"Character is much easier kept than recovered."
-Thomas Paine
The reputation Toyota had earned as a trusted global car-maker took decades to build, but mere weeks to lose. Their most valuable asset too easily squandered and perhaps never fully recovered. There's a lesson in there for all of us.
"An avidity to punish is always dangerous to liberty. It leads men to stretch, to misinterpret, and to misapply even the best of laws."
-Thomas Paine
When former vice president Dick Cheney parades his support for torture in front of the world, he abdicates all moral authority along with the principals of freedom and liberty he professes to defend. It isn't about those he would torture, justice is their due. It is about those that would forsake principal for security – in the process abandoning both.
"He that would make his own liberty secure must guard even his enemy from oppression; for if he violates this duty, he establishes a precedent that will reach to himself."
-Thomas Paine
"A nation under a well regulated government, should permit none to remain uninstructed. It is monarchical and aristocratical government only that requires ignorance for its support."
-Thomas Paine, Rights of Man
More on On the Better Use of a Billion Dollars: Corporate Bailouts or Scholarships
"To argue with a man who has renounced his reason is like giving medicine to the dead."
-Thomas Paine
There is no evidence or incontrovertible proof available to those who choose to cling to irrational prejudice and fear. Like giving medicine to the dead, rational thought and objective observation come too late.
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"Better fare hard with good men than feast it with bad"
-Thomas Paine
It is not the relative difficulty or ease, but the caliber of people with which we associate, that shapes the course of our lives.
"An avidity to punish is always dangerous to liberty. It leads men to stretch, to misinterpret, and to misapply even the best of laws. He that would make his own liberty secure must guard even his enemy from oppression; for if he violates his duty, he establishes a precedent that will reach to himself."
-Thomas Paine, Rights of Man
A nation under a well regulated government, should permit none to remain uninstructed. It is monarchical and aristocratical government only that requires ignorance for its support.
-Thomas Paine, Rights of Man
"…the slavery of fear had made men afraid to think."
-Thomas Paine, Rights of Man
Fear is the enemy of reason. Fear invites suspicion, prejudice, division.
Overcoming fear is the path to freedom.
"Belief in a cruel God makes a cruel man"
-Thomas Paine
We can have a loving God, or a cruel one. The true values of God are reflected in the actions of those whom profess belief.
