Catholics From The United States

"I'm the NRA."

"The death penalty is what you would call an oxymoron. Death is not a penalty; it's an escape. They treat me like a trophy, like they got me, they’re gonna kill me, and they won. They didn't win. In the crudest terms, 168 to 1."

"It is a lie if we tell ourselves that the police can protect us everywhere, at all times. Firearms restrictions are bad enough, but now a woman can't even carry Mace in her purse?"

"Should any other person or governing body be able to tell another person that he/she cannot save their own life, because it would be a violation of a law?"

"I strongly believe in a God-given right to self-defense."

"I have great respect for human life. My decision to take human life at the Murrah Building – I did not do it for personal gain. I ease my mind in that... I did it for the larger good."

"We have no proverbial tea to dump, should we instead sink a ship full of Japanese imports? Is a Civil War Imminent? Do we have to shed blood to reform the current system? I hope it doesn't come to that. But it might."

"Racism on the rise? You had better believe it! Is this America's frustrations venting themselves? Is it a valid frustration? Who is to blame for the mess? At a point when the world has seen communism falter as an imperfect system to manage people; democracy seems to be headed down the same road. No one is seeing the 'big' picture."

"Maybe we have to contribute ideologies to achieve the perfect utopian government. Remember, government-sponsored health care was a communist idea. Should only the rich be allowed to live long? Does that say that because a person is poor, he is a lesser human being; and doesn't deserve to live as long, because he doesn't wear a tie to work?"

"Politicians are out of control. Their yearly salaries are more than an average person will see in a lifetime. They have been entrusted with the power to regulate their own salaries, and have grossly violated that trust to live in their own luxury."

"I like the phrase "shot heard 'round the world," and I don't think there's any doubt the Oklahoma City blast was heard around the world."

"The 'American Dream' of the middle class has all but disappeared, substituted with people struggling just to buy next week's groceries. Heaven forbid the car breaks down!"

"Politicians are further eroding the 'American Dream' by passing laws which are supposed to be a 'quick fix', when all they are really designed for is to get the official re-elected. These laws tend to "dilute" a problem for a while, until the problem comes roaring back in a worsened form much like a strain of bacteria will alter itself to defeat a known medication."

"What is it going to take to open the eyes of our elected officials? America is in serious decline!"

"A man with nothing left to lose is a very dangerous man and his energy/anger can be focused toward a common/righteous goal. What I'm asking you to do, then, is sit back and be honest with yourself. Do you have kids/wife? Would you back out at the last minute to care for the family? Are you interested in keeping your firearms for their current/future monetary value, or would you drag that '06 through rock, swamp and cactus...to get off the needed shot? In short, I'm not looking for talkers, I'm looking for fighters...And if you are a fed, think twice. Think twice about the Constitution you are supposedly enforcing (isn't "enforcing freedom" an oxymoron?) and think twice about catching us with our guard down – you will lose just like Degan did – and your family will lose.["

"Those who betray or subvert the Constitution are guilty of sedition and/or treason, are domestic enemies and should and will be punished accordingly. It also stands to reason that anyone who sympathizes with the enemy or gives aid or comfort to said enemy is likewise guilty. I have sworn to uphold and defend the Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic and I will. And I will because not only did I swear to, but I believe in what it stands for in every bit of my heart, soul and being. I know in my heart that I am right in my struggle, Steve. I have come to peace with myself, my God and my cause. Blood will flow in the streets, Steve. Good vs. Evil. Free Men vs. Socialist Wannabe Slaves. Pray it is not your blood, my friend."

"Being face to face with these people, you realize, they're just people like you."

"Whilst my country remains in sorrow and subjection, it would be indelicate of me to participate in the festivities you propose. When she lifts her head and nerves her arm for a bolder struggle — when she goes forth like Miriam, with song and trimble, to celebrate her victory — I too shall lift up my head, and join in the hymn of freedom. Till then, the retirement I seek will best accord with the love I bear her, and the sadness which her present fate inspires. Nor do I forget the companions of my exile. The freedom that has been restored to me is embittered by the recollection of their captivity. My heart is with them at this hour, and shares the solitude in which they dwell. Whilst they are in prison a shadow rests upon my spirit, and the thoughts that otherwise might be free throb heavily within me. It is painful for me to speak. I should feel happy in being permitted to be silent for these reasons you will not feel displeased with me for declining the honours you solicit me to accept."

"ATF, all you tyrannical people will swing in the wind one day for your treasonous actions against the Constitution of the United States. Remember the Nuremberg War Trials."

"Think of it this way. When I was in the Army, you didn't see me for years. Think of me that way now, like I'm away in the Army again, on an assignment for the military."

