Remnant

"In every declining civilization there is a small 'remnant' of people who adhere to the right against the wrong; who recognize the difference between good and evil and who will take an active stand for the former and against the latter; who can still think and discern and who will courageously take a stand against the political, social, moral, and spiritual rot or decay of their day."
--Donald S. McAlvaney
Source: "Toward a New World Order", 360 (2nd ed. 1992)

Flexible

"Stay committed in your decisions, but stay flexible in your approach."
--Tony Robbins

Suppression

"Suppression of expression conceals the real problems confronting a society and diverts public attention from the critical issues. It is likely to result in neglect of the grievances which are the actual basis of the unrest, and thus prevent their correction."
--Thomas I. Emerson

Movie II

"We are all of us doomed to spend our lives watching a movie of our lives--we are always acting on what has just finished happening."
--Tom Wolfe,
"The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test"

Strain

"I have spoken hitherto of the possibility that democracy may be a self-limiting disease, like measles. It is, perhaps, something more: it is self-devouring. One cannot observe it objectively without being impressed by its curious distrust of itself--its apparently ineradicable tendency to abandon its whole philosophy at the first sign of strain. I need not point to what happens invariably in democratic states when the national safety is menaced. All the great tribunes of democracy, on such occasions, convert themselves, by a process as simple as taking a deep breath, into despots of an almost fabulous ferocity."
--H.L. Mencken,
"Notes on Democracy" (1926)

Training III

 "It can be very dangerous to see things from somebody else's point of view without the proper training."
--Douglas Adams,
"Mostly Harmless"

Really

 "I never thought it was such a bad little tree. It's not bad at all, really. Maybe it just needs a little love."
--Linus Van Pelt,
"A Charlie Brown Christmas"

Distance II

"It is easy to be brave from a safe distance."
--Aesop
(620 - 564 B.C.)

Questions V

Sign: Questions are a burden to others; answers a prison for oneself.

"The Prisoner", Episode 1, "Arrival"

Literate

"{President] Kayibanda's government [in Rwanda] continued the persecution against the Tutsis and began to make use of the media it controlled to launch a propaganda campaign against us. In a country where more than half the people cannot read or write and very few have televisions, radio is the dominant media. The fact that some newspapers were still printing the truth didn't matter much to the part of the population that couldn't read.

Most of the literate people were already politically aware. While an educated person might question what they read or hear from the media, the uneducated tend to accept it. The uneducated are more easily affected by threats and the emotional trauma that propaganda like this can create."

--John Rucyahana,
"The Bishop of Rwanda: Finding Forgiveness Amidst a Pile of Bones"

Heritage II

"No other theory is adequate to explain or comprehend the Declaration of Independence. It is the product of the spiritual insight of the people. We live in an age of science and of abounding accumulation of material things. These did not create our Declaration. Our Declaration created them. The things of the spirit come first. Unless we cling to that, all our material prosperity, overwhelming though it may appear, will turn to a barren sceptre in our grasp. If we are to maintain the great heritage which has been bequeathed to us, we must be like-minded as the fathers who created it. We must not sink into a pagan materialism. We must cultivate the reverence which they had for the things that are holy. We must follow the spiritual and moral leadership which they showed. We must keep replenished, that they may glow with a more compelling flame, the altar fires before which they worshiped."
--Calvin Coolidge
(1872-1933) 30th US President

Requisite II

"If freedom is a requisite for human happiness, then all that’s necessary is to provide the illusion of freedom."
--B.F. Skinner

Doctrine II

"The first major president to be elected after the War of 1812 was President Monroe Doctrine, who became famous by developing the policy for which he is named. This policy, which is still in effect today, states that:

1. Other nations are not allowed to mess around with the internal affairs of nations in this hemisphere.

2. But we are.

3. Ha-ha-ha."

--Dave Barry,
"Dave Barry Slept Here: A Sort of History of the United States" (1989)

Ruthless

"All human plans [are] subject to ruthless revision by Nature, or Fate, or whatever one preferred to call the powers behind the Universe."
--Arthur C. Clarke,
"2010: Odyssey Two"

Commotion

"But there is only one thing which gathers people into seditious commotion, and that is oppression."
--John Locke,
"A Letter Concerning Toleration" (1689)

Cartesian

"CARTESIAN, adj. Relating to Descartes, a famous philosopher, author of the celebrated dictum, Cogito ergo sum -- whereby he was pleased to suppose he demonstrated the reality of human existence. The dictum might be improved, however, thus: Cogito cogito ergo cogito sum -- 'I think that I think, therefore I think that I am;' as close an approach to certainty as any philosopher has yet made."
--Ambrose Bierce,
"The Cynic's Dictionary" (1906); republished as "The Devil's Dictionary" (1911).

Unsustainable

"The only reason for a government service is precisely to provide financial support for an operation that is otherwise unsustainable, or else there would be no point in the government’s involvement at all."
--Lew Rockwell
[Llewellyn H. Rockwell, Jr.]
Chairman of the Ludwig von Mises Institute

Voice III

"No one had ever told me that whites were supposed to sing one kind of music and blacks another - I sang what I liked in the only voice I had."
--Charley Pride,
March 18, 1934 - December 12, 2020
"Pride: The Charley Pride Story" by Charley Pride and Jim Henderson (1934)

Easier V

 "It is easier for the world to accept a simple lie than a complex truth."
--Alexis de Tocqueville

Buckling

"This rolling in the dust this buckling to power, whether wrapped up in an individual or a party, I have long since abandoned. I strike out boldly, as if born in a desert and looking for civilization."
--P. B. S. Pinchback

Reality V

 "Reality leaves a lot to the imagination."
--John Lennon
(October 9, 1940 - December 8, 1980)

Four III

"Tonight I'm going to shower and then just walk for about four hours and look at the moon."
--Rafer Johnson
(August 18, 1934 - December 2, 2020)

Rules IV

"Rules are made for people who aren’t willing to make up their own."
--Chuck Yeager
(February 13, 1923 - December 7, 2020)

Popular

 "The modern mind is never popular in its own day. People hate being made to think."
--Edith Hamilton

Divided II

"The world was simply and sheerly divided into 'the aware', those who had the experience of being vessels of the divine, and a great mass of 'the unaware', 'the unmusical', 'the unattuned."
--Tom Wolfe,
"The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test"

Bucket

"Our government has found that the most effective way to control a person is not by the ballot or the bullet, but rather by the 'bucket'. Today, in a country that fought a revolution to rid itself of a repressive government and excessive taxes, government takes 40 percent of everything we earn in the form of taxes."
--Byron C. Radaker

Sorrow

 "I wish to weep but sorrow is stupid. I wish to believe but belief is a graveyard."
--Charles Bukowski,
"What Matters Most Is How Well You Walk Through the Fire"

Power V

"You only have power over people so long as you don’t take everything away from them. But when you’ve robbed a man of everything he’s no longer in your power--he’s free again."
--Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn,
"The First Circle" (1968)

Demons

"Demons run when a good man goes to war
Night will fall and drown the sun
When a good man goes to war

Friendship dies and true love lies
Night will fall and the dark will rise
When a good man goes to war

Demons run, but count the cost
The battle's won, but the child is lost"

--Steven Moffat

Favored

"One reason I never patent my products is that if I did it would take so much time, I would get nothing else done. But mainly I don't want my discoveries to benefit specific favored persons."
--George Washington Carver