Quote of the day.......

No man is justified in doing evil

on the ground of expediency.

-- Theodore Roosevelt(1858-1919) 

26th US President.

Carpe diem.......

Next to the swans nesting

By the lake side - eerie and surreal

Under the shadows of giant trees

That stood mourning through the night

Keeping a vigil, lighting a candle

People flowing in the streets streaming

The colored chalks glowing

With thoughts and words flowing

For good will hunting

There rises a memorial for 

The spirit’s resting.

Quote of the day........

Finally, the fundamental flaw, 

which will ultimately destroy 

this prohibition as it did the last one, 

is that criminal sanctions cannot, 

and should not attempt to, 

prohibit personal conduct 

which does no harm to others. 

-- Judge Robert Sweet
(U.S. District Ct., N.Y.)
Source: February 12, 1996, National Review

          *       *        *       *        *

From the standpoint of freedom of 

speech and the press,

it is enough to point out that 

the state has no legitimate interest in 

protecting any or all religions 

from views distasteful to them...

It is not the business of government 

to suppress real or imagined attacks 

upon a particular religious doctrine.

-- Justice Tom C. Clark.
(1899-1977) U. S. Supreme Court Justice
Source: Burstyn v. Wilson, 1952

           *         *         *         *         *

Rightful liberty is unobstructed action 

according to our will within limits 

drawn around us by 

the equal rights of others. 

I do not add 'within the limits of the law,' 

because law is often but the tyrant's will, and

always so when it violates 

the rights of the individual.

-- Thomas Jefferson, 3rd US President.
(1743-1826), US Founding Father.
Drafted the Declaration of Independence.

Being Sad..........

In rejecting or in even fighting, being sad

will only lead one to be silly.

Roosevelt's Four freedoms ......

If the Congress maintains these principles, 

the voters,putting patriotism 

ahead of pocketbooks, 

will give you their applause.

In the future days, 

which we seek to make secure, 

we look forward to a world founded upon 

four essential human freedoms.


The first is freedom of speech and expression —

everywhere in the world.


The second is freedom of every person to 

worship God in his own way — 

everywhere in the world.


The third is freedom from want — 

which, translated into world terms, 

means economic understandings 

which will secure to every nation 

a healthy peacetime life for its inhabitants — 

everywhere in the world.


The fourth is freedom from fear – 

which, translated into world terms, 

means a world-wide reduction of armaments 

to such a point and in such a thorough 

fashion that no nation will be in 

a position to commit an act of 

physical aggression against any neighbor —

anywhere in the world.


That is no vision of a distant millennium. 

It is a definite basis for a kind of world 

attainable in our own time and generation.


That kind of world is the very antithesis of 

the so-called new order of tyranny 

which the dictators seek to create with 

the crash of a bomb.

To that new order we oppose 

the greater conception – 

the moral order. 


A good society is able to face schemes of 

world domination and foreign revolutions 

alike without fear.


Since the beginning of our American history, 

we have been engaged in change —  

in a perpetual peaceful revolution —

a revolution which goes on steadily,

quietly adjusting itself to changing conditions —

without the concentration camp or 

the quick-lime in the ditch. 

The world order which we seek is 

the cooperation of free countries,

working together in a friendly, civilized society.


This nation has placed its destiny in 

the hands and heads and hearts of 

its millions of free men and women; and

its faith in freedom under the guidance of God. 


Freedom means the supremacy of 

human rights everywhere. 


Our support goes to those who struggle 

to gain those rights and keep them. 


Our strength is our unity of purpose.

To that high concept 

there can be no end save victory.

Quote of the day.............

"Those who suppress freedom always do so 

in the name of law and order."

-- John V. Lindsay
(1921-2000) U.S. Congressman, Mayor of New York City

         *    *    *    *    *

"It is not the business of the law

 to make anyone good or reverent or 

moral or clean or upright."

-- Murray N. Rothbard
(1926-1995) Dean of the Austrian School of Economics

In Grace...........

Even in order to make a claim and

To enjoy the fruits of ones doing

Either right or wrong......

One has to take the responsibility 

For one’s actions.........

Without which one is reduced to live 

A life that is parasitic........

No matter what identity or 

Worldly position one bears.........

And as such a life that in its wants and 

Unfulfilled desires brings 

Only misery as karmic bondage

And a life devoid of....... 

True moral and ethical standing

That define the best of human nature and

Some significance to...... 

The natural order of reality

Is a life outside of divine grace.

Quote of the day......

The theologian who is satisfied with his complete 

and conclusive thought is mediocre.

A good theologian and a philosopher is open ,or 

incomplete in thought,

always open to the maius ( moreness) of God 

and of the truth,always in development.

-Pope Francis.

In reflection of Purva Mimansa.

Philosophy is a battle against the bewitchment of 

Our intelligence by means of language.

----Ludwig Wittgenstein.

Source-  Nathan Greenslit. Harvard university.

Quote of the Day........

