Texas Sam Houston Quotes

Texas has yet to learn submission to any oppression, come from what source it may. ~ Sam Houston

Let me tell you what is coming ... Your fathers and husbands, your sons and brothers, will be herded at the point of the bayonet ... You may, after the sacrifice of countless millions of treasure and of thousands of lives, as a bare possibility, win Southern independence ... but I doubt it. ~ Sam Houston

I have ever been opposed to banks, - opposed to internal improvements by the general government, - opposed to distribution of public lands among the states, - opposed to taking the power from the hands of the people, - opposed to special monopolies, - opposed to a protective tariff, - opposed to a latitudinal construction of the constitution, - opposed to slavery agitation and disunion. This is my democracy. Point to a single act of my public career not in keeping with these principles. ~ Sam Houston

I declare that civil war is inevitable and is near at hand. When it comes the descendants of the heroes of Lexington and Bunker Hill will be found equal in patriotism, courage and heroic endurance with the descendants of the heroes of Cowpens and Yorktown. For this reason I predict the civil war which is now at hand will be stubborn and of long duration. ~ Sam Houston

It is a matter of great satisfaction to me to hope that my children will be in circumstances to receive a good education. Mine was defective and I feel the inconvenience, if not the misfortune of not receiving a classical education. Knowledge is the food of genius, and my son, let no opportunity escape you to treasure up knowledge. ~ Sam Houston

I would not be gotten into a schoolhouse until I was eight years old. Nor did I accomplish much after I started. I doubt if I had gone to school six months in all when my father died. I was fourteen at the time. ~ Sam Houston

Bear in Mind ... that all Histories from the Rock at Plymouth, and Jamestown to the present time, have been made by white men, and a man who tells his own story, is always right until the adversary's tale is told. ~ Sam Houston

Remember that whatever may be said by a lady or her friends, it is not part of conduct of a gallant or generous man to take up arms against a woman. ~ Sam Houston

When a government has ceased to protect the lives, liberty, and property of the people ... and ... becomes an instrument in the hands of evil rulers for their oppression ... it is a ... sacred obligation to their posterity to abolish such government, and create another in its stead. ~ Sam Houston

I humble myself before God, and there the list ends. ~ Sam Houston

A victim of the use of water as a beverage. ~ Sam Houston

Perhaps the twentieth-century Senator is not called upon to risk his entire future on one basic issue in the manner of Edmund Ross or Thomas Hart Benton. Perhaps our modern acts of political courage do not arouse the public in the manner that crushed the career of Sam Houston and John Quincy Adams. Still, when we realize that a newspaper that chooses to denounce a Senator today can reach many thousand times as many voters as could be reached by all of Daniel Webster's famous and articulate detractors put together, these stories of twentieth-century political courage have a drama, an excitement - and an inspiration - all their own. ~ John F. Kennedy

He talked a lot about girls, too. His brother, Sam Houston Johnson, recalls that more than once, when he visited his brother at San Marcos, Lyndon, coming back into the room naked after a shower, would take his penis in his hand, and say: "Well, I've gotta take ol' Jumbo here and give him some exercise. I wonder who I'll fuck tonight. ~ Robert A. Caro

San Antonio is like a military town. It's like literally - when I was growing up there, there were five Air Force bases, plus Fort Sam Houston. I was always sort of near the military. ~ Steve Earle

I would give no thought of what the world might say of me, if I could only transmit to posterity the reputation of an honest man. ~ Sam Houston

Let me tell you what is coming. After the sacrifice of countless millions of treasure and hundreds of thousands of lives you may win Southern independence, but I doubt it. The North is determined to preserve this Union. They are not a fiery, impulsive people as you are, for they live in colder climates. But when they begin to move in a given direction, they move with the steady momentum and perseverance of a mighty avalanche. ~ Sam Houston

Today Ramon defended the garbage bin by Plumpy's back door, and I defended a shiny silver Mercedes because, according to Ramon, it represented the privileged white aristocracy of America trying to keep the Latino man down.

"Our duel," Ramon said, spinning his broom like a bo staff, "will represent the struggle our nation's currently engaged in."

"Please, we both know you're just going for home team advantage."

"You wound me, Sam. I can't help it if your crackerlike oppression gives me the better playing field." He did a quick hamstring stretch. "Suck it up."

"Fine," I said, "then I get the handicap."

"Sam, you're Texas. Texas always gets the handicap."

"I'm Team Texas again?"

He grinned, rolled his shoulders, and wiggled his arms, loosening them.

I gave up and nodded at the Mercedes. It looked old and expensive, especially in our parking lot. "Shiny."

Ramon snorted. "Classic. Check out the gullwing doors."

"Fine. Classic Shiny."

