I have taken a vow of poverty. To annoy me send money.
Come away; poverty's catching. - Aphra Behn (1640 &endash; 1689)
..if the death of Christ on the cross is the true meaning of the Incarnation, then there is no gospel without the cross. Christmas by itself is no gospel. The life of Christ is no gospel. Even the resurrection, important as it is in the total scheme of things, is no gospel by itself. For the good news is not just that God became man, nor that God has spoken to reveal a proper way of life for us, or even that death, the great enemy, is conquered. Rather, the good news is that sin has been dealt with (of which the resurrection is a proof); that Jesus has suffered its penalty for us as our representative, so that we might never have to suffer it; and that therefore all who believe in him can look forward to heaven. ...Emulation of Christ s life and teaching is possible only to those who enter into a new relationship with God through faith in Jesus as their substitute. The resurrection is not merely a victory over death (though it is that) but a proof that the atonement was a satisfactory atonement in the sight of the Father (Rom 4:25); and that death, the result of sin, is abolished on that basis. Any gospel that talks merely of the Christ-event, meaning the Incarnation without the atonement, is a false gospel. Any gospel that talks about the love of God without pointing out that his love led him to pay the ultimate price for sin in the person of his Son on the cross is a false gospel. The only true gospel is of the one mediator (1 Tim. 2:5-6), who gave himself for us. Finally, just as there can be no gospel without the atonement as the reason for the Incarnation, so also there can be no Christian life without it. Without the atonement the Incarnation themeeasily becomes a kind of deification of the human and leads to arrogance and self advancement. With the atonement the true message of the life of Christ, and therefore also of the the life of the Christian man or woman, is humility and self sacrifice for the obvious needs of others. The Christian life is not indifference to those who are hungry or sick or suffering from some other lack. It is not contentment with our own abundance, neither the abundance of middle class living with home and cars and clothes and vacations, nor the abundance of education or even the spiritual abundance of good churches, Bibles, Bible teaching or Christian friends and acquaintances. Rather, it is the awareness that others lack these things and that we must therefore sacrifice many of our own interests in order to identify with them and thus bring them increasingly into the abundance we enjoy...We will live for Christ fully only when we are willing to be impoverished, if necessary, in order that others might be helped.--JAMES MONTGOMERY BOICE, Foundations of the Christian Faith
A greater poverty than that caused by money is the poverty of unawareness. Men and women go about the world unaware of the goodness, the beauty, the glories in it. Their souls are poor. It is better to have a poor pocketbook than to suffer from a poor soul. Thomas Dreier
The poor man wishes to conceal his poverty, and the rich man his wealth: the former fears lest he be despised, the latter lest he be plundered. - Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach
Give, Sympathise, Control - T S Eliot, The Wasteland
I used to think I was poor. Then they told me I wasn't poor, I was needy. Then they told me it was self-defeating to think of myself as needy. I was deprived. (Oh not deprived but rather underprivileged) Then they told me that underprivileged was overused. I was disadvantaged. I still don't have a dime. But I have a great vocabulary. Jules Feiffer
Neither great poverty nor great riches will hear reason. Henry Fielding
I am for doing good to the poor, but I differ in opinion of the means.I think the best way of doing good to the poor, is not making them easy in poverty, but leading or driving them out of it. In my youth I travelled much, and I observed in different countries, that the more public provisions were made for the poor the less they provided for themselves, and of course became poorer. And, on the contrary, the less was done for them, the more they did for themselves, and became richer. - Benjamin Franklin, in "The Encouragement of Idleness," 1766
The poor on the borderline of starvation live purposeful lives. To be engaged in a desperate struggle for food and shelter is to be wholly free from a sense of futility.--Eric Hoffer (1902-1983)_The True Believer_ [1951]
The inevitable consequence of poverty is dependence. Samuel Johnson: Dryden (Lives of the Poets)
Poverty will enforce dependence, and invite corruption; it will almost always produce a passive compliance with the wickedness of others; and there are few who do not learn by degrees to practise those crimes which they cease to censure.- Samuel Johnson: Rambler #57
What signifies, says some one, giving halfpence to beggars? they only lay it out in gin or tobacco. "And why should they be denied such sweeteners of their existence (says Johnson)? it is surely very savage to refuse them every possible avenue to pleasure, reckoned too coarse for our own acceptance. Life is a pill which none of us can bear to swallow without gilding; yet for the poor we delight in stripping it still barer, and are not ashamed to shew even visible displeasure, if ever the bitter taste is taken from their mouths." -- Hester Thrale Piozzi: Anecdotes of the Late Samuel Johnson
He that pines with hunger, is in little care how others shall be fed.The poor man is seldom studious to make his grandson rich. - Samuel Johnson: Journey to the Western Islands of Scotland
Empty pockets never held anyone back. Only empty heads and empty hearts can do that.
Norman Vincent Peale (1898-1993) Attributed.
You can't get rid of poverty by giving people money. P. J. O'Rourke
As society advances, the standard of poverty rises. - James Reston (1909 &endash; 1995)
Poverty is the only load which is the heavier the more loved ones there are to assist in bearing it. - Jean Paul Richter
And the mistake of the best men through generation after generation, has been that great one of thinking to help the poor by almsgiving, and by preaching of patience or of hope, and by every other means, emollient or consolatory, except the one thing which God orders for them, justice. --John Ruskin, "Unto This Last"
Poor and content is rich and rich enough. William Shakespeare. Othello. Act ii. Sc. 3.
Let us celebrate the poor,
Let us hawk them door to door.
There's market for their pain,
Votes and glory and money to gain.
Let us celebrate the Poor.
Their ills, their sins, their faulty diction,
Flavour our songs and spice our fiction
Their hopes and struggles and agonies,
Get us grants and consulting fees.
Thomas Sowell Poverty Pimp Poem.
The line between hunger and anger is a thin line.--John E. Steinbeck, "The Grapes of Wrath"
We think sometimes that poverty is only being hungry, naked and homeless. The poverty of being unwanted, unloved and uncared for is the greatest poverty. We must start in our own homes to remedy this kind of poverty. - Mother Teresa, 1910 - 1997
We still have to find some way of combining Christian charity with sensible social policy-- Margaret Thatcher, The Path to Power, Harper Collins,1995, p11
The more is given the less people will work for themselves, and the less they work the more their poverty will increase.
Leo Tolstoy,"Help for the Starving, Part II" January, 1892
Who, being loved, is poor?- Oscar Wilde (1854-1900)
Saturday, May 31, 2008
South Koreans protest against US beef
BBC says, "Tens of thousands of South Koreans have rallied against plans to import US beef again after a four-year suspension that followed a mad cow disease scare."
Let them eat dog, say I.
Let them eat dog, say I.
Friday, May 30, 2008
Film Meme
1. One movie that made you laugh
Johnny English
2. One movie that made you cry
The Dam Busters
3. One movie you loved when you were a child
Ben Hur
4. One movie you’ve seen more than once
Devil's Advocate
5. One movie you hated
Four Weddings and a Funeral
6. One movie that scared you
Bridge over the River Kwai - when a child
7. One movie that bored you
Lord of the Rings
8. One movie that made you happy
Chariots of Fire
9. One movie that made you miserable
Dr Zhivago
10. One movie you weren’t brave enough to see
Borat
11. One movie character you’ve fallen in love with
Maria in West Side Story
12. A movie that surprised you
The Queen
13. The last movie you saw
Schindler's List - I put it puff for years
14. The next movie you hope to see
Ring of Fire
15. Now tag five people:
.
Johnny English
2. One movie that made you cry
The Dam Busters
3. One movie you loved when you were a child
Ben Hur
4. One movie you’ve seen more than once
Devil's Advocate
5. One movie you hated
Four Weddings and a Funeral
6. One movie that scared you
Bridge over the River Kwai - when a child
7. One movie that bored you
Lord of the Rings
8. One movie that made you happy
Chariots of Fire
9. One movie that made you miserable
Dr Zhivago
10. One movie you weren’t brave enough to see
Borat
11. One movie character you’ve fallen in love with
Maria in West Side Story
12. A movie that surprised you
The Queen
13. The last movie you saw
Schindler's List - I put it puff for years
14. The next movie you hope to see
Ring of Fire
15. Now tag five people:
.
Postmodernism- christiansquoting.org.uk
Though volumes have been written both for and against deconstruction, not all critics agree that it deserves so much attention. If we suppose its basic premise that texts are only self-referential is true, then deconstruction self-destructs.....After all, the assertion that 'all texts are self-referential and refer to nothing outside the text,' if true, could only refer to itself; it would apply to no external texts whatsoever." -- Adam Devore
The postmodern worldview denies that there is such a thing as truth: historical, moral, or otherwise. It denies that truth exists independently of our perspectives and interests. - Mark Earley, BreakPoint 08/13/2002
But the Left has truly mastered this art [of misrepresentation], perhaps because they get so much practice in university English departments. After all, if you can reduce the millions of pages of the Western canon into a bumper sticker of racism, sexism, and homophobia, how hard can it be to make a conservative sound racist when he talks about a "colorblind society" or "equal opportunity"?-- Jonah Goldberg
We are the first generation bombarded with so many stories from so many "authorities," none of which are our own. The parable of the postmodern mind is the person surrounded by a media center: three television screens in front of them giving three sets of stories; fax machines bringing in other stories; newspapers providing still more stories. In a sense, we are saturated with stories; we're saturated with points of view. But the effect of being bombarded with all of these points of view is that we don't have a point of view and we don't have a story. We lose the continuity of our experiences; we become people who are written on from the outside. - Sam Keen (Story Lore)
Perhaps it is being nostalgic for the 1960s, but occasionally I find much more noble existentialism's avowal of meaninglessness followed by despair than postmodernism's embrace of meaninglessness, followed by play, and ideological manipulations of the text. In a word, postmodernism reminds us that while God speaks an infallible authoritative word, our ability to interpret it is not without error. In other words, while the Bible itself comes from "above the sun," interpretation is an "under the sun" activity-- Tremper Longman III, READING THE BIBLE POSTMODERNLY
There are no facts, only interpretations.... Frederick Wilhelm Nietzsche, (1844-1900)
Postmodernism is the most fertile source of academic waffle since Aristotle; it has given a grateful world such completely incomprehensible and basically useless concepts as "deconstruction", "intertextuality" and indeed "postmodernism" itself. For self-styled cultural commentators bankrupt of particularly original ideas postmodern is a handy label to attach to anything in order to create he impression that one is saying something really radical. All this is helped by the fact that essentially no-one understands what postmodernism means, and therefore anything remotely contemporary can be tagged "postmodern." from Postmodern Culchie Base Camp
Each of them (Foucault,Derrida,Rorty) owes his reputation to a kind of religious faith: faith in the relativity of all opinions, including this one. - Roger Scruton, The West and the Rest, ISI Books, 2002, p 75
The postmodern worldview denies that there is such a thing as truth: historical, moral, or otherwise. It denies that truth exists independently of our perspectives and interests. - Mark Earley, BreakPoint 08/13/2002
But the Left has truly mastered this art [of misrepresentation], perhaps because they get so much practice in university English departments. After all, if you can reduce the millions of pages of the Western canon into a bumper sticker of racism, sexism, and homophobia, how hard can it be to make a conservative sound racist when he talks about a "colorblind society" or "equal opportunity"?-- Jonah Goldberg
We are the first generation bombarded with so many stories from so many "authorities," none of which are our own. The parable of the postmodern mind is the person surrounded by a media center: three television screens in front of them giving three sets of stories; fax machines bringing in other stories; newspapers providing still more stories. In a sense, we are saturated with stories; we're saturated with points of view. But the effect of being bombarded with all of these points of view is that we don't have a point of view and we don't have a story. We lose the continuity of our experiences; we become people who are written on from the outside. - Sam Keen (Story Lore)
Perhaps it is being nostalgic for the 1960s, but occasionally I find much more noble existentialism's avowal of meaninglessness followed by despair than postmodernism's embrace of meaninglessness, followed by play, and ideological manipulations of the text. In a word, postmodernism reminds us that while God speaks an infallible authoritative word, our ability to interpret it is not without error. In other words, while the Bible itself comes from "above the sun," interpretation is an "under the sun" activity-- Tremper Longman III, READING THE BIBLE POSTMODERNLY
There are no facts, only interpretations.... Frederick Wilhelm Nietzsche, (1844-1900)
Postmodernism is the most fertile source of academic waffle since Aristotle; it has given a grateful world such completely incomprehensible and basically useless concepts as "deconstruction", "intertextuality" and indeed "postmodernism" itself. For self-styled cultural commentators bankrupt of particularly original ideas postmodern is a handy label to attach to anything in order to create he impression that one is saying something really radical. All this is helped by the fact that essentially no-one understands what postmodernism means, and therefore anything remotely contemporary can be tagged "postmodern." from Postmodern Culchie Base Camp
Each of them (Foucault,Derrida,Rorty) owes his reputation to a kind of religious faith: faith in the relativity of all opinions, including this one. - Roger Scruton, The West and the Rest, ISI Books, 2002, p 75
Thursday, May 29, 2008
Possibility- christiansquoting.org.uk
All things are possible, except for skiing through a revolving door.
The greatest waste in the world is the difference between what we are and what we could become.--Ben Herbster
There is no heavier burden than a great potential. --Linus, "Peanuts"
The greatest waste in the world is the difference between what we are and what we could become.--Ben Herbster
There is no heavier burden than a great potential. --Linus, "Peanuts"
Wiki ad absurdum
LIBBY PURVES ON MAY 28, 2008 post on The Tmes url,
"The good people on Wikipedia - actually rather serious chaps - have got a Wiki Bible project "to create an original, open content translation of the source text of the Bible that will be in the Public Domain.". They ask people who know Greek or Hebrew to "claim" a chapter (Exodus went first) and offer a translation. It fiercely says "Stay faithful to the original source text and do not borrow from copyrighted modern versions....Avoid sectarian disputes, possibly by footnoting variant translations."
However, the mischievous beasts on Newsbiscuit report straightfacedly that it is an attempt to make "one on-line holy book for all world faiths, written and edited by the world-wide community....‘If someone feels strongly that the central tenet of another religion is fundamentally wrong, then they can go on-line and change it. This morning the Wiki-Bible stated quite categorically that there was but one god and his name was Allah. This afternoon, another editor had corrected that to explain that there were in fact a number of different gods including Ganesh, Krishna, Vishnu and Cristiano Ronaldo.’
And so forth. It also suggests adapting commandments - - 'This morning the seventh commandment read ‘Though shalt not commit adultery. Unless it is with thy neighbours wife Janice". Look at the other reports in the sidebar and you'll grasp the degree of sincerity with which they write..."
Not a translation I shal be quoting from.
"The good people on Wikipedia - actually rather serious chaps - have got a Wiki Bible project "to create an original, open content translation of the source text of the Bible that will be in the Public Domain.". They ask people who know Greek or Hebrew to "claim" a chapter (Exodus went first) and offer a translation. It fiercely says "Stay faithful to the original source text and do not borrow from copyrighted modern versions....Avoid sectarian disputes, possibly by footnoting variant translations."
However, the mischievous beasts on Newsbiscuit report straightfacedly that it is an attempt to make "one on-line holy book for all world faiths, written and edited by the world-wide community....‘If someone feels strongly that the central tenet of another religion is fundamentally wrong, then they can go on-line and change it. This morning the Wiki-Bible stated quite categorically that there was but one god and his name was Allah. This afternoon, another editor had corrected that to explain that there were in fact a number of different gods including Ganesh, Krishna, Vishnu and Cristiano Ronaldo.’
And so forth. It also suggests adapting commandments - - 'This morning the seventh commandment read ‘Though shalt not commit adultery. Unless it is with thy neighbours wife Janice". Look at the other reports in the sidebar and you'll grasp the degree of sincerity with which they write..."
Not a translation I shal be quoting from.
The injustice of England
Fearless blogger Lionheart tells us, "An update on my situation with regards to my arrest on suspicion of stirring up racial hatred through written material on my blog.
I was arrested, and placed in a police cell for hours, then questioned over the police investigation into me and my blog several months back. I was bailed without charge to attend the police station yesterday to answer bail to see whether or not I am going to be charged with the offence and put before a British Court, or whether they did not really have enough on me for this case against me to be in the public interest to be brought before a British Court and then released without charge. Due to the charge, the case load has to go to the CPS and then to the Department of Public Prosecutions for them to decide whether or not to place me on trial. I was re-bailed again yesterday to appear at the police station once again in two months time to see whether or not they are closer to making a decision on me and my case. The police had the information on me since June last year, and then 6 months later over Christmas I get the call saying that they needed to arrest me over my blog. Then 3 months later I return and hand myself in for arrest and interview.
So 9 months up until my arrest, and now a further 3 months to answer my first bail and they still have not decided whether or not they are going to charge me with anything, so I now have to wait a further 2 months to see whether or not to prosecute me is going to be in the public interest. 12 months and they have not decided on me. My legal team have stated that they could have me on bail for anything up to a year, but if they have not got enough to charge me yet, then what is going to change in another 2 months or in a year? I think I have been pretty consistent with my message on this blog over the past 18 months, so I cannot see that changing. This is the British State’s leash around my neck. I wonder who wants to pull that leash or who wants to set me free from it? All I can say now is that I have to continue waiting while big brother decides whether or not I have upset ‘community cohesion’ enough in today’s British Nanny State to warrant placing me on trial for defending myself and my country from the 21st Century invasion of Great Britain. Those people who prevent the British people from speaking out in defence of their Country and all that is happening in this generation are TRAITORS to the British people, there is no other word for it. The Military wing of Islam is at War with us and we cannot even speak about it through fear of arrest and imprisonment. The British State is allowing Islam to spread unhindered within our Nation, and passing laws to protect its growth within our society, and in turn tying the British peoples hands behind their backs whilst they face this Goliath that is seeking to destroy their way of life and enforce an Islamic one in its place. I serve the same God as David the shepherd boy. Put me on trial and if convicted send me to one of your over crowded prison’s for my words, or release me so that I can get on with my life, it is not a hard choice to make is it? Either I am guilty in the eyes of those looking or I am innocent, and considering I have not been stripped of my right to use a computer or my blog being shut down, it cannot really be that serious a matter for it to be in the Public interest to take me through a lengthy and very costly Court case can it? But then again people are being hauled before the Courts over leaving their bin lid an inch higher than they are told they can, or for throwing apple cores to the Earth, so who knows what will happen in today's schizophrenic British society
. I hope they are not Moslem eyes looking, because we are all guilty in their eyes, and considering Islam has infiltrated every area of British life I would not put it past those within the halls of power to be conferring with God’s enemies who are now entrenched within the fabric of our Judeo/Christian Nation. I know my life is safe in God’s hands though, He is watching my back in those areas I cannot see, because He sees all things and I am His son. In service of the King – Jesus – The Lion of the tribe of Judah
Paul Ray"
This fearless Christian deserves prayer and support. No=one should suffer a sword or scimitar of Damocles over their head for months like this. the CPS should put up or shut up.
