"Both optimists and pessimists contribute to the society. The optimist invents the aeroplane, the pessimist the parachute."
George Bernard Shaw
When asked why he was referred to as 'Ace': "Because during World War Two, I was responsible for the destruction of six aircraft, fortunately three were enemy."
Captain Ray Lancaster, USAAF
"Never mistake knowledge for wisdom. One helps you make a living; the other helps you make a life."
Sandra Carey
"I am enough of an artist to draw freely upon my imagination. Imagination is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited. Imagination encircles the world."
Albert Einstein
"The only difference between the women I've dated and Charles Manson is that Manson has the decency to look like a nut case when you first meet him."
Richard Jeni
"This year, the federal government will put taxpayers on the hook for $2.9 trillion, absconding with approximately a fifth of the total United States economy - an amount that is larger than the economy of any nation except Japan. This massive tally adds up to one thing: a corresponding loss of freedom for average (taxpayers)."
Rep. Virginia Foxx
"Suppose that we let a regular army, fully equal to the resources of the country, be formed; and let it be entirely at the devotion of the federal: still it would not be going too far to say that the State governments with the people at their side would be able to repel the danger...half a million citizens with arms in their hands"
James Madison
The Federalist Papers
"A people armed and free forms a barrier against the enterprises of ambition and is a bulwark for the nation against foreign invasion and domestic oppression."
James Madison
"If the representatives of the people betray their constituents, there is no recourse left but in the exertion of that original right of self-defense which is paramount to all positive forms of government."
Alexander Hamilton
Federalist #28
"...but if circumstances should at any time oblige the government to form an army of any magnitude, that army can never be formidable to the liberties of the people, while there is a large body of citizens, little if at all inferior to them in discipline and use of arms, who stand ready to defend their rights..."
Alexander Hamilton
Federalist #29
"A free people ought not only to be armed and disciplined, but they should have sufficient arms and ammunition to maintain a status of independence from any who might attempt to abuse them, which would include their own government."
George Washington
"To preserve liberty it is essential that the whole body of the people always possess arms, and be taught alike, especially when young, how to use them..."
Richard Henry Lee
"It is, in fact, nothing short of a miracle that the modern methods of instruction have not yet entirely strangled the holy curiosity of inquiry; for this delicate little plant, aside from stimulation, stands mainly in need of freedom; without this it goes to wreck and ruin without fail. It is a very grave mistake to think that the enjoyment of seeing and searching can be promoted by means of coercion and a sense of duty."
Albert Einstein
"It's the misfortune of all countries, that they sometimes lie under a unhappy necessity to defend themselves by arms against the ambition of their Governors, and to fight for what's their own. If those in government are heedless of reason, the people must patiently submit to bondage, or stand upon their own defense; which if they are enabled to do, they shall never be put upon it, but their swords may grow rusty in their hands; for that nation is surest to live in peace, that is most capable of making war; and a man that hath a sword by his side, shall have least occasion to make use of it."
John Trenchard
(1662-1723)
"Whoever is careless with the truth in small matters cannot be trusted with important matters."
Albert Einstein
"The supposed quietude of a good man allures the ruffian; while on the other hand, arms like laws, discourage and keep the invader and the plunderer in awe, and preserve order in the world as well as property. The same balance would be preserved were all the world destitute of arms, for all would be alike; but since some will not, others dare not lay them aside... Horrid mischief would ensue were one half the world deprived of the use of them..."
Thomas Paine
(1737-1809)
"How we burned in the prison camps later thinking: What would things have been like if every police operative, when he went out at night to make an arrest, had been uncertain whether he would return alive? If during periods of mass arrests people had not simply sat there in their lairs, paling with terror at every bang of the downstairs door and at every step on the staircase, but had understood they had nothing to lose and had boldly set up in the downstairs hall an ambush of half a dozen people with axes, hammers, pokers, or whatever was at hand? The organs would very quickly have suffered a shortage of officers and, notwithstanding all of Stalin's thirst, the cursed machine would have ground to a halt."
Alexander Solzhenitsyn
(1918-2008)
"A system of licensing and registration is the perfect device to deny gun ownership to the bourgeoisie."
Vladimir Ilyich Lenin
(1870-1924)
"The most foolish mistake we could possibly make would be to permit the conquered Eastern peoples to have arms. History teaches that all conquerors who have allowed their subject races to carry arms have prepared their own downfall by doing so."
Adolf Hitler
(1889-1945)
"Banning guns is an idea whose time has come."
U.S. Senator Joe Biden