Quotes, Poems, & Sayings...

[BestButchBoy]

“I can’t be left unsupervised."

Ron Wood

[Diva]

Freedom has its life in the hearts, the actions, the spirit of men and so it must be daily earned and refreshed - else like a flower cut from its life-giving roots, it will wither and die.

~Dwight D. Eisenhower

[Diva]

Liberty is the possibility of doubting, of making a mistake,... of searching and experimenting,... of saying No to any authority - literary, artistic, philosophical, religious, social, and even political.

~Ignazio Silone, The God That Failed, 1950

[Diva]

Those who deny freedom to others deserve it not for themselves.

~Abraham Lincoln

[nowandthen]

Desire born from a time past, your skin simmers in the sunlight and dances across my pallet engraving your initials on my heart

[nowandthen]

[Jet]

The Declaration of Independence

When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. — Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.

He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.

He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.

He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their Public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.

He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.

He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected, whereby the Legislative Powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.

He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.

He has obstructed the Administration of Justice by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary Powers.

He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.

He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people and eat out their substance.

He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.

He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil Power.

He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:

For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:

For protecting them, by a mock Trial from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:

For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:

For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:

For depriving us in many cases, of the benefit of Trial by Jury:

For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences:

For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies

For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:

For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.

He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.

He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.

He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation, and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & Perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.

He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.

He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our British brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.

We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these united Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States, that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. — And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor.

[gotoseagrl]

“You can close your eyes to the things you do not want to see, but you cannot close your heart to the things you do not want to feel.”

[afixer]

You have brains in your head.
You have feet in your shoes.
You can steer yourself, any direction you choose
- Dr.Seuss

[BestButchBoy]

"He's my favorite human."

Harry MacAfee

[Oiler41]

The trust of the innocent is the liar's most useful tool. - Stephen King

He who permits himself to tell a lie once, finds it much easier to do it a second and third time, till at length it becomes habitual; he tells lies without attending to it, and truths without the world's believing him. This falsehood of the tongue leads to that of the heart, and in time depraves all its good dispositions. - Thomas Jefferson

Character is much easier kept than recovered. - Thomas Paine

To know what is right and not do it is the worst cowardice. - Confucius

Live in such a way that you would not be ashamed to sell your parrot to the town gossip. - Will Rogers

Glynn

[nowandthen]

Compassion is like a sense of caring, of concern for others’ difficulties and pain. Not only family and friends, but all other people, even enemies. If we think only of ourselves and forget about other people, our minds occupy a very small area and even tiny problems appear very big. When you develop concern for others, your mind automatically widens; your own problems, even big ones, will not be so significant.

[Duchess]

I need sex for a clear complexion, but I'd rather do it for love.

Joan Crawford
American, Actress Quotes

[Duchess]

Part of growing up is just taking what you learn from that and moving on and not taking it to heart.

Beverley Mitchell
American, Actress Quotes

[Butterbean]

All God's angels come to us disguised.

~James Russell Lowell

.

[Spirit Dancer]

Acceptance is the truest
kinship with humanity.

G.K. Chesterton

[Spirit Dancer]

The first step toward change is acceptance. Once you accept yourself, you open the door to change. That's all you have to do. Change is not something you do, it's something you allow.

Will Garcia
(AIDS patient)

[Spirit Dancer]

God does not make clones. Each person is different, a tribute
to God's creativity. If we are to love our neighbors as ourselves,
we must accept people as they are and not demand
that they conform to our own image.
Henry Fehren

[betenoire]

Best thing I've heard/read in a while. Now I have a crush on this guy.



Stop Signs by Shane Koyczan

Its all stop signs,
It’s all lines that shouldn’t be crossed,
It’s all interpretations that have been lost in translation.
Even when the meaning has been embossed in something that redefines stop signs
Something that erases and redraws lines For all the times curiosity gets the better of us
But until it gets the best we can test the lines,
Until it gets the best it’s all stop signs.