I was arrested, and placed in a police cell for hours, then questioned over the police investigation into me and my blog several months back. I was bailed without charge to attend the police station yesterday to answer bail to see whether or not I am going to be charged with the offence and put before a British Court, or whether they did not really have enough on me for this case against me to be in the public interest to be brought before a British Court and then released without charge. Due to the charge, the case load has to go to the CPS and then to the Department of Public Prosecutions for them to decide whether or not to place me on trial. I was re-bailed again yesterday to appear at the police station once again in two months time to see whether or not they are closer to making a decision on me and my case. The police had the information on me since June last year, and then 6 months later over Christmas I get the call saying that they needed to arrest me over my blog. Then 3 months later I return and hand myself in for arrest and interview.
So 9 months up until my arrest, and now a further 3 months to answer my first bail and they still have not decided whether or not they are going to charge me with anything, so I now have to wait a further 2 months to see whether or not to prosecute me is going to be in the public interest. 12 months and they have not decided on me. My legal team have stated that they could have me on bail for anything up to a year, but if they have not got enough to charge me yet, then what is going to change in another 2 months or in a year? I think I have been pretty consistent with my message on this blog over the past 18 months, so I cannot see that changing. This is the British State’s leash around my neck. I wonder who wants to pull that leash or who wants to set me free from it? All I can say now is that I have to continue waiting while big brother decides whether or not I have upset ‘community cohesion’ enough in today’s British Nanny State to warrant placing me on trial for defending myself and my country from the 21st Century invasion of Great Britain. Those people who prevent the British people from speaking out in defence of their Country and all that is happening in this generation are TRAITORS to the British people, there is no other word for it. The Military wing of Islam is at War with us and we cannot even speak about it through fear of arrest and imprisonment. The British State is allowing Islam to spread unhindered within our Nation, and passing laws to protect its growth within our society, and in turn tying the British peoples hands behind their backs whilst they face this Goliath that is seeking to destroy their way of life and enforce an Islamic one in its place. I serve the same God as David the shepherd boy. Put me on trial and if convicted send me to one of your over crowded prison’s for my words, or release me so that I can get on with my life, it is not a hard choice to make is it? Either I am guilty in the eyes of those looking or I am innocent, and considering I have not been stripped of my right to use a computer or my blog being shut down, it cannot really be that serious a matter for it to be in the Public interest to take me through a lengthy and very costly Court case can it? But then again people are being hauled before the Courts over leaving their bin lid an inch higher than they are told they can, or for throwing apple cores to the Earth, so who knows what will happen in today's schizophrenic British society
. I hope they are not Moslem eyes looking, because we are all guilty in their eyes, and considering Islam has infiltrated every area of British life I would not put it past those within the halls of power to be conferring with God’s enemies who are now entrenched within the fabric of our Judeo/Christian Nation. I know my life is safe in God’s hands though, He is watching my back in those areas I cannot see, because He sees all things and I am His son. In service of the King – Jesus – The Lion of the tribe of Judah
Paul Ray"
This fearless Christian deserves prayer and support. No=one should suffer a sword or scimitar of Damocles over their head for months like this. the CPS should put up or shut up.
Not the religion of liberty
Open Doors USA reports, " Christian churches in Algeria are under massive attack. Over the last six months, Algerian authorities have closed half of the Protestant churches in the country. If the trend continues, the Algerian Protestant church will be non-existent by the end of 2008.
Algerian officials have closed 26 Algerian churches by either written order or verbal warning since November 2007. Ranging in size from several dozen to more than 1,000 members, 32 congregations in Algeria belong to the Protestant Church of Algeria, while another 20 small fellowships exist independently. Algeria, a country of 33 million in northern Africa, is home to at least 10,000 Protestants.
Religious Affairs Minister Abdallah Ghoulamullah has called on Christian groups in Algeria to re-register according to Algerian associations law. But Algerian Christians have claimed that the government has blocked them from carrying out the required re-registration of their churches. “The administration offices in Tizi-Ouzou did not want to or could not say which measures to take in order to obtain the ‘certificate of conformity,’†church leaders say.
Nevertheless, authorities require the certificate to show that a church is in line with the March 2006 law governing non-Muslim places of worship. But because these regulations are unclear, churches are closed and services are forbidden. Expressing the Christian faith in a church service, by worship and prayer, has become almost impossible. Earlier this year an Algerian Christian was detained five days for carrying a personal Bible and study books. He was fined $460 and handed a one-year suspended prison sentence. On April 29 a court charged the Muslim Background Believer with “printing, storing and distributing†illegal religious material.
Algeria's official state religion is Islam, and religious minorities are seen as a threat to the government's internal affairs. Anyone found trying to convert a Muslim to Christianity can receive a sentence of two to five years imprisonment and given a fine up to $15,430. Christianity has been compared to terrorism, and Muslim schools and mosques have been encouraged to continue the attack that threatens to wipe out the Christian community in Algeria.
Open Doors has launched a worldwide advocacy campaign asking supporters to contact their local Algerian Embassy. Supporters can send a message to Algerian Ambassador to the United States Amine Kherbi directly from the Open Doors Website, asking that the Algerian government stop church closures and reopen those that have already been closed. This is an important way for Christians in the United States to stand up for the religious rights of Christians in Algeria. To send a message, go to http://members.opendoorsusa.org/algeria2008.
Please Email Ambassador Kherbi today, asking him to stop the closure of churches and to reopen those that have already been closed. We need to tell the Algerian government that these church closures must stop, and that freedom for all religions must be respected, says Open Doors USA Advocacy Program Manager Lindsay Vessey. Also, keep Algerian believers in your prayers."
One is always amazed how strongly Muslim countries feel threatened by tiny Christian minorities. Is it because error is always threatened by truth? The religion of the false prophet cannot bear to be contradicted.
Algerian officials have closed 26 Algerian churches by either written order or verbal warning since November 2007. Ranging in size from several dozen to more than 1,000 members, 32 congregations in Algeria belong to the Protestant Church of Algeria, while another 20 small fellowships exist independently. Algeria, a country of 33 million in northern Africa, is home to at least 10,000 Protestants.
Religious Affairs Minister Abdallah Ghoulamullah has called on Christian groups in Algeria to re-register according to Algerian associations law. But Algerian Christians have claimed that the government has blocked them from carrying out the required re-registration of their churches. “The administration offices in Tizi-Ouzou did not want to or could not say which measures to take in order to obtain the ‘certificate of conformity,’†church leaders say.
Nevertheless, authorities require the certificate to show that a church is in line with the March 2006 law governing non-Muslim places of worship. But because these regulations are unclear, churches are closed and services are forbidden. Expressing the Christian faith in a church service, by worship and prayer, has become almost impossible. Earlier this year an Algerian Christian was detained five days for carrying a personal Bible and study books. He was fined $460 and handed a one-year suspended prison sentence. On April 29 a court charged the Muslim Background Believer with “printing, storing and distributing†illegal religious material.
Algeria's official state religion is Islam, and religious minorities are seen as a threat to the government's internal affairs. Anyone found trying to convert a Muslim to Christianity can receive a sentence of two to five years imprisonment and given a fine up to $15,430. Christianity has been compared to terrorism, and Muslim schools and mosques have been encouraged to continue the attack that threatens to wipe out the Christian community in Algeria.
Open Doors has launched a worldwide advocacy campaign asking supporters to contact their local Algerian Embassy. Supporters can send a message to Algerian Ambassador to the United States Amine Kherbi directly from the Open Doors Website, asking that the Algerian government stop church closures and reopen those that have already been closed. This is an important way for Christians in the United States to stand up for the religious rights of Christians in Algeria. To send a message, go to http://members.opendoorsusa.org/algeria2008.
Please Email Ambassador Kherbi today, asking him to stop the closure of churches and to reopen those that have already been closed. We need to tell the Algerian government that these church closures must stop, and that freedom for all religions must be respected, says Open Doors USA Advocacy Program Manager Lindsay Vessey. Also, keep Algerian believers in your prayers."
One is always amazed how strongly Muslim countries feel threatened by tiny Christian minorities. Is it because error is always threatened by truth? The religion of the false prophet cannot bear to be contradicted.
Pornography- christiansquoting.org.uk
My son, if sinners entice you, do not consent. Proverbs 1:10
The most damaging kind of pornography - and I'm talking from hard, real, personal experience - is that which involves violence and sexual violence. The wedding of those two forces - as I know only too well - brings about behavior that is too terrible to describe. - Ted Bundy
The Hugh Hefner Curve: You start a magazine proclaiming that sex; so far from being dirty, is not even serious, it's just good clean fun. A few decades later you have massive abortions, vast numbers of illegitimate children born to teenagers from the poorest strata of society, and a delightful organisation named the "North American Man Boy Love Association" going on national T.V. to explain that your basic paedophile is not a pervert and child molester, but rather a lonely boy's best friend. David Carlin
The use of pornography by its very nature isolates individuals-making them more intent on satisfying selfish needs. Once addicted, they could not throw off their dependence on the material by themselves despite many negative consequences such as divorce, and problems with the law. Being immersed in their fantasies, they tend to have an increasing sense that "everybody does it" and this gave them permission to also do it, even though the activity was possibly illegal and contrary to their previous moral beliefs. Afterwards, "they tend to act out sexually the behaviors viewed in the pornography, including compulsive promiscuity, exhibitionism, having sex with minor children, rape, and inflicting pain on themselves or a partner during sex.. This behavior grew into sexual addiction, which they found themselves locked into-no matter what the negative consequences were in their life. - Dr. Cline
Pornography is the orchestrated destruction of women's bodies and souls; rape, battery, incest, and prostitution animate it; dehumanization and sadism characterize it; it is war on women, serial assaults on dignity, identity, and human worth; it is tyranny. Each woman who has survived knows from the experience of her own life that pornography is captivity -- the woman trapped in the picture used on the woman trapped wherever he's got her.--Andrea Dworkin
What is at stake is civilization and humanity, nothing less. The idea that 'everything is permitted', as Nietzsche put it, rests on the premise of nihilism and has nihilistic implications. I will not pretend that the case against nihilism and for civilization is an easy one to make. We are here confronting the most fundamental of philosophical questions, on the deepest levels. In short, the matter of pornography and obscenity is not a trivial one, and only superficial minds can take a bland and untroubled view of it.- Irving KRISTOL, "Pornography, Obscenity and the Case for Censorship" from "On the Democratic Idea in America" New York: Harper & Row, 1972.
In the United States, pornography is the third largest money-maker for organized crime - after drugs and gambling - an $8 - 10 billion per year enterprise. In response to the FBI's questions on the subject, 81 percent of serial killers surveyed said that hard-core pornography was their highest sexual interest. - William Marshall
Catering to a sex craze sweeping across our world, authors, publishers, and movie moguls continue to reap the commercial benefits of their selfish pursuits. Gratification and graft have a hammer lock on many, many young minds and lives and have choked out needed spiritual awareness. Evil is out in the open. Sin has gained the privileged position. James Massey
How do I know pornography depraves and corrupts? It depraves and corrupts me. Malcolm Muggeridge
Vice is a monster of so frightful mein
As to be hated needs but to be seen;
Yet seen too oft, familiar with her face,
We first endure, then pity, then embrace.
Alexander Pope
The victoms of pornography are boys and girls that have lost their innocence by viewing pornography at an early age. Wives of men preoccupied with pornography and the sex industry. Women who are being treated with disrespect and sexually abused. Young women trapped in an industry that exploits them and uses them as mere sex objects. Children used for the sexual satisfaction of fathers, stepfathers, and men they trusted. Young men exposed to a false image of sexuality. Men who just can't stop using pornography or stimulating themselves while recalling those images. A society that has become desensitized and dependent upon sex-charged images. Neighborhoods that have increased crime and decreased property values because of the proliferation of pornography in their communities. - Harry Schaumburg
Pornography tells lies about women. But pornography tells the truth about men.--John Stoltenberge
What good is an obscenity trial except to popularize literature? Rex Stout
The most damaging kind of pornography - and I'm talking from hard, real, personal experience - is that which involves violence and sexual violence. The wedding of those two forces - as I know only too well - brings about behavior that is too terrible to describe. - Ted Bundy
The Hugh Hefner Curve: You start a magazine proclaiming that sex; so far from being dirty, is not even serious, it's just good clean fun. A few decades later you have massive abortions, vast numbers of illegitimate children born to teenagers from the poorest strata of society, and a delightful organisation named the "North American Man Boy Love Association" going on national T.V. to explain that your basic paedophile is not a pervert and child molester, but rather a lonely boy's best friend. David Carlin
The use of pornography by its very nature isolates individuals-making them more intent on satisfying selfish needs. Once addicted, they could not throw off their dependence on the material by themselves despite many negative consequences such as divorce, and problems with the law. Being immersed in their fantasies, they tend to have an increasing sense that "everybody does it" and this gave them permission to also do it, even though the activity was possibly illegal and contrary to their previous moral beliefs. Afterwards, "they tend to act out sexually the behaviors viewed in the pornography, including compulsive promiscuity, exhibitionism, having sex with minor children, rape, and inflicting pain on themselves or a partner during sex.. This behavior grew into sexual addiction, which they found themselves locked into-no matter what the negative consequences were in their life. - Dr. Cline
Pornography is the orchestrated destruction of women's bodies and souls; rape, battery, incest, and prostitution animate it; dehumanization and sadism characterize it; it is war on women, serial assaults on dignity, identity, and human worth; it is tyranny. Each woman who has survived knows from the experience of her own life that pornography is captivity -- the woman trapped in the picture used on the woman trapped wherever he's got her.--Andrea Dworkin
What is at stake is civilization and humanity, nothing less. The idea that 'everything is permitted', as Nietzsche put it, rests on the premise of nihilism and has nihilistic implications. I will not pretend that the case against nihilism and for civilization is an easy one to make. We are here confronting the most fundamental of philosophical questions, on the deepest levels. In short, the matter of pornography and obscenity is not a trivial one, and only superficial minds can take a bland and untroubled view of it.- Irving KRISTOL, "Pornography, Obscenity and the Case for Censorship" from "On the Democratic Idea in America" New York: Harper & Row, 1972.
In the United States, pornography is the third largest money-maker for organized crime - after drugs and gambling - an $8 - 10 billion per year enterprise. In response to the FBI's questions on the subject, 81 percent of serial killers surveyed said that hard-core pornography was their highest sexual interest. - William Marshall
Catering to a sex craze sweeping across our world, authors, publishers, and movie moguls continue to reap the commercial benefits of their selfish pursuits. Gratification and graft have a hammer lock on many, many young minds and lives and have choked out needed spiritual awareness. Evil is out in the open. Sin has gained the privileged position. James Massey
How do I know pornography depraves and corrupts? It depraves and corrupts me. Malcolm Muggeridge
Vice is a monster of so frightful mein
As to be hated needs but to be seen;
Yet seen too oft, familiar with her face,
We first endure, then pity, then embrace.
Alexander Pope
The victoms of pornography are boys and girls that have lost their innocence by viewing pornography at an early age. Wives of men preoccupied with pornography and the sex industry. Women who are being treated with disrespect and sexually abused. Young women trapped in an industry that exploits them and uses them as mere sex objects. Children used for the sexual satisfaction of fathers, stepfathers, and men they trusted. Young men exposed to a false image of sexuality. Men who just can't stop using pornography or stimulating themselves while recalling those images. A society that has become desensitized and dependent upon sex-charged images. Neighborhoods that have increased crime and decreased property values because of the proliferation of pornography in their communities. - Harry Schaumburg
Pornography tells lies about women. But pornography tells the truth about men.--John Stoltenberge
What good is an obscenity trial except to popularize literature? Rex Stout
Attempted murder and walks free
BBC says,"A former hospital cook who baked a fruitcake laced with rat poison for her husband has been given a 12-month suspended prison sentence.
Yvonne Godwin, 56, of Pilley Crescent, Cheltenham, Gloucestershire put two teaspoons of poison into the cake for her partner of 33 years, Robert Godwin.
She had earlier pleaded guilty to attempting to administer poison with intent to injure, aggravate or annoy.
She collapsed in the dock at Gloucester Crown Court when she heard the verdict.
Defending barrister Emily Durston presented the court with medical records dated back to 1975, which revealed numerous occasions when Mrs Godwin, a mother-of-five, had reported domestic abuse to her GP.
The barrister said: "She was at breaking point. There had been a long history of abuse."
Yvonne Godwin was recovering from cancer earlier this year when she discovered her partner had been unfaithful and was not "seeing things very straight at all," the court heard.
She made two cakes laced with rat poison and had told a neighbour she wanted partner Robert Godwin dead after he started an affair with a friend's sister.
Outside the court Robert Godwin admitted to BBC News he had been a bad husband.
Judge Jamie Tabor said he was being lenient as Yvonne Godwin had been in an abusive relationship.
"In my judgment (this) meant you weren't seeing things straight at all.
"You've been a mother to several children. You've worked hard in several places of employment. You are not a criminal in any shape or form."
Yvonne Godwin was also ordered to stay away from Cheltenham and not to communicate with her former husband for 12 months. "
So it is no big deal to attempt premeditated murder if you have been abused? I have every sympathy for an abusive wife. This one appears never to have taken the proper course of action and go to the police.
Yvonne Godwin, 56, of Pilley Crescent, Cheltenham, Gloucestershire put two teaspoons of poison into the cake for her partner of 33 years, Robert Godwin.
She had earlier pleaded guilty to attempting to administer poison with intent to injure, aggravate or annoy.
She collapsed in the dock at Gloucester Crown Court when she heard the verdict.
Defending barrister Emily Durston presented the court with medical records dated back to 1975, which revealed numerous occasions when Mrs Godwin, a mother-of-five, had reported domestic abuse to her GP.
The barrister said: "She was at breaking point. There had been a long history of abuse."
Yvonne Godwin was recovering from cancer earlier this year when she discovered her partner had been unfaithful and was not "seeing things very straight at all," the court heard.
She made two cakes laced with rat poison and had told a neighbour she wanted partner Robert Godwin dead after he started an affair with a friend's sister.
Outside the court Robert Godwin admitted to BBC News he had been a bad husband.
Judge Jamie Tabor said he was being lenient as Yvonne Godwin had been in an abusive relationship.
