Unitarians From The United States

"The only way you’re going to pay for it is not by saddling business. All you do by forcing business to pay for health care or passing a law telling people they have to go buy insurance, which is a subsidy for the insurance companies, all these plans are going backwards."

"When the industry that profits from health care calls the shots on the way health care is going to be delivered, then you are going to see the anomalous situation that you have in this country where they can’t even deliver it to everybody fairly.""

"“Stop and think. When he’s talking about the money we’re squandering. 21 million Americans could have a four-year college scholarship for the money we’ve squandered in Iraq. 7.6 million teachers could have been hired last year if we weren’t squandering this money. Now, how do you think we got into this problem? The people on this stage, like the rest of us, are all guilty and very guilty, and we should recognize that, because there is linkage!”"

"“The scourge of our present society, particularly in the African-American community, is the war on drugs. I’ll repeat again as a challenge to my colleagues on this stage, that if they really want to do something about the inner cities, if they really want to do something about what’s happening to the health of the African-American community, it’s time to end this war.”"

"“I'm first-generation American. My parents came here like many of your parents, and I spoke French before I could speak English as a child. And my parents carved out -- my dad was very humble, didn't have a third-grade education, but he was able to work and prosper in this country, and so I honor anybody that comes to this country as an immigrant, because we're all immigrants. There's been nobody else but the Indians in this great land.”"

"“Well, the first thing that you would do is to realize that terrorism is not a war. Our war on terrorism makes no sense. We've had -- (interrupted by applause) -- we've had terrorism since the beginning of civilization, and we'll have it to the end of civilization.”"

"“I am embarrassed at the thought of building a wall on the southern border. (Cheers, applause.) Embarrassed. And I want to tell you, you don't know the fence that's in Canada. You don't -- I just recently went to Canada. I went into Canada, it took me three seconds. Coming out took two hours. Two hours in line to get back into our country. Something is wrong. We need to stop scapegoating people. People come here because they want to feed their families because they're starving in other locations. We need a foreign policy that addresses the entire Western Hemisphere in this regard.”"

"“We don't need a minimum wage; we need a living wage. We don't have that in this country because of what they passed.”"

"COOPER: How many people here a private jet or a chartered jet to get here tonight? GRAVEL: I took the train…"

"“I've advocated, people, follow the money if you want to find out what's going to happen after any one of these individuals are elected. Follow the money, because it's politics as usual is what you're seeing.”"

"“The tremendous increase in their defense. They're only 10 percent of American defense. They haven't had a tremendous increase. Ten percent of our defense. And I want to take all of them to task. Clearly, none of them are running for China — president of China — because this amount of demagoguery is shameful. Here, the Chinese people have a problem. And when we continue this rhetoric of beggar thy neighbor, where our interests always come first, there should be the interests of human beings, the interests of human beings.”"

"Asked about the nature of Dees’ alleged misconduct, a spokesman for the organization said in an email: “We can’t comment on the details of individual personnel decisions.”"

"The Southern Poverty Law Center fired Morris Dees, the nonprofit civil rights organization's co-founder and former chief litigator."

"A letter signed by about two dozen employees — and sent to management and the board of directors before news broke of Dees’ firing — said they were concerned that internal “allegations of mistreatment, sexual harassment, gender discrimination, and racism threaten the moral authority of this organization and our integrity along with it.”"

"Early in 1984, Morris Dees, co-founder of the Southern Poverty Law Center, suggested that Mrs. Donald file a civil suit against the members of Unit 900 and the United Klans of America. The killers were, he believed, carrying out an organizational policy set by the group's Imperial Wizard, Robert Shelton. If Dees could prove in court that this theory of agency applied, Shelton's Klan would be as liable for the murder as a corporation is for the actions its employees take in the service of business."

"The Southern Poverty Law Center has fired its famed co-founder, Morris Dees, over unspecified misconduct, the nonprofit announced Thursday."

"Most lawyers are used to trying to win a case on some kind of technical or evidentiary ground. We had to teach them to rethink death cases. Most capital defendants are guilty."

"The finest achievement of the new woman has been personal liberty. This is the foundation of civilization; and as long as any one class is watched suspiciously, even fondly guarded, and protected, so long will that class not only be weak, and treacherous, individually, but parasitic, and a collective danger to the community. Who has not heard wives commended for wheedling their husbands out of money, or joked [about] because they are hopelessly extravagant? As long as caprice and scheming are considered feminine virtues, as long as man is the only wage-earner, doling out sums of money, or scattering lavishly, so long will women be degraded, even if they are perfectly contented, and men are willing to labor to keep them in idleness! Although individual women from pre-historic times have accomplished much, as a class they have been set aside to minister to men's comfort. But when once the higher has been tried, civilization repudiates the lower. Men have come to see that no advance can be made with one half-humanity set apart merely for the functions of sex; that children are quite liable to inherit from the mother, and should have opportunities to inherit the accumulated ability and culture and character that is produced only by intellectual and civil activity. The world has tried to move with men for dynamos, and "clinging" women impeding every step of progress, in arts, science, industry, professions, they have been a thousand years behind men because forced into seclusion. They have been over-sexed. They have naturally not been impressed with their duties to society, in its myriad needs, or with their own value as individuals. The new woman, in the sense of the best woman, the flower of all the womanhood of past ages, has come to stay — if civilization is to endure. The sufferings of the past have but strengthened her, maternity has deepened her, education is broadening her — and she now knows that she must perfect herself if she would perfect the race, and leave her imprint upon immortality, through her offspring or her works."

