Madshistory1776 > Madshistory1776's Quotes

“Society will develop a new kind of servitude which covers the surface of society with a network of complicated rules, through which the most original minds and the most energetic characters cannot penetrate. It does not tyrannise but it compresses, enervates, extinguishes, and stupefies a people, till each nation is reduced to nothing better than a flock of timid and industrious animals, of which the government is the shepherd.”
― Alexis de Tocqueville

“The loneliest people are the kindest. The saddest people smile the brightest. The most damaged people are the wisest. All because they don't wish to see anyone else suffer the way they did.”
― Jellal Fernandes

“A single dream is more powerful than a thousand realities.”
― Nathaniel Hawthorne, Fanshawe

“Easy reading is damn hard writing.”
― Nathaniel Hawthorne

“We dream in our waking moments, and walk in our sleep.”
― Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter

“People cry, not because they're weak. Its because they've been strong for too long.”
― Mirajane Strauss

“Tears are how our heart speaks when your lips cannot describe how much we've been hurt.”
― Jellal Fernandes

“Friendship ... is born at the moment when one man says to another "What! You too? I thought that no one but myself . . .”
― C.S. Lewis, The Four Loves

“You can never get a cup of tea large enough or a book long enough to suit me.”
― C.S. Lewis

“To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything and your heart will be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact you must give it to no one, not even an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements. Lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket, safe, dark, motionless, airless, it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. To love is to be vulnerable.”
― C.S. Lewis, The Four Loves

“Some day you will be old enough to start reading fairy tales again.”
― C.S. Lewis

“I believe in Christianity as I believe that the sun has risen: not only because I see it, but because by it I see everything else.”
― C.S. Lewis

“The Christian does not think God will love us because we are good, but that God will make us good because He loves us.”
― C.S. Lewis

“Eating and reading are two pleasures that combine admirably.”
― C.S. Lewis

“No book is really worth reading at the age of ten which is not equally – and often far more – worth reading at the age of fifty and beyond.”
― C.S. Lewis

“There are far, far better things ahead than any we leave behind.”
― C.S. Lewis

“You've gotta dance like there's nobody watching,
Love like you'll never be hurt,
Sing like there's nobody listening,
And live like it's heaven on earth.”
― William W. Purkey

“Be the smile of God to your children.”
― Joe Rigney, The Things of Earth: Treasuring God by Enjoying His Gifts

“While we often recognize the need to learn how to face hunger and need, we aren't always aware that we need similar help to face wealth and abundance. It's not easy to face affluence every day without committing idolatry or succumbing to ingratitude. In fact, church history is filled with stories of sincere believers facing lowness, hunger, need, suffering, persecution, hardship, and death with Christ-honoring joy and faithfulness. But the stories of Christian fidelity in the midst of overwhelming abundance, provision, plenty, and wealth are fewer and farther between. This is why Jesus says that it is hard for the rich to enter the kingdom of heaven (Matt. 19:23). One of the chief challenges for Christians in the West is to learn to face our unprecedented abundance with the strength supplied by Christ and not by the wealth.”
― Joe Rigney, The Things of Earth: Treasuring God by Enjoying His Gifts

“I do not know if the people of the United States would vote for superior men if they ran for office, but there can be no doubt that such men do not run.”
― Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America

“When the taste for physical gratifications among them has grown more rapidly than their education . . . the time will come when men are carried away and lose all self-restraint . . . . It is not necessary to do violence to such a people in order to strip them of the rights they enjoy; they themselves willingly loosen their hold. . . . they neglect their chief business which is to remain their own masters.”
― Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America: Volume 2

“There are approximately 1,010,300 words in the English language, but I could never string enough words together to properly express how much I want to hit you with a chair." (Alexander Hamilton, to Thomas Jefferson)”
― Alexander Hamilton

“Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men.”
― Lord Acton

“When you perceive a truth, look for the balancing truth.”
― Lord Acton

“Liberty is not the power of doing what we like, but the right of being able to do what we ought.”
― John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton

“Learn as much by writing as by reading.”
― Lord Acton

“You mustn’t wish for another life. You mustn’t want to be somebody else. What you must do is this:
“Rejoice evermore.
Pray without ceasing.
In everything give thanks.”
I am not all the way capable of so much, but those are the right instructions.”
― Wendell Berry, Hannah Coulter

“What we want is not more little books about Christianity, but more little books by Christians on other subjects—with their Christianity latent.”
― C.S. Lewis, God in the Dock