“Another means of silently lessening the inequality of property is to exempt all from taxation below a certain point, and to tax the higher portions of property in geometrical progression as they rise.” Thomas Jefferson to James Madison, October 28, 1785
“All for ourselves, and nothing for other people, seems, in every age of the world, to have been the vile maxim of the masters of mankind.” Adam Smith, The Wealth of Nations.
“The most advantageous employment of any capital to the country to which it belongs, is that which maintains there the greatest quantity of productive labour, and increases the most the annual produce of the land and labour of that country.” Adam Smith, The Wealth of Nations.
“The true foundation of republican government is the equal right of every citizen … I am not among those who fear the people. They, and not the rich, are our dependence for continued freedom.” Thomas Jefferson http://www.let.rug.nl/usa/presidents/thomas-jefferson/letters-of-thomas-jefferson/jefl246.php
“It is the industry which is carried on for the benefit of the rich and the powerful, that is principally encouraged … That which is carried on for the benefit of the poor and the indigent is … neglected or oppressed.” Adam Smith, The Wealth of Nations.
“… If anyone shall set the authority of Holy Writ against clear and manifest reason, he who does this knows not what he has undertaken; for he opposes to the truth not the meaning of the Bible, which is beyond his comprehension, but rather his own interpretation, not what is in the Bible, but what he has found in himself and imagines to be there.”: St. Augustine
” … it being true that two truths cannot contradict one another, it is the function of expositors to seek out the true senses of scriptural texts. These will unquestionably accord with the physical conclusions which manifest sense and necessary demonstrations have previously made certain to us.”: Galileo, … in a letter to the Grand Duchess Christina: http://biologos.org/questions/scientific-and-scriptural-truth
“What an effort … of bigotry in Politics & Religion have we gone through! The barbarians really flattered themselves they should be able to bring back the times … when ignorance put everything into the hands of power & priestcraft. All advances in science were proscribed. … We were to look backwards, not forwards, for improvement; , … we were never to expect to go beyond them in real science.”: Thomas Jefferson To Dr. JOSEPH PRIESTLEY Washington, March, 21, 1801: http://www.let.rug.nl/usa/presidents/thomas-jefferson/letters-of-thomas-jefferson/jefl137.php
“I … wish … preservation of our present … constitution, … I am for freedom of religion, & against all maneuvers to bring about a legal ascendancy of one sect over another: for freedom of the press, & against all violations of the constitution to silence … the complaints or criticisms, … of our citizens … I am for encouraging the progress of science in all its branches; … not for raising a hue and cry against … philosophy; … go backwards instead of forwards … believe that government, religion, morality, & … science were in … perfection in ages of …ignorance, and that nothing can ever be devised more perfect than what was established by our forefathers”: Thomas Jefferson To Elbridge Gerry: http://www.let.rug.nl/usa/presidents/thomas-jefferson/letters-of-thomas-jefferson/jefl125.php
“It ain’t so much the things we don’t know that get us in trouble. It’s the things we know that ain’t so.”: Artemus Ward
“Nothing in the world is more dangerous than a sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.”: Martin Luther King, Jr.
