A democracy is nothing more than mob rule, where fifty-one percent of the people may take away the rights of the other forty-nine. -- Thomas Jefferson
The monstrous evils of the twentieth century have shown us that the greediest money grubbers are gentle doves compared with money-hating wolves like Lenin, Stalin, and Hitler, who in less than three decades killed or maimed nearly a hundred million men, women, and children and brought untold suffering to a large portion of mankind.-- Eric Hoffer (1902-1983)
Every luxury must be paid for, and everything is a luxury, starting with being in this world.-- Cesare Pavese (1908-50)
There is all the difference in the world between treating people equally and attempting to make them equal.-- F.A. Hayek (1899-1992)
Wisdom suggests that a man is a fool who trusts his wealth to a banker, his soul to a preacher, his rights to a lawyer, or his liberty to a politician.
Someone once asked Abraham Lincoln how many legs a dog has, if you count the tail as a leg. "Four" was Lincoln's reply. "The fact that you call a tail a leg doesn't make it a leg."
It is amazing how many of the intelligentsia call it "greed" to want to keep what you have earned, but not greed to want to take away what somebody else has earned, and let politicians use it to buy votes. - Thomas Sowell
A friend from India told me that a countryman of his said: "I want to go to America. I want to see a country where poor people are fat." - Thomas Sowell
Nobody would put as little thought and effort into buying an automobile as they put into deciding who to elect as President of the United States. - Thomas Sowell
Our national problems usually do not cause nearly as much harm as the solutions. - Thomas Sowell
A recent poll shows that a majority of blacks, whites, Asians and Hispanics do not think the Census should be classifying people as black, white, Asian and Hispanic. - Thomas Sowell
Subsidies are a shell game, not a net addition to national wealth. - Thomas Sowell
The promotion of "self-esteem" in our schools has been so successful that people feel free to spout off about all sorts of things -- and see no reason why their opinions should not be taken as seriously as the views of people who actually know what they are talking about. - Thomas Sowell
Thou shalt not steal unless thou hast a majority vote in Congress - Walter Williams
"The schoolmarm actually has no more right to her own ideas than a deacon in holy orders has to his. She is sworn to propagate only such ideas as happen to be official, and no others...Her prime duty is not to serve the enlightenment, but to serve the Republic, which is to say, to serve whoever happens to be running it at the moment, and deciding what it shall think." - H. L. Mencken
"The aim of public education is not to spread enlightenment at all; it is simply to reduce as many individuals as possible to the same safe level, to breed and train a standardized citizenry, to down dissent and originality. That is its aim in the United States, whatever the pretensions of politicians, pedagogues and other such mountebanks, and that is its aim everywhere else." - H. L. Mencken
"If you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice" - RUSH (the band, not Limbaugh)
Only consider having the government do something if you feel ok about having your worst enemy manage it for you."
A prohibition law strikes a blow at the very principles upon which our government was founded. - ABRAHAM LINCOLN
The propagandist's purpose is to make one set of people forget that certain other sets of people are human. - ALDOUS HUXLEY
The shepherd always tries to persuade the sheep that their interests and his own are the same. - Stendhal
"If the hideous monster Frankenstein came face to face with the monster marijuana he would drop dead of fright"? - H. J. Anslinger, head of the Federal Narcotics Bureau.
"If you put the federal government in charge of the Sahara Desert, in 5 years there'd be a shortage of sand." - Milton Friedman
"I believe that if the people of this nation fully understood what Congress has done to them over the last 49 years, they would move on Washington; they would not wait for an election.... It adds up to a preconceived plan to destroy the economic and social independence of the United States!" - GEORGE W. MALLONE, U.S. Senator, speaking before Congress in 1957
"Beware the greedy hand of government, thrusting itself into every corner and crevice of industry." --Thomas Paine
"We create this Constitution, not to bind the hands of men, but, to bind the hands of government!" - Thomas Jefferson
"I rather doubt that the Framers of the Fourth Amendment would have considered 'reasonable' a program of indiscriminate stops of individuals not suspected of wrongdoing. -- Justice Clarence Thomas
One of the worst things I see about people who lie or cheat is that since they know they can't be trusted they can't ever trust anyone else. That's got to be a sad way to live.
I know who is telling the truth and who is lying by the tactics employed - the liar always attacks the opposing person and the truth teller always attacks the opposing premise! -- "Doc" Tavish
"The war against illegal plunder has been fought since the beginning of the world. But how is ... legal plunder to be identified? Quite simply. See if the law takes from some persons what belongs to them, and gives it to other persons to whom it does not belong. See if the law benefits one citizen at the expense of another by doing what the citizen himself cannot do without committing a crime. Then abolish this law without delay ... If such a law is not abolished immediately, it will spread, multiply and develop into a system." -- Frederic Bastiat, French author of "The Law" (1848)
The essence of government is power; and power, lodged as it must be in human hands, will ever be liable to abuse.-- James Madison (1751 - 1836) US president (4th),
"The smallest minority on earth is the individual. Those who deny individual rights cannot claim to be defenders of minorities." - Ayn Rand
A politician is a person that will create a crisis, and will then run for office, as the person with the solution to the crisis.
"Persecution is not an original feature in any religion; but it is always the strongly marked feature of all religions established by law." - Thomas Paine
Every politically controlled educational system will inculcate the doctrine of state supremacy sooner or later. . . . Once that doctrine has been accepted, it becomes an almost superhuman task to break the stranglehold of the political power over the life of the citizen. It has had his body, property and mind in its clutches from infancy. An octopus would sooner release its prey. A tax-supported, compulsory educational system is the complete model of the totalitarian state.--Isabel Paterson, The God of the Machine (1943)
"A fanatic is one who can't change his mind and won't change the subject." - Winston Churchill
The worst government is the most moral. One composed of cynics is often very tolerant and humane. But when fanatics are on top, there is no limit to oppression." - H.L. Mencken
Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from religious conviction." - Blaise Pascal (Pensees, 1670)
"How does something immoral, when done privately, become moral when it is done collectivley? Furthermore, does legality establish morality? Slavery was legal; apartheid is legal; Stalinist, Nazi, and Maoist purges were legal. Clearly, the fact of legality does not justify these crimes. Legality, alone, cannot be the talisman of moral people." -Walter Williams
"What is ominous is the ease with which some people go from saying that they don’t like something to saying that the government should forbid it. When you go down that road, don’t expect freedom to survive very long."-- Thomas Sowell
"...while men usually recognize criminal acts when they are comitted by an individual in the name of his own interest, they often FAIL TO RECOGNIZE the very same acts for what they are when they are comitted by some large gang (the gov't) in the name of "social justice" or the "common good"." - Jarrett Wollstien, Society Without Coercion
Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. - Martin Luther King
No man has a natural right to commit aggression on the equal rights of another, and this is all from which the laws ought to restrain him. - Thomas Jefferson
I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too much liberty than to those attending too small a degree of it. - Thomas Jefferson
U.S. v. Miller (1939) The signification attributed to the term Militia appears from the debates in the Convention, the history and legislation of Colonies and States, and the writings of approved commentators. These show plainly enough that the Militia comprised all males physically capable of acting in concert for the common defense. "A body of citizens enrolled for military discipline." And further, that ordinarily when called for service these men were expected to appear bearing arms supplied by themselves and of the kind in common use at the time.
Subsidies are a shell game, not a net addition to national wealth.
Freedom...refer[s] to a social relationship among people -- namely, the absence of force as a prospective instrument of decision making. Freedom is reduced whenever a decision is made under threat of force, whether or not force actually materializes or is evident in retrospect. - Thomas Sowell
The issue today is the same as it has been throughout all history, whether man shall be allowed to govern himself or be ruled by a small elite. - Thomas Jefferson
There is basically only one human right, the right to do whatever you damn please. Conversely, there is only one human responsibility. To suffer the consequences for whatever you do.
Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect - Mark Twain
Good intentions will always be pleaded for any assumption of power. The Constitution was made to guard the people against the dangers of good intentions. There are men in all ages who mean to govern well, but they mean to govern. They promise to be good masters ... but they mean to be masters." -- Daniel Webster
The liar's punishment is, not in the least that he is not believed, but that he cannot believe any one else. -George Bernard Shaw
Money is indeed the most important thing in the world; and all sound and successful personal and national morality should have this fact for its basis. - George Bernard Shaw
When two people are under the influence of the most violent, most insane, most delusive, and most transient of passions, they are required to swear that they will remain in that excited, abnormal, and exhausting condition continuously until death do them part. - George Bernard Shaw
The fact that a believer is happier than a skeptic is no more to the point than the fact than a drunken man is happier than a sober one. - George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950)
Liberty means responsibility; that is why most men dread it. -George Bernard Shaw
We learn from history that we learn nothing from history. -George Bernard Shaw
A government that robs Peter to pay Paul can always depend on the support of Paul. -George Bernard Shaw
If you don't like yourself, you *can't* like other people - Robert A. Heinlein
Always store beer in a dark place. - Robert A. Heinlein
By the data to date, there is only one animal dangerous to man - man himself. So he must supply his own indispensable competition. He has no enemy to help him. - Robert A. Heinlein
Men are more sentimental than women. It blurs their thinking. - Robert A. Heinlein
Certainly the game is rigged. Don't let that stop you; if you don't bet, you can't win. - Robert A. Heinlein
Any priest or shaman must be presumed guilty until proven innocent. - Robert A. Heinlein
Always listen to experts. They'll tell you what can't be done, and why. Then do it. - Robert A. Heinlein
Get a shot off *fast*. This upsets him long enough to make your second shot perfect. - Robert A. Heinlein
There is no conclusive evidence of life after death. But there is no evidence of any sort against. Soon enough you will *know*. So why fret about it? - Robert A. Heinlein
If it can't be expressed in figures, it is not science; it is opinion. - Robert A. Heinlein
It has long been known that one horse can run faster than another - but *which* one? Differences are crucial. - Robert A. Heinlein
A fake fortune teller can be tolerated. But an authentic soothsayer should be shot on sight. Cassandra did not get half the kicking around she deserved. - Robert A. Heinlein
Delusions are often functional. A mother's opinion about her children's beauty, intelligence, goodness, et cetera ad nauseum, keep her from drowning them at birth. - Robert A. Heinlein
Most "scientists" are bottle washers and button sorters. - Robert A. Heinlein
A pacifist male is a contradiction in terms. Most self-described "pacifists" are not pacific; they simply assume false colors. When the wind changes, they hoist the Jolly Roger. - Robert A. Heinlein
A generation which ignores history has no past - and no future. - Robert A. Heinlein
A poet who reads verses in public may have other nasty habits. - Robert A. Heinlein
Small change can often be found under seat cushions. - Robert A. Heinlein
History does not record anywhere at any time a religion that has any rational basis. Religion is a crutch for people not strong enough to stand up to the unknown without help. But, like dandruff, most people do have a religion and spend time and money on it and seem to derive considerable pleasure from fiddling with it. - Robert A. Heinlein
It's amazing how much "mature wisdom" resembles being too tired. - Robert A. Heinlein
Your enemy is never a villain in his own eyes. Keep this in mind; it may offer you a way to make him your friend. If not, you can kill him without hate - and quickly. - Robert A. Heinlein
A motion to adjourn is always in order. - Robert A. Heinlein
No state has an inherent right to survive through conscript troops and, in the long run, no state ever has. Roman matrons used to say to their sons: "Come back with your shield, or on it." Later on this custom declined. So did Rome. - Robert A. Heinlein
Of all the strange "crimes" that human beings have legislated out of nothing, "blasphemy" is the most amazing - with "obscenity" and "indecent exposure" fighting it out for second and third place. - Robert A. Heinlein
Cheops' Law: Nothing *ever* gets built on schedule or within budget. - Robert A. Heinlein
All societies are based on rules to protect pregnant women and young children. All else is surplusage, excrescence, adornment, luxury, or folly which can - and must - be dumped in emergency to preserve this prime function. As racial survival is the *only* universal morality, no other basic is possible. Attempts to formulate a "perfect society" on any foundation other than "Women and children first!" is not only witless, it is automatically genocidal. Nevertheless, starry eyed idealists (all of them male) have tried endlessly - and no doubt will keep trying. - Robert A. Heinlein
All men are created unequal. - Robert A. Heinlein
Money is a powerful aphrodisiac. But flowers work almost as well. - Robert A. Heinlein
A brute kills for pleasure. A fool kills from hate. - Robert A. Heinlein
There is only one way to console a widow. But remember the risk. - Robert A. Heinlein
When the need arises - and it does - you must be able to shoot your own dog. Don't farm it out - that doesn't make it nicer, it makes it worse. - Robert A. Heinlein
