All entries

1: What has happened in the past will happen in the future.
2: Consider the obvious seriously, for few people will see it.
3: Consider the consequences.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 02:52:56 -0500

Quote: 1: What has happened in the past will happen in the future.
2: Consider the obvious seriously, for few people will see it.
3: Consider the consequences.
Author: Isaac Asimov, Three Laws of Futurics
Tags: history

40 years after the Wright Brothers made their first flight, more than a million people had flown in a plane; 40 years after man first went into space, fewer than 500 people have followed them there.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 02:27:28 -0500

Quote: 40 years after the Wright Brothers made their first flight, more than a million people had flown in a plane; 40 years after man first went into space, fewer than 500 people have followed them there.
Author: Ed Hudgins
Tags: space

A bad design with a good presentation is doomed eventually. A good design with a bad presentation is doomed immediately.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 02:52:56 -0500

Quote: A bad design with a good presentation is doomed eventually. A good design with a bad presentation is doomed immediately.
Author: Akin's 20th Law
Tags: business

A business plan should be used as an opportunity to sell your company, not your product.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 05:00:47 -0500

Quote: A business plan should be used as an opportunity to sell your company, not your product.
Author: Tom Crotty
Tags: business

A careful definition of words would destroy half the agenda of the political left and scrutinizing evidence would destroy the other half.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 02:42:05 -0500

Quote: A careful definition of words would destroy half the agenda of the political left and scrutinizing evidence would destroy the other half.
Author: Thomas Sowell
Tags: politics

A computer without Windows is like a dog without bricks tied to its head.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 02:39:09 -0500

Quote: A computer without Windows is like a dog without bricks tied to its head.
Tags: computers

A cult is a religion with no political power.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 04:33:51 -0500

Quote: A cult is a religion with no political power.
Author: Tom Wolfe
Tags: politics

A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves money from the public treasury. Democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy, always followed by dictatorship.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 02:27:28 -0500

Quote: A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves money from the public treasury. Democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy, always followed by dictatorship.
Author: Alexander Fraser Tytler, The Decline and Fall of the Athenian Republic
Tags: government

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.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 02:27:28 -0500

Quote: 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.
Author: Thomas Jefferson
Tags: government

A dying culture invariably exhibits personal rudeness. Bad manners. Lack of consideration for others in minor matters. A loss of politeness, of gentle manners, is more significant than a riot.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 04:33:51 -0500

Quote: A dying culture invariably exhibits personal rudeness. Bad manners. Lack of consideration for others in minor matters. A loss of politeness, of gentle manners, is more significant than a riot.
Author: Robert A. Heinlein
Tags: politics

A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 05:15:35 -0500

Quote: A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds
Author: Ralph Waldo Emerson
Tags: advice

A free people ought not only to be armed and disciplined, but they should have sufficient arms and ammunition to maintain a status of independence from any who might attempt to abuse them, which would include their own government.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 02:33:02 -0500

Quote: A free people ought not only to be armed and disciplined, but they should have sufficient arms and ammunition to maintain a status of independence from any who might attempt to abuse them, which would include their own government.
Author: George Washington
Tags: 2nd amendment

A free society is one where it is safe to be unpopular.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 02:36:18 -0500

Quote: A free society is one where it is safe to be unpopular.
Author: Adlai Stevenson
Tags: government

A general rule: If you are told what someone does for a living and it makes sense to you--orthodontist, store owner, professor--that means he's not rich. But if it's a man in a suit who does something that takes him five sentences to explain and still you walk away confused, and castigating yourself as to why you couldn't understand the central facts of the acquisition of wealth in the age you live in--well, chances are you just talked to a billionaire.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 05:20:10 -0500

Quote: A general rule: If you are told what someone does for a living and it makes sense to you--orthodontist, store owner, professor--that means he's not rich. But if it's a man in a suit who does something that takes him five sentences to explain and still you walk away confused, and castigating yourself as to why you couldn't understand the central facts of the acquisition of wealth in the age you live in--well, chances are you just talked to a billionaire.
Author: Peggy Noonan
Tags: politics

