Several years ago, when I signed on to Facebook—a relationship that is tenuous, given their proclivities toward anti-liberty positions and actions—I posted a list of favorite quotes that have stood the test of time and life-change in me.  These quotes, while far from all-inclusive (I have many others too), encapsulate my worldview quite well.  Given the potential ephemerality of both Facebook and my presence therein, and their obvious recent burying of users’ favorite quotes from ready viewing, I reproduce them here, for posterity. 

[As I have noted here before, I do not accept “friend” requests from people I do not know, unless they come highly recommended by someone I trust.]

“Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” — Jesus Christ

“Men became scientific because they expected law in nature, and they expected law in nature because they believed in a Legislator.” — CS Lewis

“The chief aim of all investigations of the external world should be to discover the rational order which has been imposed on it by God, and which he revealed to us in the language of mathematics.” — Johannes Kepler

“The laws of nature are written by the hand of God in the language of mathematics.” — Galileo

“There cannot be an essential conflict between being a scientist and having faith in God.” — John Lennox

“Government’s first duty is to protect the people, not run their lives.” — Ronald Reagan

“It is the duty of all nations to acknowledge the providence of Almighty God, to obey his will, to be grateful for his benefits, and humbly to implore his protection and favor.” — George Washington

“Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.” — John Adams

“I attribute my success to this: I never gave or took any excuse.” — Florence Nightingale

“When you say there’s too much evil in this world you assume there’s good. When you assume there’s good, you assume there’s such a thing as a moral law on the basis of which to differentiate between good and evil. But if you assume a moral law, you must posit a moral Law Giver, but that’s Who you’re trying to disprove and not prove. Because if there’s no moral Law Giver, there’s no moral law. If there’s no moral law, there’s no good. If there’s no good, there’s no evil.” — Ravi Zacharias

“Screw ambiguity. Perversion and corruption masquerade as ambiguity. I don’t like ambiguity. I don’t trust ambiguity.” — John Wayne

“Nothing is more obstinate than a fashionable consensus. ” — Margaret Thatcher

“Sir, my concern is not whether God is on our side; my greatest concern is to be on God’s side, for God is always right. ” — Abraham Lincoln

“Moral courage is the most valuable and usually the most absent characteristic in men.” — Gen. George S. Patton

“Because of the neglect of history in our educational system, most people have no idea how many of the great American fortunes were created by people who were born and raised in worse poverty than the average welfare-recipient today.“
— Thomas Sowell

“I have wondered at times what the Ten Commandments would have looked like if Moses had run them through the US Congress.” — Ronald Reagan

“I am not bound to win, but I am bound to be true. I am not bound to succeed, but I am bound to live by the light that I have. I must stand with anybody that stands right, and stand with him while he is right, and part with him when he goes wrong.” — Abraham Lincoln

“The opportunity to secure ourselves against defeat lies in our own hands, but the opportunity of defeating the enemy is provided by the enemy himself.” – Sun Tzu

“Don’t hit at all if it is honorably possible to avoid hitting; but never hit soft. ” — Theodore Roosevelt

“How many legs does a dog have if you call the tail a leg? Four. Calling a tail a leg doesn’t make it a leg. ” — Abraham Lincoln

“It has been said that politics is the second oldest profession. I have learned that it bears a striking resemblance to the first. ” — Ronald Reagan

“Character, in the long run, is the decisive factor in the life of an individual and of nations alike. ” — Theodore Roosevelt