Everything in excess. To enjoy the flavor of life, take big bites. Moderation is for monks. - Robert A. Heinlein
It may be better to be a live jackal than a dead lion, but it is better still to be a live lion. And usually easier. - Robert A. Heinlein
One man's theology is another man's belly laugh. - Robert A. Heinlein
Men rarely (if ever) manage to dream up a god superior to themselves. Most gods have the manners and morals of a spoiled child. - Robert A. Heinlein
Never appeal to a man's "better nature." He may not have one. Invoking his self interest gives you more leverage. - Robert A. Heinlein
You can have peace. Or you can have freedom. Don't ever count on having both at once. - Robert A. Heinlein
Avoid making irrevocable decisions while tired or hungry. N.B.: Circumstances can force your hand. So think ahead! - Robert A. Heinlein
Place your clothes and weapons where you can find them in the dark. - Robert A. Heinlein
Throughout history, poverty is the normal condition of man. Advances which permit this norm to be exceeded - here and there, now and then - are the work of an extremely small minority, frequently despised, often condemned, and almost always opposed by all right-thinking people. Whenever this tiny minority is kept from creating, or (as sometimes happens) is driven out of a society, the people then slip back into abject poverty. This is known as "bad luck." - Robert A. Heinlein
In a mature society, "civil servant" is semantically equal to "civil *master*." - Robert A. Heinlein
When a place gets crowded enough to require ID's, social collapse is not far away. It is time to go elsewhere. The best thing about space travel is that it made it possible to go elsewhere. - Robert A. Heinlein
A woman is not property, and husbands who think otherwise are living in a dream world. - Robert A. Heinlein
The second best thing about space travel is that the distances involved make war very difficult, usually impractical, and almost always unnecessary. This is probably a loss for most people, since war is our race's most popular diversion, one which gives purpose and color to dull and stupid lives. But it is a great boon to the intelligent man who fights only when he must - never for sport. - Robert A. Heinlein
A zygote is a gamete's way of producing more gametes. This may be the purpose of the universe. - Robert A. Heinlein
There are hidden contradictions in the minds of people who "love nature" while deploring the "artificialities" with which "Man has spoiled 'Nature.'" The obvious contradiction lies in their choice of words, which imply that Man and his artifacts are *not* part of "Nature" - but beavers and their dams *are*. But the contradictions go deeper than this prima-facie absurdity. In declaring his love for a beaver dam (erected by beavers for beavers' purposes) and his hatred for dams erected by men (for the purposes of men) the "Naturist" reveals his hatred for his own race - i.e. his own self-hatred. In the case of "Naturists" such self-hatred is understandable; they are such a sorry lot. But hatred is too strong an emotion to feel toward them; pity and contempt are the most they rate. As for me, willy-nilly I am a man, not a beaver, and H. sapiens is the only race I have or can have. Fortunately for me, I *like* being part of a race made up of men and women - it strikes me as a fine arrangement and perfectly "natural." Believe it or not, there were "Naturists" who opposed the first flight to old Earth's Moon as being "unnatural" and a "despoiling of nature." - Robert A. Heinlein
"No man is an island -" Much as we may feel and act as individuals, our race is a single organism, always growing and branching - which must be pruned regularly to be healthy. This necessity need not be argued; anyone with eyes can see that any organism that grows without limit always dies in it own poisons. The only rational question is whether pruning is best done before or after birth. Being an incurable sentimentalist I favor the former of these methods - killing makes me queasy, even when it's a case of "he's dead and I'm alive and that's the way I wanted it to be." But this may be a matter of taste. Some shamans think that it is better to be killed in a war, or to die in childbirth, or to starve in misery, than never to have lived at all. They may be right. But I don't have to like it - and I don't. - Robert A. Heinlein
Democracy is based on the assumption that a million men are wiser than one man. How's that again? I missed something. - Robert A. Heinlein
Autocracy is based on the assumption that one man is wiser than a million men. Let's play that over again, too. Who decides? - Robert A. Heinlein
Any government will work if authority and responsibility are equal and coordinate. This does not ensure "good" government; it simply ensures that it will work. But such governments are rare - most people want to run things but want no part of the blame. This used to be called the "backseat-driver syndrome." - Robert A. Heinlein
What are the facts? Again and again and again - what are the *facts*? Shun wishful thinking, ignore divine revelation, forget what "the stars foretell," avoid opinion, care not what the neighbors think, never mind the unguessable "verdict of history" - what are the facts, and to how many decimal places? You pilot always into an unknown future; facts are your single clue. Get the facts! - Robert A. Heinlein
Stupidity cannot be cured with money, or through education, or by legislation. Stupidity is not a sin, the victim can't help being stupid. But stupidity is the only universal capital crime; the sentence is death, there is no appeal, and execution is carried out automatically and without pity. - Robert A. Heinlein
God is omnipotent, omniscient, and omnibenevolent - it says so right here on the label. If you have a mind capable of believing all three of these divine attributes simultaneously, I have a wonderful bargain for you. No checks, please. Cash and in small bills. - Robert A. Heinlein
Courage is the complement of fear. A man who is fearless cannot be courageous. (He is also a fool.) - Robert A. Heinlein
The two highest achievements of the human mind are the twin concepts of "loyalty" and "duty." Whenever these twin concepts fall into disrepute - get out of there fast! You may save yourself, but it is too late to save that society. It is doomed. - Robert A. Heinlein
People who go broke in a big way never miss any meals. It is the poor jerk who is shy a half slug who must tighten his belt. - Robert A. Heinlein
The truth of a proposition has nothing to do with its credibility. And vice versa. - Robert A. Heinlein
Anyone who cannot cope with mathematics is not fully human. At best he is a tolerable subhuman who has learned to wear shoes, bathe, and not make messes in the house. - Robert A. Heinlein
Moving parts in rubbing contact require lubrication to avoid excessive wear. Honorifics and formal politeness provide lubrication where people rub together. Often the very young, the untraveled, the naive, the unsophisticated deplore these formalities as "empty," "meaningless," or "dishonest," and scorn to use them. No matter how "pure" their motives, they thereby throw sand into machinery that does not work too well at best. - Robert A. Heinlein
A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects. - Robert A. Heinlein
The more you love, the more you *can* love - and the more intensely you love. Nor is there any limit on how *many* you can love. If a person had time enough, he could love all of that majority who are decent and just. - Robert A. Heinlein
Beware of altruism. It is based on self-deception, the root of all evil. - Robert A. Heinlein
If tempted by something that feels "altruistic," examine your motives and root out that self-deception. Then, if you still want to do it, wallow in it! - Robert A. Heinlein
The most preposterous notion that H. sapiens has ever cooked up is that the Lord God of Creation, Shaper and Ruler of all the Universes, wants the saccharine adoration of His creatures, can be swayed by their prayers, and becomes petulant if He does not receive this flattery. Yet this absurd fantasy, without a shred of evidence to bolster it, pays all the expenses of the oldest, largest, and least productive industry in all history. - Robert A. Heinlein
Writing is not necessarily something to be ashamed of - but do it in private and wash your hands afterwards. - Robert A. Heinlein
$100 placed at 7 percent interest compounded quarterly for 200 years will increase to more than $100,000,000 - by which time it will be worth nothing. - Robert A. Heinlein
Dear, don't bore him with trivia or burden him with your past mistakes. The happiest way to deal with a man is never tell him anything he does not need to know. - Robert A. Heinlein
If men were the automatons that behaviorists claim they are, the behaviorist psychologists could not have invented the amazing nonsense called "behaviorist psychology." So they are wrong from scratch - as clever and wrong as phlogiston chemists. - Robert A. Heinlein
Thou shalt remember the Eleventh Commandment and keep it Wholly. - Robert A. Heinlein
Taxes are not levied for the benefit of the taxed. - Robert A. Heinlein
There is no such thing as "social gambling." Either you are there to cut the other bloke's heart out and eat it - or you're a sucker. If you don't like this choice - don't gamble. - Robert A. Heinlein
When the ship lifts, all bills are paid. No regrets. - Robert A. Heinlein
The first time I was a drill instructor I was too inexperienced for the job - the things I taught those lads must have got some of them killed. War is too serious a matter to be taught by the inexperienced. - Robert A. Heinlein
A competent and self-confident person is incapable of jealousy in anything. Jealousy is invariably a symptom of neurotic insecurity. - Robert A. Heinlein
Money is the sincerest form of all flattery. Women love to be flattered. So do men. - Robert A. Heinlein
You live and learn. Or you don't live long. - Robert A. Heinlein
Whenever women have insisted on absolute equality with men, they have invariably wound up with the dirty end of the stick. What they are and what they can do makes them superior to men, and their proper tactic is to demand special privileges, all the traffic will bear. They should never settle merely for equality. For women, "equality" is a disaster. - Robert A. Heinlein
Peace is an extension of war by political means. Plenty of elbow room is pleasanter - and much safer. - Robert A. Heinlein
One man's "magic" is another man's engineering. "Supernatural" is a null word. - Robert A. Heinlein
The phrase "we (I) (you) simply *must* -" designates something that need not be done. "That goes without saying" is a red warning. "Of course" means you had best check it yourself. These small change cliches and others like them, when read correctly, are reliable channel markers. - Robert A. Heinlein
Do not handicap your children by making their lives easy. - Robert A. Heinlein
If you happen to be one of the fretful minority who can do creative work, never force an idea; you'll abort it if you do. Be patient and you'll give birth to it when the time is ripe. Learn to wait. - Robert A. Heinlein
Never underestimate the power of human stupidity. - Robert A. Heinlein
If you are part of a society that votes, then do so. There may be no candidates and no measures you want to vote *for* .. but there are certain to be ones you want to vote *against*. By this rule, you will rarely go wrong. If this is too blind for your taste, consult some well-meaning fool (there is always one around) and ask his advice. Then vote the other way. This enables you to be a good citizen (if such is your wish) without spending the enormous amount of time on it that truly intelligent exercise of franchise requires. - Robert A. Heinlein
Sovereign ingredient for a happy marriage; Pay cash or do without. Interest charges not only eat up a household budget, awareness of debt eats up domestic felicity. - Robert A. Heinlein
Those who refuse to support and defend a state have no claim to protection by that state. Killing an anarchist or a pacifist should not be defined as "murder" in a legalistic sense. The offense against the state, if any, should be "Using deadly weapons inside city limits," or "Creating a traffic hazard," or "Endangering bystanders," or other misdemeanor. However, the state may reasonably place a closed season on these exotic asocial animals whenever they are in danger of becoming extinct. An authentic buck pacifist has rarely been seen off Earth, and it is doubtful that any have survived the trouble there ... regrettable, as they had the biggest mouths and smallest brains of any of the primates. The small-mouthed variety of anarchist has spread through the galaxy at the very wave front of the Diaspora; there is no need to protect them. But they often shoot back. - Robert A. Heinlein
"God split himself into myriad parts that he might have friends." This may not be true, but it sounds good - and is no sillier than any other theology. - Robert A. Heinlein
To stay young requires unceasing cultivation of the ability to unlearn old falsehoods. - Robert A. Heinlein
Does history record *any* case in which the majority was right? - Robert A. Heinlein
A critic is a man who creates nothing and thereby feels qualified to judge the work of creative men. There is logic in this; he is unbiased - he hates all creative people equally. - Robert A. Heinlein
Money is truthful. If a man speaks of his honor, make him pay cash. - Robert A. Heinlein
Never frighten a little man. He'll kill you. - Robert A. Heinlein
Only a sadistic scoundrel - or a fool - tells the bald truth on social occasions. - Robert A. Heinlein
This sad little lizard told me he was a brontosaurus on his mother's side. I did not laugh; people who boast of ancestry often have little else to sustain them. Humoring them costs nothing and adds to happiness in a world in which happiness is always in short supply. - Robert A. Heinlein
In handling a stinging insect, move very slowly. - Robert A. Heinlein
To be "matter of fact" about the world is to blunder into fantasy - and dull fantasy at that, as the real world is strange and wonderful. - Robert A. Heinlein
The difference between science and the fuzzy subjects is that science requires reasoning, while those other subjects merely require scholarship. - Robert A. Heinlein
Touch is the most fundamental sense. A baby experiences it, all over, before he is born and long before he learns to use sight, hearing, or taste, and no human ever ceases to need it. Keep your children short on pocket money - but long on hugs. - Robert A. Heinlein
Secrecy is the beginning of tyranny. - Robert A. Heinlein
The greatest productive force is human selfishness. - Robert A. Heinlein
Be wary of strong drink. It can make you shoot at tax collectors - and miss. - Robert A. Heinlein
The profession of shaman has many advantages. It offers high status with a safe livelihood free of work in the dreary sweaty sense. In most societies it offers legal privileges and immunities not granted to other men. But it is hard to see how a man who has been given a mandate from on High to spread tidings of joy to all mankind can be seriously interested in taking up a collection to pay his salary; it causes one to suspect that the shaman is on the moral level of any other con man. But it's lovely work if you can stomach it. - Robert A. Heinlein
