Lost

"The principles of a free constitution are irrevocably lost
when the legislative power is dominated by the executive."
--Edward Gibbon
(1737-1794) English historian and Member of Parliament
1776

Alright

" ... imagine a puddle waking up one morning and thinking, 'This is an interesting world I find myself in - an interesting hole I find myself in - fits me rather neatly, doesn't it? In fact it fits me staggeringly well, must have been made to have me in it!' This is such a powerful idea that as the sun rises in the sky and the air heats up and as, gradually, the puddle gets smaller and smaller, it's still frantically hanging on to the notion that everything's going to be alright, because this world was meant to have him in it, was built to have him in it; so the moment he disappears catches him rather by surprise. "
--Douglas Adams

Grief

"Grief is the agony of an instant. The indulgence of grief the blunder of a life."
--Benjamin Disraeli (1804-1881) English Statesman,
Author, Prime Minister (1868, 1874-80)

Alone II

"In this distribution of powers the wisdom of our constitution is manifested. It is the province and duty of the Executive to preserve to the Nation the blessings of peace. The Legislature alone can interrupt those blessings, by placing the Nation in a state of War."
--Alexander Hamilton (1757-1804)
Source: Pacificus #1, June 29, 1793.

Pressure

"All over the place, from the popular culture to the propaganda system, there is constant pressure to make people feel that they are helpless, that the only role they can have is to ratify decisions and to consume."
--Noam Chomsky, US educator and linguist

Biggest

"The biggest lie in choosing is, 'I can't.' That is simply not true. We can do anything we want If we don't do something, it is because we have committed our time, energy and resources somewhere else."
--John-Roger and Peter McWilliams (Do It! Let's Get Off our Buts)

Beware

"Beware of those who would use violence,
too often it is violence they want
and neither truth nor freedom."
--Louis Lamour
(1908-1988) American author
Source: The Walking Drum, 1984

Liberty X

"Is the relinquishment of the trial by jury and the liberty of the press necessary for your liberty? Will the abandonment of your most sacred rights tend to the security of your liberty? Liberty, the greatest of all earthly blessings - give us that precious jewel, and you may take every things else! Guard with jealous attention the public liberty. Suspect every one who approaches that jewel."
--Patrick Henry
(Speech to the Virginia Convention, 5 June 1788)

Underlying

"The right to be let alone is the underlying
principle of the Constitution's Bill of Rights."
--Erwin N. Griswold (1904-1994)
Solicitor General of the United States (1967-1973),
Dean of Harvard Law School (1946-1967),
member of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights,
President of the American Bar Foundation (1971-1974)

Fifteen

"It will take America fifteen years of steady taking care of our own business and letting everybody else's alone, to get us back to where everybody speaks to us again."
--Will Rogers (1879-1935) American humorist

Shepherd II

"The shepherd drives the wolf from the sheep's throat, for which the sheep thanks the shepherd as his liberator, while the wolf denounces him for the same act as the destroyer of liberty."
--Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865)
16th US President

Merciless

'Men fear thought as they fear nothing else on earth, more than ruin, more even than death. Thought is subversive and revolutionary, destructive and terrible, thought is merciless to privilege, established institutions, and comfortable habit. Thought looks into the pit of hell and is not afraid. Thought is great and swift and free, the light of the world, and the chief glory of man."
--Bertrand Russell

Passed

"For good or evil, a line has been passed in our political history; and something that we have known all our lives is dead. I will take only one example of it: our politicians can no longer be caricatured."
--Gilbert Keith Chesterton (1874-1936)
British essayist, critic, poet, and novelist
Source: Illustrated London News, 1923

Reasonable II

"Nothing is ever accomplished by a reasonable man."
--George Bernard Shaw

Any

"Any dictator would admire the uniformity and obedience of the U.S. media."
--Noam Chomsky, US educator and linguist

Extraneous

"In the midst of these pleasing ideas we should be unfaithful to ourselves if we should ever lose sight of the danger to our liberties if anything partial or extraneous should infect the purity of our free, fair, virtuous, and independent elections."
--John Adams, Inaugural Address, 1797

Masquerading

"Politicians need human misery. ... Government’s a disease masquerading as its own cure."
--L. Neil Smith American writer
Source: The Probability Broach, 129 (Tor 1980).

