this country, to remember that the truly revered leaders in world history are those who gave power to people, and not those who took it away." - Richard Nixon
Member of US Republican Party and 37th US President. Quote from his 1971 Annual Message to the Congress on the State of the Union.
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[Quote No.38329] Need Area: Friends > General
"...as we wage a campaign to bring about a widely shared prosperity, we must not reignite the fires of inflation and so undermine that prosperity." - Richard Nixon
Member of US Republican Party and 37th US President. Quote from his 1971 Annual Message to the Congress on the State of the Union.
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[Quote No.38344] Need Area: Friends > General
"If we don't discipline ourselves, the world will do it for us." - William Feather
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[Quote No.38348] Need Area: Friends > General
"Man can sharpen his ability to distinguish between matters of principle and matters of preference!" - Neal A. Maxwell
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[Quote No.38383] Need Area: Friends > General
"It takes all sorts to make a 'world'." - Seymour@imagi-natives.com
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[Quote No.38386] Need Area: Friends > General
"Different things are right for different people, places, events and needs ...just like the old sayings, 'Horses for courses' and 'menus for venues'." - Seymour@imagi-natives.com
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[Quote No.38397] Need Area: Friends > General
"The world is a dangerous place to live; not because of the people who are evil, but because of the people who don't do anything about it." - Albert Einstein
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[Quote No.38403] Need Area: Friends > General
"The more laws and restrictions there are, the poorer the people become [especially in freedom, self-respect and earned satisfaction]." - Lao Tzu
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[Quote No.38405] Need Area: Friends > General
"No one is rich enough to do without a neighbor." - Danish Proverb
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[Quote No.38423] Need Area: Friends > General
"When great changes occur in history, when great principles are involved, as a rule the majority are wrong." - Eugene V. Debs
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[Quote No.38433] Need Area: Friends > General
"Liberty consists in [reasoned and self-imposed] wholesome restraint." - Daniel Webster
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[Quote No.38439] Need Area: Friends > General
"Calamity is man's true touchstone!" - Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher
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[Quote No.38442] Need Area: Friends > General
"I do not hold that we should rearm in order to fight. I hold that we should rearm in order to parley." - Winston Churchill
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[Quote No.38461] Need Area: Friends > General
"Everybody forgets the basic thing; people are not going to love you unless you love them." - Pat Carroll
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[Quote No.38464] Need Area: Friends > General
"Freedom to differ is not limited to things that do not matter much. That would be a mere shadow of freedom. The test of its substance is the right to differ as to things that touch the heart of the existing order." - Robert H. Jackson
(1892 - 1954), US Supreme Court Judge
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[Quote No.38466] Need Area: Friends > General
"It is not the function of the government to keep the citizen from falling into error; it is the function of the citizen to keep the government from falling into error." - Robert H. Jackson
(1892 - 1954), US Supreme Court Judge
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[Quote No.38467] Need Area: Friends > General
"The very purpose of a Bill of Rights was to withdraw certain subjects from the vicissitudes of political controversy, to place them beyond the reach of majorities and officials, and to establish them as legal principles to be applied by the courts." - Robert H. Jackson
(1892 - 1954), US Supreme Court Judge
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[Quote No.38468] Need Area: Friends > General
"While the Declaration [of Independence] was directed against an excess of authority, the Constitution was directed against anarchy." - Robert H. Jackson
(1892 - 1954), US Supreme Court Judge
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[Quote No.38470] Need Area: Friends > General
"Our finger prints dont fade from the lives we touch." - Judy Blume
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[Quote No.38472] Need Area: Friends > General
"Trying to help an oppressed person is like trying to put your arm around somebody with a sunburn." - Florynce Kennedy
(1916 - 2000)
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[Quote No.38474] Need Area: Friends > General
"The carping and bickering of political factions in the nation's capital reminds me of two pelicans quarreling over a dead fish." - William Tecumseh Sherman
(1820 - 1891), American Union Army General, businessman, educator and author.
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[Quote No.38475] Need Area: Friends > General
"There is many a boy here who looks on war as all glory, but, boys, it is all hell. You can bear this warning voice to generations to come." - William Tecumseh Sherman
(1820 - 1891), American Union Army General, businessman, educator and author.
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[Quote No.38476] Need Area: Friends > General
"War is cruelty. There's no use trying to reform it, the crueler it is the sooner it will be over." - William Tecumseh Sherman
(1820 - 1891), American Union Army General, businessman, educator and author.