"In the meantime, the real America had awakened, but in its own way. It had awakened, not as a neurasthenic awakes to a vague and benumbing sense of helplessness in the presence of disaster, but as a strong man awakes to the magnitude of his necessary work."

"Creative spirits always anticipate the course of events. They do not wait for the dawn of a new era. They resolutely begin the new era at the moment when they see that the old era is ended. The darkness gathers, but it is a time, not for vain repining over that which has passed away, but for eager planning for that which must take its place. There is a quick transfer of interests to new problems which relate themselves to the new period."

"There is no absurdity in its mental processes; all that is concealed in its assumptions."

"History is an endless maze of unrelated happenings, until we divide it up into brief portions in which we discern a certain unity of purpose."

"To keep shooting at a folly after it is dead is unsportsmanlike."

"We sometimes speak of stubborn facts. Nonsense! A fact is a mere babe when compared with a stubborn theory."

"With strength and patience all his grievous loads are borne, And from the world's rose-bed he only asks a thorn."

"As two floating planks meet and part on the sea, O friend! so I met and then drifted from thee."

"A gray eye is a sly eye, And roguish is a brown one; Turn full upon me thy eye,— Ah, how its wavelets drown one! A blue eye is a true eye; Mysterious is a dark one, Which flashes like a spark-sun! A black eye is the best one."

"Beware the deadly fumes of that insane elation Which rises from the cup of mad impiety, And go, get drunk with that divine intoxication Which is more sober far than all sobriety."

"Fill up the goblet and reach to me some! Drinking makes wise, but dry fasting makes glum."

"The moon is a silver pin-head vast, That holds the heaven's tent-hangings fast."

"In the rest of Nirvana all sorrows surcease: Only Buddha can guide to that city of Peace Whose inhabitants have the eternal release."

"To appreciate and use correctly a valuable maxim requires a genius, a vital appropriating exercise of mind, closely allied to that which first created it."

"God's mills grind slow, But they grind woe."

"In the nine heavens are eight Paradises; Where is the ninth one? In the human breast. Only the blessed dwell in th' Paradises, But blessedness dwells in the human breast."

"A thousand years a poor man watched Before the gate of Paradise: But while one little nap he snatched, It oped and shut. Ah! was he wise?"

"An Arab, by his earnest gaze, Has clothed a lovely maid with blushes; A smile within his eyelids plays And into words his longing gushes."

"Ten poor men sleep in peace on one straw heap, as Saadi sings, But the immensest empire is too narrow for two kings."

"Most men give advice by the bucket, but take it by the grain."

"When man seized the loadstone of science, the loadstar of superstition vanished in the clouds."

"Men often make up in wrath what they want in reason."

"The best aphorisms are pointed expressions of the results of observation, experience, and reflection. They are portable wisdom, the quintessential extracts of thought and feeling. They furnish the largest amount of intellectual stimulus and nutriment in the smallest compass. About every weak point in human nature, or vicious spot in human life, there is deposited a crystallization of warning and protective proverbs."

"He sows June fields with clover, and the world Broadcasts with little common kindnesses. The plain good souls He sends us, who fulfill Life's homely duties in the daily path With cheerful heart, ambitious of no more Than to supply the wants of friend and kin, Yet serve God's higher love to human hearts; Giving a secret sweetness to the home, The hidden fragrance of a kindly heart, The simple beauty of a useful life, That never dazzles, and that never tires."

"The dead leaves their rich mosaics Of olive and gold and brown Had laid on the rain-wet pavements, Through all the embowered town."

"Irony is jesting hidden behind gravity. Humor is gravity concealed behind the jest."

"The truest worship is a life; All dreaming we resign; We lay our offerings at Thy feet, — Our lives, O God, are Thine!"

"Study as if you were going to live forever; live as if you were going to die tomorrow."

"An English village could never be mistaken for an American one: the outline against the sky differs; a thatched cottage makes a very wavy line on the blue above."

"There is this great danger in student life. Now, we rest all upon what Socrates said, or what Copernicus taught; how can we dispute authority which has come down to us, all established, for ages? We must at least question it; we cannot accept anything as granted, beyond the first mathematical formulae. Question everything else."

"Every formula which expresses a law of nature is a hymn of praise to God."

"The great gain would be freedom of thought. Women, more than men, are bound by tradition and authority. What the father, the brother, the doctor, and the minister have said has been received undoubtingly. Until women throw off this reverence for authority they will not develop. When they do this, when they come to truth through their investigations, when doubt leads them to discovery, the truth which they get will be theirs, and their minds will work on and on unfettered."