Minimize your therbligs until it becomes automatic; this doubles your effective lifetime - and thereby gives time to enjoy butterflies and kittens and rainbows. - Robert A. Heinlein
Expertise in one field does not carry over into other fields. But experts often think so. The narrower their field of knowledge the more likely they are to think so. - Robert A. Heinlein
Never try to outstubborn a cat. - Robert A. Heinlein
Tilting at windmills hurts you more than the windmills. - Robert A. Heinlein
Yield to temptation; it might not pass your way again. - Robert A. Heinlein
Waking a person unnecessarily should not be considered a capital crime. For a first offense, that is. - Robert A. Heinlein
"Go to hell!" or other insult direct is all the answer a snoopy question rates. - Robert A. Heinlein
The correct way to punctuate a sentence that starts: "Of course it is none of my business but -" is to place a period after the word "but." Don't use excessive force in supplying such a moron with a period. Cutting his throat is only a momentary pleasure and is bound to get you talked about. - Robert A. Heinlein
A man does not insist on physical beauty in a woman who builds up his morale. After a while he realizes that she *is* beautiful - he just hadn't noticed it at first. - Robert A. Heinlein
A skunk is better company than a person who prides himself on being "frank." - Robert A. Heinlein
"All's fair in love and war" - what a contemptible lie. - Robert A. Heinlein
Beware of the "Black Swan" fallacy. Deductive logic is tautological; there is no way to get a new truth out of it, and it manipulates false statements as readily as true ones. If you fail to remember this, it can trip you - with perfect logic. The designers of the earliest computers called this the "Gigo Law," i.e. "Garbage in, garbage out." Inductive logic is *much* more difficult - but can produce new truths. - Robert A. Heinlein
A "practical joker" deserves applause for his wit according to its quality. Bastinado is about right. For exceptional wit one might grant keelhauling. But staking him out on an anthill should be reserved for the very wittiest. - Robert A. Heinlein
Natural laws have no pity. - Robert A. Heinlein
On the planet Tranquille around KM849 (G-O) lives a little animal known as a "knafn." It is herbivorous and has no natural enemies and is easily approached and may be petted - sort of a six legged puppy with scales. Stroking it is very pleasant; it wiggle its pleasure and broadcasts euphoria in some band that humans can detect. It's worth the trip. Someday some bright boy will figure out how to record this broadcast, then some smart boy will see commercial angles - and not long after that it will be regulated and taxed. In the meantime, I have faked that name and catalog number; it is several thousand light-years off in another direction. Selfish of me-- Robert A. Heinlein
Freedom begins when you tell Mrs. Grundy to go fly a kite. - Robert A. Heinlein
Take care of the cojones and the frijoles will take care of themselves. Try to have getaway money - but don't be fanatic about it. - Robert A. Heinlein
If "everybody knows" such=and-such, then it ain't so, by at least ten thousand to one. - Robert A. Heinlein
Political tags - such as royalist, communist, democrat, populist, fascist, liberal, conservative, and so forth - are never basic criteria. The human race divides politically into those who want people to be controlled and those who have no such desire. The former are idealists acting from highest motives for the greatest good of the greatest number. The latter are surly curmudgeons, suspicious and lacking in altruism. But they are more comfortable neighbors than the other sort. - Robert A. Heinlein
Sin lies only in hurting other people unnecessarily. All other "sins" are invented nonsense. (Hurting yourself is not sinful - just stupid.) - Robert A. Heinlein
Being generous is inborn; being altruistic is a learned perversity. No resemblance -- Robert A. Heinlein
It is impossible for a man to love his wife whole heartedly without loving all women somewhat. I suppose that the converse must be true of women. - Robert A. Heinlein
You can go wrong by being too skeptical as readily as by being too trusting. - Robert A. Heinlein
Formal courtesy between husband and wife is even more important than it is between strangers. - Robert A. Heinlein
Anything free is worth what you pay for it. - Robert A. Heinlein
Don't store garlic near other victuals. - Robert A. Heinlein
Climate is what we expect, weather is what we get. - Robert A. Heinlein
An armed society is a polite society. - Robert A. Heinlein
Pessimist by policy, optimist by temperament - it is possible to be both. How? By never taking an unnecessary chance and by minimizing risks you can't avoid. This permits you to play out the game happily, untroubled by the certainty of the outcome. - Robert A. Heinlein
Do not confuse "duty" with what other people expect of you; they are utterly different. duty is a debt you owe to yourself to fulfill obligations you have assumed voluntarily. Paying that debt can entail anything from years of patient work to instant willingness to die. Difficult it may be, but the reward is self respect. But there is no reward at all for doing what other people expect of you, and to do so is not merely difficult, but impossible. It is easier to deal with a footpad than it is with the leech who wants "just a few minutes of your time, please - this won't take long." Time is your total capital, and the minutes of your life are painfully few. If you allow yourself to fall into the vice of agreeing to such requests, they quickly snowball to the point where these parasites will use up 100 percent of your time - and squawk for more! So learn to say No - and to be rude about it when necessary. Otherwise you will not have time to carry out your duty, or to do your own work, and certainly no time for love and happiness. The termites will nibble away at your life and leave none of it for you. (This rule does not mean that you must not do a favor for a friend, or even a stranger. But let the choice be *yours*. Don't do it because it is "expected" of you.) - Robert A. Heinlein
"I came, I saw, she conquered." (The original Latin seems to have been garbled.) - Robert A. Heinlein
A committee is a life form with six or more legs and no brain. - Robert A. Heinlein
Animals can be driven crazy by placing too many in too small a pen. Homo sapiens is the only animal that voluntarily does this to himself. - Robert A. Heinlein
Don't try to have the last word. You might get it. - Robert A. Heinlein
Amidst the glut of insignificance that engulfs us all, the temptation is understandable to stop thinking. The trouble is that unthinking persons cannot choose but must let others choose for them. But to fail to make one's own choices is to betray the freedom which is our society's greatest gift to us of all. - Steven Muller, one-time President of Johns Hopkins U.
Affirmitive Action -- the accepted, if imprecise, shorthand for ethnic- and gender-preference programs -- has insinuated itself into every aspect of American public life and most of the private sector as well. The policy has evolved with a minimum of democracy -- almost entirely by executive order and court fiat, almost never legislatively, almost never as the result of public debate. - Joe Klein, Time to Pull the Plug on Affirmative Action
A principle cannot be compromised but only adhered to or surrendered. Honesty is abandoned as much by the theft of a dime as a dollar - Leonard E. Read
Up to a point, a man's life is shaped by environment, heredity, and movements and changes in the world around him. Then there comes a time when it lies within his grasp to shape the clay of his life into the sort of thing he wishes to be. Only the weak blame parents, their race, their times, lack of good fortune, or the quirks of fate. Everyone has it within his power to say, *this I am today, that I will be tomorrow*. - Louis L'Amour
Stigmas are the corollaries of values. If work, independence, responsibility, respectability are valued, then their converse must be devalued, seen as disreputable. - Gertrude Himmelfarb, The De-moralization of Society
By liberty, was meant protection against the tyranny of the political rulers. The aim, therefore, of patriots was to set limits to the power which the ruler should be suffered to exercise over the community; and this limitation was what they meant by liberty. - John Stuart Mill
In a constitutional democracy the moral content of law must be given by the morality of the framer or legislator, never by the morality of the judge. - Robert Bork
How can the modern relativist exercise tolerance if he doesn't believe in anything to begin with? It is not hard to exhibit toleration toward a point of view if you have no point of view of your own with which that point of view conflicts. - William F. Buckley Jr.
Socialize the individual's surplus and you socialize his spirit and creativeness; you cannot paint the Mona Lisa by assigning one dab of paint to a thousand painters. - William F. Buckley Jr.
Modern liberalism, for most liberals, is not a consciously understood set of rational beliefs, but a bundle of unexamined prejudices and conjoined sentiments. The basic ideas and beliefs seem more satisfactory when they are not made fully explicit, when they merely lurk rather obscurely in the background, coloring the rhetoric and adding a certain emotive glow. - James Burnham
You spend a billion here and a billion there. Sooner or later it adds up to real money. - Everett M. Dirksen
Everything that is really great and inspiring is created by the individual who can labor in freedom. - Albert Einstein
If the function of this Court is to be essentially no different from that of a legislature, if the considerations governing constitutional construction are to be substantially those that underlie legislation, then indeed judges should not have life tenure and they should be made directly responsible to the electorate. - Felix Frankfurter
Inflation is taxation without legislation. - Milton Friedman
Most of the energy of political work is devoted to correcting the effects of mismanagement of government. - Milton Friedman
Most economic fallacies derive ... from the tendency to assume that there is a fixed pie, that one party can gain only at the expense of another. - Milton Friedman
Self-interest is not myopic selfishness. It is whatever it is that interests the participants, whatever they value, whatever goals they pursue. The scientist seeking to advance the frontiers of his discipline, the missionary seeking to convert infidels to the true faith, the philanthropist seeking to bring comfort to the needy -- all are pursuing their interests, as they see them, as they judge them by their own values. - Milton Friedman
Real poverty is less a state of income than a state of mind. - George Gilder
A government that is big enough to give you all you want is big enough to take it all away. - Barry Goldwater
The genius of the American system is that through freedom we have created extraordinary results from plain old ordinary people. - Phil Gramm
It is of the essence of the demand for equality before the law that people should be treated alike in spite of the fact that they are different. - Friedrich Hayek
Liberty not only means that the individual has both the opportunity and the burden of choice; it also means that he must bear the consequences of his actions.... Liberty and responsibility are inseparable. - Friedrich Hayek
We make men without chests and expect of them virtue and enterprise. We laugh at honor and are shocked to find traitors in our midst. We castrate and then bid the geldings to be fruitful. - C. S. Lewis
Unless men are free to be vicious they cannot be virtuous. - Frank Meyer
There is simply no other choice than this: either abstain from interference in the free play of the market, or to delegate the entire management of production and distribution to the government. Either capitalism or socialism: there exists no middle way. - Ludwig von Mises
There is one unmistakable lesson in American history: a community that allows a large number of young men to grow up in broken families, dominated by women, never acquiring any stable relationship to male authority, never acquiring any set of rational expectations about the future -- that community asks for and gets chaos. Crime, violence, unrest, disorder -- most particularly the furious, unrestrained lashing out at the whole social structure -- that is not only to be expected; it is very near to inevitable. And it is richly deserved. - Daniel Patrick Moynihan, Family and Nation, 1965
It [government] cannot provide values to persons who have none, or who have lost those they had. It cannot provide inner peace. It can provide outlets for moral energies, but it cannot create those energies. - Daniel Patrick Moynihan, Los Angeles Times, February 15, 1969
Somehow Liberals have been unable to acquire from birth what Conservatives seem to be endowed with at birth: namely, a healthy skepticism of the powers of government to do good. - Daniel Patrick Moynihan, New York Post, May 14, 1969
We tried to provide more for the poor and produced more poor instead. We tried to remove the barriers to escape poverty, and inadvertently built a trap. - Charles Murray
Giving money and power to government is like giving whiskey and car keys to teenage boys. - P. J. O'Rourke
Wealth is, for most people, the only honest and likely path to liberty. With money comes power over the world. Men are freed from drudgery, women from exploitation. Businesses can be started, homes built, communities formed, religions practiced, educations pursued. But liberals aren't very interested in such real and material freedoms. They have a more innocent -- not to say toddlerlike -- idea of freedom. Liberals want the freedom to put anything into their mouths, to say bad words and to expose their private parts in art museums. - P. J. O'Rourke
At the core of liberalism is the spoiled child -- miserable, as all spoiled children are, unsatisfied, demanding, ill-disciplined, despotic, and useless. Liberalism is a philosophy of sniveling brats. - P. J. O'Rourke
There is only one basic human right, the right to do as you damn well please. - P. J. O'Rourke
There are just two rules of governance in a free society: Mind your own business. Keep your hands to yourself. - P. J. O'Rourke
If you think health care is expensive now, wait until you see what it costs when it's free. - P. J. O'Rourke
The fundamental error of socialism is anthropological in nature. Socialism considers the individual person simply as an element, a molecule within the social organism, so that the good of the individual is completely subordinated to the functioning of the socio-economic mechanism. Socialism likewise maintains that the good of the individual can be realized without reference to his free choice, to the unique and exclusive responsibility which he exercises in the face of good or evil. Man is reduced to a series of social relationships, and the concept of the person as the autonomous subject of moral decisions disappears. - Pope John Paul II
Where self-interest is suppressed, it is replaced by a burdensome system of bureaucratic control that dries up the wellsprings of initiative and creativity. - Pope John Paul II
The guarantee of equal protection cannot mean one thing when applied to one individual and something else when applied to a person of another color. If both are not accorded the same protection, then it is not equal. - Lewis F. Powell Jr.
