Free Mason Quotes & Sayings

Dead Butterfly
By Ellen Bass
For months my daughter carried
a dead monarch in a quart mason jar.
To and from school in her backpack,
to her only friend's house. At the dinner table
it sat like a guest alongside the pot roast.
She took it to bed, propped by her pillow.
Was it the year her brother was born?
Was this her own too-fragile baby
that had lived - so briefly - in its glassed world?
Or the year she refused to go to her father's house?
Was this the holding-her-breath girl she became there?
This plump child in her rolled-down socks
I sometimes wanted to haul back inside me
and carry safe again. What was her fierce
commitment? I never understood.
We just lived with the dead winged thing
as part of her, as part of us,
weightless in its heavy jar. — Ellen Bass

No free government, or the blessings of liberty, can be preserved to any people, but by a firm adherence to justice, moderation, temperance, frugality and virtue. — George Mason

I was driven when I was younger. Driven at West Point where it was much more competitive in that women were competing with men on many levels, and I was driven in the military and at Harvard, both competitive environments. — Paula Broadwell

All men are by nature born equally free and independent. — George Mason

Never let people see what you want, because they will not let you have it. Never let anybody see what you feel, because it gives them too much power. You're probably better off not showing weakness whenever you can avoid it, because they'll go for you. — Mike Nichols

By this definition we are in the middle of a revolution: something wider than a pure political overthrow and narrower than the classic social revolutions of the twentieth century. Out of the very values and practices of free-market capitalism - individualism, choice, respect for human rights, the network, the flattened hierarchy - the masses have developed a new collective practice. They can bypass and supersede the machinery of power via, as Gorz predicted, an 'alternative network of relations'. — Paul Mason

Jesus was surely not the first exorcist to walk the shores of the Sea of Galilee. In first-century Palestine, professional wonder worker was a vocation as well established as that of woodworker or mason, and far better paid. Galilee especially abounded with charismatic fantasts claiming to channel the divine for a nominal fee. Yet from the perspective of the Galileans, what set Jesus apart from his fellow exorcists and healers is that he seemed to be providing his services free of charge. — Reza Aslan

That no free government, nor the blessings of liberty, can be preserved to any people, but by a firm adherence to justice, moderation, temperance, frugality, and virtue; by frequent recurrence to fundamental principles; and by the recognition by all citizens that they have duties as well as rights, and that such rights cannot be enjoyed save in a society where law is respected and due process is observed. — George Mason

That the people have a Right to mass and to bear arms; that a well regulated militia composed of the Body of the people, trained to arms, is the proper natural and safe defense of a free state, that standing armies, in time of peace, are dangerous to liberty, and therefore ought to be avoided ... — George Mason

Perfume is a mark of female identity and the final touch of her style — Christian Dior

In the lassitude after love Odysseus asks Circe, "What is the way to the land of the dead?"

Circe answers, "You are muffled in folds of heavy fabric. You close your eyes against the rough cloth and though you struggle to free yourself you can barely move. With much thrashing and writhing, you manage to throw off another layer, but find that not only is there another one beyond it, but that the weight bearing you down has scarcely decreased. With dauntless spirit you continue to struggle. By infinitesimal degrees, the load becomes lighter and your confinement less. At last, you push away a piece of coarse, heavy cloth and, relieved, feel that it was the last one. As it falls away, you realize you have been fighting through years. You open your eyes. — Zachary Mason

This is because fear and love are enemies. They come from two opposing kingdoms. Fear comes from the devil, who would like nothing more than to keep you permanently disconnected and isolated. Love comes from God, who is always working to heal and restore your connection with Him and other people and bring you into healthy, life-giving relationships. — Danny Silk

How tragic that the very thing that could set us free-playing the fool-is the thing we will not do. When we're afraid to be fools, we end up being afraid to be anything. — Mike Mason

It appears - because it has been the case for twenty years - that every problem is solvable ... that no matter how badly the world economy slumps there is a pain-free way out of it. Once the realization dawns that there is not, and that the pain will be severe, the question is posed that has not really been posed for twenty years: who should feel it? — Paul Mason

Travelling, I worry about luggage, prices, and strange food. At home, I am free to broaden my mind by thinking about the higher things. — Mason Cooley

The horse stares at its captor, barely remembering the free kicks of youth. — Mason Cooley

Ms. Ginsberg. I wonder if you can help me. I have a legal question," Felicity Mason said. Great. I hated giving out free legal advice at parties, but at that moment, I would have drafted her will in crayon on a cocktail napkin to get away from Cole. — N.M. Silber

Free competition exists inside shelters of law, custom, insurance, political approval, and carefully protected status. — Mason Cooley

There is a Passion natural to the Mind of man, especially a free Man, which renders him impatient of Restraint. — George Mason

depletion and climate change. For the older generation it's easy to misunderstand the word 'student' or 'graduate': to my contemporaries, at college in the 1980s, it meant somebody engaged in a liberal, academic education, often with hours of free time to dream, protest, play in a rock band or do research. Today's undergraduates have been tested every month of their lives, from kindergarten to high school. They are the measured inputs and outputs of a commercialized global higher education market worth $1.2 trillion a year - excluding the USA. Their free time is minimal: precarious part-time jobs are essential to their existence, so that they are a key part of the modern workforce. Plus they have become a vital asset for the financial system. In 2006, Citigroup alone made $220 million clear profit from its student loan book.2 — Paul Mason

The path to knowledge follows many strange turnings. — Elizabeth Bear

I'm appalled that an industry has grown around teaching a practice as wholesome and spiritual as yoga, so I decided to create my own free video to help people get started. — Andrew Mason

Good advice is never as helpful as an interest-free loan. — Mason Cooley

The truth does 2 things: either hurts or sets you free. It's up to you to decide which one! — Yushekia Mason

All men have an equal, natural and unalienable right to the free exercise of religion, according to the dictates of conscience; and that no particular sect or society of Christians ought to be favored or established by law in preference to others. — George Mason

Good places for aphorisms: in fortune cookies, on bumper stickers, and on banners flying over the Palace of Free Advice. — Mason Cooley

If I can only live to see the American union firmly fixed, and free governments well established in our western world, and can leave to my children but a crust of bread and liberty, I shall die satisfied. — George Mason

A track on iTunes costs next to zero to store on Apple's server, and next to zero to transmit to my computer. Whatever it cost the record company to produce (in terms of artist fees and marketing costs) it costs me 99p simply because it's unlawful to copy it for free. The — Paul Mason

All men are created equally free and independent, and have certain inherent rights, of which they cannot, by any compact, deprive or divest their posterity; among which are the enjoyment of life and liberty, with the means of acquiring and possessing property, and pursuing the obtaining of happiness and safety. — George Mason

That elections of members to serve as representatives of the people, in assembly, ought to be free; and that all men, having sufficient evidence of permanent common interest with, and attachment to, the community, have the right of suffrage, and cannot be taxed or deprived of their property for public uses, without their own consent, or that of their representives so elected, nor bound by any law to which they have not, in like manner, assembled, for the public good. — George Mason

A free spirit must be able to surmount anxiety time after time. — Mason Cooley

I'm afraid I might make a fool of myself over him. I'm not even sure he would notice if I did. — Courtney Milan