"In my judgment (this) meant you weren't seeing things straight at all.
"You've been a mother to several children. You've worked hard in several places of employment. You are not a criminal in any shape or form."
Yvonne Godwin was also ordered to stay away from Cheltenham and not to communicate with her former husband for 12 months. "
So it is no big deal to attempt premeditated murder if you have been abused? I have every sympathy for an abusive wife. This one appears never to have taken the proper course of action and go to the police.
Wednesday, May 28, 2008
THE WEBSITE OF THE BBC YOUNG PIONEERS
The Song of the Pioneers
The people’s flag is brightest red - it helps us earn our daily bread
Though skinflints mock and Tories jeer - the licence fee’s not really dear
The licence fee! The licence fee!
It pays the bills for you and me!
From single mums in Bethnal Green - for expense accounts and limousines
If they don’t pay the licence fee - it’s jail and chuck away the key
For posh school fees and winter sports - we need to add a few more naughts
Our pensions are inflation free - all paid for by the licence fee
The licence fee! The licence fee!
Don’t take away our licence fee!
A hundred and thirty odd quid a year - will keep the red flag flying here!
-
The people’s flag is brightest red - it helps us earn our daily bread
Though skinflints mock and Tories jeer - the licence fee’s not really dear
The licence fee! The licence fee!
It pays the bills for you and me!
From single mums in Bethnal Green - for expense accounts and limousines
If they don’t pay the licence fee - it’s jail and chuck away the key
For posh school fees and winter sports - we need to add a few more naughts
Our pensions are inflation free - all paid for by the licence fee
The licence fee! The licence fee!
Don’t take away our licence fee!
A hundred and thirty odd quid a year - will keep the red flag flying here!
-
Political correctness - christiansquoting.org.uk
The "right to be offended," at virtually any time and under nearly any set of circumstances, is considered to be one of the more sacrosanct contributions of political correctness. -- DONALD DEMARCO, Acting Niggardly
Because I am a man, my opinion regarding the role of women in society no longer counts. Not because I'm not properly briefed regarding women's issues, but because I am a Christian, conservative, white male. Yes sir, I'm the new millennium's latest whipping boy … the receptacle of all society's ills … the pariah of postmodernism … the spawn of all societal sewage. - Doug Giles, Day Dreamin' Anti-Dude Dames, http://www.townhall.com/columnists/douggiles/dg20040424.shtml
Political correctness is just tyranny with manners.--Charlton Heston, Brandeis University in Waltham, Massachusetts March 28, 2000
We want to create a sort of linguistic Lourdes, where evil and misfortune are dispelled by a dip in the waters of euphemism.
Robert Hughes, 1993
People find victimhood appealing because they believe it absolves them of their own misdeeds; it imbues them witha sense of righteousness. -- Wendy Kaminer
Political correctness is the natural continuum from the party line. What we are seeing once again is a self-appointed group of vigilantes imposing their views on others. It is a heritage of communism, but they don't seem to see this.--Doris Lessing
Remember, I live in Oregon. I am aware of the attitudes. Political correctness is more righteous than the righteousness of God. God is to blamed not worshipped. This is the state that gives terminally ill people the right to commit suicide, will pour out onto the beaches to save a whale and will march for the right to abortion.
I sometimes ask myself, "What am I doing here?" Then I remember, I can't hide in the Bible Belt. - A Friend in the NW
You must take it as your sworn duty to do your utmost to prevent people from printing, voicing, writing or otherwise disseminating any communication which is either unfavorable to or not in agreement with Leftwing Liberal dogma and you must also strictly enforce Political Correctness, while at the same time doing your best to muzzle and silence those who don't agree with you. Tell adversaries to "Do as I say, and I'll do as I please!" This is not censorship, hypocrisy or Double Standards, but rather, "Freedom of Speech" an important Constitutional Amendment written to give Leftwing Liberals their God-given rights, even if they renounce and don't believe in God and even if they think rights are only for Leftwing Liberals. ~ The Official Leftwing Liberal Handbook ~ http://alohahawaii.home.att.net/leftwing.html
Being Politically Correct means always having to say you're sorry. --Charles Osgood
Considering "niggard" a racist word makes no more sense than saying that women personstruate. - Tom Parsons
EVERYBODY WANTS TO BE A VICTIM. And the paradox is that victim status accrues precisely to those who can acquire enough clout to make others afraid of them. Victimhood has become one of the fruits of power. Anyone can be an underdog; the trick is to be a registered, pedigreed underdog. - Joseph Belloc Sobran
Because I am a man, my opinion regarding the role of women in society no longer counts. Not because I'm not properly briefed regarding women's issues, but because I am a Christian, conservative, white male. Yes sir, I'm the new millennium's latest whipping boy … the receptacle of all society's ills … the pariah of postmodernism … the spawn of all societal sewage. - Doug Giles, Day Dreamin' Anti-Dude Dames, http://www.townhall.com/columnists/douggiles/dg20040424.shtml
Political correctness is just tyranny with manners.--Charlton Heston, Brandeis University in Waltham, Massachusetts March 28, 2000
We want to create a sort of linguistic Lourdes, where evil and misfortune are dispelled by a dip in the waters of euphemism.
Robert Hughes, 1993
People find victimhood appealing because they believe it absolves them of their own misdeeds; it imbues them witha sense of righteousness. -- Wendy Kaminer
Political correctness is the natural continuum from the party line. What we are seeing once again is a self-appointed group of vigilantes imposing their views on others. It is a heritage of communism, but they don't seem to see this.--Doris Lessing
Remember, I live in Oregon. I am aware of the attitudes. Political correctness is more righteous than the righteousness of God. God is to blamed not worshipped. This is the state that gives terminally ill people the right to commit suicide, will pour out onto the beaches to save a whale and will march for the right to abortion.
I sometimes ask myself, "What am I doing here?" Then I remember, I can't hide in the Bible Belt. - A Friend in the NW
You must take it as your sworn duty to do your utmost to prevent people from printing, voicing, writing or otherwise disseminating any communication which is either unfavorable to or not in agreement with Leftwing Liberal dogma and you must also strictly enforce Political Correctness, while at the same time doing your best to muzzle and silence those who don't agree with you. Tell adversaries to "Do as I say, and I'll do as I please!" This is not censorship, hypocrisy or Double Standards, but rather, "Freedom of Speech" an important Constitutional Amendment written to give Leftwing Liberals their God-given rights, even if they renounce and don't believe in God and even if they think rights are only for Leftwing Liberals. ~ The Official Leftwing Liberal Handbook ~ http://alohahawaii.home.att.net/leftwing.html
Being Politically Correct means always having to say you're sorry. --Charles Osgood
Considering "niggard" a racist word makes no more sense than saying that women personstruate. - Tom Parsons
EVERYBODY WANTS TO BE A VICTIM. And the paradox is that victim status accrues precisely to those who can acquire enough clout to make others afraid of them. Victimhood has become one of the fruits of power. Anyone can be an underdog; the trick is to be a registered, pedigreed underdog. - Joseph Belloc Sobran
Something in common
I came across an article on how neck ties rfe banned in Iran as not Islamic. Then I though and realised the only others who seem to ban ties are the Exclusive Brethren. Both groups insist on women covering their heads too. Is there a secret relationship? Are the Brethren really Shi'ites? Will Iranians be blocking up all windows in their mosques? I do believe both groups are led by ayatollahs and the Brethren issue fatwas too.
Tuesday, May 27, 2008
Insulting the Scientologists
Baron Bodissey says,“This is just barmy.”
That’s the voice of traditional British common sense. This story is definitely barmy, but we live in barmy times.
Muslims are normally the only ones who get insulted and then call on British law enforcement to help silence their critics. But this time it’s a different fringe cult that has managed to suppress the free speech of ordinary people.
According to The Telegraph:
Church of Scientology: Boy faces court for ‘cult not religion’ placard
A teenage boy is facing a possible criminal prosecution for holding a sign describing the Church of Scientology as a “cult”, police said on Tuesday.
The boy, who is described only as a minor, was taking part in a demonstration outside the church’s central London headquarters on May 10 when City of London Police officers ordered him to remove the placard.
It read: “Scientology is not a religion, it is a dangerous cult.”
When he refused, he was issued with a form of summons for an alleged breach of public order. Police plan to pass a file to the Crown Prosecution Service to decide whether charges can be brought.
Since the lad’s sign was simply stating his opinion, one would think that his protest would be covered by the right to free speech under English Common Law.
But anyone who thinks that is foolishly naïve. By statute, speech may be suppressed if it is “insulting”:
A spokesman for the force said the youth had been “reported” under section five of the Public Order Act, which contains measures against displaying signs considered to be “threatening, abusive or insulting”.
That’s the voice of traditional British common sense. This story is definitely barmy, but we live in barmy times.
Muslims are normally the only ones who get insulted and then call on British law enforcement to help silence their critics. But this time it’s a different fringe cult that has managed to suppress the free speech of ordinary people.
According to The Telegraph:
Church of Scientology: Boy faces court for ‘cult not religion’ placard
A teenage boy is facing a possible criminal prosecution for holding a sign describing the Church of Scientology as a “cult”, police said on Tuesday.
The boy, who is described only as a minor, was taking part in a demonstration outside the church’s central London headquarters on May 10 when City of London Police officers ordered him to remove the placard.
It read: “Scientology is not a religion, it is a dangerous cult.”
When he refused, he was issued with a form of summons for an alleged breach of public order. Police plan to pass a file to the Crown Prosecution Service to decide whether charges can be brought.
Since the lad’s sign was simply stating his opinion, one would think that his protest would be covered by the right to free speech under English Common Law.
But anyone who thinks that is foolishly naïve. By statute, speech may be suppressed if it is “insulting”:
A spokesman for the force said the youth had been “reported” under section five of the Public Order Act, which contains measures against displaying signs considered to be “threatening, abusive or insulting”.
Politics - christiansquoting.org.uk
One reason why George Washington
Is held in such veneration:
He never blamed his problems
On the former Administration.
Hall's Laws of Politics:
(1) The voters want fewer taxes and more spending.
(2) Citizens want honest politicians until they want something fixed.
(3) Constituency drives out consistency (i.e., liberals defend military spending, and conservatives social spending in their own districts).
Headline: Bear takes over Disneyland in Pooh D'Etat!
Revolution is an abrupt change in the form of misgovernment.
The voters have spoken, the bastards.
Guy Fawkes -- the only man who ever entered Parliament with honest intentions.
Politicians, like diapers, should be changed regularly, and for much the same reasons.
There is no worse heresy then that the office sanctifies the holder of it. -- Lord Acton
These bickerings of opposite parties, and their mutual reproaches their declamations, their sing-song, their triumphs and defiances, their dismals and prophecies, are all delusion.-- John Adams to Abigail; Jul 16, 1774
I have accepted a seat in the House of Representatives, and thereby have consented to my own ruin, to your ruin, and to the ruin of our children. I give you this warning that you may prepare your mind for your fate."- John Adams
I agree with you that in politics the middle way is none at all. - John Adams (1767-1848) In "Adam," no. 299, "Samples from Almost Illegible Notebooks," 1962.
Cautious, careful people, always casting about to preserve their reputation and social standing, never can bring about reform. Those who are really in earnest must be willing to be anything or nothing in the world's estimation, and publicly and privately, in season and out, avow their sympathy with despised and persecuted ideas and their advocates, and bear the consequences."-- Susan B. Anthony
I may be president of the United States, but my private life is nobody's damned business.- Chester A. Arthur(1830-1886) US president: Responding to a visitor asking him about his expensive tastes.
Man is by nature a political animal.-- Aristotle
The best political community is formed by citizens of the middleclass. Aristotle
Those with a more liberal viewpoint such as Mr. Weeks rarely esteem those to their social and theological right as compassionate. JB
The politician is an acrobat; he keeps his balance by doing the opposite of what he says. Marice Barres (1862 &endash; 1923);
You don't have to fool all the people all of the time; you just have to fool enough to get elected. Gerald Barza
The British electors will not vote for a man who does not wear a hat.-- Lord Beaverbrook
Even Napoleon had his Watergate.-- Yogi Berra
POLITICS: A strife of interests masquerading as a contest of principles. The conduct of public affairs for private advantage. - Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary (1911) - Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary (1911)
The Most High is sovereign over the kingdoms of men and gives them to anyone he wishes and sets over them the lowliest of men. Dan. 4:17
Politics is the art of the possible, the attainable . . . the art of the next best.--Otto von Bismarck (1815-1898) Remark to Prince Meyer von Waldeck, 11 Aug 1867
People never lie so much as after a hunt, during a war or before an election.-Otto von Bismarck
The fight for liberty is one in which we ought to be willing to engage. It goes without saying that Christians who judge the battle to be one that requires active participation are required to fight in accordance with the appropriate application of Christian "just war" criteria. In the political arena, the rule of civility is top of the list. - John Bolt, A Free Church, A Holy Nation: Abraham Kuyper's American Public Theology, Eerdmans, 2001 p.384
In politics, stupidity is not a handicap.-- Napoleon Bonaparte
In politics, merit is rewarded by the possessor being raised, like a target, to a position to be fired at.-- Christian Nevell Bovee
No wonder that, when a political career is so precarious, men of worth and capacity hesitate to embrace it. They cannot afford to be thrown out of their life's course by a mere accident.-- James Bryce (1838-1922) "The American Commonwealth," vol. 2, ch. 58, 1888.
Too bad all the people who know how to run the country are busy driving taxi cabs and cutting hair. George Burns
I have no consistency, except in politics; and that probably arises from my indifference to the subject altogether.-- Lord Byron
Sometimes in politics one must duel with skunks, but no one should be fool enough to allow the skunks to choose the weapons.-Joe Cannon (R-IL)
Vain hope, to make people happy by politics.~ Thomas Carlyle 1795 - 1881, Journal, (Oct 10, 1831)
If there is one eternal truth of politics, it is that there are always a dozen good reasons for doing nothing.-- John le Carre
We must adjust to changing times and still hold to unchanging principles. Jimmy Carter (1924-____)
Vain hope to make men happy by politics! -- Thomas Carlyle, _Journal_, 1831
In politics, there is no use looking beyond the next fortnight. - Joseph Chamberlain (1836 &endash; 1914)
There is little place in the political scheme of things for an independent, creative personality, for a fighter. Anyone who takes that role must pay a price.- Shirley Chisholm (1924-____) In "Words of Women Quotations for Success," by Power Dynamics Publishing, 1997
No part of the education of a politician is more indispensable than the fighting of elections.-- Winston Churchill
I would have been glad to have lived under my woodside, and to have kept a flock of sheep, rather than to have undertaken this government. --Oliver Cromwell (1599-1658)_To Parliament_ [1658]
What this country needs is more unemployed politicians. - Angela Davis (1944 &endash; )
A man that would expect to train lobsters to fly in a year is called a lunatic; but a man that thinks men can be turned into angels by an election is a reformer and remains at large.-- Finley Peter Dunne
An election is coming. Universal peace is declared, and the foxes have a sincere interest in prolonging the lives of the poultry. George Eliot
For the whole of my political life, Labour has espoused a view of human nature which is simply wrong. The self-regarding side has been ignored or suppressed" All the cant that we paraded on stilts, the notion that we were only motivated by altruism, must have left the punters bewildered and angry: it is just not how the world works. "Our job now is to show how self-interest &endash; a natural and wholesome instinct, the greatest driving force in all of us &endash; can also promote the common good.The last government failed to distinguish between self-interest and selfish greed. If people are worrying about their future, their children's future, the care of their elderly parents, they won't have time or sympathy for more vulnerable people. Our aim must be to make them so happy that we can win their support for other people less fortunate. Frank Field
The United States has not sent troops to the Saudi desert to preserve democratic principles. The Saudi monarch is a feudal regime that does not even allow women to drive cars. Surely it is not American policy to make the world safe for feudalism. This is about money, about protecting governments loyal to America and punishing those that are not, and about who will set the price of oil. ~ Thomas L. Friedland, 'Washington's Vital Interests', NY Times.
Politics is not the art of the possible. It consists in choosing between the disastrous and the unpalatable.-John Kenneth Galbraith
There exists no politician in India daring enough to attempt to explain to the masses that cows can be eaten. Indira Gandhi
In politics it is necessary either to betray one's country of the electorate. I prefer to betray the electorate.-- Charles De Gaulle
In the tumult of men and events, solitude was my temptation; now it is my friend. What other satisfaction can be sought once you have confronted History? - Charles De Gaulle (1890-1970) "War Memoirs," vol. 3, ch. 7, 1959.
So why did I join? (The Christian Peoples Alliance) Well, when I came to the UK I saw it was a Christian country - its Christian foundations were the reason for tolerant and compassionate asylum regime. Over time I realised that Christianity underpinned both law and our political institutions. Yet today it is under threat. Truly we are witnessing a clash of cultures - not Christianity versus Islam, but religious world views against secular fundamentalisms. What are we to do about it? For me, the CPA is a means to renew the consent for the Christian world view in public life and policy. When our opponents talk of 'pluralism', I find thisÝis a mask for an agenda to privatise Christianity. They oppose the idea that Christianity should remain public truth in the public square. They want it to be one choice among many. How often are we told "You can have that view, but keep it to yourself"? "- Ram Gidoomal "Karma, Politics and the Holy Spirit" - A Review of the CPA's Future, Address to the Catholic Charismatic Renewal Group, Saturday June 19th 2204, Friends House, Euston
Nothing that is morally wrong can be politically right. - William E. Gladstone (1809 &endash; 1898)
How small, of all that human hearts endure,
That part which laws or kings can cause or cure!
Goldsmith, _The Traveller_
There's nothing left . . . but to get drunk. - Franklin Pierce (1804-1869) When asked what a President should do after leaving office; in "Rutherford B. Hayes and His America," by Harry Barnard, p 503, 1954.
The two major political parties can be summed up this way: There are two parties, one is the Stupid Party and the other is the Evil Party. Occasionally these two parties create legislation that is both stupid and evil. This is called bi-partisianship. -- Andrew Grooms
The best party is but a kind of conspiracy against the rest of the nation.-- Lord Halifax, 1750
In political matters feeling often decides more correctly than reason. -- Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf, p. 173
To err is human. To blame someone else is politics.
Hubert H. Humphrey (1911-1978) In "The Speaker's Electronic Reference Collection," AApex Software,1994.