Every major horror of history was committed in the name of an altruistic motive. Has any act of selfishness ever equalled the carnage perpetrated by disciples of altruism? -Ayn Rand
The man who damns money has obtained it dishonorably; the man who respects it has earned it. - Ayn Rand
The motive [of egalitarianism] is not the desire to help the poor, but to destroy the competent. The motive is hatred of the good for being the good -- a hatred focused specifically on the fountainhead of all goods, spiritual or material; the men of ability. - Ayn Rand
So you think that money is the root of all evil. Have you ever asked what is the root of money? - Ayn Rand
If you ask me to name the proudest distinction of Americans, I would choose -- because it contains all the others -- the fact that they were the people who created the phrase "to make money." No other language or nation had ever used these words before; men had always thought of wealth as a static quantity -- to be seized, begged, inherited, shared, looted, or obtained as a favor. Americans were the first to understand that wealth has to be created. - Ayn Rand
We are on strike, we, the men of the mind. We are on strike against self-immolation. We are on strike against the creed of unearned rewards and unrewarded duties. We are on strike against the dogma that the pursuit of one's happiness is evil. We are on strike against the doctrine that life is guilt. - Ayn Rand
Competition is a by-product of productive work, not its goal. A creative man is motivated by the desire to achieve, not by the desire to beat others. - Ayn Rand
We don't have a trillion-dollar debt because we haven't taxed enough; we have a trillion-dollar debt because we spend too much. - Ronald Wilson Reagan
History teaches that wars begin when governments believe the price of aggression is cheap. - Ronald Wilson Reagan
Government's view of the economy could be summed up in a few short phrases: If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. And if it stops moving, subsidize it. - Ronald Wilson Reagan
The other day, someone told me the difference between a democracy and a people's democracy. It's the same difference between a jacket and a straitjacket. - Ronald Wilson Reagan
How do you tell a Communist? Well, it's someone who reads Marx and Lenin. And how do you tell an anti-Communist? It's someone who understands Marx and Lenin. - Ronald Wilson Reagan
The best minds are not in government. If any were, business would hire them away. - Ronald Wilson Reagan
As far as Saddam Hussein being a great military strategist, he is neither a strategist nor is he schooled in the operational art nor is he a tactician nor is he a general nor is he a soldier. Other than that, he's a great military man. - Norman Schwartzkopf
Poverty doesn't cause crime. Crime causes poverty -- or more precisely, crime makes it harder to break out of poverty. The vast majority of poor people are honest, law-abiding citizens whose opportunities for advancement are stunted by the drug dealers, muggers, thieves, rapists, and murderers who terrorize their neighborhoods. - James K. Stewart
Personally, I'm always ready to learn, although I do not always like being taught. - Winston Churchill
We have not journeyed all this way across the centuries, across the oceans, across the mountains, across the prairies, because we are made of sugar candy. - Winston Churchill
Man will occasionally stumble over the truth, but most times he will pick himself up and carry on... -Winston Churchill
The right to enjoy property without unlawful deprivation, no less than the right to speak out or the right to travel, is, in truth, a "personal right." - Potter Stewart
Liberal relativism has its roots in the natural right tradition of tolerance or in the notion that everyone has a natural right to the pursuit of happiness as he understands happiness; but in itself it is a seminary of intolerance. - Leo Strauss
Absolute tolerance is altogether impossible; the allegedly absolute tolerance turns into ferocious hatred of those who have stated clearly and most forcefully that there are unchangeable standards founded in the nature of man and the nature of things. - Leo Strauss
They have the usual socialist disease; they have run out of other people's money. - Margaret Thatcher
Let our children grow tall, and some taller than others if they have it in them to do so. - Margaret Thatcher
Wars are not caused by the buildup of weapons. They are caused when an aggressor believes he can achieve his objectives at an acceptable price. - Margaret Thatcher
Communist regimes were not some unfortunate aberration, some historical deviation from a socialist ideal. They were the ultimate expression, unconstrained by democratic and electoral pressures, of what socialism is all about.... In short, the state [is] everything and the individual nothing. - Margaret Thatcher
Freedom is not synonymous with an easy life.... There are many difficult things about freedom: It does not give you safety, it creates moral dilemmas for you; it requires self-discipline; it imposes great responsibilities; but such is the nature of Man and in such consists his glory and salvation. - Margaret Thatcher
"Tyrrellism ... the technique of blackening an opponent's reputation by quoting him. Viewed as vulgar." - R. Emmett Tyrrell Jr.
The absence of a literary sensibility among the conservatives abetted their proclivity for narrowness, for it shut them off from imagination and the capacity to dramatize ideas and personalities. - R. Emmett Tyrrell Jr.
The theory is that election to Congress is tantamount to being dispatched to Washington on a looting raid for the enrichment of your state or district, and no other ethic need inhibit the feeding frenzy. - George Will
The best use of history is as an inoculation against radical expectations, and hence against embittering disappointments. - George Will
This age ... defines self-fulfillment apart from, even against, the community. The idea of citizenship has become attenuated and is now defined almost exclusively in terms of entitlements. - George Will
The essence of childishness is an inability to imagine an incompatibility between one's appetite and the world. Growing up involves, above all, a conscious effort to conform one's appetites to a crowded world. - George Will
In the long run, the public interest depends on private virtue. - George Will
A thing moderately good is not so good as it ought to be. Moderation in temper is always a virtue; but moderation in principle is always a vice. - Thomas Paine, "The Rights of Man, Part II"
The chief paradox of the post-Cold War era is that the idea of central planning is discredited intellectually where it was actually tried, but it lives on in the West, particularly in the United States. Last year the president of the United States, many members of Congress, and a substantial part of our intellectual class urged that we bring another one-seventh of our economy under centralized allocation. - Gerald P. O'Driscoll Jr.
The economic conception of society is an affront to the conceit of those who would impose order from above. Economic forces defy the will of authoritarians seeking to mold social outcomes. Human beings respond to each government intervention by rearranging their lives so as to minimize its disruptive effects. The resulting outcome may thus be different from and even opposed to the intention of the intervention. - Gerald P. O'Driscoll Jr.
If the Nuremberg laws were applied today, then every Post-War American president would have to be hanged. - Noam Chomsky
Law is the bond of civil society, and justice is equality under the law. - Cicero
Observe that all legitimate rights have one thing in common: they are rights to action, not to rewards from other people. The American rights impose no obligations on other people, merely the negative obligation to leave you alone. The system guarantees you the chance to work for what you want -- not to be given it without effort by somebody else. - Leonard Piekoff
The right to the pursuit of happiness is precisely that: the right to the *pursuit* -- to a certain type of action on your part and its result -- not to any guarantee that other people will make you happy or even try to do so. Otherwise, there would be no liberty in the country: if your mere desire for something, anything, imposes a duty on other people to satisfy you, then they have no choice in their lives, no say in what they do, they have no liberty, they cannot pursue *their* happiness. Your "right" to happiness at their expense means that they become rightless serfs, i.e., your slaves. Your right to *anything* at others' expense means that they become rightless. - Leonard Piekoff
The DRG administrator [in effect, the hospital or HMO man trying to control costs] will raise hell if I operate, but the malpractice attorney will have a field day if I don't -- and my rival down the street, who heads the local PRO [Peer Review Organization], favors a CAT scan in these cases, I can't afford to antagonize him, but the CON boys disagree and they won't authorize a CAT scanner for our hospital -- and besides the FDA prohibits the drug I should be prescribing, even though it is widely used in Europe, and the IRS might not allow the patient a tax deduction for it, anyhow, and I can't get a specialist's advice because the latest Medicare rules prohibit a consultation with this diagnosis, and maybe I shouldn't even take this patient, he's so sick -- after all, some doctors are manipulating their slate of patients, they accept only the healthiest ones, so their average costs are coming in lower than mine, and it looks bad for my staff privileges. - Leonard Piekoff
Ideology is fairy tales for adults. - Thomas Sowell
There are people who seem to think that the world owes tham an awful lot, but who feel no need to explain what they have contributed to the world that led to this great debt. - Thomas Sowell
The kind of people we need in Washington won't go to Washington. - Thomas Sowell
People will forgive you for being wrong, but they will never forgive you for being right -- especially if events prove you right while proving them wrong. - Thomas Sowell
Envy plus rhetoric equals "social justice." - Thomas Sowell
No matter how disasterously some policy has turned out, anyone who criticizes it can expect to hear: "But what would you replace it with?" When you put out a fire, what do you replace it with? - Thomas Sowell
It is amazing how much panic one honest man can spread among a multitude of hypocrites. - Thomas Sowell
Anyone who feels "entitled" should check the back of his birth certificate. There are no money-back guarantees there, nor even a limited warranty. - Thomas Sowell
Nobody is equal to anybody. Even the same man is not equal to himself on different days. - Thomas Sowell
Most sound bites aren't very sound. - Thomas Sowell
Are you paranoid? When you see football players gathered in a huddle, do you think they are gossiping about you? - Thomas Sowell
Is there anything more mindless than the endless repitition of the word "change"? Does it make any sense for grown men and women to be either for or agaisnt "change" in the abstract? The word covers everything from Hitler to the Second Coming. - Thomas Sowell
A politician once said privately: "I don't mind being a puppet. Just don't let the strings show." - Thomas Sowell
The universe does not need our acceptance. Only our own well-being and survival depend on it. - Thomas Sowell
STOP THE PRESSES! Science has discovered that women are different from men. - Thomas Sowell
One of the favorite excuses for judicial policy-making is that courts were "forced" to act because legislatures "failed" to act. When the public does not want something done, it is not a failure when the legislature refuses to do it. That is called democracy. - Thomas Sowell
With no principle, there is no law. Anyone with power can issue orders, but arbitrary orders are not law, even when those orders come from judges. We may as well remove the words carved in stone over the entrance to the Supreme Court: "Equal Justice under Law." - Thomas Sowell
Amazingly, people think the things that happen to them happen only to them. - Michael Levine
Let everyone sweep in front of his or her own door, and the whole world will be clean. -- Goethe
Experience keeps a dear school, but fools will learn in no other. And scarce in that. -- Poor Richard
A citizen can hardly distinguish between a tax and a fine, except that a fine is generally much lighter. - G. K. Chesterson
People who live in glass houses shouldn't get stoned. -James Mitchner
No individual raindrop ever considers itself responsible for the flood. - Anonymous
God made an idiot for practice, and then He made a school board. - Mark Twain
It is curious - curious that physical courage should be so common in the world, and moral courage so rare. - Mark Twain
Government intervention in the free market always leads to a lower national standard of living. - Baxter's First Law
The adoption of fractional gold reserves in a currency system always leads to depreciation, devaluation, demonetization and, ultimately, to complete destruction of that currency. - Baxter's Second Law
A man said to the universe, "Sir, I exist." "However," replied the universe, "the fact has not created in me a sense of obligation." - Stephan Crane
Do not consider anything for your interest which makes you break your word, quit your modesty, or inclines you to any practice which will not bear the light, or look the world in the face. - Marcus Antonius
If fifty million people say a foolish thing, it is still a foolish thing. - Anatole France
Have you learned lessons only of those who admired you, and were tender with you, and stood aside for you? Have you not learned great lessons from those who braced themselves against you, and disputed the passage with you? - Walt Whitman
A people that values its privileges above its principles soon loses both. - Dwight D. Eisenhower
If one only wished to be happy, this could easily be accomplished; but we wish to be happier than other people, and this is always difficult, for we believe others to be happier than they are. - Charles de Secondat Montesquieu
To limit the press is to insult a nation; to prohibit reading of certain books is to declare the inhabitants to be either fools or slaves. - Claude Adrien Helvetius
A right is not what someone gives you; it's what no one can take from you. - Ramsey Clark
The great dangers to liberty lurk in insidious encroachment by men of zeal, well-meaning but without understanding. - Justice Louis D. Brandeis
Success is the one unpardonable sin against one's fellows. - Ambrose Bierce
Abnormal, adj.: Not conforming to the standard. In matters of thought and conduct, to be independent is to be abnormal, to be abnormal is to be detested. - Ambrose Bierce: "The Devil's Dictionary"
Academe, n.: An ancient school where morality and philosophy were taught. Academy, n.: A modern school where football is taught. - Ambrose Bierce: "The Devil's Dictionary"
Accountability, n.: The mother of caution. - Ambrose Bierce: "The Devil's Dictionary"
Conservative......A statesman who is enamored of existing evils, as distinguished from a liberal, who wishes to replace them with others. -Ambrose Bierce
Defame, v.t.: To lie about another. To tell the truth about another. - Ambrose Bierce: "The Devil's Dictionary"
Faith, n. Belief without evidence in what is told by one who speaks without knowledge, of things without parallel. -Ambrose Bierce
Insurance, n.: An ingenious modern game of chance in which the player is permitted to enjoy the comfortable conviction that he is beating the man who keeps the table. - Ambrose Bierce: "The Devil's Dictionary"
Lawful, adj.: Compatible with the will of a judge having jurisdiction. - Ambrose Bierce: "The Devil's Dictionary"
Machination, n.: The method employed by one's opponents in baffling one's open and honorable efforts to do the right thing. - Ambrose Bierce: "The Devil's Dictionary"
Mythology: The body of a primitive people's beliefs concerning its origin, early history, heroes, deities and so forth, as distinguished from the true accounts which it invents later. - Ambrose Bierce: "The Devil's Dictionary"
Pardon, v.: To remit a penalty and restore to a life of crime. To add to the lure of crime the temptation of ingratitude. - Ambrose Bierce: "The Devil's Dictionary"
Success is to be measured not so much by the position that one has reached in life, as by the obstacles which [were] overcome while trying to succeed. - Booker T. Washington
It is much easier to be critical than to be correct. - Benjamin Disraeli
In every country and every age, the priest has been hostile to Liberty. - Thomas Jefferson
Honesty is the first chapter in the book of wisdom. - Thomas Jefferson
It is error alone which needs the support of government. Truth can stand by itself. -Thomas Jefferson
The most truthful part of a newspaper is the advertisements. - Thomas Jefferson
Money, not morality, is the principle commerce of civilized nations - Thomas Jefferson
It does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods or no God. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg. - Thomas Jefferson
I have sworn upon the altar of God, eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man. - Thomas Jefferson
The strongest reason for the people to retain the right to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in their government. -Thomas Jefferson
Man is a thinking animal, a talking animal, a toolmaking animal, a building animal, a political animal, a fantasizing animal. But, in the twilight of a civilization he is chiefly a taxpaying animal. - Hugh MacLennan
..To preserve liberty is is essential that the whole body of people always posess arms... - Richard Henry Lee, a delegate to the first Continental Congress and the Constitutional Convention:
The end move in politics is always to pick up a gun. - Buckminster Fuller
Ignorance is the night of the mind, but a night without moon or star. If you have knowledge, let others light their candles at it. - Margaret Fuller
A ship in harbor is safe, but that is not what ships are built for. - J.A. Shedd
Reach high, for stars lie hidden in your soul. Dream deep, for every dream precedes the goal. - Pamela Vaull Starr
Amusement is the happiness of those who cannot think. - Alexander Pope
Guard with jealous attention the public liberty. Suspect every one who approaches that jewel. Unfortunately, nothing will preserve it but downright force. Whenever you give up that force, you are ruined. - Patrick Henry
Are we at last brought to such a humiliating and debasing degradation that we cannot be trusted with arms for our own defense? Where is the difference between having our arms in our own possession and under our own direction, and having them under the management of Congress? If our defence be the real object of having those arms, in whose hands can they be trusted with more propriety, or equal safety to us, as in our own hands? - Patrick Henry cautioning against Congressional firearms regulation within state boundaries
I have but one lamp by which my feet are guided, and that is the lamp of experience. - Patrick Henry
An undefined problem has an infinite number of solutions. - Robert A. Humphrey
The surest way to corrupt a young man is to teach him to esteem more highly those who think alike than those who think differently. - Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900)
People who have given us their complete confidence believe that they have a right to ours. The inference is false; a gift confers no rights. - Nietzsche
There is no future in any job. The future lies in the man who holds the job. - Dr. George Crane
Arms in the hands of individual citizens may be used at individual discretion in private self-defense. - John Adams
Anyone who can walk to the welfare office can walk to work. - Al Capone
Everything that is in agreement with our personal desires seems true. Everything that is not puts us into a rage. - Andre Maurois
In my opinion, we are in danger of developing a cult of the Common Man, which means a cult of mediocrity. - Herbert Hoover
Another such victory over the Romans, and we are undone. - Pyrrhus
The greater the number of laws and enactments, the more thieves and robbers there will be. - Lao-tzu (604-531 B.C.)