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[Quote No.38477] Need Area: Friends > General
"[Regarding political office:] If nominated, I will not accept; if drafted, I will not run; if elected, I will not serve." - William Tecumseh Sherman
(1820 - 1891), American Union Army General, businessman, educator and author.
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[Quote No.38478] Need Area: Friends > General
"I think I understand what military fame is; to be killed on the field of battle and have your name misspelled in the newspapers." - William Tecumseh Sherman
(1820 - 1891), American Union Army General, businessman, educator and author.
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[Quote No.38479] Need Area: Friends > General
"The scenes on this [battle]field would have cured anybody of war." - William Tecumseh Sherman
(1820 - 1891), American Union Army General, businessman, educator and author.
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[Quote No.38483] Need Area: Friends > General
"When we [in the world] are in partnership and have stopped clutching each other's throats, when we have stopped enslaving each other, we will stand together, hands clasped, and be friends. We will be comrades, we will be brothers, and we will begin the march to the grandest civilization the human race has ever known." - Eugene V. Debs
(1855 - 1926)
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[Quote No.38485] Need Area: Friends > General
"People never lie so much as after a hunt, during a war, or before an election." - Otto von Bismarck
(1815 - 1898)
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[Quote No.38486] Need Area: Friends > General
"I am terrified of restrictive religious doctrine, having learned from history that when men who adhere to any form of it are in control, common men like me are in peril." - James A. Michener
(1907 - 1997)
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[Quote No.38490] Need Area: Friends > General
"Civil liberties are a great heritage for Americans. They are not rights that the government gives to the people, they are the rights that the people carved out for themselves when they created the government." - Edward Bennett Williams
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[Quote No.38491] Need Area: Friends > General
"Freedom to order our own conduct in the sphere where material circumstances force a choice upon us, and responsibility for the arrangement of our own life according to our conscience, is the air in which alone moral sense grows and in which moral values are daily re-created in the free decision of the individual." - Friedrich A. Hayek
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[Quote No.38492] Need Area: Friends > General
"The only freedom which counts is the freedom to do what some other people think to be wrong. There is no point in demanding freedom to do that which all will applaud. All the so-called liberties or rights are things which have to be asserted against others who claim that if such things are to be allowed their own rights are infringed or their own liberties threatened. This is always true, even when we speak of the freedom to worship, of the right of free speech or association, or of public assembly. If we are to allow freedoms at all there will constantly be complaints that either the liberty itself or the way in which it is exercised is being abused, and, if it is a genuine freedom, these complaints will often be justified. There is no way of having a free society in which there is not abuse. Abuse is the very hallmark of liberty." - Lord Hailsham
'The Dilemma of Democracy', 1978.
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[Quote No.38493] Need Area: Friends > General
"It is well known that Peace has been (to borrow a modern phraze) the order of the day with me, since the disturbances in Europe first commenced. My policy has been, and wil continue to be, while I have the honor to remain in the administration of government, to be upon friendly terms with, but independent of, all nations of the earth. To share in the broils of none. To fulfil our own engagements. To supply the wants, and be carriers for them all: being thoroughly convinced that it is our policy and interest to do so; and that nothing short of self respect, and that justice which is essential to a national character, ought ot involve us in War..." - George Washington
Letter to Gouverneur Morris, December 22, 1795.
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[Quote No.38494] Need Area: Friends > General
"The loss of liberty, to a generous mind, is worse than death. And yet we know that there have been those in all ages who for the sake of preferment, or some imaginary honor, have freely lent a helping hand to oppress, nay to destroy, their country.... This is what every man who values freedom ought to consider. He should act by judgment and not by affection or self-interest; for where those prevail, no ties of either country or kindred are regarded; as upon the other hand, the man who loves his country prefers its liberty to all other considerations, well knowing that without liberty life is a misery...." - Andrew Hamilton
The Trial of John Peter Zenger, 1735.
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[Quote No.38495] Need Area: Friends > General
"Avoid the necessity of those overgrown military establishments which, under any form of government, are inauspicious to liberty..." - George Washington
Farewell Address, September 26, 1796.
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[Quote No.38496] Need Area: Friends > General
"Above this race of men stands an immense and tutelary power [big government], which takes upon itself alone to secure their gratifications, and to watch over their fate. That power is absolute, minute, regular, provident, and mild. It would be like the authority of a parent, if, like that authority, its object was to prepare men for manhood; but it seeks, on the contrary, to keep them in perpetual childhood: It is well content that the people should rejoice, provided they think of nothing but rejoicing." - Alexis de Tocqueville
Democracy in America, 1835.