The right to be heard does not automatically include the right to be taken seriously.-- HUMPHREY, HUBERT HORATIO (1911-1978, )
The concentrating [of powers] in the same hands is precisely the definition of despotic government. It will be no alleviation that these powers will be exercised by a plurality of hands, and not by a single one.-- Thomas Jefferson
How is it that we hear the loudest yelps for liberty among the drivers of Negroes? Johnson: Taxation No Tyranny
Politicks are now nothing more than means of rising in the world. With this sole view do men engage in politicks, and their whole conduct proceeds upon it.- Samuel Johnson (Boswell: Life of Johnson)
Faction seldom leaves a man honest, however it might find him.- Samuel Johnson: Milton (Lives of the Poets)
Why, Sir, most schemes of political improvement are very laughable things. - Samuel Johnson (Boswell: Life of Johnson)
Why, Sir, most schemes of political improvement are very laughable things. -- Samuel Johnson (Boswell: Life of Johnson)
Ninety percent of the politicians give the other ten percent a bad reputation.-- Henry Kissinger
Anyone in his position needs to be whiter than white.-- Dame Jill Knight MP on Nelson Mandela, BBC Radio Ulster, 1990.
Politicophobia is not calvinistic, is not Christian, is not ethical.
Abraham Kuyper 1869, in Abraham Kuyper a Biography, Fank Vanden Berg, Paideia Press, 1978.p 48.
The more I see of the representatives of the people, the more I admire my dogs.- Alphonse de Lamartine
Many Christians are reluctant to become involved in public affairs be cause politics is a "dirty business", but the same people are generally quite happy to go into business life, which is in its way just as "dirty". If the dubious practices and moral compromises of every walk of life were dissected and made known with the glare of publicity which shines on the activities of politicians, then those who like to think that they can keep their hands clean would have very few professions to choose from. John Lawrence, Hard Facts [1958]
I once said cynically of a politician, "He'll double-cross that bridge when he comes to it.--Oscar Levant
To be happy at home, said Johnson, is the end of all human endeavour. As long as we are thinking only of natural values we must say that the sun looks down on nothing half so good as a household laughing together over a meal, or two friends talking over a pint of beer, or a man alone reading a book that interests him; and that all economics, politics, laws, armies, and institutions, save in so far as they prolong and multiply such scenes, are a mere ploughing the sand and sowing the ocean, a meaningless vanity and vexation of spirit. ... But do not let us mistake necessary evils for good. The mistake is easily made. Fruit has to be tinned if it is to be transported, and has to lose thereby some of its good qualities. But one meets people who have learned actually to prefer the tinned fruit to the fresh. A sick society must think much about politics, as a sick man must think much about his digestion: to ignore the subject may be fatal cowardice for the one as for the other. But if either comes to regard it as the natural food of the mind - if either forgets that we think of such things only in order to be able to think of something else - then what was undertaken for the sake of health has become itself a new and deadly disease.--C. S. Lewis "Membership" Sobernost #31 (June 1945)
Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it, misdiagnosing it, and then misapplying the wrong remedies.-- Groucho Marx
Does a political party have no greater priority than its selfish self-perpetuation? G Maurie
I voted for the Democrats because I didn't like the way the Republicans were running the country. Which is turning out to be like shooting yourself in the head to stop your headache.--Jack Mayberry
Being in politics is like being in a football game. You have to be smart enough to know the game and stupid enough to think it important.-- Senator Eugene McCarthy (D-MN)
You can be a rooster one day and a feather duster the next ~Frank McManus, on political life, Sydney Morning Herald 28 Dec 1974
God is a Republican, and Santa Claus is a Democrat. --H. L. Mencken
Advertisement: African Grey Parrot for sale. Good talker. Owner no longer shares political opinions.-- The News Quiz BBC Radio 4
I reject the cynical view that politics is inevitably, or even usually, a dirty business. ~ Richard M. Nixon (August 1973)
A straw vote only shows which way the hot air blows. O'Henry
As any politician will tell you: you can fool all the people some of the time, and some of the people all the time -- and usually that's enough. - Robert Orben
Politics should be limited in scope to war, protection of property, and the occasional precautionary beheading of a member of the ruling class. P.J. O'Rourke
Political language...is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind.-- George Orwell
We have no eternal allies and we have no perpetual enemies. Our interests are perpetual and eternal and those interests it is our duty to follow. --Lord Palmerston, 1848
Public office is the last refuge of the incompetent. - Boies Penrose (1860 &endash; 1921) US senator (PA)
Life is primarily political because politics is inevitably religious and has as its 'raison d'etre', its entire rationale, the administration of the law of an ultimate authority, i.e. a god, in the totality of life. In this sense, therefore, we can say that Christianity is the only 'true' politics. All other political ideologies are false, i.e. idolatrous.The body of Christ, as the 'polis' (the city) of God, whose 'demos' (people) constitute the 'ekklesia' (the body politic), is a political organism, and all other political organisms are apostate and in rebellion against God, their rightful King. Stephen Perks ,'Christianity As A Political Faith' 'Christianity & Society', April 2004
Sir, At midnight the Nanny State will truly have arrived: we will all have to have our meat cut up for us.
JULIA PIKE Letter to The Times 16.12.97
The price of apathy towards public affairs is to be ruled by evil men. -- Plato
One of the penalties for refusing to participate in politics is that you end up being governed by your inferiors. Plato
A little nonsense now and then is not a bad thing. Where would we politicians be if we were not allowed to talk it sometimes? Enoch Powell 1964
For a politician to complain about the press is like a ship's captain complaining about the sea. Enoch Powell Guardian article, 1984
I was born a Tory, am a Tory and shall die a Tory. I never yet heard that it was any part of the faith of a Tory to take the institutions and liberties, the laws and customs which this country has evolved over centuries and merge them with those of eight other nations into a new-made artificial state, and what is more to do so without the willing approbation and consent of the nation. Enoch Powell February 1974
No one is forced to be a politician. It can only compare with fox hunting and writing poetry. These are two things that men do for sheer enjoyment, too.
Enoch Powell 1973
All politics are based on the indifference of the majority.-- James Reston
Politics is supposed to be the second oldest profession. I have come to realise that it bears a very close resemblance to the first. REAGAN, RONALD (1911-)
The Conservative Party is a broad church....The problem is that we don't have enough worshippers at the moment.-- John Redwood 6.5.97
All politics are based on the indifference of the majority.--James Reston, _New York Times_ [June 12, 1968]
He who lives by demogoguery shall die by tabloid poisoning. -- Joe Rogaly
Democrats are the only reason to vote for Republicans.--Will Rogers
Kuyper's simple yet profound Christian vision was based upon a deep faith as Christ as the King over the entire cosmos. The exercise of this Christian vision in public affairs can be called "political spiritualiy" - the ability to discern the directions sin and grace take in public affairs. Politial spirituality is an integrated Christian attitude which enriches both thought and action. ...This attitude of political spirtiuality must not be confused with Kuyper's political tactics. Tactics change as times and situations differ, "political spiritualiy" remains a part of a Christian's obligations to do all things to the glory of God. The attitude of christians towards a secularised society determines what they think and do.
H Evan Runner, preface to The Practice of Political Spirituality, McKendree R Langley, Paedeia Pres 1984, p3
One should respect public opinion insofar as is necessary to avoid starvation and keep out of prison, but anything that goes beyond this is voluntary submission to an unnecessary tyranny. Bertrand Russell
People vote their resentment, not their appreciation. The average man does not vote for anything but against something. Saki (Hector Hugh Munro)
A politician should have three hats. One for throwing into the ring, one for talking through, and one for pulling rabbits out of if elected.-- Carl Sandberg
For socialists, not just the wealth, but the guilt, must be redistributed. Andrew Sandlin
....the difference between the west and the rest is that western societies are governed by politics;the rest are ruled by power.- Roger Scruton, The West and the Rest, ISI Books, 2002, p 7
The art of government is the organisation of idolatry. G B Shaw
Some day a politician will arise who will be so devoted to truth that he will follow it, knowing that by doing so, he will go down to defeat. That day will be the restoration of politics as principles; it will also be the rebirth of a nation. --Fulton John Sheen (1895-1979) _Way to Inner Peace_ [1955]
Wherever I go in this country, people know there is a problem.-- Billy Snedden, leader of the Australian Liberal Party, campaigning in 1974.
Five decades? Six? Seven? How long should it take to understand that the life of a community cannot be reduced to politics or wholly encompassed by government? The time in which we live has unfathomable depths beneath it. Our age is a mere film on the surface of time. --Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, _November 1916_
"crisis": any situation you want to change
"bilingual": unable to speak English
"equal opportunity": preferential treatment
"non-judgmental": blaming society
"compassion": the use of tax money to buy votes
"insensitivity": objections to the use of tax money to buy votes
"simplistic": an argument you disagree with but can't answer
"rehabilitation": magic word said before releasing criminals
"demonstration": a riot by people you agree with
"mob violence": a riot by people you disagree with
"a matter of principle": a political controversy involving the convictions of liberals
"an emotional issue": a political controversy involving the convictions of conservatives
"funding": money from the government
"commitment": more money from the government
"docu-drama": a work of fiction about famous people
"autobiography": a work of fiction about yourself
"federal budget": a work of fiction about government spending
"people's republic": a place where you do what you are told or get shot
"national liberation movements": organizations trying to create people's republics
"policy research": looking for statistics to support the position you have already taken
"stereotypes": behavior patterns you don't want to think about
"Reaganomics": media explanation of downturns in the economy
"robust economy": media explanation of upturns in the economy
"constitutional interpretation": judges reading their own political views into the Constitution
"politicizing the courts": criticizing judges for reading their own political views into the Constitution
"a proud people": chauvinists you like
"bigots": chauvinists you don't like
"anti-war movement": disarmament advocates who know the idea won't fly under its own name
"private greed": making money selling people what they want
"public service": gaining power to make people do what you want them to
"innovation": something new
"new innovation": something new by someone who doesn't understand English
"competency": competence, as described by the incompetent
"moderate Arabs": mythical beings to whom State Department officials make sacrificial offerings
"special interest lobby": politically organized conservatives
"public interest group": politically organized liberals
"accountability": holding teachers, public officials, and private businesses responsible for the consequences of their misdeeds
"chilling effect": holding journalists responsible for the consequences of their misdeeds
Thomas Sowell A POLITICAL GLOSSARY (From Compassion Versus Guilt and Other Essays, NY: Morrow,1987)
Politics! You can wrap it up in fancy ribbons, but you can't hide the smell.-- Norman Spinrad
I will make a bargain with the Republicans. If they will stop telling lies about Democrats, we will stop telling the truth about them. Adlai Stevenson
This woman is headstrong,obstinate and dangerously self-opinionated.-- ICI personnel report 1948 rejecting a job application from Margaret Thatcher
You can't fool too many of the people too much of the time. James Thurber
Ninety-eight percent of the adults in this country are decent,hard-working, honest Americans. It's the other lousy two percentthat get all the publicity. But then we elected them.~ Lily Tomlin
You might think that, I couldn't possibly comment -- Francis Urquhart in Michael Dobbs' "House Of Cards" (TV screenplay)
As to the presidency, the two happiest days of my life were those of my entrance upon the office and my surrender of it. - Martin Van Buren (1782 &endash; 1862)
Politicians fascinate because they constitute such a paradox; they are an elite that accomplishes mediocrity for the public good. - George Will
Is held in such veneration:
He never blamed his problems
On the former Administration.
Hall's Laws of Politics:
(1) The voters want fewer taxes and more spending.
(2) Citizens want honest politicians until they want something fixed.
(3) Constituency drives out consistency (i.e., liberals defend military spending, and conservatives social spending in their own districts).
Headline: Bear takes over Disneyland in Pooh D'Etat!
Revolution is an abrupt change in the form of misgovernment.
The voters have spoken, the bastards.
Guy Fawkes -- the only man who ever entered Parliament with honest intentions.
Politicians, like diapers, should be changed regularly, and for much the same reasons.
There is no worse heresy then that the office sanctifies the holder of it. -- Lord Acton
These bickerings of opposite parties, and their mutual reproaches their declamations, their sing-song, their triumphs and defiances, their dismals and prophecies, are all delusion.-- John Adams to Abigail; Jul 16, 1774
I have accepted a seat in the House of Representatives, and thereby have consented to my own ruin, to your ruin, and to the ruin of our children. I give you this warning that you may prepare your mind for your fate."- John Adams
I agree with you that in politics the middle way is none at all. - John Adams (1767-1848) In "Adam," no. 299, "Samples from Almost Illegible Notebooks," 1962.
Cautious, careful people, always casting about to preserve their reputation and social standing, never can bring about reform. Those who are really in earnest must be willing to be anything or nothing in the world's estimation, and publicly and privately, in season and out, avow their sympathy with despised and persecuted ideas and their advocates, and bear the consequences."-- Susan B. Anthony
I may be president of the United States, but my private life is nobody's damned business.- Chester A. Arthur(1830-1886) US president: Responding to a visitor asking him about his expensive tastes.
Man is by nature a political animal.-- Aristotle
The best political community is formed by citizens of the middleclass. Aristotle
Those with a more liberal viewpoint such as Mr. Weeks rarely esteem those to their social and theological right as compassionate. JB
The politician is an acrobat; he keeps his balance by doing the opposite of what he says. Marice Barres (1862 &endash; 1923);
You don't have to fool all the people all of the time; you just have to fool enough to get elected. Gerald Barza
The British electors will not vote for a man who does not wear a hat.-- Lord Beaverbrook
Even Napoleon had his Watergate.-- Yogi Berra
POLITICS: A strife of interests masquerading as a contest of principles. The conduct of public affairs for private advantage. - Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary (1911) - Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary (1911)
The Most High is sovereign over the kingdoms of men and gives them to anyone he wishes and sets over them the lowliest of men. Dan. 4:17
Politics is the art of the possible, the attainable . . . the art of the next best.--Otto von Bismarck (1815-1898) Remark to Prince Meyer von Waldeck, 11 Aug 1867
People never lie so much as after a hunt, during a war or before an election.-Otto von Bismarck
The fight for liberty is one in which we ought to be willing to engage. It goes without saying that Christians who judge the battle to be one that requires active participation are required to fight in accordance with the appropriate application of Christian "just war" criteria. In the political arena, the rule of civility is top of the list. - John Bolt, A Free Church, A Holy Nation: Abraham Kuyper's American Public Theology, Eerdmans, 2001 p.384
In politics, stupidity is not a handicap.-- Napoleon Bonaparte
In politics, merit is rewarded by the possessor being raised, like a target, to a position to be fired at.-- Christian Nevell Bovee
No wonder that, when a political career is so precarious, men of worth and capacity hesitate to embrace it. They cannot afford to be thrown out of their life's course by a mere accident.-- James Bryce (1838-1922) "The American Commonwealth," vol. 2, ch. 58, 1888.
Too bad all the people who know how to run the country are busy driving taxi cabs and cutting hair. George Burns
I have no consistency, except in politics; and that probably arises from my indifference to the subject altogether.-- Lord Byron
Sometimes in politics one must duel with skunks, but no one should be fool enough to allow the skunks to choose the weapons.-Joe Cannon (R-IL)
Vain hope, to make people happy by politics.~ Thomas Carlyle 1795 - 1881, Journal, (Oct 10, 1831)
If there is one eternal truth of politics, it is that there are always a dozen good reasons for doing nothing.-- John le Carre
We must adjust to changing times and still hold to unchanging principles. Jimmy Carter (1924-____)
Vain hope to make men happy by politics! -- Thomas Carlyle, _Journal_, 1831
In politics, there is no use looking beyond the next fortnight. - Joseph Chamberlain (1836 &endash; 1914)
There is little place in the political scheme of things for an independent, creative personality, for a fighter. Anyone who takes that role must pay a price.- Shirley Chisholm (1924-____) In "Words of Women Quotations for Success," by Power Dynamics Publishing, 1997
No part of the education of a politician is more indispensable than the fighting of elections.-- Winston Churchill
I would have been glad to have lived under my woodside, and to have kept a flock of sheep, rather than to have undertaken this government. --Oliver Cromwell (1599-1658)_To Parliament_ [1658]
What this country needs is more unemployed politicians. - Angela Davis (1944 &endash; )
A man that would expect to train lobsters to fly in a year is called a lunatic; but a man that thinks men can be turned into angels by an election is a reformer and remains at large.-- Finley Peter Dunne
An election is coming. Universal peace is declared, and the foxes have a sincere interest in prolonging the lives of the poultry. George Eliot
For the whole of my political life, Labour has espoused a view of human nature which is simply wrong. The self-regarding side has been ignored or suppressed" All the cant that we paraded on stilts, the notion that we were only motivated by altruism, must have left the punters bewildered and angry: it is just not how the world works. "Our job now is to show how self-interest &endash; a natural and wholesome instinct, the greatest driving force in all of us &endash; can also promote the common good.The last government failed to distinguish between self-interest and selfish greed. If people are worrying about their future, their children's future, the care of their elderly parents, they won't have time or sympathy for more vulnerable people. Our aim must be to make them so happy that we can win their support for other people less fortunate. Frank Field
The United States has not sent troops to the Saudi desert to preserve democratic principles. The Saudi monarch is a feudal regime that does not even allow women to drive cars. Surely it is not American policy to make the world safe for feudalism. This is about money, about protecting governments loyal to America and punishing those that are not, and about who will set the price of oil. ~ Thomas L. Friedland, 'Washington's Vital Interests', NY Times.
Politics is not the art of the possible. It consists in choosing between the disastrous and the unpalatable.-John Kenneth Galbraith
There exists no politician in India daring enough to attempt to explain to the masses that cows can be eaten. Indira Gandhi
In politics it is necessary either to betray one's country of the electorate. I prefer to betray the electorate.-- Charles De Gaulle
In the tumult of men and events, solitude was my temptation; now it is my friend. What other satisfaction can be sought once you have confronted History? - Charles De Gaulle (1890-1970) "War Memoirs," vol. 3, ch. 7, 1959.
So why did I join? (The Christian Peoples Alliance) Well, when I came to the UK I saw it was a Christian country - its Christian foundations were the reason for tolerant and compassionate asylum regime. Over time I realised that Christianity underpinned both law and our political institutions. Yet today it is under threat. Truly we are witnessing a clash of cultures - not Christianity versus Islam, but religious world views against secular fundamentalisms. What are we to do about it? For me, the CPA is a means to renew the consent for the Christian world view in public life and policy. When our opponents talk of 'pluralism', I find thisÝis a mask for an agenda to privatise Christianity. They oppose the idea that Christianity should remain public truth in the public square. They want it to be one choice among many. How often are we told "You can have that view, but keep it to yourself"? "- Ram Gidoomal "Karma, Politics and the Holy Spirit" - A Review of the CPA's Future, Address to the Catholic Charismatic Renewal Group, Saturday June 19th 2204, Friends House, Euston
Nothing that is morally wrong can be politically right. - William E. Gladstone (1809 &endash; 1898)
How small, of all that human hearts endure,
That part which laws or kings can cause or cure!
