"There can be no friendship without confidence, and no confidence without integrity."
- Samuel Johnson
"What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us."
- Oliver Wendell Holmes

"If you can't change your fate, change your attitude."
- Amy Tan

"The leaders of the French Revolution excited the poor against the rich; this made the rich poor, but it never made the poor rich."


Fisher Ames, 1758-1808.

Justice being taken away, then, what are

kingdoms but great robberies? For what are

robberies themselves, but little kingdoms? The

bank itself is made up of men; it is ruled by the

authority or a prince, it is knit together by the pact

of the confederacy; the booty is divided by the

law agreed on. If, by the admittance of

abandoned men, this evil increases to such a

degree that it holds places, fixes abodes, takes

possession of cities, and subdues peoples, it

assumes the more plainly the name of a

kingdom, because the reality is now manifestly

conferred on it, not by the removal of

covetousness, but by the addition of impunity.

Indeed, that was an apt and true reply which was

given to Alexander the Great by a pirate who had

been seized. For when that king had asked the

man what he meant by keeping hostile

possession of the sea, he answered with bold

pride: “What thou meanest by seizing the whole

earth, but because I do it with a petty ship, I am

called a robber, while those who dost with a great

fleet art styled emperor.”

-St. Augustine