The voice of intelligence is soft an weak. It is drowned out by the roar of fear. It is ignored by the voice of desire. It is contradicted by the voice of shame. It is hissed away by hate and extinguished by anger. Most of all, it is silenced by ignorance. - Karl Menninger
There is only one thing worse than Injustice, and that is Justice without her sword in her hand. When Right is not Might, it is Evil. - Oscar Wilde (1856-1900)
The mind is its own place, and it itself ... can make a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven. - John Milton
It was like a revelation to me, taking complete responsibility for one's own actions. - Cary Grant
Blame yourself if you have no branches or leaves; don't accuse the sun of partiality. - Chinese Proverb
What must I do is all that concerns me ... not what people think. It is easy in the world to live after the world's opinion; it is easy in solitude to live after our own; ... but the great man is he who in the midst of the crowd keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude. - Ralph Waldo Emerson
When I hear somebody sigh, "Life is hard," I am always tempted to ask, "Compared to what?" - Sydney J. Harris
The programmer, like the poet, works only slightly removed from pure thought-stuff. He builds his castles in the air, from air, creating by exertion of the imagination. Few media of creation are so flexible, so easy to polish and rework, so readily capable of realizing grand conceptual structures. - Frederick Brooks, Jr., The Mythical Man Month
The right to do something does not mean that doing it is right. - William Safire
Anyone who conducts an argument by appealing to authority is not using his intelligence; he is just using his memory. - Leonardo da Vinci
If the people of a democracy are allowed to do so, they will vote away the freedoms which are essential to that democracy. - Putney's Law
Nobody grows old merely by a number of years. We grow old by deserting our ideals. Years may wrinkle the skin, but to give up enthusiasm wrinkles the soul. - Samuel Ullman
As a rule software systems do not work well until they have been used, and have failed repeatedly, in real applications. - Dave Parnas
The nature of men is always the same; it is their habits that separate them. - Confucius
I am sick and tired of the snivelers, the defeated, and the whiners. I am sick and tired of being expected to believe that ugliness is beauty, that melancholy is man's sole pleasure, that delinquency is delight, that laughter is something to be ashamed of. - John Madison Brown
Censorship, like charity, should begin at home, but unlike charity, it should end there. - Clare Boothe Luce
Destiny is not a matter of chance, it is a matter of choice; it is not a thing to be waited for, it is a thing to be achieved. - William Jennings Bryan
When I was a boy I was told that anybody could become President; I'm beginning to believe it. - Clarence Darrow (1857-1938)
Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent. - Salvor Hardin
The Constitution [shall] never be construed...to infringe the just liberty of the press, or the rights of conscience, or to prevent the people of the United States who are peaceable citizens from keeping their own arms. - Samuel Adams
"All the world would not make a racehorse of a jackass." - Traditional Irish Proverb
The man who strikes first admits that his ideas have given out. - Chinese proverb
No one can make you feel inferior without your consent. - Eleanor Roosevelt
It is against the grain of modern education to teach children to program. What fun is there in making plans, acquiring discipline in organizing thoughts, devoting attention to detail, and learning to be self-critical? - Alan Perlis
"I am not an Economist. I am an honest man!" - Paul McCracken
Ninety percent of the politicians give the other ten percent a bad reputation. - Henry Kissinger
Civilization is a method of living, an attitude of equal respect for all men. - Jane Addams
..[W]ho are the milita? are they not ourselves. Congress have no power to disarm the militia. Their swords, and every other terrible implement of the soldier, are the birthright of an American...[T]he unlimited power of the sword is not in the hands of either the federal or state governments, but, where I trust in God it will ever remain, in the hands of the people." - Tench Coxe
If I traveled to the end of the rainbow As Dame Fortune did intend, Murphy would be there to tell me The pot's at the other end. - Bert Whitney
The illegal we do immediately. The unconstitutional takes a little longer. - Henry Kissinger
I've never been poor, only broke. Being poor is a frame of mind. Being broke is only a temporary situation. - Mike Todd
Tax reform means "Don't tax you, don't tax me, tax that fellow behind the tree." - Russell Long
Never could any increase of comfort or security be a sufficient good to be bought at the price of liberty. - Hilaire Belloc
"We are getting into semantics again. If we use words, there is a very grave danger they will be misinterpreted." - H. R. Haldeman, testifying in his own defense.
Do not lose your knowledge that man's proper estate is an upright posture, an intransigent mind, and a step that travels unlimited roads. - John Galt
Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. - Elie Wiesel
One should respect public opinion insofar as is necessary to avoid starvation and keep out of prison, but anything that goes beyond this is voluntary submission to an unnecessary tyranny. -Bertrand Russell
Many people would sooner die than think. In fact, they do. - Bertrand Russell
Men fear thought as they fear nothing else on earth - more than ruin, more even than death. - Bertrand Russell
Don't tell me how hard you work. Tell me how much you get done. - James J. Ling
How do I explain to clients that society believes buying a rock (of cocaine) is three or four times as bad as raping a woman? - Robert Jakovitch, Broward [FL] Assistant Public Defender
The great masses of the people... will more easily fall victims to a big lie than to a small one. - Adolf Hitler (1889-1945)
Mediocrity knows nothing higher than itself, but talent instantly recognizes genius. - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle: "The Valley of Fear"
Poverty is uncomfortable; but nine times out of ten the best thing that can happen to a young man is to be tossed overboard and compelled to sink or swim. - James A. Garfield
Lack of will power has caused more failure than lack of intelligence or ability. - Flower A. Newhouse
To give up the task of reforming society is to give up one's responsibility as a free man. - Alan Paton
To seek permission is to seek denial. - Steve Jobs
Mediocre minds usually dismiss anything which reaches beyond their own understanding. - Fran‡ois, Duc de La Rochefoucauld
Learning without thought is labor lost; thought without learning is perilous. - Confucius
There's nothing in the middle of the road but yellow stripes and dead armadillos. - Jim Hightower
He who receives a benefit with gratitude repays the first installment on his debt. - Seneca (c. 4 B.C.-A.D. 65)
I don't make jokes. I just watch the government and report the facts. - Will Rogers (1879-1935)
Wonder is the feeling of a philosopher, and philosophy begins in wonder. - Socrates (470-399 B.C.)
It is in the ability to deceive oneself that the greatest talent is shown. - Anatole France
It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it. - Upton Sinclair (1878-1968)
If the representatives of the people betray their constituents, there is no recourse left but in the exertion of that original right of self-defense, which is paramount to all positive form of government" - Alexander Hamilton from "The Federalist"(No.28)
It is much more secure to be feared than to be loved. - Niccolo Machiavelli
It is wrong always, everywhere and for everyone to believe anything upon insufficient evidence. - W. K. Clifford, British philosopher
It may be true that the law cannot make a man love me, but it can keep him from lynching me, and I think that's pretty important. - Martin Luther King, Jr.
Nothing in the world is more dangerous than a sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity. - Martin Luther King, Jr.
It wasn't raining when Noah built the ark. - Howard Ruff
In general, the art of government consists of taking as much money as possible from one class of citizens to give to the other. - Voltaire
It is dangerous to be right when the government is wrong. - Voltaire (1694-1778)
I may disagree with what you have to say, but I shall defend, to the death, your right to say it. - Voltaire (1694-1778)
Lawyer.....One who protects us against robbery by taking away the temptation. - H. L Mencken
"...an advance auction of stolen goods, used to buy votes." - H.L. Mencken, defining elections
It is inaccurate to say I hate everything. I am strongly in favor of common sense, common honesty, and common decency. This makes me forever ineligible for any public office. - H. L. Mencken (1880-1956)
Whenever 'A' attempts by law to impose his moral standards upon 'B', 'A' is most likely a scoundrel - H. L. Mencken
In the United States, doing good has come to be, like patriotism, a favorite device of persons with something to sell. - H. L. Mencken
The first human being who hurled an insult instead of a stone was the founder of civilization. - Sigmund Freud (1856-1939)
During almost fifteen centuries the legal establishment of Christianity has been upon trial. What has been its fruits? More or less, in all places, pride and indolence in the clergy; ignorance and servility in the laity,; in both, superstition, bigotry, and persecution. - James Madison
If we advert to the nature of republican government, we shall find that the censorial power is in the people over the government, and not in the government over the people. -James Madison
Government has no other end but the preservation of property. - John Locke
I have always thought the actions of men the best interpreters of their thoughts. - John Locke
Our task of creating a Socialist America can only succeed when those who would resist us have been totally disarmed. - Sarah Brady (president of Handgun Control, Inc., and wife of James Brady, after whom the Brady Bill is named)
If Patrick Henry thought that taxation without representation was bad, he should see how bad it is with representation. - The Old Farmer's Almanac
Asked what he thought of Western civilization, M. K. Gandhi said, "I think it would be an excellent idea".
In matters of conscience, the law of majority has no place. - Mohandas Gandhi
If you permit yourself to read meanings into (rather than drawing meanings out of) the evidence, you can draw any conclusion you like. - Michael Keith
In the unplanned economy, it's dog eat dog; in the planned one, both of them starve to death. - Richard Needham
Man is powerless to resist evil if he does not recognize it as such - Fulton Sheen
The Bible is not my Book and Christianity is not my religion. I could never give assent to the long complicated statements of Christian dogma. - Abraham Lincoln
Those who deny freedom for others deserve it not for themselves. - Abraham Lincoln
Property is the fruit of labor; property is desirable; it is a positive good in the world. That some should be rich shows that others may become rich, and hence, is just another encouragement to industry and enterprise. - Abraham Lincoln
If people behaved like governments, you'd call the cops. - Kelvin Throop
"I will face my fear. I will let my fear pass around me and through me. And when I turn to face fear's path, nothing will be left. Only _I_ will remain." - from The Litany of Fear by Frank Herbert
To be prepared for war is one of the most effective means of preserving peace. -George Washington
All reformers, however strict their social conscience, live in houses just as big as they can pay for. -Logan Pearsall Smith
The only people who seem to have nothing to do with the education of the children are the parent. -G. K. Chesterton
Minds are like parachutes. They only function when they are open. -Sir James Dewar
The budget should be balanced, the treasury refilled, public debt reduced, the arrogance of officialdom tempered and controlled, and the assistance to foreign lands curtailed, lest Rome become bankrupt. - Cicero, Roman statesman (106 B.C.-43 B.C.)