Goldsmith, _The Traveller_
There's nothing left . . . but to get drunk. - Franklin Pierce (1804-1869) When asked what a President should do after leaving office; in "Rutherford B. Hayes and His America," by Harry Barnard, p 503, 1954.
The two major political parties can be summed up this way: There are two parties, one is the Stupid Party and the other is the Evil Party. Occasionally these two parties create legislation that is both stupid and evil. This is called bi-partisianship. -- Andrew Grooms
The best party is but a kind of conspiracy against the rest of the nation.-- Lord Halifax, 1750
In political matters feeling often decides more correctly than reason. -- Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf, p. 173
To err is human. To blame someone else is politics.
Hubert H. Humphrey (1911-1978) In "The Speaker's Electronic Reference Collection," AApex Software,1994.
The right to be heard does not automatically include the right to be taken seriously.-- HUMPHREY, HUBERT HORATIO (1911-1978, )
The concentrating [of powers] in the same hands is precisely the definition of despotic government. It will be no alleviation that these powers will be exercised by a plurality of hands, and not by a single one.-- Thomas Jefferson
How is it that we hear the loudest yelps for liberty among the drivers of Negroes? Johnson: Taxation No Tyranny
Politicks are now nothing more than means of rising in the world. With this sole view do men engage in politicks, and their whole conduct proceeds upon it.- Samuel Johnson (Boswell: Life of Johnson)
Faction seldom leaves a man honest, however it might find him.- Samuel Johnson: Milton (Lives of the Poets)
Why, Sir, most schemes of political improvement are very laughable things. - Samuel Johnson (Boswell: Life of Johnson)
Why, Sir, most schemes of political improvement are very laughable things. -- Samuel Johnson (Boswell: Life of Johnson)
Ninety percent of the politicians give the other ten percent a bad reputation.-- Henry Kissinger
Anyone in his position needs to be whiter than white.-- Dame Jill Knight MP on Nelson Mandela, BBC Radio Ulster, 1990.
Politicophobia is not calvinistic, is not Christian, is not ethical.
Abraham Kuyper 1869, in Abraham Kuyper a Biography, Fank Vanden Berg, Paideia Press, 1978.p 48.
The more I see of the representatives of the people, the more I admire my dogs.- Alphonse de Lamartine
Many Christians are reluctant to become involved in public affairs be cause politics is a "dirty business", but the same people are generally quite happy to go into business life, which is in its way just as "dirty". If the dubious practices and moral compromises of every walk of life were dissected and made known with the glare of publicity which shines on the activities of politicians, then those who like to think that they can keep their hands clean would have very few professions to choose from. John Lawrence, Hard Facts [1958]
I once said cynically of a politician, "He'll double-cross that bridge when he comes to it.--Oscar Levant
To be happy at home, said Johnson, is the end of all human endeavour. As long as we are thinking only of natural values we must say that the sun looks down on nothing half so good as a household laughing together over a meal, or two friends talking over a pint of beer, or a man alone reading a book that interests him; and that all economics, politics, laws, armies, and institutions, save in so far as they prolong and multiply such scenes, are a mere ploughing the sand and sowing the ocean, a meaningless vanity and vexation of spirit. ... But do not let us mistake necessary evils for good. The mistake is easily made. Fruit has to be tinned if it is to be transported, and has to lose thereby some of its good qualities. But one meets people who have learned actually to prefer the tinned fruit to the fresh. A sick society must think much about politics, as a sick man must think much about his digestion: to ignore the subject may be fatal cowardice for the one as for the other. But if either comes to regard it as the natural food of the mind - if either forgets that we think of such things only in order to be able to think of something else - then what was undertaken for the sake of health has become itself a new and deadly disease.--C. S. Lewis "Membership" Sobernost #31 (June 1945)
Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it, misdiagnosing it, and then misapplying the wrong remedies.-- Groucho Marx
Does a political party have no greater priority than its selfish self-perpetuation? G Maurie
I voted for the Democrats because I didn't like the way the Republicans were running the country. Which is turning out to be like shooting yourself in the head to stop your headache.--Jack Mayberry
Being in politics is like being in a football game. You have to be smart enough to know the game and stupid enough to think it important.-- Senator Eugene McCarthy (D-MN)
You can be a rooster one day and a feather duster the next ~Frank McManus, on political life, Sydney Morning Herald 28 Dec 1974
God is a Republican, and Santa Claus is a Democrat. --H. L. Mencken
Advertisement: African Grey Parrot for sale. Good talker. Owner no longer shares political opinions.-- The News Quiz BBC Radio 4
I reject the cynical view that politics is inevitably, or even usually, a dirty business. ~ Richard M. Nixon (August 1973)
A straw vote only shows which way the hot air blows. O'Henry
As any politician will tell you: you can fool all the people some of the time, and some of the people all the time -- and usually that's enough. - Robert Orben
Politics should be limited in scope to war, protection of property, and the occasional precautionary beheading of a member of the ruling class. P.J. O'Rourke
Political language...is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind.-- George Orwell
We have no eternal allies and we have no perpetual enemies. Our interests are perpetual and eternal and those interests it is our duty to follow. --Lord Palmerston, 1848
Public office is the last refuge of the incompetent. - Boies Penrose (1860 &endash; 1921) US senator (PA)
Life is primarily political because politics is inevitably religious and has as its 'raison d'etre', its entire rationale, the administration of the law of an ultimate authority, i.e. a god, in the totality of life. In this sense, therefore, we can say that Christianity is the only 'true' politics. All other political ideologies are false, i.e. idolatrous.The body of Christ, as the 'polis' (the city) of God, whose 'demos' (people) constitute the 'ekklesia' (the body politic), is a political organism, and all other political organisms are apostate and in rebellion against God, their rightful King. Stephen Perks ,'Christianity As A Political Faith' 'Christianity & Society', April 2004
Sir, At midnight the Nanny State will truly have arrived: we will all have to have our meat cut up for us.
JULIA PIKE Letter to The Times 16.12.97
The price of apathy towards public affairs is to be ruled by evil men. -- Plato
One of the penalties for refusing to participate in politics is that you end up being governed by your inferiors. Plato
A little nonsense now and then is not a bad thing. Where would we politicians be if we were not allowed to talk it sometimes? Enoch Powell 1964
For a politician to complain about the press is like a ship's captain complaining about the sea. Enoch Powell Guardian article, 1984
I was born a Tory, am a Tory and shall die a Tory. I never yet heard that it was any part of the faith of a Tory to take the institutions and liberties, the laws and customs which this country has evolved over centuries and merge them with those of eight other nations into a new-made artificial state, and what is more to do so without the willing approbation and consent of the nation. Enoch Powell February 1974
No one is forced to be a politician. It can only compare with fox hunting and writing poetry. These are two things that men do for sheer enjoyment, too.
Enoch Powell 1973
All politics are based on the indifference of the majority.-- James Reston
Politics is supposed to be the second oldest profession. I have come to realise that it bears a very close resemblance to the first. REAGAN, RONALD (1911-)
The Conservative Party is a broad church....The problem is that we don't have enough worshippers at the moment.-- John Redwood 6.5.97
All politics are based on the indifference of the majority.--James Reston, _New York Times_ [June 12, 1968]
He who lives by demogoguery shall die by tabloid poisoning. -- Joe Rogaly
Democrats are the only reason to vote for Republicans.--Will Rogers
Kuyper's simple yet profound Christian vision was based upon a deep faith as Christ as the King over the entire cosmos. The exercise of this Christian vision in public affairs can be called "political spiritualiy" - the ability to discern the directions sin and grace take in public affairs. Politial spirituality is an integrated Christian attitude which enriches both thought and action. ...This attitude of political spirtiuality must not be confused with Kuyper's political tactics. Tactics change as times and situations differ, "political spiritualiy" remains a part of a Christian's obligations to do all things to the glory of God. The attitude of christians towards a secularised society determines what they think and do.
H Evan Runner, preface to The Practice of Political Spirituality, McKendree R Langley, Paedeia Pres 1984, p3
One should respect public opinion insofar as is necessary to avoid starvation and keep out of prison, but anything that goes beyond this is voluntary submission to an unnecessary tyranny. Bertrand Russell
People vote their resentment, not their appreciation. The average man does not vote for anything but against something. Saki (Hector Hugh Munro)
A politician should have three hats. One for throwing into the ring, one for talking through, and one for pulling rabbits out of if elected.-- Carl Sandberg
For socialists, not just the wealth, but the guilt, must be redistributed. Andrew Sandlin
....the difference between the west and the rest is that western societies are governed by politics;the rest are ruled by power.- Roger Scruton, The West and the Rest, ISI Books, 2002, p 7
The art of government is the organisation of idolatry. G B Shaw
Some day a politician will arise who will be so devoted to truth that he will follow it, knowing that by doing so, he will go down to defeat. That day will be the restoration of politics as principles; it will also be the rebirth of a nation. --Fulton John Sheen (1895-1979) _Way to Inner Peace_ [1955]
Wherever I go in this country, people know there is a problem.-- Billy Snedden, leader of the Australian Liberal Party, campaigning in 1974.
Five decades? Six? Seven? How long should it take to understand that the life of a community cannot be reduced to politics or wholly encompassed by government? The time in which we live has unfathomable depths beneath it. Our age is a mere film on the surface of time. --Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, _November 1916_
"crisis": any situation you want to change
"bilingual": unable to speak English
"equal opportunity": preferential treatment
"non-judgmental": blaming society
"compassion": the use of tax money to buy votes
"insensitivity": objections to the use of tax money to buy votes
"simplistic": an argument you disagree with but can't answer
"rehabilitation": magic word said before releasing criminals
"demonstration": a riot by people you agree with
"mob violence": a riot by people you disagree with
"a matter of principle": a political controversy involving the convictions of liberals
"an emotional issue": a political controversy involving the convictions of conservatives
"funding": money from the government
"commitment": more money from the government
"docu-drama": a work of fiction about famous people
"autobiography": a work of fiction about yourself
"federal budget": a work of fiction about government spending
"people's republic": a place where you do what you are told or get shot
"national liberation movements": organizations trying to create people's republics
"policy research": looking for statistics to support the position you have already taken
"stereotypes": behavior patterns you don't want to think about
"Reaganomics": media explanation of downturns in the economy
"robust economy": media explanation of upturns in the economy
"constitutional interpretation": judges reading their own political views into the Constitution
"politicizing the courts": criticizing judges for reading their own political views into the Constitution
"a proud people": chauvinists you like
"bigots": chauvinists you don't like
"anti-war movement": disarmament advocates who know the idea won't fly under its own name
"private greed": making money selling people what they want
"public service": gaining power to make people do what you want them to
"innovation": something new
"new innovation": something new by someone who doesn't understand English
"competency": competence, as described by the incompetent
"moderate Arabs": mythical beings to whom State Department officials make sacrificial offerings
"special interest lobby": politically organized conservatives
"public interest group": politically organized liberals
"accountability": holding teachers, public officials, and private businesses responsible for the consequences of their misdeeds
"chilling effect": holding journalists responsible for the consequences of their misdeeds
Thomas Sowell A POLITICAL GLOSSARY (From Compassion Versus Guilt and Other Essays, NY: Morrow,1987)
Politics! You can wrap it up in fancy ribbons, but you can't hide the smell.-- Norman Spinrad
I will make a bargain with the Republicans. If they will stop telling lies about Democrats, we will stop telling the truth about them. Adlai Stevenson
This woman is headstrong,obstinate and dangerously self-opinionated.-- ICI personnel report 1948 rejecting a job application from Margaret Thatcher
You can't fool too many of the people too much of the time. James Thurber
Ninety-eight percent of the adults in this country are decent,hard-working, honest Americans. It's the other lousy two percentthat get all the publicity. But then we elected them.~ Lily Tomlin
You might think that, I couldn't possibly comment -- Francis Urquhart in Michael Dobbs' "House Of Cards" (TV screenplay)
As to the presidency, the two happiest days of my life were those of my entrance upon the office and my surrender of it. - Martin Van Buren (1782 &endash; 1862)
Politicians fascinate because they constitute such a paradox; they are an elite that accomplishes mediocrity for the public good. - George Will
PC Plod is ultra PC and no patriot
This happened in Wiltshire.
"A TEENAGE motorist was told to remove an England flag from his car by a police officer because it could be offensive to immigrants.
Ben Smith, 18, was driving back home to Ingram Road in Melksham on Thursday evening after filling up with petrol, when the officer stopped him on a routine patrol.
He checked the tax disc and tyres on his Vauxhall Corsa but when he noticed the flag of St George on the parcel shelf he told Mr Smith to take it down.
Mr Smith, who works for G Plan Upholsterers on Hampton Park West, said: "He saw the flag and said it was racist towards immigrants and if I refused to take it down I would get a £30 fine.
"I laughed because I thought he was joking, but then I realised he was serious so I had to take it down straight away. I thought it was silly - it's my country and I want to show my support for my country."
Mr Smith had recently installed new speakers in the parcel shelf of his car and wanted to cover them up so they did not get stolen.
He used the flag and laid it out flat on the shelf so it was not obscuring his view out of the rear window.
But it was only there a couple of days before he was stopped by the officer at about 9.30pm close to Melksham Enterprise Park and made to take it down.
He said he is used to getting stopped by the police because he is a young male driver and is often mistaken for a boy racer'.
But he thought it was "a bit strange" to be asked to take down the England flag when the officer found nothing else wrong with his car.
PC Dave Cooper, of Chippenham Road Policing Unit, said he had never come across an officer asking someone to remove an England flag from their car because it could be racist.
He added: "It all depends on the context of a stop. If they are going past a lot of Polish people, for instance, and abusing them, then we possibly would ask them to take the flag down."
He said there would be no police log of Mr Smith having been stopped with details of what was said to him, as there was nothing wrong with his car.
He added the officer could have been based anywhere around the county and just made an independent stop."
Was this officer English? I think we should be told his ethnicity. Sounds like the sort of thing some zealous jock or taffy might do. I often have the flag on my back shelf. I must do it always now.
"A TEENAGE motorist was told to remove an England flag from his car by a police officer because it could be offensive to immigrants.
Ben Smith, 18, was driving back home to Ingram Road in Melksham on Thursday evening after filling up with petrol, when the officer stopped him on a routine patrol.
He checked the tax disc and tyres on his Vauxhall Corsa but when he noticed the flag of St George on the parcel shelf he told Mr Smith to take it down.
Mr Smith, who works for G Plan Upholsterers on Hampton Park West, said: "He saw the flag and said it was racist towards immigrants and if I refused to take it down I would get a £30 fine.
"I laughed because I thought he was joking, but then I realised he was serious so I had to take it down straight away. I thought it was silly - it's my country and I want to show my support for my country."
Mr Smith had recently installed new speakers in the parcel shelf of his car and wanted to cover them up so they did not get stolen.
He used the flag and laid it out flat on the shelf so it was not obscuring his view out of the rear window.
But it was only there a couple of days before he was stopped by the officer at about 9.30pm close to Melksham Enterprise Park and made to take it down.
He said he is used to getting stopped by the police because he is a young male driver and is often mistaken for a boy racer'.
But he thought it was "a bit strange" to be asked to take down the England flag when the officer found nothing else wrong with his car.
PC Dave Cooper, of Chippenham Road Policing Unit, said he had never come across an officer asking someone to remove an England flag from their car because it could be racist.
He added: "It all depends on the context of a stop. If they are going past a lot of Polish people, for instance, and abusing them, then we possibly would ask them to take the flag down."
He said there would be no police log of Mr Smith having been stopped with details of what was said to him, as there was nothing wrong with his car.
He added the officer could have been based anywhere around the county and just made an independent stop."
Was this officer English? I think we should be told his ethnicity. Sounds like the sort of thing some zealous jock or taffy might do. I often have the flag on my back shelf. I must do it always now.
Poetry - christiansquoting.org.uk
The General ... repeated nearly the whole of Gray's Elegy .... adding, as he concluded, that he would prefer being the author of that poem to the glory of beating the French tomorrow - Written of James Wolfe (1727-59) who died capturing Quebec.
Pluralism - christiansquoting.org.uk
These are the days when the Christian is expected to praise every creed except his own. - GKC, _Illustrated London News_ 8-11-28
America's founders were seized by a great liberal vision -- a country in which people would freely exchange ideas arising from a plurality of interests. From this dialogue, truth could be rationally discovered. But in today's relativistic environment, pluralism no longer means tolerating competing ideas. It means forced neutrality. According to this view, no one should express any idea that could offend someone else.
Charles Colson, BreakPoint Commentary #000223 - 2/23/2000, Just Pipe Down: Are Christians Intolerant?.
Thus relativism absolutizes pluralism. That is, it takes the clearly observable fact that we have a multitude of views and values and practices in the world‚ - pluralism‚ - and draws the illegitimate conclusion that there is no justifiable way of choosing among them. Truth is merely opinion, goodness only what the majority says it is. Daniel Taylor, Deconstructing the gospel of tolerance., Christianity Today. January 11, 1999 Vol. 43, No. 1, Page 42.
America's founders were seized by a great liberal vision -- a country in which people would freely exchange ideas arising from a plurality of interests. From this dialogue, truth could be rationally discovered. But in today's relativistic environment, pluralism no longer means tolerating competing ideas. It means forced neutrality. According to this view, no one should express any idea that could offend someone else.
Charles Colson, BreakPoint Commentary #000223 - 2/23/2000, Just Pipe Down: Are Christians Intolerant?.
Thus relativism absolutizes pluralism. That is, it takes the clearly observable fact that we have a multitude of views and values and practices in the world‚ - pluralism‚ - and draws the illegitimate conclusion that there is no justifiable way of choosing among them. Truth is merely opinion, goodness only what the majority says it is. Daniel Taylor, Deconstructing the gospel of tolerance., Christianity Today. January 11, 1999 Vol. 43, No. 1, Page 42.
Nazir Ali is one forthright bishop
Daily Telegraph reports,"A row has erupted within the Church of England over calls for British Muslims to be converted to Christianity.
The Bishop of Rochester, the Rt Rev Michael Nazir-Ali, accused the Church of failing in its duty to "welcome people of other faiths" ahead of a motion at July's General Synod in York urging a strategy for evangelising Muslims.