And then there’s you.
And I wanna kiss you so bad I’d be willing to
Cut off my own head and just throw it towards your lips
And you’d be well within your rights
To just swat it to the floor
but I’d redefine hardcore
lying there at the tips of your toes
because God knows I’d be trying to figure out
some way to roll towards them.
and maybe that’s crossing the line,
maybe that’s a little creepy.
did I mention that I like you?
And if I knew you better than I do
Then I’d probably know that creepy isn’t the way to go
So how’s this:
I wanna kiss you like a traffic jam,
I wanna move slow,
I wanna stop and go like I know at least I’m moving towards you.
And there’s no use weaving through the gridlock
because every clock keeps probably ticking and tocking
And only there’s time for all the amazing
In-between that’s been seen and heard
and each word that’s passed between us
like someone with somewhere to go and
I know I hardly know you so let’s go slow
like a turtle with a purpose let’s not miss a single minute
because every sixty seconds contained within are about two hundred times where
I’ve tried to coax each smile to bloom into a laugh
and the exact science of math can’t begin to calculate half
the time it would take to
make misery turn itself into a punch line,
one that was willing to mine past silver and gold
just looking for someone to tell you that’s never been told
I wanna hold you like mine were the last arms in the world
I want them curled around you like the red and white stripes on a barber pole I wanna give you a lump of coal for Christmas
and tell you in a million years its gonna be a diamond and will you wait for me til then?
Because that’s when I’ll be evolved enough
to melt all the other brains of men on earth
Maybe I’ve got a shot if all that remains are two gazelles and saringetti planes and me
of course if you’re willing to make sweet sweet love with animals I’ll totally understand. I’m good like that.
I’ll band together with whatever vegetation is left living,
Me, three weeds and a rubber plant will spend thanksgiving
saying how grateful we are that you’re happy.

I want you to feel like the banana peel under Charlie Chaplin's shoe
cos it’s you that brings the house of this heart down
It’s you that’s the chamber of commerce
in a town that’s got nothing to offer
but everything everyone can’t find everywhere else under the sun
I’m done with all of the every that
done thinking about where it is I’m going
I’m figuring out where it is I’m at.
And that has got to be the sign that one will stop me from trying to calculate the sum total of someone is that
This biological calculus has ever done anything for me
Other than be the something that keeps me seeking to solve problems that don’t exist
Like a swat team sharp shooter with cataracts
I’ve missed the point more times than certain Americans have been elected to the oval office,
which is always once too often,
And let’s face it sometimes two times too many.
But this time
I’m willing to pay interest on the penny for your thoughts
Mortgage my mind finance an expedition that
would find me a better way to get to know you
cos I’ve read through the short story of my life
and found that your name stands out on the page
your slightest look unlocks the tumblers on my ribcage
and you can engage my sincerity
when I lift my heart towards you and tell you in a million years it’ll be less than dust
the slightest gust will blow it away
but you’ll have to listen to wind chimes say that you’re still waiting for me
don’t tell me you’re not beautiful
you’re the kind of beautiful the blind would see
if we could figure out some way to give them three seconds of sight
when you tell me you’re not gorgeous I wanna pop out your left eye and show it to your right.

You’re worth crossing whatever distance it would take
Worth building bridges to make a connection
Because I’ve been secretly stealing stop signs
Repainting traffic lines so that it can only go one way
Because as far as I can tell dedication is the better part of foreplay
And I admit it I’m committed everything I’ve done I did it to make you smile
Cos it’s been the largest part of a long while
Since I had someone do that for me.
You feel like comedy after three years of being on the bandwagon of calamity
and I can’t be bothered with the tragedy of
not trying to get to know you I’ve been through enough wretchedness to know
that some flowers can still grow through the garbage
and you make me wanna take up gardening.
I’ve seen sadness drain the spirit out of this history
and if the worst is yet to come,
anyone who took the time to get to know me
knows I don’t run partly because I’m not athletic
but mostly because that’s life and i've met it head on.
I’ve gone the distance more times than
George Lucas has looked at Jar Jar Binks and thought fuck.
And until I can’t feel I can still fill
My days trying because I’m yours from the bottom to the top
And I’m not just saying I’ll be here for you, I’m saying I’ll never stop.

[Diva]

Living with integrity means: Not settling for less than what you know you deserve in your relationships. Asking for what you want and need from others. Speaking your truth, even though it might create conflict or tension. Behaving in ways that are in harmony with your personal values. Making choices based on what you believe, and not what others believe.

~Barbara De Angelis