Liberal......A power worshipper without power. -George Orwell
A liberal is a person whose interests aren't at stake at the moment. -Willis Player
Judges, as a class, display, in the matter of arranging alimony, that reckless generosity which is found only in men who are giving away someone else's cash. -P. G. Wodehouse
The society which scorns excellence in plumbing because plumbing is a humble activity and tolerates shoddiness in philosophy because it is an exalted activity will have neither good plumbing nor good philosophy. Neither its pipes nor its theories will hold water. - Gardner's Rule of Society
One of the saddest lessons of history is this: If we've been bamboozled long enough, we tend to reject any evidence of the bamboozle. We're no longer interested in finding out the truth. The bamboozle has captured us. It is simply too painful to acknowledge (even to ourselves) that we've been so credulous. (So the old bamboozles tend to persist as the new bamboozles rise.) - Carl Sagan, "The Fine Art of Baloney Detection,"
The best index to a person's character is a) how he treats people who can't do him any good and b) how he treats people who can't fight back. - Abigail Van Buren
The alternative to mutual trust, which is indeed a risky gamble, is the security of the police state. - Alan Watts
"Both the Oligarch and Tyrant mistrust the people, and therefore deprive them of arms." - Aristotle
When two people meet to decide how to spend a third person's money, fraud will result. - Gross's Law
Once at a social gathering, Gladstone said to Disraeli, "I predict, Sir, that you will die either by hanging or of some vile disease". Disraeli replied, "That all depends, Sir, upon whether I embrace your principles or your mistress."'
The genius of you Americans is that you never make clear-cut stupid moves, only complicated stupid moves which make us wonder at the possibility that there may be something to them which we are missing. -Gamal Abdel Nasser
Nothing is more destructive of respect for the government and the law of the land than passing laws which cannot be enforced. - Albert Einstein (1879-1955)
Not to be able to bear poverty is a shameful thing, but not to know how to chase it away by work is a more shameful thing yet. - Pericles
One of the serious obstacles to the improvement of our race is indiscrimiate charity. -Andrew Carnegie
"False is the idea of utility that sacrifices a thousand real advantages for one imaginary or trifling inconvenience; that would take fire from men because it burns, and water because one may drown in it; that has no remedy for evils, except destruction. The laws that forbid the carrying of arms are laws of such a nature. They disarm only those who are neither inclined nor determined to commit crime." -Cesare Beccaria, quoted by Thomas Jefferson
Blessed are the young, for they shall inherit the national debt. - Herbert Hoover
We learn from history that we do not learn from history. -G. F. Wilhelm Hegel
No doubt Jack the Ripper excused himself on the grounds that it was human nature. -A. A. Milne
Government is an association of men who do violence to the rest of us. -Leo Tolstoy
What passes for woman's intuition is often nothing more than man's transparency. -George Jean Nathan
"If the Constitution is to be construed to mean what the majority at any given period in history wish the Constitution to mean, why a written Constitution?" -Frank J. Hogan, President, American Bar Assn. (1939)
Democracy becomes a government of bullies, barely tempered by editors. -Laurence J. Peters
Education: the inculcation of the incomprehensible into the indifferent by the incompetent. -John Maynard Keynes
Under any conditions, anywhere, whatever you are doing, there is some ordinance under which you can be booked. -Robert D. Sprecht, Rand Corp.
The best science fiction is generally produced not by those with simply the most bizarre imaginations but by those who, looking to the future, reveal the most insight into the unchanging character of human behavior. -Russell Neuman
It is possible that blondes also prefer gentlemen. -Mamie Van Doren
It is always with the best intentions that the worst work is done. -Oscar Wilde
"Contrariwise", continued Tweedledee, "If it was so, it might be; and if it were so, it would be; but as it isn't, it ain't. That's logic." -Lewis Caarroll
If your happiness depends on what somebody else does, you do have a problem. -Richard Bach
There can be no happiness if the things we believe in are different from the things we do. -Freya Stark
A great many people think they are thinking when they are merely rearranging their prejudices. -William James
Restriction of free thought and free speech is the most dangerous of all subversions. It is the one un-American act that could most easily defeat us. -William O. Douglas
Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar. -Sigmund Freud
"The right of citizens to bear arms is just one more guarantee against arbitrary government, one more safeguard against tyranny, which though now appears remote in America, history has proven to be always possible." --Senator Hubert Humphrey
If you see a man approaching you with the obvious intent of doing you good, you should run for your life. -Thoreau
They that give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety. -Benjamin Franklin
I thank God we live in a country where you have the right to burn the flag if you want to. And I thank God we live in a country where we have the right to bear arms--so I can shoot you if you try to burn mine. -Johnny Cash
'Necessity' is the plea for every infringement of human liberty; it is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves. -William Pitt
There are three kinds of lies: Lies, Damn Lies, and Statistics. -Disraeli
Justice is incidental to law and order. -J. Edgar Hoover
Knowledge is knowing that E=MC2. Wisdom is knowing why that matters. -Col. Jeff Cooper
A verbal contract isn't worth the paper its printed on. -Samuel Goldwyn
A man's mind stretched by a new idea can never go back to its original dimensions. -Oliver Wendell Holmes
"Clinton wants to raise government spending by 20% over the next six years; I want to raise it 14%." -- Bob Dole
The true danger is when liberty is nibbled away, for expedience, and by parts. Edmund Burke (1729-97), Irish philosopher, statesman. Letter, 3 April 1777, to the Sheriffs of Bristol.
The great enemy of the truth is very often not the lie--deliberate, contrived and dishonest--but the myth--persistent, persuasive and unrealistic. -John F. Kennedy, 1962 Commencement address at Yale University
It is an axiom in political science that unless a people are educated and enlightened it is idle to expect the continuance of civil liberty or the capacity for self-government. Texas Declaration of Independence, 2 March 1836.
On November 24, Bob Dole agreed to stop the filibuster and to let the Brady bill pass. This agreement was reached when there were only three senators on the floor -- everyone else was home for Thanksgiving. Just one of the senators on the floor -- Bob Dole being among them -- could have objected to the agreement and thereby prevented the bill's passage. Bob Dole did not object. The Brady bill passed. (Source: Congressional Record, November 24, 1993, pp. S 17090-91.)
* In May of 1995, Sen. Dole asked for a "unanimous consent" agreement that kept the gun ban repeal from being voted on. Dole said, "I further ask unanimous consent that no assault weapons amendments be in order to the terrorism bill..." (Congressional Record, 5/26/95, p. S 7610).
You need only reflect that one of the best ways to get yourself a reputation as a dangerous citizen these days is to go about repeating the very phrases which our founding fathers used in the struggle for independence. -- Charles A. Beard
"The Libertarian Party has emerged as America's third-largest and fastest-growing third party. Looking to Thomas Jefferson, James Madison and other founding fathers as their political mentors, Libertarians advocate a return to the strictly limited government established by the U.S. Constitution and the Bill of Rights. Asserting that the true paradigm in American politics is not liberal versus conservative, but rather liberty versus government, Libertarians stand squarely on the personal freedom side of every issue." - Nashville Business In Review, Tennessee, June 1996
* 76% of Americans say they "rarely or never trust government to do what is right." (Americans Talk Issues Foundation survey, July 1995)
* 39% of Americans say "the federal government has become so large and powerful it poses an immediate threat to the rights and freedoms of ordinary citizens." (Gallup Poll, May 1995)
* 67% of Generation X voters say they would be "likely" to vote for a third-party candidate in November. (Youth Vote 96 poll, February 1996)
* 69% of Americans say "the federal government controls too much of our daily lives." (Times/Mirror survey, September 1994)
A carelessly planned project takes three times longer than expected; a carefully planned project will only take twice as long.
When God endowed human beings with brains, He did so without warranty.
Authorization for a project will be granted only when none of those authorizing can be blamed if the project fails, but all can take credit if it succeeds.
Anything's possible if you don't know what you're talking about.
You can avoid criticism by saying nothing, doing nothing, being nothing.
Complex problems have simple, easy-to-understand wrong answers.
Resisting temptation is easier when you think you'll have another chance later.
A complex system that works is invariably found to have evolved from a simple system that works.
Science and Religion have this in common: you must take care to distinguish both from the people who claim to represent each of them.
If at first you don't succeed, you're doing about average.
There's never time to do it right, but there's always time to do it over.
A pig ate his fill of acorns under an oak tree and then started to root around the tree. A crow remarked, "You should not do this. If you lay bare the roots, the tree will wither and die." "Let it die," said the pig, "Who cares so long as there are acorns?"
For every action there is an equal and opposite government program.
The opinions, or votes, of those who have no stake in the enterprise are very rarely of value.
Superior minds are concerned with ideas, average minds with events, and inferior minds with personalities.
Economics is extremely useful as a form of employment for economists.
The man who smiles when things go wrong has thought of someone to blame it on.
Time is nature's way of making sure everything doesn't happen at once.
A proverb is a short sentence based on long experience.
Want is the mother of industry.
Young men think old men are fools; but old men know young men are fools.
After all is said and done, a lot more has been said than done.
Learning is a feast for the mind and spirit and a source of lasting joy.
Nature sides with the hidden flaw.
A bird in the hand is safer than two overhead.
"As a matter of fact" is an expression that precedes many an expression that isn't.
Isn't it strange that the same people that laugh at gypsy fortune tellers take economists seriously?
Misery no longer loves company. Nowadays it insists on it.
It has just been discovered that research causes cancer in rats.
Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.
Success is a matter of luck; just ask any failure.
Death and taxes are both certain, but death isn't an annual event.
It's easier to get forgiveness for being wrong than forgiveness for being right.
I am an individual with the right to a good life. I must not look to anyone else to make a good life for me, this I must do for myself.
Everyone is entitled to be stupid, but some abuse the privilege.
An elephant: a mouse built to government specifications.
Everyone wants to be normal, but no one wants to be average.
Pro is to con as progress is to Congress.
Self-sacrifice enables us to sacrifice other people without blushing.--George Bernard Shaw--
I cannot change another person. And I have no right to try.
Dishonest people believe in words rather than reality.
There is no such thing as "best" in a world of individuals.
Nothing astonishes men so much as common sense and plain dealing.
According to the latest official figures, 43% of all statistics are totally worthless.
Home is the place where, when you have to go there, they have to take you in.
Every job is a self portrait of the person who did it.
Nowadays some people expect the door of opportunity to be opened with an electric eye.
Oh, no. Not another learning experience.
Statistics are used as a drunk uses lampposts--for support, not illumination.
A free people always has the right to dismiss its rulers, whom it regards as its servants, at any time.
What is "rational" depends on logic - but also on the premises from which your logic proceeds.
The Golden Key to this thing called life is rigorous self-honesty.
He that would govern others, first should be the master of himself.
"I must do something" will always solve more problems than "Something must be done."
The truth shall make you free - but first it will piss you off.
Just remember, when you go to court, you are trusting your fate to twelve people that weren't smart enough to get out of jury duty!
The new Congressmen say they're going to turn the government around. I hope I don't get run over again.
Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Power attracts the corrupt and the corruptable.
The probability that the toast will fall with the buttered side down is directly proportional to the value of the carpet.
There are two ways to write error-free programs. Only the third one works.
The tough part of a Data Processing Manager's job is that users don't really know what they want, but they know for certain what they don't want.
The rain it raineth on the just And also on the unjust fella, But chiefly on the just, because The unjust steals the just's umbrella.
If only one could get that wonderful feeling of accomplishment without having to accomplish anything.
At the source of every error which is blamed on the computer you will find at least two human errors, including the error of blaming it on the computer.
Ode to Turbulent Flow: Big whirls have little whirls Which feed on their velocity, And little whirls have lesser whirls And so on, to viscosity.
I really hate this damned machine. I wish that they would sell it. It never does quite what I want. But only what I tell it.
The First Discovery of Christmas Morning: Batteries not included.
Wishing without work is like fishing without bait.
In our civilization, and under our republican form of government, intelligence is so highly honored that it is rewarded by exemption from the cares of office.
If you want to earn more than you get, you need to be worth more than you are paid.
1) The simple but difficult arts of paying attention, copying accurately, following an argument, detecting an ambiguity or a false inference, testing guesses by summoning up contrary instances, organizing one's time and one's thought for study -- all these arts -- cannot be taught in the air but only through the difficulties of a defined subject. They cannot be taught in one course or one year, but must be acquired gradually in dozens of connections. - Barzun's Laws of Learning
2) The analogy to athletics must be pressed until all recognize that in the exercise of Intellect those who lack the muscles, coordination, and will power can claim no place at the training table, let alone on the playing field. - Barzun's Laws of Learning
Democracy is that form of government where everybody gets what the majority deserves. - Davidson's Maxim
There is no proposition, no matter how foolish, for which a dozen Nobel signatures cannot be collected. Furthermore, any such petition is guaranteed page-one treatment in the New York Times. - Nobel Effect
Abbott's Admonitions: 1) If you have to ask, you're not entitled to know. 2) If you don't like the answer, you shouldn't have asked the question.