However, his comments were condemned by senior figures within the Church. The Rt Rev Stephen Lowe, the former Bishop of Hulme and the newly appointed Bishop of Urban Life and Faith, said: "Both the Bishop of Rochester's reported comments and the synod private members' motion show no sensitivity to the need for good inter-faith relations. Christians, Jews, Muslims, Hindus and Sikhs are learning to respect one another's paths to God and to live in harmony. This demand for the evangelisation of people of other faiths contributes nothing to our communities."
A Church of England spokesman added: "We have a mission-focused Christian presence in every community, including those where there are a large number of Muslims. That engagement is based on the provisions of Article 9 of the European Convention on Human Rights, which provides for freedom of thought, conscience and religion."
The spokesman played down the likelihood of the synod agenda being hijacked by those whose priority was a perceived threat from Islam: "The agenda has not yet been confirmed."
Pakistan-born Dr Nazir-Ali told the Mail on Sunday that, while Church leaders had rightly shown sensitivity to British Muslims, "I think it may have gone too far."
He added: "Our nation is rooted in the Christian faith and that is the basis of welcoming people of other faiths. You cannot have an honest conversation on the basis of fudge.""
So now we know. Mission for the C of E is based on human rights law, not on the command of Jesus Christ to go and preach the gospel.
The Bishop of Rochester, the Rt Rev Michael Nazir-Ali, accused the Church of failing in its duty to "welcome people of other faiths" ahead of a motion at July's General Synod in York urging a strategy for evangelising Muslims.
However, his comments were condemned by senior figures within the Church. The Rt Rev Stephen Lowe, the former Bishop of Hulme and the newly appointed Bishop of Urban Life and Faith, said: "Both the Bishop of Rochester's reported comments and the synod private members' motion show no sensitivity to the need for good inter-faith relations. Christians, Jews, Muslims, Hindus and Sikhs are learning to respect one another's paths to God and to live in harmony. This demand for the evangelisation of people of other faiths contributes nothing to our communities."
A Church of England spokesman added: "We have a mission-focused Christian presence in every community, including those where there are a large number of Muslims. That engagement is based on the provisions of Article 9 of the European Convention on Human Rights, which provides for freedom of thought, conscience and religion."
The spokesman played down the likelihood of the synod agenda being hijacked by those whose priority was a perceived threat from Islam: "The agenda has not yet been confirmed."
Pakistan-born Dr Nazir-Ali told the Mail on Sunday that, while Church leaders had rightly shown sensitivity to British Muslims, "I think it may have gone too far."
He added: "Our nation is rooted in the Christian faith and that is the basis of welcoming people of other faiths. You cannot have an honest conversation on the basis of fudge.""
So now we know. Mission for the C of E is based on human rights law, not on the command of Jesus Christ to go and preach the gospel.
Pleasure- christiansquoting.org.uk
Let God be the judge of sin Mr Marcham. We are all too eager to think our pleasures must be blessed. - The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, BBC TV adatptaion of Anne Bronte. (not found in the novel)
In everything satiety closely follows the greatest pleasures.--Cicero (B.C. 106-43)
True saints have their minds, in the first place, inexpressibly pleased and delighted with the sweet ideas of the glorious and amiable nature of the things of God. And this is the spring of all their delights, and the cream of all their pleasures... JONATHAN EDWARDS - Religious Affections
Do not bite at the bait of pleasure till you know there is no hook.--THOMAS JEFFERSON
Pleasure is very seldom found where it is sought; our brightest blazes of gladness are commonly kindled by unexpected sparks.
Samuel Johnson 1709-84 The Idler 1758
The publick pleasures of far the greater part of mankind are counterfeit. ... The general condition of life is so full of misery, that we are glad to catch delight without enquiring whence it comes, or by what power it is bestowed." -- Samuel Johnson: Idler #18
The pleasures of the world are deceitful; they promise more than they give. They trouble us in seeking them, they do not satisfy us when possessing them, and they make us despair in losing them.--Mad. de Lambert
Never forget that when we are dealing with any pleasure ints healthy and normal and satisfying form, we are, in asense, on the Enemy's ground. I know we have won many a soulthrough pleasure. All the same, it is His invention, not ours. He made the pleasures: all our research so far has not enabled us to produce one. All we can do is to encourage the humans to take the pleasures which our Enemy has produced, at times, or in ways, or in degrees, which He has forbidden. Hence we always try to work away from the natural condition of any pleasure to that in which it is least natural, least redolent of its Maker, and least pleasurable. An ever increasing craving for an ever diminishing pleasure is the formula. It is more certain; and it's better style. To getthe man's soul and give him nothing in return--that is what really gladdens our Father's heart.--C. S. Lewis, _The Screwtape Letters_
The first great pleasure of God is his pleasure in the Son. --John Piper _The Pleasures of God_ p. 34
What fools are they who, for a drop of pleasure, drink a sea of wrath. - THOMAS WATSON
In everything satiety closely follows the greatest pleasures.--Cicero (B.C. 106-43)
True saints have their minds, in the first place, inexpressibly pleased and delighted with the sweet ideas of the glorious and amiable nature of the things of God. And this is the spring of all their delights, and the cream of all their pleasures... JONATHAN EDWARDS - Religious Affections
Do not bite at the bait of pleasure till you know there is no hook.--THOMAS JEFFERSON
Pleasure is very seldom found where it is sought; our brightest blazes of gladness are commonly kindled by unexpected sparks.
Samuel Johnson 1709-84 The Idler 1758
The publick pleasures of far the greater part of mankind are counterfeit. ... The general condition of life is so full of misery, that we are glad to catch delight without enquiring whence it comes, or by what power it is bestowed." -- Samuel Johnson: Idler #18
The pleasures of the world are deceitful; they promise more than they give. They trouble us in seeking them, they do not satisfy us when possessing them, and they make us despair in losing them.--Mad. de Lambert
Never forget that when we are dealing with any pleasure ints healthy and normal and satisfying form, we are, in asense, on the Enemy's ground. I know we have won many a soulthrough pleasure. All the same, it is His invention, not ours. He made the pleasures: all our research so far has not enabled us to produce one. All we can do is to encourage the humans to take the pleasures which our Enemy has produced, at times, or in ways, or in degrees, which He has forbidden. Hence we always try to work away from the natural condition of any pleasure to that in which it is least natural, least redolent of its Maker, and least pleasurable. An ever increasing craving for an ever diminishing pleasure is the formula. It is more certain; and it's better style. To getthe man's soul and give him nothing in return--that is what really gladdens our Father's heart.--C. S. Lewis, _The Screwtape Letters_
The first great pleasure of God is his pleasure in the Son. --John Piper _The Pleasures of God_ p. 34
What fools are they who, for a drop of pleasure, drink a sea of wrath. - THOMAS WATSON
Monday, May 26, 2008
Plans- christiansquoting.org.uk
Proper prior planning prevents poor performance.
The best laid schemes o' mice and men
Gang aft a-gley;
And leave us naught but grief and pain
For promised joy.
Robert Burns. 1759-1796. To a Mouse.
Fail to prepare, prepare to fail. - Keane, Roy
The best laid schemes o' mice and men
Gang aft a-gley;
And leave us naught but grief and pain
For promised joy.
Robert Burns. 1759-1796. To a Mouse.
Fail to prepare, prepare to fail. - Keane, Roy
Plagiarism - christiansquoting.org.uk
About the most originality that any writer can hope to achieve honestly is to steal with good judgment. Josh Billings (1818-1885) In "Webster's Electronic Quotebase," ed. Keith Mohler, 1994
Photography - christiansquoting.org.uk
My photographs don't do me justice -they just look like me ~Phyllis Diller.
No unholy places?
I have worshipped in a church building that used to be a synagogue. No problem. There are no holy places. "The earth is the Lord's and the fulness thereof." However, this location might trouble some people.
"Welcome to Cresheim Valley Church
Cresheim Valley Church is a daughter church of Tenth Presbyterian Church
in Philadelphia, PA and is a member of the Presbyterian Church in America
All Warmly Welcomed!
Pastor: Reverend John S. Leonard Ph.D.
Currently meeting in the Masonic Lodge "
All square on five points I trust :-)
"Welcome to Cresheim Valley Church
Cresheim Valley Church is a daughter church of Tenth Presbyterian Church
in Philadelphia, PA and is a member of the Presbyterian Church in America
All Warmly Welcomed!
Pastor: Reverend John S. Leonard Ph.D.
Currently meeting in the Masonic Lodge "
All square on five points I trust :-)
Peter - christiansquoting.org.uk
[Saint] Peter couldn't open his mouth without putting his foot in it. He also had feet of clay.
Pessimism - christiansquoting.org.uk
I've never seen a monument erected to a pessimist. Paul Harvey
No pessimist ever discovered the secrets of the stars or sailed to an uncharted land or opened a new heaven to the human spirit. Helen Keller
Pessimism wilts everything around it.-- Michael Levine
Focus on your potential instead of your limitations. Alan Loy McGinnis
Every thought is a seed. If you plant crab apples, don't count on harvesting Golden Delicious. Bill Meyer
The nice part about being a pessimist is that you are constantly being either proven right or pleasantly surprised.--George F. Will (1941- )_The Leveling Wind_ [1994]
A pessimist is one who builds dungeons in the air. -Walter Winchell
No pessimist ever discovered the secrets of the stars or sailed to an uncharted land or opened a new heaven to the human spirit. Helen Keller
Pessimism wilts everything around it.-- Michael Levine
Focus on your potential instead of your limitations. Alan Loy McGinnis
Every thought is a seed. If you plant crab apples, don't count on harvesting Golden Delicious. Bill Meyer
The nice part about being a pessimist is that you are constantly being either proven right or pleasantly surprised.--George F. Will (1941- )_The Leveling Wind_ [1994]
A pessimist is one who builds dungeons in the air. -Walter Winchell
Perseverance- christiansquoting.org.uk
Rome wasn't burned in a day.
Who climb with toil, wheresoe'er,
Shall find wings waiting there.
Going Down Hill on a Bicycle
Courage and perseverance have a magic talisman, before which difficulties and obstacles vanish into air. John Adams (1767-1848)
It does not require a majority to prevail, but rather an irate, tireless minority keen to set brush fires in people's minds.--Samuel Adams
Those who gave thee a body, furnished it with weakness; but He who gave thee Soul, armed thee with resolution. Employ it, and thou art wise; be wise and thou art happy.- Akhenaton, Egyptian pharaoh c 1350
The difference between perseverance and obstinacy is, that one often comes from a strong will, and the other from a strong won't. Henry Ward Beecher
Consider the postage stamp: its usefulness consists in the ability to stick to one thing until it gets there. Josh Billings
And gain is gain, however small.- Robert Browning (1812-1889)
To make our way, we must have firm resolve, persistence, tenacity. We must gear ourselves to work hard all the way. We can never let up.Ralph Bunche (1904-1971) A Critical Analysis of the Tactics and Programs of Minority Groups, In "Journal of Negro Education, Jul 1935.
Seeing that a Pilot steers the ship in which we sail, who will never allow us to perish even in the midst of shipwrecks, there is no reason why our minds should be overwhelmed with fear and overcome with weariness. John Calvin
Let us not cease to do the utmost, that we may incessantly go forward in the way of the Lord; and let us not despair of the smallness of our accomplishments.
JOHN CALVIN
Permanence, perseverance and persistence in spite of all obstacles, discouragements, and impossibilities: It is this, that in all things distinguishes the strong soul from the weak. Thomas Carlyle
Pablo Casals (1876-1973), the great cellist, when in his 90s, was once asked why he continued to practice on the cello for hours every day. His answer: "Because I think I'm seeing improvement."
One man scorned and covered with scars still strove with his last ounce of courage to reach the unreachable stars; and the world will be better for this.CERVANTES, MIGUEL de (1547-1616,){Don Quixote de la Mancha, 1605-1615}
Aim for perfection in everything, though in most things it is unattainable. However, they who aim at it, and persevere, will come much nearer to it than those whose despondency and laziness make them give it up as unattainable. - Philip Dormer Chesterfield (1694-1773)
Firmness of purpose is one of the most necessary sinews of character, and one of the best instruments of success. Without it genius wastes its efforts in a maze of inconsistencies. - Philip Dormer Chesterfield (1694-1773)
I learned ... that one can never go back, that one should not ever try to go back - that the essence of life is going forward. Life is really a one-way street, isn't it? Agatha Christie
If you're going through hell, keep going. ---Sir Winston Churchill (1874 - 1965
Never give in, never give in, never, never, never, never- in nothing great or small, large or petty-never give in except to convictions of honour and good sense. Winston Churchill 1941--Harrow School
Failure is the line of least persistence. - W. A. Clark
Pursue one great decisive aim with force and determination.
Karl von Clausewitz (1780-1831)
The greatest glory is not in never failing but in rising up every time we fall. - Confucius.
Nothing in the world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated failures. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent. Calvin Coolidge
To become a champion, fight one more round.-- James J. Corbett
Most of us serve our ideals by fits and starts. The person who makes a success of living is the one who sees his goal steadily and aims for it unswervingly.
Cecil B. de Mille (1881-1959)
Ride on! Rough-shod if need be, smooth-shod if that will do, but ride on! Ride on over all obstacles, and win the race! -- Charles Dickens
Through perserverence many people win success out of what seemed destined to be certain failure....Benjamin Disraeli
The secret of success is constancy of purpose. Disraeli (1804-1881)
Nothing can resist the human will that will stake even its existence on its stated purpose.DISRAELI, BENJAMIN
Neither place, parts, nay, nor graces, will exempt any man from falling. O believers, what need is there to be watchful and humble!-JAMES DURHAM
History has demonstrated that the most notable winners usually encountered heartbreaking obstacles before they triumphed. They won because they refused to become discouraged by their defeats. B. C. Forbes
How you start is important, but it is how you finish that counts. In the race for success, speed is less important than stamina. The sticker outlasts the sprinter.-- B. C. Forbes (1880-1954) In "Reader's Digest," Jan 1991.
The only way round is through.-- Robert Frost (1874-1963) In "Barnes & Noble Book of Quotations," by Robert I. Fitzhenry, 1987.
In the realm of ideas, everything depends on enthusiasm. In the real world, all rests on perseverance.-- Goethe
We will find a way or make one.- Hannibal (247-182BC)
It matters if you just don't give up.HAWKING, STEPHEN (1942- )
Heavy blizzards start as a gentle and persistent snow.- Mark Helprin
Only a sweet and virtuous soul,
Like seasoned timber, never gives.
Virtue. George Herbert. 1593-1632.
Patience, persistence and perspiration make an unbeatable combination for success.... Napoleon Hill
It is not the mountain we conquer but ourselves. Edmund Hillary (1919-____) In "Reader's Digest."
There is no royal road to anything. One thing at a time, all things in succession. That which grows fast, withers as rapidly. That which grows slowly, endures.- Josiah Gilbert Holland, 1819 - 1881
A man may write at any time, if he will set himself *doggedly* to it. -- Samuel Johnson (Boswell: Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides)
When I find that so much of my life has stolen unprofitably away, and that I can descry by retrospection scarcely a few single days properly and vigorously employed, why do I yet try to resolve again? I try, because reformation is necessary and despair is criminal. I try, in humble hope of the help of God.
Samuel Johnson, Prayers and Meditations
Resolve, and keep your resolution; choose, and pursue your choice. If you spend this day in study, you will find yourself still more able to study tomorrow; not that you are to expect that you shall all at once obtain a complete victory. Depravity is not very easily overcome. Resolution will sometimes relax, and diligence will sometimes be interrupted; but let no accidental surprise or deviation, whether short or long, dispose you to despondency. Boswell: Life of Johnson
Few things are impossible to diligence and skill. Samuel Johnson: Rasselas
Great works are performed, not by strength, but by perseverance; yonder palace was raised by single stones, yet you see its height and spaciousness. He that shall walk with vigour three hours a day, will pass in seven years a space equal to the circumference of the globe. Samuel Johnson: Rasselas
All the performances of human art, at which we look with praise or wonder, are instances of the resistless force of perseverance; it is by this that the quarry becomes a pyramid, and that distant countries are united with canals. If a man was to compare the single stroke of the pickaxe, or of one impression of the spade, with the general design and the last result, he would be overwhelmed by the sense of their disproportion; yet those petty operations, incessantly continued, in time surmount the greatest difficulties, and mountains are leveled and oceans bounded by the slender force of human beings.
Samuel Johnson: Rambler #43
Happy are they ... who shall learn ... not to despair, but shall remember, that though the day is past, and their strength is wasted, there yet remains one effort to be made; that reformation is never hopeless, nor sincere endeavours ever unassisted; that the wanderer may at length return after all his errours, and that he who implores strength and courage from above shall find danger and difficulty give way before him."- Samuel Johnson: Rambler #65
Obstacles don't have to stop you. If you run into a wall, don't turn around and give up. Figure out how to climb it, go through it, or work around it.... Michael Jordan
No longer diverted by other emotions, I work the way a cow grazes. - Kathe Kollwitz (1867 &endash; 1945)
I am a slow walker, but I never walk backwards. Abraham Lincoln
The spirit, the will to win, and the will to excel are the things that endure. These qualities are so much more important than the events that occur. - Vincent Thomas Lombardi, 1913 - 1970
Endurance is the crowning quality,
And patience all the passion of great hearts.
James Russell Lowell. 1819-1891. Columbus.
No worthy enterprise can be done by us without continual plodding and wearisomeness to our faint and sensitive abilities.-- John Milton.