A good battle plan that you act on today can be better than a perfect one tomorrow.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 04:58:28 -0500

Quote: A good battle plan that you act on today can be better than a perfect one tomorrow.
Author: Gen. George Patton
Tags: advice

A government that is big enough to give you all you want is big enough to take it all away.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 02:27:28 -0500

Quote: A government that is big enough to give you all you want is big enough to take it all away.
Author: Barry Goldwater
Tags: government

A government with the policy to rob Peter to pay Paul can be assured of the support of Paul.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 02:27:28 -0500

Quote: A government with the policy to rob Peter to pay Paul can be assured of the support of Paul.
Author: George Bernard Shaw
Tags: government

A judicial activist is a judge who interprets the Constitution to mean what it would have said if he, instead of the Founding Fathers, had written it.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 02:27:28 -0500

Quote: A judicial activist is a judge who interprets the Constitution to mean what it would have said if he, instead of the Founding Fathers, had written it.
Author: Senator Sam Ervin
Tags: government

A lack of consensus is no excuse for a lack of leadership.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 05:12:15 -0500

Quote: A lack of consensus is no excuse for a lack of leadership.
Author: Margaret Thatcher
Tags: advice

A large bank always tends to become larger, and a small one tends to become smaller.

Mon, 19 Jan 2009 16:18:57 -0500

Quote: A large bank always tends to become larger, and a small one tends to become smaller.
Author: Walter Bagehot, 1873
Tags: business

A lawyer with a briefcase can steal more than a thousand men with guns.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 02:34:00 -0500

Quote: A lawyer with a briefcase can steal more than a thousand men with guns.
Author: Mario Puzo
Tags: politics

A Liberal believes that schools should teach children about self esteem, the environment, diversity, etc. A Conservative believes that schools should teach children reading, writing, math and history.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 02:28:46 -0500

Quote: A Liberal believes that schools should teach children about self esteem, the environment, diversity, etc. A Conservative believes that schools should teach children reading, writing, math and history.
Tags: education

A liberal is someone who will give you the shirt off of somebody else's back.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 02:30:08 -0500

Quote: A liberal is someone who will give you the shirt off of somebody else's back.
Tags: politics

A lot of people out there pay good lip service to the idea of personal freedom--right up to the point that someone tries to do something that they don't personally approve of.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 04:33:51 -0500

Quote: A lot of people out there pay good lip service to the idea of personal freedom--right up to the point that someone tries to do something that they don't personally approve of.
Author: Neal Boortz
Tags: politics

A man can never have too many books, too much red wine or too much ammunition.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 04:33:51 -0500

Quote: A man can never have too many books, too much red wine or too much ammunition.
Author: Rudyard Kipling
Tags: 2nd amendment

A man may fail many times but he isn't a failure until he begins to blame somebody else.

Fri, 08 Jan 2010 17:58:06 -0500

Quote: A man may fail many times but he isn't a failure until he begins to blame somebody else.
Author: J. Paul Getty
Tags: advice

A man who is not a liberal by the time he's 20 has no heart, and a man who is not a conservative by the time he's 40 has no brain.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 02:30:08 -0500

Quote: A man who is not a liberal by the time he's 20 has no heart, and a man who is not a conservative by the time he's 40 has no brain.
Author: Winston Churchill
Tags: politics

A man who stands for nothing will fall for anything.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 05:12:15 -0500

Quote: A man who stands for nothing will fall for anything.
Author: Malcolm X
Tags: advice

A monarch's neck should always have a noose around it--it keeps him upright.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 02:27:28 -0500

Quote: A monarch's neck should always have a noose around it--it keeps him upright.
Author: Robert A. Heinlein
Tags: government

A multitude of laws in a country is like a great number of physicians, a sign of weakness and malady.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 02:51:38 -0500

Quote: A multitude of laws in a country is like a great number of physicians, a sign of weakness and malady.
Author: Voltaire
Tags: government

A nation of sheep will beget a government of wolves.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 02:27:28 -0500

Quote: A nation of sheep will beget a government of wolves.
Author: Edward R. Morrow
Tags: government