"In this assembly, every political school has its teachers — every creed has its adherents — and I may safely say, that this banquet is the tribute of United Ireland to the representative of American benevolence. Being such, I am at once reminded of the dinner which took place after the battle of Saratoga, at which Gates and Burgoyne — the rival soldiers — sat together. Strange scene! Ireland, the beaten and the bankrupt, entertains America, the victorious and the prosperous! Stranger still! The flag of the Victor decorates this hail — decorates our harbour — not, indeed, in triumph, but in sympathy — not to commemorate the defeat, but to predict the resurrection, of a fallen people! One thing is certain — we are sincere upon this occasion. There is truth in this compliment. For the first time in her career, Ireland has reason to be grateful to a foreign power. Foreign power, sir! Why should I designate that country a "foreign power," which has proved itself our sister country? England, they sometimes say, is our sister country. We deny the relationship — we discard it. We claim America as our sister, and claiming her as such, we have assembled here this night. Should a stranger, viewing this brilliant scene inquire of me, why it is that, amid the desolation of this day — whilst famine is in the land — whilst the hearse-plumes darken the summer scenery of the island, whilst death sows his harvest, and the earth teems not with the seeds of life, but with the seeds of corruption — should he inquire of me, why it is, that, amid this desolation, we hold high festival, hang out our banners, and thus carouse — I should reply, "Sir, the citizens of Dublin have met to pay a compliment to a plain citizen of America, which they would not pay — 'no, not for all the gold in Venice' — to the minister of England.""

"Crime is so out of control. Criminals have no fear of punishment. Prisons are overcrowded so they know they will not be imprisoned long. This breeds more crime, in an escalating cyclic pattern."

"We now look into history with the generous pride of the nationalist, not with the cramped prejudice of the partisan. We do homage to Irish valour, whether it conquers on the walls of Derry, or capitulates with honour before the ramparts of Limerick; and, sir, we award the laurel to Irish genius, whether it has lit its flames within the walls of old Trinity, or drawn its inspiration from the sanctuary of Saint Omer’s. Acting in this spirit, we shall repair the errors and reverse the mean condition of the past. If not, we perpetuate the evil that has for so many years consigned this Country to the calamities of war and the infirmities of vassalage, "We must tolerate each other," said Henry Grattan, the inspired preacher of Irish nationality — he whose eloquence, as Moore has described it, was the very music of Freedom — "We must tolerate each other, or we must tolerate the common enemy..."But, sir, whilst we must endeavour wisely to conciliate let us not, to the strongest foe, nor in the most tempting emergency, weakly capitulate...Let earnest truth, stern fidelity to principle, love for all who bear the name of Irishmen, sustain, ennoble and immortalise this cause. Thus shall we reverse the dark fortunes of the Irish race, and call forth here a new nation from the ruins of the old.Thus shall a Parliament moulded from the soil, pregnant with the sympathies and glowing with the genius of the soil, be here raised up. Thus shall an honourable kingdom be enabled to fulfil the great ends that a bounteous Providence hath assigned her—which ends have been signified to her in the resources of her soil and the abilities of her sons."

"Taxes are a joke. Regardless of what a political candidate 'promises', they will increase. More taxes are always the answer to government mismanagement. They mess up. We suffer. Taxes are reaching cataclysmic levels, with no slowdown in sight."

"In 1884, when diphtheria swept through his village, he was a slight, eager eleven-year-old whose proudest possession was the battered baseball he had been allowed to order from the Spalding catalogue. He watched helplessly as, one by one, his mother and four of his brothers and sisters died. His father took out his grief and anger on his son, beating him so often and so mercilessly that at twelve he feared for his life and ran away from home."

"He supported himself at odd jobs until he won himself a place on the Olean (New York) professional team at sixteen and never again willingly took orders from any man. Although he was short and weighed barely 155 pounds, he held far bigger base runners back by the belt, blocked them, tripped them, spiked them - and rarely complained when they did the same to him."

"He wanted to win so badly it killed him. But before it killed him, it elevated the game of baseball, at the Polo Grounds, to a grim spectacle of play-war. The analogy fits McGraw. He reminds you more of a battlefield general than he does a sportsman, and if he reminds you of a general, it would be a man who combined the fury of a Patton and the spectacular, yet knowledgeable, flair of MacArthur. Perhaps this desire to win occasionally overflowed its normal limits and became an obsession; perhaps the grimness darkened the sport at times. This was his weakness, for McGraw was not infallible; McGraw was not perfect. Perfection is lifeless, mechanical, uncaring. McGraw was never uncaring. If he was anything, he was a man who cared."