The power of the waterfall is nothing more than a bunch of drips working together. --Theresa Morris
Victory belongs to the most persevering. Napoleon (1769-1821)
Lack of will power has caused more failure than lack of intelligence or ability. Flower A. Newhouse
If I have ever made any valuable discoveries, it has been owing more to patient attention, than to any other talent.-- Isaac Newton
God hath work to do in this world; and to desert it because of its difficulties and entanglements, is to cast off His authority. It is not enough that we be just, that we be righteous, and walk with God in holiness; but we must also serve our generation, as David did before he fell asleep. God hath a work to do; and not to help Him is to oppose Him.-- John Owen
A river continually fed by a living fountain may as soon end its streams before it come to the ocean, as a stop be put to the course and progress of grace before it issue in glory.- JOHN OWEN
Let me tell you the secret that has led me to my goal. My strength lies solely in my tenacity. Louis Pasteur (1822-1895
Life has not taught me to expect nothing, but she has taught me not to expect success to be the inevitable result of my endeavors. She taught me to seek sustenance from the endeavor itself, but to leave the result to God." Alan Paton, "The Challenge of Fear," Saturday Review, September 9, 1967
Patience and diligence, like faith, remove mountains. --William Penn (1644-1718)
Perseverance is more prevailing than violence; and many things which cannot be overcome when they are together, yield themselves up when taken little by little. Plutarch
I think a hero is an ordinary individual who finds the strength to persevere and endure in spite of overwhelming obstacles. - Christopher Reeve - Still Me
To endure is the first thing that a child ought to learn, and that which he will have the most need to know. - Jean Jacques Rousseau, 1712 - 1778
I exhort you and beseech you in the bowels of Christ, faint not, weary not. There is a great necessity of heaven; you must have it... Think it not easy; for it is a steep ascent to eternal glory; many are lying dead by the way, that were slain with security. SAMUEL RUTHERFORD (this quotation is from Letter 100)
Tough times never last, but tough people do. Robert Schuller
There are no shortcuts to any place worth going. Beverly Sills
Whatever is done for men or classes, to a certain extent takes away the stimulus and necessity of doing for themselves... Help from without is often enfeebling, but help from within invigorates...... It is not the man of the greatest natural vigour and capacity who achieves the highest results but he who employs his powers with the greatest industry and the most carefully -disciplined skill..... The battle of life is in most cases fought uphill... if there were no difficulties there would be no success, if there was nothing to struggle for there would be nothing to be achieved. All experiences of life seems to prove that the impediments thrown in the way of the human advancement may for the most part be overcome by steady good conduct, honest zeal, activity, perseverance and above all, by a determined resolution to surmount difficulties and stand up manfully against misfortune. Samuel Smiles, "Self Help"
We believe in the perseverance of the saints, but many are not saints, and therefore do not persevere. -- C.H. Spurgeon
If our religion be of our own getting or making, it will perish; and the sooner it goes, the better; but if our religion is a matter of God's giving, we know that He shall never take back what He gives, and that, if He has commenced to work in us by His grace, He will never leave it unfinished. CHARLES SPURGEON
To endure is greater than to dare; to tire out hostile fortune; to be daunted by no difficulty; to keep heart when all have lost it; to go through intrigue spotless; to forego even ambition when the end is gained - who can say this is not greatness? - William Makepeace Thackeray, 1811 - 1863
Don't bother about genius. Don't worry about being clever. Trust to hard work, perseverance and determination. And the best motto for a long march is: "Don't grumble. Plug on!"--- Sir Frederick Treves
That which was hard to endure is sweet to remember. - Mark Twain, 1835 - 1910
To achieve great things we must live as if we were never going to die.--Marquis de Vauvenargues
When God calls a man, He does not repent of it. God does not, as many friends do, love one day, and hate another; or as princes, who make their subjects favourites, and afterwards throw them into prison. This is the blessedness of a saint; his condition admits of no alteration. God's call is founded on His decree, and His decree is immutable. Acts of grace cannot be reversed. God blots out his people's sins, but not their names THOMAS WATSON
Do not attempt to do a thing unless you are sure of yourself; but do not relinquish it simply because someone else is not sure of you. --Stewart E. White
Genius is divine perseverance. Genius I cannot claim, nor even extra brightness, but perseverance all can have.--Woodrow Wilson:
Don't quit when the tide is lowest,
For it's just about to turn;
Don't quit over doubts and questions,
For there's something you may learn.
Don't quit when the night is darkest,
For it's just a while to dawn;
Don't quit when you've run the farthest,
For the race is almost won.
Don't quit when the hill is steepest,
For your goal is almost nigh;
Don't quit,k for you're not a failure
Until you fail to try.
Jill Wolf
Who climb with toil, wheresoe'er,
Shall find wings waiting there.
Going Down Hill on a Bicycle
Courage and perseverance have a magic talisman, before which difficulties and obstacles vanish into air. John Adams (1767-1848)
It does not require a majority to prevail, but rather an irate, tireless minority keen to set brush fires in people's minds.--Samuel Adams
Those who gave thee a body, furnished it with weakness; but He who gave thee Soul, armed thee with resolution. Employ it, and thou art wise; be wise and thou art happy.- Akhenaton, Egyptian pharaoh c 1350
The difference between perseverance and obstinacy is, that one often comes from a strong will, and the other from a strong won't. Henry Ward Beecher
Consider the postage stamp: its usefulness consists in the ability to stick to one thing until it gets there. Josh Billings
And gain is gain, however small.- Robert Browning (1812-1889)
To make our way, we must have firm resolve, persistence, tenacity. We must gear ourselves to work hard all the way. We can never let up.Ralph Bunche (1904-1971) A Critical Analysis of the Tactics and Programs of Minority Groups, In "Journal of Negro Education, Jul 1935.
Seeing that a Pilot steers the ship in which we sail, who will never allow us to perish even in the midst of shipwrecks, there is no reason why our minds should be overwhelmed with fear and overcome with weariness. John Calvin
Let us not cease to do the utmost, that we may incessantly go forward in the way of the Lord; and let us not despair of the smallness of our accomplishments.
JOHN CALVIN
Permanence, perseverance and persistence in spite of all obstacles, discouragements, and impossibilities: It is this, that in all things distinguishes the strong soul from the weak. Thomas Carlyle
Pablo Casals (1876-1973), the great cellist, when in his 90s, was once asked why he continued to practice on the cello for hours every day. His answer: "Because I think I'm seeing improvement."
One man scorned and covered with scars still strove with his last ounce of courage to reach the unreachable stars; and the world will be better for this.CERVANTES, MIGUEL de (1547-1616,){Don Quixote de la Mancha, 1605-1615}
Aim for perfection in everything, though in most things it is unattainable. However, they who aim at it, and persevere, will come much nearer to it than those whose despondency and laziness make them give it up as unattainable. - Philip Dormer Chesterfield (1694-1773)
Firmness of purpose is one of the most necessary sinews of character, and one of the best instruments of success. Without it genius wastes its efforts in a maze of inconsistencies. - Philip Dormer Chesterfield (1694-1773)
I learned ... that one can never go back, that one should not ever try to go back - that the essence of life is going forward. Life is really a one-way street, isn't it? Agatha Christie
If you're going through hell, keep going. ---Sir Winston Churchill (1874 - 1965
Never give in, never give in, never, never, never, never- in nothing great or small, large or petty-never give in except to convictions of honour and good sense. Winston Churchill 1941--Harrow School
Failure is the line of least persistence. - W. A. Clark
Pursue one great decisive aim with force and determination.
Karl von Clausewitz (1780-1831)
The greatest glory is not in never failing but in rising up every time we fall. - Confucius.
Nothing in the world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated failures. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent. Calvin Coolidge
To become a champion, fight one more round.-- James J. Corbett
Most of us serve our ideals by fits and starts. The person who makes a success of living is the one who sees his goal steadily and aims for it unswervingly.
Cecil B. de Mille (1881-1959)
Ride on! Rough-shod if need be, smooth-shod if that will do, but ride on! Ride on over all obstacles, and win the race! -- Charles Dickens
Through perserverence many people win success out of what seemed destined to be certain failure....Benjamin Disraeli
The secret of success is constancy of purpose. Disraeli (1804-1881)
Nothing can resist the human will that will stake even its existence on its stated purpose.DISRAELI, BENJAMIN
Neither place, parts, nay, nor graces, will exempt any man from falling. O believers, what need is there to be watchful and humble!-JAMES DURHAM
History has demonstrated that the most notable winners usually encountered heartbreaking obstacles before they triumphed. They won because they refused to become discouraged by their defeats. B. C. Forbes
How you start is important, but it is how you finish that counts. In the race for success, speed is less important than stamina. The sticker outlasts the sprinter.-- B. C. Forbes (1880-1954) In "Reader's Digest," Jan 1991.
The only way round is through.-- Robert Frost (1874-1963) In "Barnes & Noble Book of Quotations," by Robert I. Fitzhenry, 1987.
In the realm of ideas, everything depends on enthusiasm. In the real world, all rests on perseverance.-- Goethe
We will find a way or make one.- Hannibal (247-182BC)
It matters if you just don't give up.HAWKING, STEPHEN (1942- )
Heavy blizzards start as a gentle and persistent snow.- Mark Helprin
Only a sweet and virtuous soul,
Like seasoned timber, never gives.
Virtue. George Herbert. 1593-1632.
Patience, persistence and perspiration make an unbeatable combination for success.... Napoleon Hill
It is not the mountain we conquer but ourselves. Edmund Hillary (1919-____) In "Reader's Digest."
There is no royal road to anything. One thing at a time, all things in succession. That which grows fast, withers as rapidly. That which grows slowly, endures.- Josiah Gilbert Holland, 1819 - 1881
A man may write at any time, if he will set himself *doggedly* to it. -- Samuel Johnson (Boswell: Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides)
When I find that so much of my life has stolen unprofitably away, and that I can descry by retrospection scarcely a few single days properly and vigorously employed, why do I yet try to resolve again? I try, because reformation is necessary and despair is criminal. I try, in humble hope of the help of God.
Samuel Johnson, Prayers and Meditations
Resolve, and keep your resolution; choose, and pursue your choice. If you spend this day in study, you will find yourself still more able to study tomorrow; not that you are to expect that you shall all at once obtain a complete victory. Depravity is not very easily overcome. Resolution will sometimes relax, and diligence will sometimes be interrupted; but let no accidental surprise or deviation, whether short or long, dispose you to despondency. Boswell: Life of Johnson
Few things are impossible to diligence and skill. Samuel Johnson: Rasselas
Great works are performed, not by strength, but by perseverance; yonder palace was raised by single stones, yet you see its height and spaciousness. He that shall walk with vigour three hours a day, will pass in seven years a space equal to the circumference of the globe. Samuel Johnson: Rasselas
All the performances of human art, at which we look with praise or wonder, are instances of the resistless force of perseverance; it is by this that the quarry becomes a pyramid, and that distant countries are united with canals. If a man was to compare the single stroke of the pickaxe, or of one impression of the spade, with the general design and the last result, he would be overwhelmed by the sense of their disproportion; yet those petty operations, incessantly continued, in time surmount the greatest difficulties, and mountains are leveled and oceans bounded by the slender force of human beings.
Samuel Johnson: Rambler #43
Happy are they ... who shall learn ... not to despair, but shall remember, that though the day is past, and their strength is wasted, there yet remains one effort to be made; that reformation is never hopeless, nor sincere endeavours ever unassisted; that the wanderer may at length return after all his errours, and that he who implores strength and courage from above shall find danger and difficulty give way before him."- Samuel Johnson: Rambler #65
Obstacles don't have to stop you. If you run into a wall, don't turn around and give up. Figure out how to climb it, go through it, or work around it.... Michael Jordan
No longer diverted by other emotions, I work the way a cow grazes. - Kathe Kollwitz (1867 &endash; 1945)
I am a slow walker, but I never walk backwards. Abraham Lincoln
The spirit, the will to win, and the will to excel are the things that endure. These qualities are so much more important than the events that occur. - Vincent Thomas Lombardi, 1913 - 1970
Endurance is the crowning quality,
And patience all the passion of great hearts.
James Russell Lowell. 1819-1891. Columbus.
No worthy enterprise can be done by us without continual plodding and wearisomeness to our faint and sensitive abilities.-- John Milton.
The power of the waterfall is nothing more than a bunch of drips working together. --Theresa Morris
Victory belongs to the most persevering. Napoleon (1769-1821)
Lack of will power has caused more failure than lack of intelligence or ability. Flower A. Newhouse
If I have ever made any valuable discoveries, it has been owing more to patient attention, than to any other talent.-- Isaac Newton
God hath work to do in this world; and to desert it because of its difficulties and entanglements, is to cast off His authority. It is not enough that we be just, that we be righteous, and walk with God in holiness; but we must also serve our generation, as David did before he fell asleep. God hath a work to do; and not to help Him is to oppose Him.-- John Owen
A river continually fed by a living fountain may as soon end its streams before it come to the ocean, as a stop be put to the course and progress of grace before it issue in glory.- JOHN OWEN
Let me tell you the secret that has led me to my goal. My strength lies solely in my tenacity. Louis Pasteur (1822-1895
Life has not taught me to expect nothing, but she has taught me not to expect success to be the inevitable result of my endeavors. She taught me to seek sustenance from the endeavor itself, but to leave the result to God." Alan Paton, "The Challenge of Fear," Saturday Review, September 9, 1967
Patience and diligence, like faith, remove mountains. --William Penn (1644-1718)
Perseverance is more prevailing than violence; and many things which cannot be overcome when they are together, yield themselves up when taken little by little. Plutarch
I think a hero is an ordinary individual who finds the strength to persevere and endure in spite of overwhelming obstacles. - Christopher Reeve - Still Me
To endure is the first thing that a child ought to learn, and that which he will have the most need to know. - Jean Jacques Rousseau, 1712 - 1778
I exhort you and beseech you in the bowels of Christ, faint not, weary not. There is a great necessity of heaven; you must have it... Think it not easy; for it is a steep ascent to eternal glory; many are lying dead by the way, that were slain with security. SAMUEL RUTHERFORD (this quotation is from Letter 100)
Tough times never last, but tough people do. Robert Schuller
There are no shortcuts to any place worth going. Beverly Sills
Whatever is done for men or classes, to a certain extent takes away the stimulus and necessity of doing for themselves... Help from without is often enfeebling, but help from within invigorates...... It is not the man of the greatest natural vigour and capacity who achieves the highest results but he who employs his powers with the greatest industry and the most carefully -disciplined skill..... The battle of life is in most cases fought uphill... if there were no difficulties there would be no success, if there was nothing to struggle for there would be nothing to be achieved. All experiences of life seems to prove that the impediments thrown in the way of the human advancement may for the most part be overcome by steady good conduct, honest zeal, activity, perseverance and above all, by a determined resolution to surmount difficulties and stand up manfully against misfortune. Samuel Smiles, "Self Help"
We believe in the perseverance of the saints, but many are not saints, and therefore do not persevere. -- C.H. Spurgeon
If our religion be of our own getting or making, it will perish; and the sooner it goes, the better; but if our religion is a matter of God's giving, we know that He shall never take back what He gives, and that, if He has commenced to work in us by His grace, He will never leave it unfinished. CHARLES SPURGEON
To endure is greater than to dare; to tire out hostile fortune; to be daunted by no difficulty; to keep heart when all have lost it; to go through intrigue spotless; to forego even ambition when the end is gained - who can say this is not greatness? - William Makepeace Thackeray, 1811 - 1863
Don't bother about genius. Don't worry about being clever. Trust to hard work, perseverance and determination. And the best motto for a long march is: "Don't grumble. Plug on!"--- Sir Frederick Treves
That which was hard to endure is sweet to remember. - Mark Twain, 1835 - 1910
To achieve great things we must live as if we were never going to die.--Marquis de Vauvenargues
When God calls a man, He does not repent of it. God does not, as many friends do, love one day, and hate another; or as princes, who make their subjects favourites, and afterwards throw them into prison. This is the blessedness of a saint; his condition admits of no alteration. God's call is founded on His decree, and His decree is immutable. Acts of grace cannot be reversed. God blots out his people's sins, but not their names THOMAS WATSON
Do not attempt to do a thing unless you are sure of yourself; but do not relinquish it simply because someone else is not sure of you. --Stewart E. White
Genius is divine perseverance. Genius I cannot claim, nor even extra brightness, but perseverance all can have.--Woodrow Wilson:
Don't quit when the tide is lowest,
For it's just about to turn;
Don't quit over doubts and questions,
For there's something you may learn.
Don't quit when the night is darkest,
For it's just a while to dawn;
Don't quit when you've run the farthest,
For the race is almost won.
Don't quit when the hill is steepest,
For your goal is almost nigh;
Don't quit,k for you're not a failure
Until you fail to try.
Jill Wolf
Sunday, May 25, 2008
Persecution- christiansquoting.org.uk
In a democracy the majority of citizens is capable of exercising the most cruel oppressions upon the minority...and that oppression of the majority will extend to far great number, and will be carried on with much greater fury, than can almost ever be apprehended from the dominion of a single sceptre. Under a cruel prince they have the plaudits of the people to animate their generous constancy under their sufferings; but those who are subjected to wrong under multitudes are deprived of all external consolation: they seem deserted by mankind, overpowered by a conspiracy of their whole species.
Edmund Burke, Reflections on the Revolution in France , 1790
The earnest freethinkers need not worry themselves too much about the persecutions of the past. Before the Liberal idea is dead or triumphant, we shall see wars and persecutions the like of which the World has never seen. They need not reserve their tears for the victims of Bonner or Claverhouse [leaders of religious persecution under Mary Tudor and Charles II]. They may weep for themselves and their children.
G. K. Chesterton, _Daily News_ February, 1905.
When searching for examples of state-sponsored barbarities, intellectuals are quick to point to the Spanish Inquisition or its Protestant imitation, the Witchhunt. How could anyone, modern academics wonder, persecute another for their beliefs? These same intellectuals, ironically, are often the very people who served as cheerleaders for political persecution and mass murder on a scale unmatched in human history. The Spanish Inquisition claimed slightly more than 2,000 lives during its 25-year apex between 1480 and 1505. One would be hard pressed to find any 25-day period in Russia under Stalin, China under Mao, or Cambodia under Pol Pot in which the killing was that slight. Yet it is a Torquemada or Salem that is equated with homicidal intolerance. The crimes of Communismare ignored. Being generous, one might suppose that intellectuals are simplyblinded by the prejudices of our age and are unable to detach themselves and see the killing that has occurred right under their noses. A more cynical perspective might view their amnesia as a self-induced condition brought on as a method to absolve themselves of their own role in supporting murder. --Daniel J Flynn, Ideas Have Consequences... Like Murder, Tyranny, and Repression
It is not conclusive proof of a doctrine's correctness that its adversaries use the police, the hangman, and violent mobs to fight it. But it is a proof of the fact that those taking recourse to violent oppression are in their subconsciousness convinced of the untenability of their own doctrines. -- Ludwig von Mises
Come down, O Son of God! incestuous gloom
Curtains the land, and through the starless night
Over thy Cross the Crescent moon I see!
If thou in very truth didst burst the tomb
Come down, O Son of Man! and show thy might,
Lest Mahomet be crowned instead of Thee!
Wilde, Oscar.ON THE MASSACRE OF THE CHRISTIANS IN BULGARIA. 1881.
Edmund Burke, Reflections on the Revolution in France , 1790
The earnest freethinkers need not worry themselves too much about the persecutions of the past. Before the Liberal idea is dead or triumphant, we shall see wars and persecutions the like of which the World has never seen. They need not reserve their tears for the victims of Bonner or Claverhouse [leaders of religious persecution under Mary Tudor and Charles II]. They may weep for themselves and their children.
