"Genius is recognizing the uniqueness in the unimpressive. It's looking at a caterpillar, an ordinary egg and a selfish infant, and seeing a butterfly, an eagle and a saint."
- quoted
 
 

"One of the marks of a gentleman is never to show that he is tired."
- E.V. Lucas
 
 

"Complete possession is proven only by giving. All you are unable to give possesses you."
- Andre Gide

 
"It is more noble to give yourself completely than to labor diligently for the salvation of the masses."
 - Daq Hammarskjold
 

"We enrich ourselves most when we give ourselves fully and freely."
 - David Duny

 
"The fragrance always stays in the hand that gives the rose."
 - Hada Bejar
 

There are 3 types of givers: the flint, the sponge and the honeycomb...
 ... To get anything out of a flint, you must hammer it and then you get only chips and sparks...
... To get water out of a sponge, you must squeeze it; the more you squeeze, the more water you get...
...The honeycomb just overflows with its own sweetness.
 - James E. Hewitt

Giving & Receiving

"The world is composed of takers and givers. The takers may eat better, but the givers sleep better."
- Byron Frederick

 
"We tire of the pleasures we get, never of those we give."
 - J. Petit Sheen
 
 

"It is better to bend a little than to break."
- Jane Wells
 
 

"All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing."
- Edmund Burke

 
"Though a hundred things may be wrong, a thousand things are right and in order. The world is alright. The ills are among men."
 - Hal Borland
 

"The great difficulty in life does not so much arise in the choice between good and evil as in the choice between good and good."
 - George Santayana
 

 On the strength of the wicked:
 "The wicked of this world usually hang together even when they hate each other. This is their strength, good people are scattered and that is their weakness."
 - Yevgery Yertushinko

 
"We all know what is right. We all understand why it is right. But we don't always do what is right."
 - Zenaida Amador
 
 

"Gossip is the most deadly microbe. It has neither legs or wings. It is entirely composed of tales and most of them have hard stings."
 - Morris Mandel
 
 

On the Constitution:
"The constitution intends to inhibit the power of those who would rule by might but would misrule by inclination."
 - Walter Berns
 

 "A country can be free and yet its people slaves, but a free people cannot have a country which is not free."
 - AGP
 

 On graft and corruption:
 "Men in power end up avoiding and falsifying reality in self-defense, so that they lose even the capability  to act rationally in their own self-interest. They refuse to believe the graft and corruption in their midst until it is too late and so, objectively countenance their own downfall."
- Barbara Tuchmann in "March of Folly"
 

"When you assemble a number of men to have the advantage of their joint wisdom, you inevitably assemble with these men all their prejudices, their passions, their errors of opinion, their local interests, and their selfish views. From such an assembly, can a perfect production be expected?  It therefore astonishes me, Sir, to find this system approaching so near to perfection as it does... Thus I consent, Sir, to this Constitution, because I expect no better, and because I am not sure that it is not the best."
- Benjamin Franklin  moving for the unanimous approval of the U.S. Constitution. (1787, Const. Convention)
 

How effective is a Constitution?
 "A Constitution is only as good as the men (and women) who enforce it and those who obey it. But if the men entrusted with the enforcement of the constitution are the first to violate it, to ignore and evade it, if the men who have taken public office, swearing on the constitution, are the first to call it a scrap of paper to avoid its injunctions and disobey its mandates, then no constitution can work."
- Claro M. Recto; Filipino  politician
 

"The welfare of the people and nothing else is the legal reason and object, the alpha and omega, the beginning and the end, of all the duties of those who govern."
- Emilio Jacinto ; Philippine Hero
 

"If the constitution cannot protect the worst in us, what is there to protect the best in us?"
- from "Sworn to Silence"
 

In August 1920, Mahatma Ghandi sent to the British Viceroy of India a small parcel containing 3 medals awarded  by the British government to him for his war services and humanitarian work. Ghandi's accompanying message: "I can retain neither respect nor affection for a government which has been moving from wrong to wrong to defend its immortality. That was Ghandi's declaration of war against British rule, a weaponless war that would bring the world's mightiest imperial power to its knees.
 - Ghandi
 

"We cannot afford a government of thieves unless we can tolerate a nation of highwaymen."
 - J. Chino Roces

 
"A government that cannot help the many who are poor cannot save the few who are rich."
 - J. F. Kennedy
 

"It is better to be killed by this regime than to die fighting for it."
- J. Ponce Enrile (bolting from the Marcos administration as Minister of Defense,  Feb. 22, '86, and with Gen. Ramos, achieved a Philippine coup 'd etat)

 
"In the fight against corruption in the government, it is not silence but noise that is golden."
- Joaquin R. Roces ; Phi;lippine Bulletin, September 12, 1995
 

On government & citizen functions:

"It is not the function of the government to keep the citizens from falling into errors, it is the function of the citizen to keep the government from falling into error."
 - Justice Robert Jackson
 

 In the same year 1920, Lenin who, by then, was head of Communist Russia, said: "Why should freedom of speech and the press be allowed? Why should a government doing what it believes to be right allow itself to be criticized? It would not allow opposition by lethal weapons. Ideas are more lethal than guns."
 - Lenin
 

"Population control movement is an assault on human rights, aimed at the elimination of the poor rather than the elimination of poverty which entraps them."
 - O'Reilly

 
"Knowing exactly how much of the future can be introduced into the present is the secret of a great government."
- Victor Hugo
 
 

"Gratitude is a sort of conditioned reflex obligation that you usually receive for doing someone a favor. But loyalty is born of self-interest and usually maintained by self-interest - it's no trick to be loyal to your boss while he still can promote you or to your wife while you still love her. Only the sentimentalists continue to be loyal after they've achieved independence of the boss or after love has flown out of the window."
- Bernard Botein in "The Prosecutor"
 
 

"Great causes are never tried on their merits. The cause is reduced to particulars to suit the size of the partisans and the contention is ever hottest on minor details."
- Emerson
 
 

"Do not confuse notoriety and fame with greatness, many of the titles in today's world obtained their fame and fortunes outside of their own merit.  Greatness is a measure of one's spirit, not a result of one's rank in human affairs... not a prize but an achievement."
- Sherman Finesilver