1) The world is more complicated than most of our theories make it out to be. 2) Ignorance is no excuse. 3) Never decide to buy something while listening to the salesman. 4) Information which is true meets a great many different tests very well. 5) Most problems have either many answers or no answer. Only a few problems have a single answer. 6) An answer may be wrong, right, both, or neither. Most answers are partly right and partly wrong. 7) A chain of reasoning is no stronger than its weakest link. 8) A statement may be true independently of illogical reasoning. 9) Most general statements are false, including this one. 11) An exception TESTS a rule; it NEVER PROVES it. 12) The moment you have worked out an answer, start checking it -- it probably isn't right. 12) If there is an opportunity to make a mistake, sooner or later the mistake will be made. 13) Being sure mistakes will occur is a good frame of mind for catching them. 14) Check the answer you have worked out once more -- before you tell it to anybody. 15) Estimating a figure may be enough to catch an error. 16) Figures calculated in a rush are very hot; they should be allowed to cool off a little before being used; thus we will have a reasonable time to think about the figures and catch mistakes. 17) A great many problems do not have accurate answers, but do have approximate answers, from which sensible decisions can be made. - Berkeley's Laws
If you think education is expensive -- try ignorance. - Bok's Law
1) Law expands in proportion to the resources available for its enforcement. 2) Bad law is more likely to be supplemented than repealed. 3) Social legislation cannot repeal physical laws. - Oaks's Unruly Laws for Lawmakers
To estimate the time it takes to do a task: estimate the time you think it should take, multiply by 2, and change the unit of measure to the next highest unit. Thus we allocate 2 days for a one hour task. - Westheimer's Rule
1) When the polls are in your favor, flaunt them. 2) When the polls are overwhelmingly unfavorable, either (a) ridicule and dismiss them or (b) stress the volatility of public opinion. 3) When the polls are slightly unfavorable, play for sympathy as a struggling underdog. 4) When too close to call, be surprised at your own strength. - Politicians' Rules
Information necessitiating a change of design will be conveyed to the designer after - and only after - the plans are complete. (Often called the 'Now They Tell Us' Law) - First Law of Revision
The more innocuous the modification appears to be, the further its influence will extend and the more plans will have to be redrawn. - Second Law of Revision
When the weight of the paperwork equals the weight of the plane, the plane will fly. - Douglas's Law of Practical Aeronautics
It is better to never have tried anything than to have tried something and failed. - Motto of jerks, weenies and losers everywhere
We the willing, led by the unknowing, are doing the impossible, for the ungrateful and we have been doing so much for so long with so little that we are now qualified to do anything with nothing. - The Motto of Programmers everywhere
Charlie was a chemist, but alas he is no more. For what he thought was H2O was H2SO4. - Chemistry Humour
That quantity which, when multiplied by, divided into, added to, or subtracted from the answer you got, gives you the answer you should have gotten. - Skinner's Constant (Flannegan's Finagling Factor):
If the assumptions are wrong, the conclusions aren't likely to be very good. - Burns's Balance
When you are sure you're right, you have a moral duty to impose your will upon anyone who disagrees with you. - Torquemada's Law
1) To get action out of management, it is necessary to create the illusion of a crisis in the hope it will be acted upon. 2) Management will select actions or events and convert them to crises. It will then over-react. 3) Management is incapable of recognizing a true crisis. 4) The squeaky hinge gets the oil. - Dennis's Principles of Management by Crisis
You cannot have a baby in one month by getting nine women pregnant. - Frisch's Law
It always takes longer than you expect, even when you take Hofstadter's Law into account. - Hofstadter's Law
When attempting to predict and forecast macro-economic moves or economic legislation by a politician, never be misled by what he says; instead watch what he does. - Kamin's Sixth Law
The alternative to getting old is depressing. - Lucy's Law
Politicians who vote huge expenditures to alleviate problems get re-elected; those who propose structural changes to prevent problems get early retirement. - McClaughry's Law of Public Policy
When you are right, be logical. When you are wrong, be-fuddle. - McKenna's Law
Murphy was an optimist. - O'Toole's Commentary
Bad regulation begets worse regulation. - Mobil's Maxim
Ninety-Ninety Rule of Project Schedules-- The first ninety percent of the task takes ninety percent of the time, and the last ten percent takes the other ninety percent.
If the facts do not conform to the theory, they must be disposed of. - Maier's Law
Everything costs more and takes longer. - Pournelle's Law of Costs and Schedules
Needs are a function of what other people have. - Jone's Principle
Among economists, the real world is often a special case. - Horngren's Observation
The Schwine-Kitzenger Institute study of 47 men over the age of 100 showed that all had these things in common: 1) They all had moderate appetites. 2) They all came from middle class homes. 3) All but two of them were dead.
If at first you don't succeed, transform your data set. - Law of Computability Applied to Social Science
Kharasch's Institutional Imperative: Every action or decision of an institution must be intended to keep the institution machinery working. Corollary: The expert judgment of an institution, when the matter involved concerns continuation of the institution's operations, is totally predictable, and hence the finding is totally worthless.
When the law is against you, argue the facts. When the facts are against you, argue the law. When both are against you, call the other lawyer names. - Lawyer's Rule
Our most important thoughts are those which contradict our emotions. -- Paul Valery
Those who are accustomed to judge by feeling do not understand the process of reasoning, because they want to comprehend at a glance and are not used to seeking for first principles. Those, on the other hand, who are accustomed to reason from first principles do not understand matters of feeling at all, because they look for first principles and are unable to comprehend at a glance. -- Blaise Pascal
Dogma does not mean the absence of thought, but the end of thought. -- Gilbert Keith Chesterton
Let us settle about the facts first and fight about the moral tendencies afterward. -- Samuel Butler II
Amusement is the happiness of those that cannot think. -- Alexander Pope
Money is the most important thing in the world. It represents health, strength, honor, generosity, and beauty as conspicuously as the want of it represents illness, weakness, disgrace, meanness, and ugliness. Not the lest of its virtues is that it destroys base people as certainly as it fortifies and dignifies noble people. -- George Bernard Shaw
If a child tells a lie, tell him that he has told a lie, but don't call him a liar. If you define him as a liar, you break down his confidence in his own character. -- Jean Paul Richter
Of all the intellectual faculties, judgment is the last to mature. A child under the age of fifteen should confine its attention either to subjects like mathematics, in which errors of judgment are impossible, or to subjects in which they are not very dangerous, like languages, natural science, history, etc. -- Arthur Schopenhauer
Youth ends when we perceive that no one wants our gay abandon. And the end may come in two ways: the realization that other people dislike it, or that we ourselves cannot continue with it. Weak men grow older in the first way, strong men in the second. -- Cesare Pavese
No wise man ever wished to be younger. -- Jonathan Swift
One of the two things that men who have lasted for a hundred years always say: either that they have drunk whisky and smoked all their lives, or that neither tobacco nor spirits ever made the slightest appeal to them. -- Edward Lucas
Driven from every other corner of the Earth, freedom of thought and the right of private judgment in matters of conscience direct their course to this happy country as their last asylum. -- Samuel Adams
America lives in the heart of every man everywhere who wishes to find a region where he will be free to work out his destiny as he chooses. -- Woodrow Wilson
The life of the nation is secure only while the nation is honest, truthful, and virtuous. -- Frederick Douglas
All our cities are full of aristocrats whose grandfathers were day laborers, and clerks whose grandfathers were aristocrats. -- H. L. Mencken
What is America? What makes our country more than any other piece of land and water on the globe? Nothing -- except our ideal of human freedom, freedom for the individual! because we have this ideal we, almost alone among the peoples today, have hope. We still dare to hope. You can easily see that ideals are the most important things in the world. Indeed they are. They are the food of the soul, which nourishes the spirit with faith and with hope. When hope and faith are gone, when we say, "ideals are only talk," the soul dies and the spirit grows weak and then the tyrants take over. We must keep our ideals alive, we cannot let them die, for they alone give us the strength to keep our own freedom and spread the strength of hope and faith to other peoples. -- Pearl S. Buck
The office of government is not to confer happiness, but to give men opportunity to work out happiness for themselves. -- William Ellery Channing
Every man wishes to pursue his occupation and to enjoy the fruits of his labours and the produce of his property in peace and safety, and with the least possible expense. When these things are accomplished, all the objects for which government ought to be established are answered. -- Thomas Jefferson
Governments can encourage the cultivation of private virtue. They can provide a framework of in which we may pursue virtue (or happiness), but they cannot make us virtuous (or happy), and the effort to use the coercive power of government for than purpose not only fails to produce private morality, it undermines public morality as well. -- Jeane J. Kirkpatrick
Good government, and especially the government of which every American citizen boasts, has for its objects the protection of every person within its care in the greatest liberty consistent with the good order of society, and his perfect security in the enjoyment of his earnings with the least possible diminuation for public needs. -- Grover Cleveland
A wise and frugal government, which shall restrain men from injuring one another, shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned. This is the sum of good government, and this is necessary to close the circle of our felicities. -- Thomas Jefferson
All power in human hands is liable to be abused. In Governments independent of the people, the rights and interests of the whole may be sacrificed to the views of the Government. In Republics, where...the majority govern, a danger to the minority arises from...a sacrifice of their rights to the interests...of the majority. No form of government, therefore, can be a perfect guard against the abuse of power. -- James Madison
It is essential to liberty that the government in general should have a common interest with the people. -- James Madison
The constitutions of most of our States assert that all power is inherent in the people. -- Thomas Jefferson
Self-government is the natural government of man. -- Henry Clay
Just what is it that America stands for? If she stands for one thing more than another, it is for the sovereignty of self-governing people. -- Woodrow Wilson
Democracy is based on the conviction that man has the moral and intellectual capacity, as well and the inalienable right, to govern himself with reason and justice. -- Harry S Truman
No government has ever been beneficent when the attitude of government was that it was taking care of the people. The only freedom consists in the people taking care of the government. -- Woodrow Wilson
As long as our Government is administered for the good of the people, and is regulated by their will; as long as it secures to us the rights of persons and of property, liberty of conscience, and of the press, it will be worth defending. -- Andrew Jackson
Put fear out of your heart. This nation will survive, this state will prosper, the orderly business of life will go forward if only men can speak in whatever way given them to utter what their hearts hold -- by voice, by posted card, by letter, or by press. Reason has never failed men. Only force and oppression have made wrecks in the world. -- William Allen White
Man is the only animal that laughs and weeps; for he is the only animal that is struck by the difference between what things are and what they might have been. -- William Hazlitt
The mind, like the body, is subject to be hurt by everything it taketh for a remedy. -- Halifax
Every luxury must be paid for, and everything is a luxury, starting with being in the world. -- Cesare Pavese
The iron chain and the silken cord are both equally bonds. -- Friedrich von Schiller
The basic test of freedom is perhaps less in what we are free to do than in what we are free not to do. -- Eric Hoffer
The human condition is such that pain and effort are not just symptoms which can be removed without changing life itself; they are rather the modes in which life itself, together with the necessity to which it is bound, makes itself felt. For mortals, the "easy life of the gods" would be a lifeless life. -- Hannah Arendt
He who makes a beast of himself gets rid of the pain of being a man. -- Dr. Samuel Johnson
If we only wanted to be happy it would be easy; but we want to be happier than other people, which is almost always difficult, since we think them happier than they are. -- Montesquieu
It is impossible for a man to be cheated by anyone but himself. -- Ralph Waldo Emerson
Desire and force between them are responsible for all our actions; desire causes our voluntary acts, force our involuntary. -- Sir Francis Bacon
"Every man has his price." This is not true. But for every man there exists a bait which he cannot resist swallowing. To win over certain people to something, it is only necessary to give it a gloss of humanity, nobility, gentleness, self-sacrifice -- and there is nothing you cannot get them to swallow. To their souls, these are the icing, the tidbit; other kinds of souls have others. -- Nietzsche
I see men ordinarily more eager to discover a reason for things than to find out whether the things are so. -- Montaigne
Resort is had to ridicule only when reason is against us. -- Thomas Jefferson
I care about truth not for truth's sake but for my own. -- Samuel Butler II
Weak and impulsive people may be, and very often are, sincere, but they are seldom truthful. -- John Collins
It is hard to believe that a man is telling the truth when you know that you would lie if you were in his place. -- H. L. Mencken
Corollary -- How a person interprets your actions tells you more about his character than he would ever willingly reveal. -- DLF
When someone behaves like a beast, he says: "After all, one is only human." But when he is treated like a beast, he says: "After all, one is human." -- Karl Kraus
Where there is yet shame, there may in time be virtue. -- Dr. Samuel Johnson
He who despises himself nevertheless esteems himself as a self-despiser. -- Nietzsche
There is a luxury in self-reproach. When we blame ourselves we feel no one else has a right to blame us. -- Oscar Wilde
Few men speak humbly of humility, chastely of chastity, skeptically of skepticism. -- Blaise Pascal
Intolerance itself is a form of egoism, and to condemn egoism intolerantly is to share it. -- Santayana
Self-sacrifice enables us to sacrifice other people without blushing. -- George Bernard Shaw
The vain man hates his like, the exceptional man seeks out his. -- Jean Paul Richter
Arrogance in persons of merit affronts us more than arrogance in those without merit: merit itself is an affront. -- Nietzsche
The girl who can't dance says the band can't play. -- Yiddish proverb