G. K. Chesterton, _Daily News_ February, 1905.
When searching for examples of state-sponsored barbarities, intellectuals are quick to point to the Spanish Inquisition or its Protestant imitation, the Witchhunt. How could anyone, modern academics wonder, persecute another for their beliefs? These same intellectuals, ironically, are often the very people who served as cheerleaders for political persecution and mass murder on a scale unmatched in human history. The Spanish Inquisition claimed slightly more than 2,000 lives during its 25-year apex between 1480 and 1505. One would be hard pressed to find any 25-day period in Russia under Stalin, China under Mao, or Cambodia under Pol Pot in which the killing was that slight. Yet it is a Torquemada or Salem that is equated with homicidal intolerance. The crimes of Communismare ignored. Being generous, one might suppose that intellectuals are simplyblinded by the prejudices of our age and are unable to detach themselves and see the killing that has occurred right under their noses. A more cynical perspective might view their amnesia as a self-induced condition brought on as a method to absolve themselves of their own role in supporting murder. --Daniel J Flynn, Ideas Have Consequences... Like Murder, Tyranny, and Repression
It is not conclusive proof of a doctrine's correctness that its adversaries use the police, the hangman, and violent mobs to fight it. But it is a proof of the fact that those taking recourse to violent oppression are in their subconsciousness convinced of the untenability of their own doctrines. -- Ludwig von Mises
Come down, O Son of God! incestuous gloom
Curtains the land, and through the starless night
Over thy Cross the Crescent moon I see!
If thou in very truth didst burst the tomb
Come down, O Son of Man! and show thy might,
Lest Mahomet be crowned instead of Thee!
Wilde, Oscar.ON THE MASSACRE OF THE CHRISTIANS IN BULGARIA. 1881.
Permanence- christiansquoting.org.uk
No condition is permanent - often seen as the motto on mammy wagons in Nigeria
The Moving Finger writes: and having writ,
Moves on: nor or thy Piety nor Wit
Shall lure it back to cancel half a Line,
Nor all the Tears wash our a Word of it.
Edward Fitzgerald 1809-1883, Omar Khayyam ed1.51
The Moving Finger writes: and having writ,
Moves on: nor or thy Piety nor Wit
Shall lure it back to cancel half a Line,
Nor all the Tears wash our a Word of it.
Edward Fitzgerald 1809-1883, Omar Khayyam ed1.51
Saturday, May 24, 2008
The end on New Labour
conservatines.com aka nutories, says,"In the early hours of Friday morning, Edward Timpson became the new MP for Crewe and Nantwich after winning the by-election by nearly 8,000 votes.
David Cameron described it as “a remarkable result” which shows that we are building “a real coalition for change in our country”.
And he attacked Labour for their “relentlessly negative” campaign, saying:
“Their campaign didn’t tell us much about the Conservative Party – but it told us a lot about the Labour Party. It was backward-looking, divisive and xenophobic. In many ways, it was the end of New Labour.”
The trouble is that one rejoices in the demise of nulabour but sees no clear blue water from the blairite tribute band that is the nutorys.
David Cameron described it as “a remarkable result” which shows that we are building “a real coalition for change in our country”.
And he attacked Labour for their “relentlessly negative” campaign, saying:
“Their campaign didn’t tell us much about the Conservative Party – but it told us a lot about the Labour Party. It was backward-looking, divisive and xenophobic. In many ways, it was the end of New Labour.”
The trouble is that one rejoices in the demise of nulabour but sees no clear blue water from the blairite tribute band that is the nutorys.
Wednesday, May 21, 2008
The home of the Taliban
BBC says, "The provincial government in north-west Pakistan has agreed to pull troops out of a valley under a peace agreement signed with pro-Taleban militants.
The authorities say they will also allow the militants to impose Sharia law in Swat in return for promises to close training camps and end attacks."
When they are defeated in Afghanistan we should do something about their homeland.
The authorities say they will also allow the militants to impose Sharia law in Swat in return for promises to close training camps and end attacks."
When they are defeated in Afghanistan we should do something about their homeland.
Brown is a credible a Christian as Blair :-(
BBC says,"Pro-life campaigners have vowed to continue their fight to cut the abortion limit after the next election.
MPs voted to keep the current 24-week cut-off following an impassioned Commons debate and a series of attempts to lower it to 12, 16 or 22 weeks.
There was a free vote but Labour MPs mostly backed the status quo - leaving anti-abortion campaigners pinning their hopes on a change of government.
Pro-choice groups attacked "cynical" attempts to cut the limit.
The closest vote, on a 22-week limit, was thrown out by 304 votes to 233. Tory MP Nadine Dorries' proposal for a 20 week limit was defeated by 332 votes to 190.
Most Conservative MPs voted for a 22 week limit, while Lib Dem MPs split into two camps - with most senior figures voting for the status quo.
Attempts to lower the cut-off to 12 and 16 weeks were overturned by even bigger margins.
Ian Lucas, coordinator of the all-party Parliamentary Pro-Life Group, said: "We will continue the fight to reflect the wishes of the public and support the rights of the unborn child."
And Lib Dem Mark Hunter told BBC Radio 4's World at One programme: "I am absolutely confident that the debate in the country will continue and it is only a matter of time before once again this issue does come back to the Commons."
Prime Minister Gordon Brown and most of the cabinet voted to keep the existing 24 limit, as did Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg.
Issue of conscience?
But Catholic cabinet ministers Ruth Kelly, Des Browne and Paul Murphy voted for the lowest option - 12 weeks.
Conservative leader David Cameron voted for a 20 week limit and then for a cut to a 22 week limit - which was backed by most of the shadow cabinet.
See a graph of abortion levels
Mr Brown had offered Labour MPs a free vote on the issue as a matter of conscience.
But Ms Dorries, who led the campaign to reduce the limit, told BBC Radio 4's Today programme: "Last night the Labour MPs were on a three-line whip to attend the chamber. "When they arrived in the chamber, because normally only a third of them even vote on this issue, they were dragooned off into the 24-week lobby."
She said the government was "out of touch" with the public on the issue and Labour MPs had been "piling in" to "shore up" Mr Brown.
However, Labour's Louise Elman insisted there was "no pressure" on her or her colleagues to vote a certain way.
"On these particular points of specific controversy there was no pressure, there was no whip - people voted as their consciences led them to."
The votes followed two highly-charged debates on the controversial Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill - the biggest shake-up of fertility law for nearly 20 years.
Earlier the government saw off another challenge to the bill when MPs rejected a cross-party move for doctors to consider the need for a "father and a mother" before allowing IVF treatment.
Health Minister Dawn Primarolo insisted there was no evidence requiring the abortion laws to be changed and said changing it would force the small number of women seeking late abortions to go elsewhere.
"Wouldn't it be appalling if we drove women back to where they were before the 1967 (Abortion) Act?" she said.
She said the limit had always been linked to the "potential viability of the foetus outside of the womb".
"That was the case in 1967. It was the case in 1990 and certainly the case now."
And Julie Bentley, chief executive of the Family Planning Association, welcomed the votes.
"FPA are delight that Parliament has resisted cynical attempts by anti-abortion campaigners to reduce access to safe, legal abortion," she said.
"Cutting the time limit, even by a few weeks, would have directly contradicted medical and scientific evidence about foetal viability and would only have exacerbated the desperation of the small percentage of women needing later abortion," she said"
It was not a free vote. Labour whipped them to be there and showed them which lobby to go through.. MURDERERS.
MPs voted to keep the current 24-week cut-off following an impassioned Commons debate and a series of attempts to lower it to 12, 16 or 22 weeks.
There was a free vote but Labour MPs mostly backed the status quo - leaving anti-abortion campaigners pinning their hopes on a change of government.
Pro-choice groups attacked "cynical" attempts to cut the limit.
The closest vote, on a 22-week limit, was thrown out by 304 votes to 233. Tory MP Nadine Dorries' proposal for a 20 week limit was defeated by 332 votes to 190.
Most Conservative MPs voted for a 22 week limit, while Lib Dem MPs split into two camps - with most senior figures voting for the status quo.
Attempts to lower the cut-off to 12 and 16 weeks were overturned by even bigger margins.
Ian Lucas, coordinator of the all-party Parliamentary Pro-Life Group, said: "We will continue the fight to reflect the wishes of the public and support the rights of the unborn child."
And Lib Dem Mark Hunter told BBC Radio 4's World at One programme: "I am absolutely confident that the debate in the country will continue and it is only a matter of time before once again this issue does come back to the Commons."
Prime Minister Gordon Brown and most of the cabinet voted to keep the existing 24 limit, as did Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg.
Issue of conscience?
But Catholic cabinet ministers Ruth Kelly, Des Browne and Paul Murphy voted for the lowest option - 12 weeks.
Conservative leader David Cameron voted for a 20 week limit and then for a cut to a 22 week limit - which was backed by most of the shadow cabinet.
See a graph of abortion levels
Mr Brown had offered Labour MPs a free vote on the issue as a matter of conscience.
But Ms Dorries, who led the campaign to reduce the limit, told BBC Radio 4's Today programme: "Last night the Labour MPs were on a three-line whip to attend the chamber. "When they arrived in the chamber, because normally only a third of them even vote on this issue, they were dragooned off into the 24-week lobby."
She said the government was "out of touch" with the public on the issue and Labour MPs had been "piling in" to "shore up" Mr Brown.
However, Labour's Louise Elman insisted there was "no pressure" on her or her colleagues to vote a certain way.
"On these particular points of specific controversy there was no pressure, there was no whip - people voted as their consciences led them to."
The votes followed two highly-charged debates on the controversial Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill - the biggest shake-up of fertility law for nearly 20 years.
Earlier the government saw off another challenge to the bill when MPs rejected a cross-party move for doctors to consider the need for a "father and a mother" before allowing IVF treatment.
Health Minister Dawn Primarolo insisted there was no evidence requiring the abortion laws to be changed and said changing it would force the small number of women seeking late abortions to go elsewhere.
"Wouldn't it be appalling if we drove women back to where they were before the 1967 (Abortion) Act?" she said.
She said the limit had always been linked to the "potential viability of the foetus outside of the womb".
"That was the case in 1967. It was the case in 1990 and certainly the case now."
And Julie Bentley, chief executive of the Family Planning Association, welcomed the votes.
"FPA are delight that Parliament has resisted cynical attempts by anti-abortion campaigners to reduce access to safe, legal abortion," she said.
"Cutting the time limit, even by a few weeks, would have directly contradicted medical and scientific evidence about foetal viability and would only have exacerbated the desperation of the small percentage of women needing later abortion," she said"
It was not a free vote. Labour whipped them to be there and showed them which lobby to go through.. MURDERERS.
Hail MacNanny!
BBC says, "Plans to ban the open display of cigarettes in shops have been announced by the Scottish Government.
Public Health Minister Shona Robison said giving them "pride of place" on shelves did not fit with the drive to tackle smoking-related illness.
It is two years since Scotland led the UK in banning smoking in public places, and six months since the legal age for buying cigarettes was raised to 18."
So will the shelves be full of cigars and pipe tobacco?
Public Health Minister Shona Robison said giving them "pride of place" on shelves did not fit with the drive to tackle smoking-related illness.
It is two years since Scotland led the UK in banning smoking in public places, and six months since the legal age for buying cigarettes was raised to 18."
So will the shelves be full of cigars and pipe tobacco?
Not the Irish joke
BBC says, "'A Leeds man has been dubbed the city's "dumbest criminal" by a councillor for posting videos of anti-social behaviour on the YouTube website.
Andrew Kellett, 23, from Stanks Drive, Swarcliffe, published 80 videos and was given an interim anti-social behaviour order (Asbo) by Leeds magistrates.
Kellett has been previously convicted of various offences but the Asbo stops him from boasting of his activities.
The clips include Kellett being driven in a speeding car at more than 140 mph.
Councillor Les Carter, chair of Safer Leeds - a partnership between police and local authorities aimed at cutting crime - said: "Kellett must be in the running to be Leeds' dumbest criminal.
"In the last three years we have seen a 32% reduction in crime in Leeds. If more criminals were as obliging, the city would be even safer."
Leeds City Council have secured an interim Asbo against Kellett although he claims he was simply a bystander filming events.
The council said that other YouTube videos showed Kellett refusing to pay a taxi driver the right fare, being driven away from a petrol station apparently without paying, and racing other cars.
The terms of the Asbo include not to participate in, or encourage others to participate in, the driving of vehicles in a dangerous or anti-social manner.
He is also prevented from posting any image or description of unlawful activity on the internet."
So Paddy. You are off the hook. Puddin is the dumbo.
Andrew Kellett, 23, from Stanks Drive, Swarcliffe, published 80 videos and was given an interim anti-social behaviour order (Asbo) by Leeds magistrates.
Kellett has been previously convicted of various offences but the Asbo stops him from boasting of his activities.
The clips include Kellett being driven in a speeding car at more than 140 mph.
Councillor Les Carter, chair of Safer Leeds - a partnership between police and local authorities aimed at cutting crime - said: "Kellett must be in the running to be Leeds' dumbest criminal.
"In the last three years we have seen a 32% reduction in crime in Leeds. If more criminals were as obliging, the city would be even safer."
Leeds City Council have secured an interim Asbo against Kellett although he claims he was simply a bystander filming events.
The council said that other YouTube videos showed Kellett refusing to pay a taxi driver the right fare, being driven away from a petrol station apparently without paying, and racing other cars.
The terms of the Asbo include not to participate in, or encourage others to participate in, the driving of vehicles in a dangerous or anti-social manner.
He is also prevented from posting any image or description of unlawful activity on the internet."
So Paddy. You are off the hook. Puddin is the dumbo.
More about a follower of the religion of peace
The people who take a licence fee from me say, "Police have released a former al-Qaeda recruiter without charge.
Hassan Butt had been held since his arrest on 9 May at Manchester airport by officers from Greater Manchester Police's counter terrorism unit.
The 28-year-old had been about to board a flight to Lahore in Pakistan when he was arrested on suspicion of financing, directing and supporting terrorism.
Mr Butt has spoken of his past involvement in terrorist activity which he says he has now renounced.
A police spokeswoman confirmed a 28-year-old man had been released without charge and said the police investigation was ongoing.
Previously, Mr Butt, a British citizen from Manchester, has admitted to fundraising for terror networks.
He has also claimed to have recruited "hundreds" of British Muslims to fight for al-Qaeda in Iraq and Afghanistan.
In the past he has met government officials to talk about how to steer young British Muslims away from extremism."
Don't we have a treason law?
Hassan Butt had been held since his arrest on 9 May at Manchester airport by officers from Greater Manchester Police's counter terrorism unit.
The 28-year-old had been about to board a flight to Lahore in Pakistan when he was arrested on suspicion of financing, directing and supporting terrorism.
Mr Butt has spoken of his past involvement in terrorist activity which he says he has now renounced.
A police spokeswoman confirmed a 28-year-old man had been released without charge and said the police investigation was ongoing.
Previously, Mr Butt, a British citizen from Manchester, has admitted to fundraising for terror networks.
He has also claimed to have recruited "hundreds" of British Muslims to fight for al-Qaeda in Iraq and Afghanistan.
In the past he has met government officials to talk about how to steer young British Muslims away from extremism."
Don't we have a treason law?
Christian registrar seeks conscience exemption
Christian Institute says, "A Christian registrar, Lillian Ladele, is presenting her case to an employment tribunal after her Council employers refused to grant her a conscience exemption from registering same-sex unions.
Miss Ladele, who currently works for Islington Council, has been a registrar for nearly 16 years. Before the Civil Partnerships Act came into effect in 2005 she asked to be excused from registering civil partnerships between same-sex couples because to do so would conflict with her religious beliefs.
She has subsequently been disciplined by her employers, and other colleagues have been allowed to choose not to work with her because of her beliefs.
Miss Ladele says that although the law requires local authorities to provide a civil partnership service, the requirement does not extend to individual registrars.
Her case will be heard by an employment tribunal beginning on Tuesday, 20 May, and is expected to last four days. Miss Ladele's lawyers will argue to the tribunal that by forcing her to take part in forming civil partnerships against her conscience, Islington Council are infringing equality laws.
Miss Ladele said: "This is a subject on which there are a variety of views in our society. As a matter of religious conscience, I simply can't take part in the formation of a civil partnership."
She continued: "I am not seeking to obstruct people forming civil partnerships and I have many colleagues who are willing to assist with the formation of civil partnerships. Other local authorities in this situation have agreed to accommodate individual consciences.
"Unfortunately, after nearly 16 years' service, this is unacceptable to my local authority, although it has decided it is acceptable for colleagues to choose not to work with me because they object to my religious beliefs.
"I believe that forcing someone to work contrary to their conscience and under threat of dismissal is not right. If we are genuine when we talk about diversity and equality then shouldn't we be prepared to tolerate a range of views, not simply those we agree with?""
I pray she will be vindicated and this discriminatory Council have to pay up and stop shunning her.
In the Hebrides the Council will abide by the law and register so called civil unions. But there will be no ceremony if any homosexuals wish to register in Stornoway. The law requires only a register. The council can refuse any ceremony.
Miss Ladele, who currently works for Islington Council, has been a registrar for nearly 16 years. Before the Civil Partnerships Act came into effect in 2005 she asked to be excused from registering civil partnerships between same-sex couples because to do so would conflict with her religious beliefs.
She has subsequently been disciplined by her employers, and other colleagues have been allowed to choose not to work with her because of her beliefs.
Miss Ladele says that although the law requires local authorities to provide a civil partnership service, the requirement does not extend to individual registrars.
Her case will be heard by an employment tribunal beginning on Tuesday, 20 May, and is expected to last four days. Miss Ladele's lawyers will argue to the tribunal that by forcing her to take part in forming civil partnerships against her conscience, Islington Council are infringing equality laws.
Miss Ladele said: "This is a subject on which there are a variety of views in our society. As a matter of religious conscience, I simply can't take part in the formation of a civil partnership."
She continued: "I am not seeking to obstruct people forming civil partnerships and I have many colleagues who are willing to assist with the formation of civil partnerships. Other local authorities in this situation have agreed to accommodate individual consciences.
"Unfortunately, after nearly 16 years' service, this is unacceptable to my local authority, although it has decided it is acceptable for colleagues to choose not to work with me because they object to my religious beliefs.
"I believe that forcing someone to work contrary to their conscience and under threat of dismissal is not right. If we are genuine when we talk about diversity and equality then shouldn't we be prepared to tolerate a range of views, not simply those we agree with?""
I pray she will be vindicated and this discriminatory Council have to pay up and stop shunning her.
In the Hebrides the Council will abide by the law and register so called civil unions. But there will be no ceremony if any homosexuals wish to register in Stornoway. The law requires only a register. The council can refuse any ceremony.
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