A people living under the perpetual menace of war and invasion is very easy to govern. It demands no social reforms. It does not haggle over expenditures on armaments and military equipment. It pays without discussion, it ruins itself, and that is an excellent thing for the syndicates of financiers and manufacturers for whom patriotic terrors are an abundant source of gain.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 02:33:55 -0500

Quote: A people living under the perpetual menace of war and invasion is very easy to govern. It demands no social reforms. It does not haggle over expenditures on armaments and military equipment. It pays without discussion, it ruins itself, and that is an excellent thing for the syndicates of financiers and manufacturers for whom patriotic terrors are an abundant source of gain.
Author: Anatole France
Tags: politics

A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 05:04:56 -0500

Quote: A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty.
Author: Winston Churchill
Tags: advice

A patriot must always be ready to defend his country against his government.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 02:27:28 -0500

Quote: A patriot must always be ready to defend his country against his government.
Author: Edward Abbey
Tags: government

A people that values its privileges above its principles soon loses both.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 04:33:51 -0500

Quote: A people that values its privileges above its principles soon loses both.
Author: Dwight D. Eisenhower
Tags: politics

A perfect democracy, a ‘warm body’ democracy in which every adult may vote and all votes count equally, has no internal feedback for self-correction. It depends solely on the wisdom and self-restraint of citizens… which is opposed by the folly and lack of self-restraint of other citizens.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 02:27:28 -0500

Quote: A perfect democracy, a ‘warm body’ democracy in which every adult may vote and all votes count equally, has no internal feedback for self-correction. It depends solely on the wisdom and self-restraint of citizens… which is opposed by the folly and lack of self-restraint of other citizens.
Author: Robert A. Heinlein
Tags: government

A politician in power tends to remain in power.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 04:33:51 -0500

Quote: A politician in power tends to remain in power.
Author: Boortz's First Rule of Political Dynamics
Tags: politics

America sometimes fails to live up to its ideals... So has every nation since history began. But it must be admitted that so far, the United States of America has the most magnificent set of ideals any nation has ever failed to live up to.

Tue, 16 Dec 2008 00:24:26 -0500

Quote: America sometimes fails to live up to its ideals... So has every nation since history began. But it must be admitted that so far, the United States of America has the most magnificent set of ideals any nation has ever failed to live up to.
Author: Spider Robinson
Tags: government

Administrator Dan Goldin fired hundreds from NASA Headquarters. A week later no one could remember what they did: they weren't missed at all. On the other hand, when bureaucrats get in charge of reductions in force, they always try to get rid of key people who actually do the work: that way they'll have no choice but to hire more.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 02:42:40 -0500

Quote: Administrator Dan Goldin fired hundreds from NASA Headquarters. A week later no one could remember what they did: they weren't missed at all. On the other hand, when bureaucrats get in charge of reductions in force, they always try to get rid of key people who actually do the work: that way they'll have no choice but to hire more.
Tags: politics

America is unique, strong, great because of our commitment to personal freedom... We are a free people who consented to be governed. Not vice versa.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 02:27:28 -0500

Quote: America is unique, strong, great because of our commitment to personal freedom... We are a free people who consented to be governed. Not vice versa.
Author: Sen. John Sununu
Tags: government

A pure democracy can admit no cure for the mischiefs of faction. A common passion or interest will be felt by a majority, and there is nothing to check the inducements to sacrifice the weaker party.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 02:27:28 -0500

Quote: A pure democracy can admit no cure for the mischiefs of faction. A common passion or interest will be felt by a majority, and there is nothing to check the inducements to sacrifice the weaker party.
Author: James Madison
Tags: government

A society that puts equality ahead of freedom will wind up with neither.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 02:27:28 -0500

Quote: A society that puts equality ahead of freedom will wind up with neither.
Author: Milton Friedman
Tags: government

A society which maintains that the interest of the individual is neglible compared to the interest of the nation is a lawless society.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 02:51:38 -0500

Quote: A society which maintains that the interest of the individual is neglible compared to the interest of the nation is a lawless society.
Author: Alexander Zinoviev
Tags: government

A system of licensing and registration is the perfect device to deny gun ownership to the bourgeoisie.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 02:33:02 -0500