Easy II

"It is easy to get a thousand prescriptions but hard to get one single remedy." 
--Chinese Proverb

Hypnotists

"We begin life with the world presenting itself to us as it is. Someone - our parents, teachers, analysts - hypnotizes us to "see" the world and construe it in the "right" way. These others label the world, attach names and give voices to the beings and events in it, so that thereafter, we cannot read the world in any other language or hear it saying other things to us. The task is to break the hypnotic spell, so that we become undeaf, unblind and multilingual, thereby letting the world speak to us in new voices and write all its possible meanings in the new book of our existence. Be careful in your choice of hypnotists."

--Sidney Jourard

Odd

"I think there's something odd about eating another living anything."
--Shania Twain

Seen

"The evils of tyranny are rarely seen but by him who resists it."
--John Hay (1838-1905)
American statesman, diplomat, author, journalist,
and private secretary and assistant to Abraham Lincoln
1872

Dentist

"Is my dentist not bound by the Geneva Convention?"
--Gerhard Kocher

Meek

"The meek shall inherit the earth,
but not its mineral rights."
-- J. Paul Getty
Oil magnate, billionaire

Which II

"Which of these brave young men dying in the rice paddies of Vietnam might have written a symphony? Which of them might have written a beautiful poem or might have cured cancer? Which of them might have taught a small child to read? It is our responsibility to let those men live."
--Robert F. Kennedy (November 20, 1925 - June 6, 1968)
Sacramento, California, 1968

Ray Bradbury, RIP, August 22, 1920 - June 5, 2012

“You must write every single day of your life... You must lurk in libraries and climb the stacks like ladders to sniff books like perfumes and wear books like hats upon your crazy heads... may you be in love every day for the next 20,000 days. And out of that love, remake a world.”
“I still love books. Nothing a computer can do can compare to a book. You can't really put a book on the Internet. Three companies have offered to put books by me on the Net, and I said, 'If you can make something that has a nice jacket, nice paper with that nice smell, then we'll talk.' All the computer can give you is a manuscript. People don't want to read manuscripts. They want to read books. Books smell good. They look good. You can press it to your bosom. You can carry it in your pocket.”

“I don't believe in colleges and universities. I believe in libraries because most students don't have any money. When I graduated from high school, it was during the Depression and we had no money. I couldn't go to college, so I went to the library three days a week for 10 years.”

“Insanity is relative. It depends on who has who locked in what cage. ”

“The minute you get a religion you stop thinking. Believe in one thing too much and you have no room for new ideas. ”

Artist

"The form of government that is most suitable to the artist is no government at all. ... One might point out how the Renaissance was great, because it sought to solve no social problem, and busied itself not about such things, but suffered the individual to develop freely, beautifully, and naturally, and so had great and individual artists, and great, individual men. One might point out how Louis XIV, by creating the modern state, destroyed the individualism of the artist ..."
-- Oscar Wilde (1854-1900)

Source: "The Soul of Man Under Socialism", in Oscar Wilde's Plays, Writings and Poems (J.M. Dent, 1930), pp. 281 and 283

Tyrants II

"The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress."
--Frederick Douglass [Frederick Baily] (1818-1895),
escaped slave, Abolitionist, author, editor of the North Star
and later the New National Era
Source: 1857

Separation II

"When there is no more separation between 'this' and 'that,' it is called the still-point of the Tao. At the still point in the center of the circle one can see the infinite in all things."
--Chuang Tzu

"Unlikely"

"Fear is the foundation of most governments; but it is so sordid and brutal a passion, and renders men in whose breasts it predominates so stupid and miserable, that Americans will not be likely to approve of any political institution which is founded on it."
--John Adams (1735-1826) Founding Father, 2nd US President
Source: Thoughts on Government, 1776

Such

"Are we at last brought to such humiliating and debasing degradation, that we cannot be trusted with arms for our defense?"
--Patrick Henry (1736-1799)