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Southernisms

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Tidewater Wit and Wisdom

An honest man can never be outdone in courtesy. A sensual life is a miserable life. The contempt of death makes all the miseries of life easy to us. -Taken from Seneca’s Dialogues, a primer for young men in Tidewater Virginia and Maryland   Fear God. Reverence the parents. Imitate not the wicked. Boast not in discourse of thy wit…
John Devanny
February 6, 2017
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Sayings By or For Southerners, Part XXXVI

In fact, capitalists have no objection to federal meddling.  They just want it to be such meddling as puts money in their pockets. Nothing more.  Ever.--Fred Reed The market is wonderful, but it is not everything.--Clyde Wilson Order is the first need of the soul.--Russell Kirk I am for peace:  but when I speak, they are for war.--Psalms 120:7 The…
Clyde Wilson
June 22, 2016
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Sayings By or For Southerners, Part XXXV

These Haters seem to want to destroy anything and anyone they can tie to slavery. . . . Let’s bulldoze the Washington monument and the Jefferson Memorial.--Henry Eversole I just don’t understand why people would choose to go the Washington & Lee and then complain about Lee.--Jason Moyer It is a flaw of the deeply self-interested men of the world…
Clyde Wilson
June 8, 2016
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Sayings By or For Southerners, Part XXXIV

A pioneer creates a new country from foresight, courage, and hard work.  An immigrant takes advantage of what the pioneer has created.   I suppose now we really are “a nation of immigrants.”--Clyde Wilson The prejudice of race appears to be stronger in the States that have abolished slavery than in those where it still exists . . . .--Alexis de…
Clyde Wilson
June 1, 2016
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Sayings By or For Southerners, Part XXXIII

I am not a Catholic, but I just have to admire all of this Pope’s meticulously photographed and internationally broadcast acts of humility.--Conservative Pundit Do you think the Civil Rights Act would have passed in 1964 if most Northerners had thought that it would apply to them and not just to the South?--Clyde Wilson The Massachusetts Kennedys are better than…
Clyde Wilson
May 25, 2016
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Sayings By or For Southerners, Part XXXII

I believe that the American South, the last bastion of Christianity in the West, will have a special role in the final chapter of history.--Anne Wilson Smith I just may take a tomahawk to the next person who tells me this is a nation of immigrants.  I want them to have the authentic experience. --Alice Teller Fact is, we NEED immigrants…
Clyde Wilson
May 18, 2016
Clyde Wilson Library

Sayings By or For Southerners, Part XXXI

Moving from arrogance to masochism,  Europeans  have  endeavoured to chase away their old feelings of ethnocentrism , all the while flattering similar sentiments in other races and cultures.   Great efforts have been made to break the course and  coherence  of  time in order to stop Europeans from finding their likeness  in images of their ancestors, to strip them of their…
Clyde Wilson
April 27, 2016
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Sayings By or For Southerners, Part XXX

The Western intellectual knows,  or  rather thinks he knows, what others do not.  He rarely considers reality as such. . . . He thinks in terms  of  concepts and abstract models.  The reasoning  does  not start with the observation of events , but with  the invocation of a formula or a theoretical concept  issued  by a theoretician  whom he considers…
Clyde Wilson
April 6, 2016
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Sayings By or For Southerners, Part XXIX

In a PC world, humor is a capital offense.   --Taki Happiness is never an accident.  It is the prize we get when we chose wisely from life’s great stores.  --Irene Dunne,   citing advice from her  Kentucky father There is no such thing as being too Southern.    --Lewis Grizzard “The war between the Yankees and the Americans.”  --Granny  Clampett  on the …
Clyde Wilson
March 30, 2016
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Sayings By or For Southerners, Part XXVIII

Education is a vast sea of lies, waste, corruption, crackpot theorizing,  and  careerist  logrolling. --John Derbyshire A lie can travel half way around the world while truth is still putting on his boots.  --Mark Twain The hottest places in Hell are reserved for those, who, in times of great moral crisis,  maintain  their neutrality.  --Dante They change their sky, not…
Clyde Wilson
March 23, 2016
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Sayings By or For Southerners, Part XXVII

“My name’s Anderson.  They call me Bloody Bill.   Going to  Kansas to kill Red Legs.  Want to come along?”    Clint Eastwood replies:   “I reckon I will.”   --“The Outlaw Josey Wales” The success of equality in America is due, I think, mainly to the circumstance that a large number of people, who were substantially equal in all the important matters, recognized that…
Clyde Wilson
March 16, 2016
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Sayings By or For Southerners, Part XXVI