Quote: A system of licensing and registration is the perfect device to deny gun ownership to the bourgeoisie.
Author: Vladimir Ilyich Lenin
Tags: 2nd amendment

A vote is like a rifle; its usefulness depends upon the character of the user.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 02:27:28 -0500

Quote: A vote is like a rifle; its usefulness depends upon the character of the user.
Author: Theodore Roosevelt
Tags: government

A wise and frugal government, which shall restrain men from injuring one another, which 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.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 02:27:28 -0500

Quote: A wise and frugal government, which shall restrain men from injuring one another, which 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.
Author: Thomas Jefferson
Tags: government

Always there has been some terrible evil at home or some monstrous foreign power that was going to gobble us up if we did not blindly rally behind it.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 04:58:28 -0500

Quote: Always there has been some terrible evil at home or some monstrous foreign power that was going to gobble us up if we did not blindly rally behind it.
Author: Gen. Douglas MacArthur
Tags: history

Above all the unity of a nation's spirit and will are worth far more than the freedom of the spirit and will of an individual.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 02:27:28 -0500

Quote: Above all the unity of a nation's spirit and will are worth far more than the freedom of the spirit and will of an individual.
Author: Adolf Hitler (scary, huh?)
Tags: government

Action may not always bring happiness, but there is no happiness without action.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 04:51:14 -0500

Quote: Action may not always bring happiness, but there is no happiness without action.
Author: Benjamin Disraeli
Tags: advice

America wasn't founded so we could all be better. America was founded so we could all be anything we damned well pleased.

Sun, 11 Oct 2009 11:00:37 -0400

Quote: America wasn't founded so we could all be better. America was founded so we could all be anything we damned well pleased.
Author: P.J. O'Rourke
Tags: government

A politician thinks of the next election -- a statesman of the next generation.

Sun, 03 May 2009 23:07:47 -0400

Quote: A politician thinks of the next election -- a statesman of the next generation.
Author: James Freeman Clarke
Tags: politics

Activism is a way for useless people to feel important, even if the consequences of their activism are counterproductive for those they claim to be helping and damaging to the fabric of society as a whole.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 02:40:10 -0500

Quote: Activism is a way for useless people to feel important, even if the consequences of their activism are counterproductive for those they claim to be helping and damaging to the fabric of society as a whole.
Author: Thomas Sowell
Tags: politics

Advertisements contain the only truths to be relied on in a newspaper.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 05:00:47 -0500

Quote: Advertisements contain the only truths to be relied on in a newspaper.
Author: Thomas Jefferson
Tags: politics

After two years in Washington, I often long for the realism and sincerity of Hollywood.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 02:40:10 -0500

Quote: After two years in Washington, I often long for the realism and sincerity of Hollywood.
Author: Fred Thompson, US senator, lawyer, writer, actor
Tags: government

All bad precedents begin as justifiable measures.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 04:40:45 -0500

Quote: All bad precedents begin as justifiable measures.
Author: Julius Caesar
Tags: philosophy

All parts should go together without forcing. You must remember that the parts you are reassembling were disassembled by you. Therefore, if you can't get them together again, there must be a reason. By all means, do not use a hammer.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 05:12:15 -0500

Quote: All parts should go together without forcing. You must remember that the parts you are reassembling were disassembled by you. Therefore, if you can't get them together again, there must be a reason. By all means, do not use a hammer.
Author: IBM maintenance manual, 1925
Tags: humor

All that is needed to give rise to a mighty nation is a simple, irrevocable guarantee that individual members of the productive class be permitted to keep whatever they create.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 04:33:51 -0500

Quote: All that is needed to give rise to a mighty nation is a simple, irrevocable guarantee that individual members of the productive class be permitted to keep whatever they create.
Author: L. Neil Smith
Tags: government

All the gold in California Is in a bank in the middle of Beverly Hills in somebody else's name. So if you dreaming about California, It don't matter at all where you've played before, California's a brand new game.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 04:33:51 -0500

Quote: All the gold in California Is in a bank in the middle of Beverly Hills in somebody else's name. So if you dreaming about California, It don't matter at all where you've played before, California's a brand new game.
Author: The Gatlin Brothers
Tags: business