Ramon tossed an empty Plumpy's cup into the Dumpster. "Sometimes, Sammy, I question your manhood."

"A car is to get you from place to place. That's it."

Ramon shook his head at my ignorance.

"Whatever. Just try not to dent the car, Team Mexico."

"It's Team South America," he said.

"You do know that Mexico is in North America, right?"

"Yeah, but I have the whole contin ~ Lish McBride

I would lay down my life to defend any one of the States from aggression, which endangered peace or threatened its institutions. I could do more for the union, but I wish to do more; for the destruction of the union would be the destruction of all the States. A stab in the heart is worse then a cut in a limb, for this may be healed. ~ Sam Houston

I am aware that in presenting myself as the advocate of the Indians and their rights, I shall stand very much alone. ~ Sam Houston

Well, I was born in El Paso, Texas, it was in the nearest hospital to the family farm. ~ Sam Donaldson

Whether his policy was right or wrong, he built up the glory of the nation. ~ Sam Houston

I beseech those whose piety will permit them reverently to petition, that they will pray for this union, and ask that He who buildeth up and pulleth down nations will, the mercy preserve and unite us. For a Nation divided against itself cannot stand. I wish, if this Union must be dissolved, that its ruins may be the monument of my grave, and the graves of my family. I wish no epitaph to be written to tell that I survive the ruin of this glorious Union. ~ Sam Houston

I preferred measuring deer tracks to tape - that I liked the wild liberty of the Red men better then the tyranny of my brothers. ~ Sam Houston

Do right and risk the consequences. ~ Sam Houston

A woman going out with a younger man feels like the last taboo. ~ Sam Taylor-Johnson

How we pay attention to the present moment largely determines the character of our experience and, therefore, the quality of our lives. ~ Sam Harris

I'm not a shouter, and I'm not a bully. ~ Sam Taylor-Johnson

When I left Nashville I went to Texas because that's where I came from, and because I was playing in Texas a lot in different places. And I saw hippies and rednecks drinking beer together and smoking dope together and having a good time together and I knew it was possible to get all groups of people together - long hair, short hair, no hair - and music would bring them together. ~ Willie Nelson

There is a saying in Bali: "We have no art. We do everything as beautifully as possible." This reflects my philosophy of practice. I try to remember daily what a gift it is to have the privilege of living in this wondrous world. ~ Sam Keen

All the reasons that have made software so successful are beginning to happen with hardware. So much can be done so quickly, prototyped so rapidly, and the costs are so low. ~ Sam Altman

even if Noam Chomsky were right about everything, the Islamic doctrines related to martyrdom, jihad, blasphemy, apostasy, the rights of women and homosexuals, etc. would still present huge problems for the emergence of a global civil society (and these are problems quite unlike those presented by similar tenets in other faiths, for reasons that I have explained at length elsewhere and touch on only briefly here). And any way in which I might be biased or blinded by "the religion of the state," or any other form of cultural indoctrination, has absolutely no relevance to the plight of Shiites who have their mosques, weddings, and funerals bombed by Sunni extremists, or to victims of rape who are beaten, imprisoned, or even killed as "adulteresses" throughout the Muslim world. I hope it goes without saying that the Afghan girls who even now are risking their lives by merely learning to read would not be best compensated for their struggles by being handed copies of Chomsky's books enumerating the sins of the West ~ Sam Harris

Ironically, we are all too often educated out of rather than in to an awareness of the body. ~ Jean Houston

You are a very real person when that is what you wish you weren't most. ~ Sam Pink

I wanted to be an astronaut when I was a kid. I grew up in Houston. Gordo Cooper was my favorite astronaut. ~ Dennis Quaid

Consensual paranoia - the pathology of the normal person who is a member of a war-justifying society - forms the template from which all the images of the enemy are created. By studying the logic of paranoia, we can see why certain archetypes of the enemy must necessarily recur, no matter what the historical circumstances. ~ Sam Keen

You look like a puppy. Like I'm jingling my keys and you're jumping by the door waiting for your walk"
"Woof. ~ Maggie Stiefvater

Jett Gallatin expected trouble in Alsop, Texas - but not zombies. ~ Mercedes Lackey

He [Sam] wrote it with great flourishes, his hand making many dizzy elliptical journeys before it settled down to make a elaborate 'E' with a curving tail as long as some prehistoric baboons. ~ Bess Streeter Aldrich

Be sapient and salient;let your sagacity reform the odor of sanctity. ~ Anyaele Sam Chiyson

Sam was saying it didn't matter, but it kind of did, too.
"Save your kraut poetry for Grace," I said, after a pause. "You're getting your weird all over me."
"I'm serious," Sam said. ~ Maggie Stiefvater

The natives are getting restless. And since it's Texas, they're probably armed. ~ Jennifer Bernard