A friend’s encounter with a clergyman:  His mission, he says, is Social Justice.  Our South Carolina governor, when she removed the Confederate flag from the capitol grounds, had “a Jesus moment,” a Divine Revelation of Social Justice.  He hopes that  others will have such a Moment.  What impressed me most about this leader of the faith was not the arrogant…
Clyde Wilson
February 24, 2016
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Sayings By or For Southerners, Part XXV

The death of the spirit is the price of progress. --Eric Voegelin The Athenians know what is right, but will not do it. --Cicero Were they ashamed when they had committed abomination? Nay, they were not at all ashamed, neither could they blush:  therefore they shall fall among them that fall:  in time of their visitation they shall be cast down, saith…
Clyde Wilson
February 10, 2016
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Sayings By or For Southerners, Part XXIV

Totalitarianism, defined as the existential rule of Gnostic activists, is the end form of progressive civilization.--Eric Voegelin The South is the foe to Northern industry---to our mines, our manufactures, and our commerce.--Abolitionist Theodore Parker, 1861 Consolidators, supremacists, and conquerors, however, will all equally disregard any instrument, however solemn and explicit, by which ambition and avarice will be restrained and the…
Clyde Wilson
January 13, 2016
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Sayings By or For Southerners, Part XXIII

The best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with an average voter -- Winston Churchill Democracy is the worst form of government, except for every other kind that has been tried. --Churchill The lowest common denominator in America is a lot lower than it used to be. –Clyde Wilson The rebels have exhibited a most wonderful energy and skill…
Clyde Wilson
December 23, 2015
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Sayings By or For Southerners, Part XXII

The further a society strays from the truth, the more it hates people who tell it. --George Orwell When the South lost we all lost.   --historian Paul Hoar (New England-born) I don’t drink with Yankees.  --Joel McCrea in “South of St. Louis” Men more frequently require to be reminded than to be informed.  --Samuel Johnson You have a greater probability of…
Clyde Wilson
November 25, 2015
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Sayings By or For Southerners, Part XXI

The main problem with America today is the increasing scarcity of Americans. --Clyde Wilson The motive of those who have protested against the extension of slavery has always been concern for the welfare of the white man, not an unnatural sympathy with the negro. --William H. Seward, Republican leader Loyalty to party is treason to the South. --Congressman Lawrence M.…
Clyde Wilson
November 13, 2015
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Sayings By or For Southerners, Part XX

To compel a man to subsidize with his taxes the propagation of ideas which he disbelieves and abhors is sinful and tyrannical.--Jefferson When did the South ever lay its hand on the North?--Calhoun . . . it remains true that the bulk of modern monopoly or quasi monopoly is not the result of always irresistible economic forces, but simply the…
Clyde Wilson
October 28, 2015
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Sayings By or For Southerners, Part XIX

A man has only got room for one oath at a time. I gave mine to the Confederate States of America. --John Wayne, “The Searchers” Going back is the quickest way on. --C.S. Lewis Idiocy is bipartisan. --Ilana Mercer The fruit of thy land, and all thy labours, shall a nation which thou knowest not eat up; and thou shall…
Clyde Wilson
October 7, 2015
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Sayings By or For Southerners, Part XVIII

Wherever you bluebellies go you cause trouble. . . . Yankees always lie. --Clint Eastwood, “Ambush at Cimarron Pass,” 1958. For every right wing lunatic in a cabin in Idaho, there are 500 left wing lunatics with tenure at state universities. --David Burge My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge: because thou hast rejected knowledge, I will also reject thee,…
Clyde Wilson
September 23, 2015
Clyde Wilson Library

Sayings By or For Southerners, Part XVII

It has been justly stated by a British writer that the power to make a small piece of paper, not worth one cent, by the inscribing of a few names, to be worth a thousand dollars, was a power too high to be entrusted to the hands of mortal man. --Calhoun, 1841 When it comes once to be understood that…
Clyde Wilson
August 12, 2015
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Sayings By or For Southerners, Part XV

They call it progress, but they don’t say where it is going. --Faulkner Nothing occurs except the heaping up of tyranny and insult from Washington by the meanest most cowardly and unprincipled lot of men ever assembled together to curse any people. --Mary Custis Lee, 1868 Nothing is more ruinous to a nation than the defective education of its populace.…
Clyde Wilson
April 3, 2015
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Sayings By or For Southerners, Part XIV

I have seen enough of publick men to come to the conclusion, that there are few, indeed, whose attachment to self is not stronger, than their patriotism and their friendship. --Calhoun We are children of the earth. We are not unlike the Titans, the earthborn giants of mythology, who were invincible in battle only as long as their feet were…
Clyde Wilson
February 25, 2015
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Sayings By or For Southerners, Part XIII

