Andrew Johnson

17th President of the United States
(1808-1875)

Honest conviction is my courage; the Constitution is my guide.

If the rabble were lopped off at one end and the aristocrat at the other, all would be well with the country. (So, what have they done? Killed the Middle Class~~the backbone of any nation. Ending up with a nation of rich and poor.)

The goal to strive for is a poor government but a rich people.

Tyranny and despotism can be exercised by many, more rigourously, more vigourously, and more severely, than by one.

I have performed my duty to my God, my country, and my family. I have nothing to fear in approaching death. To me it is the mere shadow of God's protecting wing .

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Woodrow Wilson

28th President of the United States
(1856-1924)

America is not anything if it consists of each of us. It is something only if it consists of all of us.

America was established not to create wealth but to realize a vision, to realize an ideal - to discover and maintain liberty among men.

Business underlies everything in our national life, including our spiritual life. Witness the fact that in the Lord's Prayer, the first petition is for daily bread. No one can worship God or love his neighbor on an empty stomach.


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John Greenleaf Whittier

American Poet
(1807-1892)

Before me, even as behind, God is, and all is well.

God's colors all are fast.

As a small businessperson, you have no greater leverage than the truth.

For all sad words of tongue and pen, the saddest are those 'It might have been.'

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Leonid Ilyich Brezhnev

Soviet leader
(1906-1982)

God will not forgive us if we fail. (!!)

The trouble with free elections is, you never know who is going to win.

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Lady Bird Johnson

Businessperson, First Lady of President Lyndon Johnson
(1912- )

Children are apt to live up to what you believe of them.

It's odd that you can get so anesthetized by your own pain or your own problem that you don't quite fully share the hell of someone close to you.

Perhaps no place in any community is so totally democratic as the town library. The only entrance requirement is interest.


The clash of ideas is the sound of freedom.

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Sir Noel Coward

English playwright
(1899-1973)

It is discouraging how many people are shocked by honesty and how few by deceit.

Extraordinary how potent cheap music is.

I have always paid income tax. I object only when it reaches a stage when I am threatened with having nothing left for my old age - which is due to start next Tuesday or Wednesday.

I'll go through life either first class or third, but never in second.


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Branch Rickey

American baseball executive
(1881-1965)

I don't care if I was a ditch-digger at a dollar a day, I'd want to do my job better than the fellow next to me. I'd want to be the best at whatever I do.

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I don't like the subtle infiltration of 'something for nothing' philosophies into the very hearthstone of the American family. I believe that 'Thou shalt earn the bread by the sweat of thy face' was a benediction and not a penalty. Work is the zest of life; there is joy in its pursuit.

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Texas

Rules to Enter Texas:

Applies to each person as they enter Texas.

Learn & remember:


East Coast and California-types pay particular attention!

1. Pull your droopy pants up. You look like an idiot.

2. Let's get this straight; it's called a "gravel road." I drive a pickup truck because I want to. No matter how slow you drive, you're going to get dust on your Lexus. Drive it or get out of the way.

3. They are cattle & oil wells. That's what they smell like to you. They smell like money to us. Get over it. Don't like it? I-20 and I-10 go east and west, I-35 goes north. Pick one.


4. So you have a $60,000 car. We're impressed. We have $250,000 cotton strippers that are driven only 3 weeks a year.

5. So every person in every pickup waves. It's called being friendly. Try to understand the concept.

6. If that cell phone rings while a bunch of doves are coming in, we WILL shoot it out of your hand. You better hope you don't have it up to your ear at the time.


7. Yeah, we eat catfish & crawfish. You really want sushi & caviar? It's available at the corner bait shop.

8. The "Opener" refers to the first day of deer season. It's a religious holiday held the closest Saturday to the first of November.

9. We open doors for women. That is applied to all women, regardless of age.

10. No, there's no "vegetarian special" on the menu.Order steak. Or you can order the Chef's Salad and pick
off the 2 pounds of ham & turkey.

11. When we fill out a table, there are three main dishes: meats, vegetables, and breads. We use three spices: salt, pepper, and Picante Sauce. Oh, yeah.... We don't care what you folks in Cincinnati call that stuff you eat... It AINT REAL CHILI!! Chili was born and bred in San Antonio....and real chili never met a tomato!

12. You bring "coke" into my house, it better be brown, wet, and served over ice. You bring "Mary Jane" into my house, she better be cute, know how to shoot, drive a truck, and have long hair.


13. College and High School Football is as important here as the Lakers and the Knicks, and a dang site more fun to watch.


14. Yeah, we have golf courses. But don't hit the water hazards - it spooks the fish.


15. Colleges? Try Texas, Texas A&M or Texas Tech. They come outta there with an education plus a love for God and country, and they still wave at passing pickups when they come for the holidays.


16. We have more folks in the Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marines, than any other state, so "Don't Mess with Texas". If you do, it will get you whipped by the best.

17. Always remember what our great governor Sam Houston once said:

"Texas can make it without the United States, but the
United States can't make it without Texas."

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Aleksandr Isayevich Solzhenitsyn

Russian Writer
(1918- )

Hastiness and superficiality are the psychic diseases of the 20th century, and more than anywhere else this disease is reflected in the press.

It is not because the truth is too difficult to see that we make mistakes... we make mistakes because the easiest and most comfortable course for us is to seek insight where it accords with our emotions - especially selfish ones.

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Noam Chomsky

U.S. educator and linguist
(1928-)

American society is now remarkably atomized. Political organizations have collapsed. In fact, it seems like even bowling leagues are collapsing. The left has a lot to answer for here. There's been a drift toward very fragmenting tendencies among left groups, toward this sort of identity politics.

Any dictator would admire the uniformity and obedience of the U.S. media.

Censorship is never over for those who have experienced it. It is a brand on the imagination that affects the individual who has suffered it, forever.

Either you repeat the same conventional doctrines everybody is saying, or else you say something true, and it will sound like it's from Neptune.


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Thomas Carlyle

English author
(1795-1881)

Show me the man you honor, and I will know what kind of man you are, for it shows me what your ideal of manhood is and what kind of man you long to be.

Permanence, perseverance and persistence in spite of all obstacles, discouragement, and impossibilities: It is this, that in all things distinguishes the strong soul from the weak.

No conquest can ever become permanent which does not show itself beneficial to the conquered as well as to the conquerors.

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Martin Van Buren

8th President of the United States
(1782-1862)

To avoid the necessity of a permanent debt and its inevitable consequences, I have advocated and endeavored to carry into effect the policy of confining the appropriations for the public service to such objects only as are clearly with the constitutional authority of the Federal Government. {Wow, what a concept: the government appropriating funds ONLY for that which it is ALLOWED to do!}


The less government interferes with private pursuits, the better for general prosperity.

It is easier to do a job right than to explain why you didn't.


There is a power in public opinion in this country and I thank God for it: for it is the most honest and best of all powers which will not tolerate an incompetent or unworthy man to hold in his weak or wicked hands the lives and fortunes of his fellow-citizens.


For myself, therefore, I desire to declare that the principle that will govern me in the high duty to which my country calls me is a strict adherence to the letter and spirit of the Constitution as it was designed by those who framed it.



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Ira Gershwin

Lyricist

A song without music is a lot like H2 without the O.


Old age adds to the respect due to virtue, but it takes nothing from the contempt inspired by vice; it whitens only the hair.

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