Would Be Quotes - Page 31

• The tyranny of the many would be when one body takes over the rights of others, and then exercises its power to change the laws in its favor.

  Voltaire

  Exercise, Rights, Law

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• Its taken 14 billion years for matter to gain the capacity to become conscious of itself. If this is true, it wouldn't make any sense that the whole point of enlightenment would be to escape from the whole process at the very instant that the universe is beginning to awaken to itself.

  Andrew Cohen

  Life, Taken, Years

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• If I swung the gavel the way I swung that golf club, the nation would be in a helluva mess.

  Tip O'Neill

  Golf, Clubs, Way

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• Without religion this world would be something not fit to be mentioned in polite company, I mean Hell.

  John Adams

  Religious, Mean, World

  John Adams, Charles Francis Adams (1856). “The Works of John Adams, Second President of the United States: With a Life of the Author, Notes and Illustrations”, p.254

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• How different the new order would be if we could consult the veteran instead of the politician.

  Henry Miller

  Order, Politics, Different

  Henry Miller (1941). “The Wisdom of the Heart”, p.123, New Directions Publishing

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• I wanted to die; I wanted to surrender because I saw no sense in struggling. I felt that nothing would be proved, substantiated, added or subtracted by continuing an existence which I had not asked for.

  Henry Miller

  Crazy, Struggle, Mad

  Henry Miller (1966). “Tropic of Capricorn”

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• If we were made to watch a doctor pull off the little baby's legs and arms one by one and place them on the table like a dentist removing cotton from your mouth - if all Americans were made to see what it really is, the pro-life goal of abortion being unthinkable (not just illegal) would be much nearer.

  John Piper

  Baby, Doctors, Goal

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• The torments of hell abide for ever.... If all the earth and sea were sand, and every thousandth year a bird should come, and take away one grain of this sand, it would be a long time ere that vast heap of sand were emptied; yet, if after all that time the damned may come out of hell, there were some hope; but this word EVER breaks the heart.

  Thomas Watson

  Christian, Heart, Blessing

  Thomas Watson (1794). “A Body of Practical Divinity Consisting of Above One Hundred and Seventy-six Sermons on the Shorter Catechism Composed by the Reverend Assembly of Divines at Westminster: With a Supplement of Some Sermons on Several Texts of Scripture Together with the Art of Divine Contentment ; to which is Added, Christ's Various Fulness”, p.233

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• He who would be useful, strong, and happy must cease to be a passive receptacle for the negative, beggarly, and impure streams of thought.

  James Allen

  Strong, Negative, Self Talk

  James Allen (2007). “The Path to Prosperity”, p.56, Cosimo, Inc.

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• If God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent him; let us worship God through Jesus if we must - if ignorance has so far prevailed that this name can still be spoken in all seriousness without being taken as a synonym for rapine and carnage. Every sensible man, every honourable man, must hold the Christian sect in horror.

  Voltaire

  Christian, Jesus, Taken

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• It is absurd to think that anything in us could have the least influence upon our election. Some say that God did foresee that such persons would believe, and therefore did choose them; so they would make the business of salvation to depend upon something in us. Whereas God does not choose us FOR faith, but TO faith. "He hath chosen us, that we should be holy" (Eph. 1:4), not because we would be holy, but that we might be holy. We are elected to boldness, not for it.

  Thomas Watson

  Believe, Thinking, Doe

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• Changing a habit is hard work. But it's harder to find work that would be more fulfilling

  Voltaire

  Encouragement, Hard Work, Habit

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• What can you conceive more silly and extravagant than to suppose a man racking his brains, and studying night and day how to fly? ... wearying himself with climbing upon every ascent, ... bruising himself with continual falls, and at last breaking his neck? And all this, from an imagination that it would be glorious to have the eyes of people looking up at him, and mighty happy to eat, and drink, and sleep, at the top of the highest trees in the kingdom.

  William Law

  Silly, Fall, Sleep

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• A total population of 250-300 million people, a 95% decline from present levels, would be ideal.

  Ted Turner

  Nwo, Eugenics, People

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• It would be very singular that all nature, all the planets, should obey eternal laws, and that there should be a little animal five feet high, who, in contempt of these laws, could act as he pleased, solely according to his caprice.

  Voltaire

  Animal, Law, Feet

  Voltaire (2007). “The Complete Romances of Voltaire”, p.428, Wildside Press LLC

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• What is it that affectionate parents require of their Children; for all their care, anxiety, and toil on their accounts? Only that they would be wise and virtuous, Benevolent and kind.

  Abigail Adams

  Family, Wise, Children

  Abigail Adams, John P. Kaminski (2009). “The Quotable Abigail Adams”, p.90, Harvard University Press

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• It would be wonderful if ideas could be the new rock 'n roll

  Brian Cox

  Business, Rocks, Ideas

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• The real issue is not if a crossing is put in, but when. It would be negligent on the part of Union Pacific and the California Public Utilities Commission to not address the problem.

  Dean Smith

  Real, Issues, California

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• I wasn't saying that in a sense that I didn't plan on scoring any goals. This won't happen again. It would be nice if it did, but it's reality.

  John Madden

  Nice, Reality, Goal

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• I desire you would Remember the Ladies, and be more generous and favourable to them than your ancestors. Do not put such unlimited power into the hands of the Husbands. Remember all Men would be tyrants if they could... That your Sex are Naturally Tyrannical is a Truth so thoroughly established as to admit of no dispute, but such of you as wish to be happy willingly give up the harsh title of Master for the more tender and endearing one of Friend.

  Abigail Adams

  Sex, Husband, Giving Up

  "Familiar Letters of John Adams and his wife Abigail Adams" edited by Charles Francis Adams, (p. 147), 1875.

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• The paradox is that by the time you get to be senior, the decisions that matter the most are the ones that would be best made made by people who are junior.

  Seth

  Senior, People, Decision

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• I've long said that if I were about to be executed and were given a choice of my last meal, it would be bacon and eggs. There are few sights that appeal to me more than the streaks of lean and fat in a good side of bacon, or the lovely round of pinkish meat framed in delicate white fat that is Canadian bacon. Nothing is quite as intoxicating as the smell of bacon frying in the morning, save perhaps the smell of coffee brewing.

  James Beard

  Morning, Coffee, Food

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• Sometimes I get scared that I’m going to enter a web address into Twitter thinking it was my browser. That would be bad.

  John Mayer

  Thinking, Addresses, Scared

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• If a man were poor or hungry, [some] would say, let us pray for him. I would suggest a little different regimen for a person in this condition: rather take him a bag of flour and a little beef or pork, and a little sugar and butter. A few such comforts will do him more good than your prayers. And I would be ashamed to ask the Lord to do something that I would not do myself. Then go to work and help the poor yourselves first, and do all you can for them, and then call upon God to do the balance.

  John Taylor

  Prayer, Work, Men

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• It certainly seems too simple to say what I am going to say, yet it is almost as if you would be better off turning the entire rational approach upside down, taking it for granted that all of its assumptions were false, for they are indeed more false than true.

  Seth

  Simple, Upside Down, Assumption

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