"McGraw was an improviser, a teacher. He brought much to the game that keeps baseball fresh and suspenseful today—the hit-and-run play, the steal, the squeeze play, the uses of the bunt and the defenses against it. He helped turn the game into a thing of fluid beauty, infielders charging the plate or roaming far from their bases, outfielders moving with each pitch, racing in for base hits before them, backing each other in the outfield, entering the infield itself on rundown plays. Yet when the game changed radically, with the introduction of the livelier baseball, McGraw naturally shifted to a power emphasis, founding his team about such men as George Kelly, Bill Terry, Mel Ott. He knew, too, that the old pitching style of permitting a man to hit a deadened ball because it would then be caught in the big fields had to be changed, and his staffs led the league year after year in strikeouts, in earned-runs."

"Don't look over your shoulder and don't use or abuse others to get ahead. Keep your eyes focused on your goals and keep working for what you believe in and what you want to accomplish."

"For me, success is being able to give back to your friends, your family, your community, those in need and the world entire."

"There is absolutely no substitute for hard work."

"Seize every opportunity you have to learn. Keep your eyes and ears wide open and seize life — don't let the moments slip through your fingers like a fistful of sand. Be your own teacher. Let life write your textbook."

"Embrace every challenge you have, every person you meet, every place you visit, every task you succeed at, and especially those at which you fail. You will learn from them all. You'll learn about the world at large and about other people but most important, you'll learn about yourself."

"Dare to fail. If you never fail, you're never taken risks and that's no way to take on this life."

"Somehow, you need to cling to your optimism. Always look for the silver lining. Always look for the best in people. Try to see things through the eyes of a child. See the wonder in the simplest things. Never stop dreaming. Believe anything is possible."

"Let me assure you, nothing in this life feels better than having the confidence that you can take care of yourself and your family and know that you can continue to grow and excel in your profession and as a person."

"Death is the only inescapable unavoidable sure thing. We are sentenced to die the day we were born."

"Let's do it."

"We'll play jacks and Uno cards I'll be your best friend And you'll be mine"

"I hope you know that this has nothing to do with you."

"She broke down barriers … She became part of the hearts and minds of French people ... Josephine Baker, you enter the Pantheon because while you were born American, deep down there was no one more French than you."

"First, I want to do what I can to help win the war and thus perform whatever duty I can for my native land. Second, I want to help those of my own race. I am doing all I can to help win the war effort and to make people generally more appreciative and kinder to my race."

"I cannot see that I did anything extraordinary to merit this honor. Everything was just as it had to be.""

"France made me what I am. I will be grateful forever. The people of Paris have given me everything. They have given me their hearts, and I have given them mine. I am ready, captain, to give them my life. You can use me as you wish."

"I have stage contracts for the next 18 months, and I shall go on with them whatever he says."

"I want you to know that this is the happiest day of my entire life. And as you all must know, I have had a very long life and I'm sixty years old. The results today of seeing you all together is a sight for sore eyes. You're together as salt and pepper just as you should be. Just as I've always wanted you to be and peoples of the world have always wanted you to be. You are a united people at last because without unity there cannot be any victory. You see, I'm glad. I'm glad that in my homeland, in my homeland where I was born in love and respect, I'm glad to see this day come to pass. This day, because you are on the eve of complete victory, and tomorrow, time will do the rest. ... Continue on. You can't go wrong. The world is behind you."

"I believe in action. … I believe in doing rather than talking. All my life I have maintained that the people of the world can learn to live together in peace if they are not brought up in prejudice. This is why I traveled all over the world to adopt 11 youngsters."

"Surely the day will come when color means nothing more than skin tone, when religion is seen uniquely as a way to speak one’s soul; when birth places have the weight of a throw of the dice and all men are born free, when understanding breeds love and brotherhood."

"Josephine Baker is a St. Louis washwoman’s daughter who stepped out of a Negro burlesque show into a life of adulation and luxury in Paris during the booming 1920s. In sex appeal to jaded Europeans of the jazz-loving type, a Negro wench always has a head start. The particular tawny tint of tall and stringy Josephine Baker’s bare skin stirred French pulses. But to Manhattan theatre-goers last week, she was just a slightly buck-toothed young Negro woman whose figure might be matched in any nightclub show, whose dancing and singing could be topped practically anywhere outside France."

"I think Paul [Ryan], for example, the head of the Budget Committee, has looked at the budget and has made a serious proposal. I've read it. I can tell you what's in it. And there's some ideas in there that I would agree with but there's some ideas we should have a healthy debate about because I don't agree with them. The major driver of our long-term liabilities, everybody here knows, is Medicare and Medicaid and our healthcare spending. Nothing comes close. That's going to be what our children have to worry about. Now, Paul's approach, and I want to be careful not to simplify this, I know you've got a lot of detail in your plan, but, if I understand it correctly, would say, we're going to provide vouchers of some sort for current Medicare recipients at the current level. No?"