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[Quote No.38498] Need Area: Friends > General
"Why quit our own to stand upon foreign ground? Why, by interweaving our destiny with that of any part of Europe [or any country], entangle our peace and prosperity in the toils of European ambition, rivalship, interest, humor, or caprice?" - George Washington
Farewell Address, September 17, 1796.
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[Quote No.38505] Need Area: Friends > General
"Never to wrong others takes one a long way towards peace of mind." - Seneca
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[Quote No.38509] Need Area: Friends > General
"Politics, as a practice, whatever its professions, has always been the systematic organization of hatreds." - Henry Brooks Adams
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[Quote No.38513] Need Area: Friends > General
"Allow the president to invade a neighboring nation, whenever he shall deem it necessary to repel an invasion, and you allow him to do so whenever he may choose to say he deems it necessary for such a purpose – and you allow him to make war at pleasure." - Abraham Lincoln
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[Quote No.38514] Need Area: Friends > General
"Commerce with all nations, alliance with none, should be our motto. Money, not morality, is the principle commerce of civilized nations. Peace, commerce and honest friendship with all nations; entangling alliances with none." - Thomas Jefferson
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[Quote No.38519] Need Area: Friends > General
"There are no necessary evils in government. Its evils exist only in its abuses." - Andrew Jackson
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[Quote No.38520] Need Area: Friends > General
"Necessity; the tyrant’s plea." - John Milton
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[Quote No.38521] Need Area: Friends > General
"Unlimited power is apt to corrupt the minds of those who possess it; and this I know, my lords: that where law ends, tyranny begins." - William Pitt
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[Quote No.38522] Need Area: Friends > General
"Whatever is begun in anger ends in shame.
" - Benjamin Franklin
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[Quote No.38523] Need Area: Friends > General
"Democracy: demos = people; kratos = power [rather than weapons power]." - Ancient Greek
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[Quote No.38524] Need Area: Friends > General
"Justice being taken away, then, what are kingdoms but great robberies? " - St Augustine
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[Quote No.38525] Need Area: Friends > General
"The true foundation of a just and happy life is the freedom to choose and succeed or fail by your own choices, rather than circumstances or connections." - Seymour@imagi-natives.com
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[Quote No.38528] Need Area: Friends > General
"[We hear many things about China's recent economic success and people talk about the virtue of 'state capitalism' or 'Capitalism with socialist overtones and characteristics'. Whether you believe in capitalism or socialism, what is clear is that people all around the world want opportunity to improve their lives and the lives of those they love. The political system under which this is attempted varies in different places and no system can change faster than the capacity of the society. The following article expresses these human desires for happiness, self-improvement, justice and equal opportunity based on merit rather than connections or circumstances even under Chinese Communist State Capitalism in 2012.]
'China: A Country Where No One is Secure -
When a population is deprived of opportunity, disappointment abounds and people from all classes suffer the consequences.'
What is the most common feeling in China today? I think many people would say disappointment. This feeling comes from the insufficient improvement in their lives that people are achieving amid rapid economic growth. It also comes from the contrast between the degree to which individual social status is rising and the idea of the 'rise of a great and powerful nation.'
One phenomenon is a good example of such disappointment: A group of young college graduates 'escaping and returning' to Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou.
Their reasons for 'fleeing' are not difficult to imagine. Work pressure in these extremely large cities is high, competition is intense and the cost of living is high. So the young people chose to move to small and medium-sized cities to start their careers. The reason they returned to the big cities was that in many small and medium-sized cities ability, knowledge or even a diploma are not what open doors. Instead, what are required are networks of relationships. Family background also makes it difficult for young people from common families to better their lives, and they do not see a way out.
The disappointment of being unable to extricate oneself from difficulty is, of course, not restricted to college graduates. In opportunities for education, employment, promotions and overall improvement of their lives, people are discovering that society's resources and opportunities are increasingly concentrated in the hands of a few. People in the middle and lower strata of society are becoming increasingly marginalized and are finding that improving their lives is getting harder.
The 2004 China Social Mobility Report published by China Academy of Social Sciences said that people whose fathers have power or capital have an easier time becoming party cadres than people in general. Research into the changes in private businesses ownership after 1993 showed that the elite in non-business fields were more likely to own businesses today. Thus, opportunities for common people to start private businesses are fewer and fewer. It is exceedingly difficult for farmers moving to a city to find success. The registered permanent residence system and economic factors conspire to make this move very difficult.
A social trend has been captured by the phrase 'returning to the system,' which refers to resorting to traditional means of advancement. The number people signing up for the national civil service examination was 600,000 in 2007, 800,000 in 2008, 1.1 million in 2009, and 1.5 million in 2010, a clearly rising trend. 'Returning to the system' has become the main method for members of society to climb the social ladder.