Everybody wants to be somebody: nobody wants to grow. -- Goethe
To maintain that our successes are due to Providence and not to our own cleverness is a cunning way of increasing in our own eyes the importance of our successes. -- Cesare Pavese
A prudent man will think more important what fate has conceded to him than what it has denied. -- Gracian
Experience is not what happens to a man. It is what a man does with what happens to him. -- Aldous Huxley
The search for a new personality is futile; what is fruitful is the human interest the old personality can take in new activities. -- Cesare Pavese
Many are stubborn in pursuit of the path they have chosen, few in pursuit of the goal. -- Nietzsche
We succeed in enterprises which demand the positive qualities we possess, but we excel in those which can also make use of our defects. -- de Tocqueville
The greatest mistake you can make in life is to be continually fearing you will make one. -- Elbert G. Hubbard
There are persons who always find a hair in their plate of soup for the simple reason that, when they sit down before it, they shake their heads until one falls in. -- Friedrich Hebbel
You have not converted a man because you have silenced him. -- John Morley
What men usually ask of God when they pray is that two and two not make four. -- Anonymous
To love our neighbors as ourselves does not mean that we should love all people equally, for I do not have an equal love for all the modes of existence of myself. Nor does it mean that we should never make them suffer, for I do not refuse to make myself suffer. But we should have with each person the relationship of one conception of the universe to another conception of the universe, and not to a part of it. -- Simone Weil
Nature hath no goal though she hath law. -- John Donne
In nature there are neither rewards nor punishments; there are consequences. -- Ingersoll
It is a false dichotomy to think of nature and man. Mankind is that factor in nature which exhibits in its most intense form the plasticity of nature. -- Alfred North Whitehead
The surest way to corrupt a young man is to teach him to esteem more highly those who think alike than those who think differently. -- Nietzsche
Those who know the least obey the best. -- George Farquhar
Who lies for you will lie against you. -- Bosnian proverb
If he really does think there is no difference between virtue and vice, why, sir, when he leaves our house, let us count our spoons. -- Dr. Samuel Johnson
Learn how to refuse favors. This is a great and very useful art. -- Dr. Thomas Fuller
Among the smaller duties of life I hardly know any one more important than that of not praising where praise is not due. -- Sydney Smith
You could read Kant by yourself, if you wanted to; but you must share a joke with someone else. -- Robert Louis Stevenson
To praise princes for virtues they are lacking in is a way of insulting them with impunity. -- La Rochefoucauld
People who have given us their complete confidence believe that they have a right to ours. The inference is false: a gift confers no rights. -- Nietzsche
Everybody is a bit right; nobody is completely right or completely wrong. The prevalence of this point of view among all decent people nearly always has the same dreadful result for, according to their doctrine, every time a contemporary is quite right, he must be crucified. They can never forgive him because he denies their dogma; worse still, he reveals that they hold another dogma which they conceal. The unavowed dogma of these diffusionists runs as follows. The truth is everywhere and nowhere; it evolves itself without anyone knowing it, as if, in the end, Judas is as right as Jesus. One can read that Jesus incited Judas, according to the maxim: "IT is not the murderer but his victim who is guilty." Judas and Jesus must be "synthesized"; both are "only" human: all men are swine. -- Eugen Rosenstock-Huessy
A man that should call everything by its right name would hardly pass the streets without being knocked down as a common enemy. -- Halifax
So long as there is any subject which men may not freely discuss, they are timid upon all subjects. -- John Jay Chapman
I have seen gross intolerance shown in support of tolerance. -- Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Injustice is relatively easy to bear; it is justice that hurts. -- H. L. Mencken
Do not do unto others as you would that they should do unto you. Their tastes may not be the same. -- George Bernard Shaw
Most people are good only so long as they believe others to be so. -- Friedrich Hebbel
Truly decent people only exist among men with definite convictions, whether conservative or radical; so-called moderates are much drawn to rewards, orders, commissions, promotions. -- Anton Chekhov
The principle of self-interest rightly understood produces no great acts of self-sacrifice, but it suggests daily small acts of self-denial. By itself it cannot suffice to make a man virtuous; but it disciplines a number of persons in habits of regularity, temperance, moderation, foresight, self-command; and, if it does not lead men straight to virtue by the will, it gradually draws them in that direction by their habits. Observe some few individuals, they are lowered by it; survey mankind, it is raised. -- de Tocqueville
The difference between a slave and a citizen is that a slave is subject to his master and a citizen to the laws. It may happen that the master is very gentle and the laws very harsh; that changes nothing. Everything lies in the distance between caprice and rule. -- Simone Weil
Selfishness is not living as one wishes to live. It is asking others to live as one wishes to live. -- Oscar Wilde
Societies for the suppression of vice: Beginning with the best intentions in the world, such societies must in all probability degenerate into a receptacle for every species of tittle-tattle, impertinence, and malice. Men whose trade is rat-catching love to catch rats; the bug-destroyer seizes on his bug with delight; and the suppressor is gratified by finding his vice. The last soon becomes a mere tradesman like the others; none of them moralize, or lament that their respective evils should exist in the world. The public feeling is swallowed up in the pursuit of a daily occupation, and in the display of a technical skill. -- Sydney Smith
Distrust all those who love you extremely upon a very slight acquaintance and without any visible reason. -- Chesterfield
Love your neighbor, but don't pull down the hedge. -- Swiss proverb
We need to be just before we are generous, as we need shirts before ruffles. -- Sebastien Chamfort
There are more fools than knaves in the world, else the knaves would not have enough to live upon. -- Samuel Butler
You can discover what your enemy fears the most by observing the means he uses to frighten you. -- Eric Hoffer
He that seeketh to be eminent amongst able men hath a great task; but that is ever good for the public. But he that plots to be the only figure amongst ciphers is the decay of a whole age. -- Sir Francis Bacon
The sick in soul insist that it is humanity that is sick, and that they are the surgeons to operate on it. they want to turn the world into a sickroom. And once they get humanity strapped to the operating table, they operate on it with an ax. -- Eric Hoffer
One has not the right to betray even a traitor. Traitors must be fought, not betrayed. -- Charles Pierre Peguy
Thousands upon thousands are yearly brought into a state of real poverty by their great anxiety not to be thought poor. -- William Cobbett
To ruin those who possess something is not to come to the aid of those who possess nothing; it is merely to render misery general. -- Prince Klemens von Metternich
The magic of first love is our ignorance that it can ever end. -- Disraeli
A man does not look behind the door unless he has stood there himself. -- Henri Du Bois
There is sanctuary in reading, sanctuary in formal society, in the company of old friends, and in the giving of officious help to strangers, but there is no sanctuary in one bed from the memory of another. -- Cyril Connolly
The regal and parental tyrant differ only in the extent of their dominions and the number of their slaves. -- Dr. Samuel Johnson
When children appear, we justify all our weaknesses, compromises, snobberies, by saying: "It's for the children's sake." -- Anton Chekhov
A revolt of the judiciary is more dangerous to a government than any other, even a military revolt. Now and then it uses the military to suppress disorder, but it defends itself every day by means of the courts. -- de Tocqueville
Civilization is nothing else but the attempt to reduce force to being the last resort. -- Jose Ortega y Gasset
If I accustom a servant to tell a lie for me, have I not reason to apprehend that he will tell many lies for himself? -- Dr. Samuel Johnson
My business is to teach my aspirations to confirm themselves to fact, not to try and make facts harmonize with my aspirations. -- Thomas Henry Huxley
It would be a good thing if man concerned himself more with the history of his nature than with the history of his deeds. -- Friedrich Hebbel
History cannot be more certain than when he who creates the things also narrates them. -- Giovanni Battista Vico
The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man. -- George Bernard Shaw
Nothing except a battle lost can be half so melancholy as a battle won. -- Duke of Wellington
Liberty means responsibility. That is why most men dread it. -- George Bernard Shaw
The secret of the demagogue is to make himself as stupid as his audience so that they believe they are as clever as he. -- Karl Kraus
Force is not a remedy. -- John Bright
The only way to predict the future is to have power to shape the future. Those in possession of absolute power can not only prophecy and make their prophecies come true, but they can also lie and make their lies come true. -- Eric Hoffer
The will to power, as the modern age from Hobbes to Nietzsche understood it, far from being a characteristic of the strong is, like envy and greed, among the vices of the weak, and possibly even their most dangerous one. Power corrupts indeed when the weak band together in order to ruin the strong, but not before. -- Hannah Arendt
The man who can make others laugh secures more votes for a measure than the man who forces them to think. -- Malcolm de Chazal
The great man is powerful, involuntarily and composedly powerful, but he is not avid for power. What he is avid for is the realization of what he has in mind, the incarnation of the spirit. So long as a man's power is bound to the goal, the work, the calling, it is, in itself, neither good nor evil, only a suitable or unsuitable instrument. But as soon as this bond with the goal is broken off or loosened, and the man ceases to think of power as the capacity to do something, but thinks of it as a possession, then his power, being cut off and self-satisfied, is evil and corrupts the history of the world. -- Martin Buber
Except a person be part coward, it is not a compliment to say he is brave. -- Mark Twain
Courage is a quality so necessary for maintaining virtue that it is always respected, even when it is associated with vice. -- Dr. Samuel Johnson
The most advantageous negotiations are those one conducts with human vanity, for one often obtains very substantial things from it while giving very little of substance in return. One never does so well when dealing with ambition or avarice. -- de Tocqueville
Vilify! Vilify! Some of it will always stick. -- Beaumarchais
Every honest man is a prophet; he utters his opinion both of public and private matters. Thus, if you go on so, the result is so. He never says, such a thing shall happen let you do what you will. A prophet is a seer, not an arbitrary dictator. -- William Blake
No matter how noble the objectives of a government, if it blurs decency and kindness, cheapens human life, and breeds ill will and suspicion -- it is an evil government. -- Eric Hoffer
In general, despite all the talk about about freedom, peoples and governments demand unlimited state power internally. -- Jakob Burckhardt
Lawgivers or revolutionaries who promise equality and liberty at the same time are either utopian dreamers or charlatans. -- Goethe
Despotism or unlimited sovereignty is the same in a majority of a popular assembly, an aristocratical council, an oligarchical junta, and a single emperor. -- John Quincy Adams
A state in which the law is powerless to punish a thief, or in which society is unable to restrict the action of the government, are equally opposed to the notion of polity. -- Lord Acton
Democracy becomes a government of bullies tempered by editors. -- Ralph Waldo Emerson
We should not let ourselves be burned for our opinions themselves, since we can never be quite sure of them; but perhaps we might for the right to hold and alter them. -- Neitzsche
If none were to have liberty but those who understand what it is, there would not be many freed men in the world. -- Halifax
Error of opinion may be tolerated where reason is left free to combat it. -- Thomas Jefferson
Most ignorance is vincible ignorance. We don't know because we don't want to know. -- Aldous Huxley
Some like to understand what they believe in. Others like to believe in what they understand. -- Stanislaus Lec
Tell me to what you pay attention and I will tell you who you are. -- Jose Ortega y Gasset
Any mental activity is easy if it need not take reality into account. -- Marcel Proust
The concept of number is the obvious distinction between the beast and the man. Thanks to number, the cry becomes song, noise acquires rhythm, the spring is transformed into a dance, force becomes dynamic, and outlines figures. -- Joseph Marie de Maistre
Dogma does not mean the absence of thought, but the end of thought. -- Gilbert Keith Chesterton
Let us settle about the facts first and fight about the moral tendencies afterward. -- Samuel Butler II
America lives in the heart of every man everywhere who wishes to find a region where he will be free to work out his destiny as he chooses. -- Woodrow Wilson
The life of the nation is secure only while the nation is honest, truthful, and virtuous. -- Frederick Douglas
What is America? What makes our country more than any other piece of land and water on the globe? Nothing -- except our ideal of human freedom, freedom for the individual! because we have this ideal we, almost alone among the peoples today, have hope. We still dare to hope. You can easily see that ideals are the most important things in the world. Indeed they are. They are the food of the soul, which nourishes the spirit with faith and with hope. When hope and faith are gone, when we say, "ideals are only talk," the soul dies and the spirit grows weak and then the tyrants take over. We must keep our ideals alive, we cannot let them die, for they alone give us the strength to keep our own freedom and spread the strength of hope and faith to other peoples. -- Pearl S. Buck
Good government, and especially the government of which every American citizen boasts, has for its objects the protection of every person within its care in the greatest liberty consistent with the good order of society, and his perfect security in the enjoyment of his earnings with the least possible diminuation for public needs. -- Grover Cleveland
Self-government is the natural government of man. -- Henry Clay
Just what is it that America stands for? If she stands for one thing more than another, it is for the sovereignty of self-governing people. -- Woodrow Wilson
Democracy is based on the conviction that man has the moral and intellectual capacity, as well and the inalienable right, to govern himself with reason and justice. -- Harry S Truman
Put fear out of your heart. This nation will survive, this state will prosper, the orderly business of life will go forward if only men can speak in whatever way given them to utter what their hearts hold -- by voice, by posted card, by letter, or by press. Reason has never failed men. Only force and oppression have made wrecks in the world. -- William Allen White
President Lincoln wrote: "My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or to destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone I would also do that."
The day will come when the mystical generation of Jesus by the Supreme Being as his father, in the womb of a virgin, will be classed with the fable of the generation of Minerva in the brain of Jupiter. Thomas Jefferson, 1823