All ideas having even the slightest 

redeeming social importance --

unorthodox ideas, controversial ideas, 

even ideas hateful to the

prevailing climate of opinion, 

have the full protection of the

guarantees [of the First Amendment].

-- Justice William J. Brennan
(1906-1997) U. S. Supreme Court Justice
Source: Roth v. United States, 1957

          *        *        *        *         *

"Since when do you have to 

agree with people

to defend them from injustice?"

-- Lillian Hellman(1905-1984).

 American playwright and memoirist.

         *        *         *        *         *

You seem ... to consider the judges as 

the ultimate arbiters of 

all constitutional questions; 

a very dangerous doctrine indeed, 

and one which would place us under 

the despotism of an oligarchy... 

The Constitution has erected 

no such single tribunal.

-- Thomas Jefferson.
(1743-1826), US Founding Father, 
drafted the Declaration of Independence.

Making of Mischief...........

All mischief is momentary

If we do not lend ourselves to it

It will pass, losing its momentum.

Quote of the Day...........

    

A people who extend civil liberties 

only to preferred groups 

start down the path 

either to dictatorship of 

the right or the left.

Beauty ? Art ....

What is mostly desired after 

has to be corrupted ( by the market forces )

To be mundanely accessible.

Quote of the day......

Concepts of justice

must have hands and feet or

they remain sterile abstractions.

The hands and feet we need

are efficient means and methods 

to carry out justice in every case

in the shortest possible time

and at the lowest possible cost.

-- Justice Warren E. Burger(1907-1995).

 Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court (1969-86)

           *        *        *        *        *
 
By freethinking I mean the use of 

the understanding in endeavoring to 

find out the meaning of 

any proposition whatsoever, 

in considering the nature of the evidence 

for or against, and in judging of it 

according to the seeming force or 

weakness of the evidence.

-- Anthony Collins(1676-1729).
Source: A Discourse of Freethinking, 1713.

Quote of the day.....

Protection, therefore, 

against the tyranny of 

the magistrate is not enough;

there needs protection against 

the tyranny of 

the prevailing opinion and feeling,

against the tendency of society to impose,

by other means than civil penalties,

its own ideas and practices 

as rules of conduction 

those who dissent from them.

 John Stuart Mill(1806-1873) 
 Source: On Liberty, 1859

         *          *         *         *        *

It is a maxim among lawyers 

that whatever hath been done before 

may be done again, and 

therefore they take special care 

to record all the decisions 

formerly made against 

common justice and 

the general reason of mankind. 

These, under the name of precedents,

they produce as authorities to justify 

the most iniquitous opinions, and 

the judges never fail of directing 

them accordingly. 

Jonathan Swift(1667-1745)
 Source: Gulliver’s Travels, 1726

           *         *        *        *        *

You do not examine legislation 

in the light of the benefits 

it will convey 

if properly administered, but 

in the light of the wrongs

it would do and the harm 

it would cause 

if improperly administered.

Lyndon B. Johnson(1908-1973) 
37th US President (1963-1969)

Homeless Ambition........

Everyday I see a great dream.

A great Possibility.

Yet each day passing 

I get on with next to nothing. 

In the Beginning........

The word in its True spirit is 

The Teacher.

Quote of the day.....

A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds,

adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines.

With consistency a great soul has simply nothing to do.

He may as well concern himself 

with his shadow on the wall.

Speak what you think now in hard words, and 

to-morrow speak what to-morrow thinks 

in hard words again,

though it contradict everything you said to-day.

--'Ah, so you shall be sure to be misunderstood.'

-- Is it so bad, then, to be misunderstood?

Pythagoras was misunderstood, 

and Socrates, and Jesus, and Luther, 

and Copernicus, and Galileo, and

Newton, and every pure and 

wise spirit that ever took flesh.

To be great is to be misunderstood.

-- Ralph Waldo Emerson.

Quote of the Day.......

The law is not the private property of lawyers,

nor is justice the exclusive province of 

judges and juries.

In the final analysis, true justice is 

not a matter of courts and law books,

but of a commitment in each of us 

to liberty and mutual respect.

-- Jimmy Carter (1924- )
39th US PresidentSource: Dallas Times-Herald, 26 April 1978
 
                       *      *      *     *     *

Prayer of Teilhard de Chardin.............

                    Patient Trust

Above all, trust in the slow work of God.

We are quite naturally impatient in everything

to reach the end without delay.

We should like to skip the intermediate stages.

We are impatient of being on the way to something

unknown, something new.


And yet it is the law of all progress

that it is made by passing through

some stages of instability—

and that it may take a very long time.


And so I think it is with you;

your ideas mature gradually—let them grow,

let them shape themselves, without undue haste.

Don’t try to force them on,

as though you could be today what time

(that is to say, grace and circumstances

acting on your own good will)

will make of you tomorrow.


Only God could say what this new spirit

gradually forming within you will be.

Give Our Lord the benefit of believing

that his hand is leading you,

and accept the anxiety of feeling yourself

in suspense and incomplete.


-Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, From Hearts on Fire.

Shared by the  fellowship of  
MANNA Monday Lunch program.