Imbalances in social rights, the reduction of social mobility and the hardening of the social structure will inevitably lead to the rich getting richer and the poor poorer, the strong permanently strong and the weak permanently weak.
The stagnation of social mobility will inevitably bring about a series of consequences. The biggest harm may not be in the gap between rich and poor itself, but the deterioration of the overall societal ecosystem and the fall of civilization. The social ecosystem is similar to the natural ecosystem. 'Running water doesn't stink' is an old Chinese saying that indicates that a pool of standing water will become putrid. The deterioration of the social ecosystem resulting from stagnating opportunity is evident, and the picture is not pretty.
The lowest rung becomes a jungle. The unending series of malignant incidents in recent years – slave labor at kilns, migrant workers going unpaid, stabbing incidents at schools, the trafficking of children so they can work as crippled beggars, violent demolitions and relocations, a dozen attempted suicides at Foxconn, food safety crises caused by counterfeiting and profit-seeking – are all indicators of the deterioration of the bottom layer of the social ecosystem.
The reason that the bottom stratum is becoming a jungle is that a lack of opportunity is causing them to have only vague hope of obtaining social resources and moving up. In a society lacking opportunities for survival, development and expression, those in the lower strata can only win at the expense of their morality. The process is often full of injustices, devoid of faith, and even violent and cruel.
The logic of the strong mistreating the weak and the weak mistreating the weaker is thus born.
The middle class is also feeling pressure. In the context of special interest groups monopolizing high-quality resources, the formation of a middle class is difficult, making a relatively rational social structure hard to achieve. Movement from the middle class to the upper class is also difficult. Lack of employment opportunities, rare pay increases, high rents and homes prices, and expenses for marriage, birth and children's education bring members of the middle class more and more pressure. They are physically and mentally fatigued, and their social status is difficult to maintain and can even be on the decline.
Meanwhile, the elite are moving overseas. The elite stratus, despite its overwhelming preponderance of resources, has a huge sense of insecurity because of the overall deterioration of the social ecosystem. Members of this class either move abroad themselves or transfer their property overseas. This only shows that in a deteriorating social ecosystem, no one is secure or confident.
The lack of opportunity has caused social mobility to stagnate, and the universal feeling of bright prospects and enthusiastic spirits from the early days of reform and opening-up no longer exist. The stagnation of the reform process also inevitably causes society as a whole to lose its vitality. In addition to the chaos brought by the deterioration of the social ecosystem, the social mentality becomes deformed: people are both fascinated with and in fear of power.
The deterioration of the social ecosystem comes from the growing corruption of uncontrolled power. In the study of the process of China's transformation to a market economy, we have faced the fundamental issue of how to regard the costs and benefits of reform. Questions arise, such as: Where does the motivation for reform come from? Who benefits the most from reform? Who bears the heaviest cost? Talk of the 'labor pains' of reform and the unavoidable 'costs' of reform has already lost its persuasiveness because the same people are always bearing the costs and the same people are always receiving the benefits.
The current high-pressure stability maintenance has become one cause of social stagnation. The current thinking on stability maintenance is predicated on a suppression of legitimate interests. When, in the name of maintaining social stability, migrant workers are not allowed to organize and seek to recover wages in arrears, and those who have had their homes demolished are not allowed to negotiate for proper compensation, stability maintenance has become a tool to safeguard the interests of lawless companies and contractors that are refusing to pay wages and the developers robbing those whose homes they are demolishing. A vicious cycle forms: The more stability is maintained, the more unstable society becomes.
Power is becoming too formidable and cruel. It is out of control, and without limits. It has kidnapped society and strangled reform. Facing this, finding a solution is a matter of vital importance. In a situation where special interest groups have choked off the possibility of various types of progress, building a just society and enacting reform is difficult. Moreover, there is not a ready-made civil society waiting to settle into the void.
We need to realize several things. The impetus for reform comes from society, not from authority, and reform within the system is produced under the force of social strength. Fair and just rules are formed by interaction between various forces. Civil society is produced by the participation of citizens. Extrication from stagnation and the restoration of social vitality can only come from the start of civil consciousness and civil action. Only by empowering society and enlightening citizens can the strength to reform be developed." - Guo Yuhua
Professor of Sociology at Tsinghua University, People's Republic of China. Quoted from the English language version of the Chinese website Caixin from 17th January, 2012. [http://english.caixin.com/2012-01-17/100349432_all.html ]
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