“It does not require great art, or magnificently trained eloquence, to prove that Christians should tolerate each other. I, however, am going further: I say that we should regard all men as our brothers. … are we not all children of the same father and creatures of the same God?”: Voltaire A Treatise on Toleration (1763)
“There must be no impatience, no barbarity, no insolence, no undue pressure. If we want to cultivate a true spirit of democracy, we cannot afford to be intolerant. Intolerance betrays want of faith in one’s cause.”: Gandhi
“I will uphold your right to do whatever you wish , within the Law, as long as you respect my right to do the same.”: Lord Devlin: http://faculty.berea.edu/butlerj/Devlin.pdf
“The criminal law is not a statement of how people ought to behave; it is a statement of what will happen to them if they do not behave; good citizens are not expected to come within reach of it or to set their sights by it”: Lord Devlin: http://faculty.berea.edu/butlerj/Devlin.pdf
“… every worthy society sets for its members standards which are above those of the law. We recognize the existence of such higher standards when we use expressions such as ‘moral obligation’ and ‘morally bound’.”: Lord Devlin: http://faculty.berea.edu/butlerj/Devlin.pdf
“There is a failure to keep separate the question of society’s right to pass a moral judgement and the question of whether the arm of the law should be used to enforce the judgement. The line that divides the criminal law from the moral … is like a line that divides land and sea, a coastline of irregularities and indentations. There are gaps which the law has … left substantially untouched”: Lord Devlin: http://faculty.berea.edu/butlerj/Devlin.pdf
“My thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways My ways … For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways, and My thoughts than your thoughts.”: Isaiah 55:8-9
“A good government implies two things: first, fidelity to the object of government, which is the happiness of the people; secondly, a knowledge of the means by which that object can be best attained. Some governments are deficient in both these qualities; most governments are deficient in the first. I scruple not to assert, that in American governments too little attention has been paid to the last.”: Publius (a pseudonym for Alexander Hamilton or James Madison) The Federalist # 62: http://www.let.rug.nl/usa/documents/1786-1800/the-federalist-papers/the-federalist-62.php
“he has waged … war against human nature … violating … rights of life and liberty … of a distant people … carrying them into slavery … suppressing … attempt[s] to prohibit or to restrain this … commerce [and] to keep open a market where MEN should be bought and sold”: Thomas Jefferson in the first draft of The Declaration of Independence
“I think we risk becoming the best informed society that has ever died of ignorance.”: Reuben Blades: http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/r/rubenblade171121.html#dzfxDbazd75gW37S.99u201d
“How can it be that it is not a news item when an elderly homeless person dies of exposure, but it is news when the stock market loses two points?”: Pope Francis; Nov 26, 2013: Laudato Si
“Thou shalt not be a victim, thou shalt not be a perpetrator, but, above all, thou shalt not be a bystander.”: Yehuda Bauer, professor of Holocaust Studies at the Avraham Harman Institute of Contemporary Jewry at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yehuda_Bauer
“The soul is dyed with the color of its thoughts. Think only those things that are in line with your principles and that can bear the light of day.”: Heraclitus, Greek Poet and Philosopher
“Religion and government will BOTH exist in greater purity the LESS they are mixed together”, James Madison, the father of the Constitution, from a letter to Edward Livingston
“You can always count on Americans to do the right thing – after they’ve tried everything else.” – Winston Churchill
“Every great cause begins as a movement, becomes a business, and eventually degenerates into a racket.” Eric Hoffer
“In a country well governed, poverty is something to be ashamed of. In a country badly governed, wealth is something to be ashamed of.” -Confucius
“When fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in a flag and carrying a cross.” Sinclair Lewis, 1935
“Socialism never took root in America because the poor see themselves not as an exploited proletariat, but as temporarily embarrassed millionaires.” – John Steinbeck
“Those who can make you believe absurdities will get you to commit atrocities.” – Voltaire
“There is no crueler tyranny than that which is perpetuated under the shield of law and in the name of justice.” Charles de Montesquieu
The opposite of progressive is regressive. The dictionary
“You can lead a conservative to knowledge but you can’t make them think.”- Jr Funkenstein
“… the most acceptable service to God is doing good to men.” Benjamin Franklin
“To desire to keep down the rate of wages… is to seek to render the citizens of a state miserable, … it is, at most, attempting to enrich a few … by impoverishing the body of the nation; it is taking the part of the stronger in that contest, already so unequal, between the man who can pay wages, and him who is under the necessity of receiving them; it is, in one word, to forget, that the object of every political society ought to be the happiness of the largest number.” Benjamin Franklin, essay: “Reflections on the Augmentation of Wages, Which Will Be Occasioned in Europe by the American Revolution” 1783
“Consumption is the sole end and purpose of all production; and the interest of the producer ought to be attended to, only so far as it may be necessary for promoting that of the consumer” Adam Smith, Author of “The Wealth of Nations” – the bible of capitalism.