South Carolina will preserve its sovereignty, or be buried beneath its ruins.  --Governor Robert Y. Hayne, 1832 I have lived too long not to know how reluctantly the clearest proposition is admitted against preconceived opinions.   --Calhoun Justice is truth in action.   --Joubert The primary object of the criminal law is not to secure liberty or privilege, but to take them…
Clyde Wilson
January 8, 2015
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Sayings By or For Southerners, Part XII

Experience has taught me, that in politicks, it is much more easy to gain the battle, than to reap its fruits. --Calhoun I had not realized how offensive the plain truth can be to the politically correct, how enraged they can be by its mere expression, and how deeply they detest the values and standards respected 50 years ago and…
Clyde Wilson
December 31, 2014
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Sayings By or For Southerners, Part XI

It has been a rule with me, from which I have rarely departed, to pass in silence the misrepresentations to which I have been subject, in the discharge of my public duties;  leaving it to my after conduct to stamp the charge of falsehood on them.    --Calhoun Whenever  I  need  a  psychiatrist  I go fly  fishing, holding a boat to…
Clyde Wilson
December 26, 2014
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Sayings By or For Southerners, Part X

  What are people for? --Wendell Berry I do not view politicks as a scramble between eminent men; but as a science by which the lasting interest of the country may be advanced. --Calhoun Citizens must fight to defend the law as if fighting to hold the city wall. --Heraclitus Yea, they made their hearts as an adamant stone, lest…
Clyde Wilson
December 16, 2014
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Sayings By or For Southerners, Part IX

It is not in the power of any single, or few individuals to preserve liberty. It can only be effected by the people themselves; by their intelligence, virtue, courage, and patriotism. –Calhoun Rules in war have purpose. Every broken rule deepens the hate between enemies. Every rule preserved keeps hate at bay. --Christian Cameron I lived this long by never…
Clyde Wilson
December 1, 2014
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Sayings By or For Southerners, Part VIII

It is the very genius of a consolidated Government to elevate one portion of the Community, while it corrupts the other. --Calhoun Generally, however, the secession movement was a remarkable testament to the compact theory of government, which Jefferson, more than anyone, had fixed upon the American political mind. --Merrill D. Petersen Never ascribe to malice what can be adequately…
Clyde Wilson
November 21, 2014
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Sayings By or For Southerners, Part VII

The Constitutional power of the President never was or could be formidable, unless it was accompanied by a Congress which was prepared to corrupt the Constitution. --Calhoun Devolution is not an event, it is a process. --John Davies, Welsh nationalist leader And as for unrequited love, it is seldom fatal, Shakespeare having observed with great sapience: “Men have died from…
Clyde Wilson
November 5, 2014
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Sayings By or For Southerners Part VI

When did the South ever lay its hand on the North? --Calhoun The body of a Confederate soldier was discovered near here a few days ago. I think I will go over and apologise. --Ambrose Bierce, former Union soldier Therefore I charge the young not to despise hunting or any other schooling. For these are the means by which men…
Clyde Wilson
October 28, 2014
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A Southerner Repents

This essay originally appeared on Fred Reed's website and is reprinted here by permission. My sins creep up on me, sent by the Devil, and beset me by surprise. I know not what to do. A month ago, in Fredericksburg, Virginia, I sat on the banks of the Rappahannock River, upon which as a stripling I had canoed and fished,…
Fred Reed
October 24, 2014
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Sayings By or For Southerners, Part IV

A good dog needs no pedigree, and if a dog ain’t any good, a pedigree don’t help him none. --Havilah Babcock Southerners are the world’s worst record-keepers. --Havilah Babcock It is true that we are completely under the saddle of Massachusetts and Connecticut, and that they ride us very hard, cruelly insulting our feelings, as well as exhausting our strength…
Clyde Wilson
October 10, 2014
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Where’s The Rest of My Ice?

Here’s another one of those things about our lives controlled by Yankees – ice quantity. Southerners love our drinks to be cold and iced to perfection. That’s why we call them “iced drinks.” The ice in the glass isn’t an afterthought, or a fringe benefit. It’s part of the very name of the drink. We don’t want a glass of…
Tom Daniel
April 17, 2014
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Watch What You’re Doing

“Watch what you’re doing – you never know who’s watching you.” I can still hear my mama say that. No, literally – she still says that to me. I have heard people say this is not a uniquely Southern thing, and it is universal in small towns across America. I disagree, because I’ve never seen this concept applied and executed…
Tom Daniel
April 4, 2014