All those other constitutions are documents that say, 'We, the government, allow the people the following rights,' and our Constitution says 'We the People, allow the government the following privileges and rights.' We give our permission to government to do the things that it does. And that's the whole story of the difference--why we're unique in the world and why no matter what our troubles may be, we're going to overcome.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 02:27:28 -0500

Quote: All those other constitutions are documents that say, 'We, the government, allow the people the following rights,' and our Constitution says 'We the People, allow the government the following privileges and rights.' We give our permission to government to do the things that it does. And that's the whole story of the difference--why we're unique in the world and why no matter what our troubles may be, we're going to overcome.
Author: Ronald Reagan
Tags: government

All inanimate objects are scientifically divided into three categories: Those that break down, those that don't work, and those that can't be repaired.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 05:20:10 -0500

Quote: All inanimate objects are scientifically divided into three categories: Those that break down, those that don't work, and those that can't be repaired.
Author: Russell Baker
Tags: humor

All we have of freedom--all we use or know--This our fathers bought for us, long and long ago.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 05:20:10 -0500

Quote: All we have of freedom--all we use or know--This our fathers bought for us, long and long ago.
Author: Rudyard Kipling
Tags: history

Almighty Ruler of the all, Whose Power extends to great and small, Who guides the stars with steadfast law, Whose least creation fills with awe, O grant thy mercy and thy grace, To those who venture into space.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 02:27:28 -0500

Quote: Almighty Ruler of the all, Whose Power extends to great and small, Who guides the stars with steadfast law, Whose least creation fills with awe, O grant thy mercy and thy grace, To those who venture into space.
Author: Robert A. Heinlein
Tags: space

Almost all the world's constitutions are documents in which governments tell the people what their privileges are. Our Constitution is a document in which 'We the people' tell the government what it is allowed to do.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 02:27:28 -0500

Quote: Almost all the world's constitutions are documents in which governments tell the people what their privileges are. Our Constitution is a document in which 'We the people' tell the government what it is allowed to do.
Author: Ronald Reagan
Tags: government

Almost everyone who has read history in a more than casual manner knows that when the great figure of God appears in a controversy, the shooting cannot be far off.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 02:48:13 -0500

Quote: Almost everyone who has read history in a more than casual manner knows that when the great figure of God appears in a controversy, the shooting cannot be far off.
Author: Stewart H. Holbrook
Tags: history

America has built a health-care system with incentives that inexorably generate terrible and perverse results.

Tue, 01 Sep 2009 01:16:55 -0400

Quote: America has built a health-care system with incentives that inexorably generate terrible and perverse results.
Author: David Goldhill
Tags: politics

Although I can accept talking scarecrows, lions, and great wizards of emerald cities, I find it hard to believe there is no paperwork involved when your house lands on a witch.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 04:58:28 -0500

Quote: Although I can accept talking scarecrows, lions, and great wizards of emerald cities, I find it hard to believe there is no paperwork involved when your house lands on a witch.
Author: Dave James
Tags: humor

Always surround yourself with people who are smarter than you are. Then allow them to take the credit for successes, while you take the blame for their failures.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 05:20:10 -0500

Quote: Always surround yourself with people who are smarter than you are. Then allow them to take the credit for successes, while you take the blame for their failures.
Author: Pete Peterson
Tags: advice

Amateurs built the Ark. Professionals built the Titanic.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 05:04:56 -0500

Quote: Amateurs built the Ark. Professionals built the Titanic.
Tags: humor

America is at that awkward stage. It's too late to work within the system, but too early to shoot the bastards.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 02:36:51 -0500

Quote: America is at that awkward stage. It's too late to work within the system, but too early to shoot the bastards.
Author: Claire Wolfe
Tags: politics

Americans have the right and advantage of being armed--unlike the citizens of other countries whose governments are afraid to trust the people with arms.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 02:33:02 -0500

Quote: Americans have the right and advantage of being armed--unlike the citizens of other countries whose governments are afraid to trust the people with arms.
Author: James Madison
Tags: 2nd amendment

If an unfriendly foreign power had attempted to impose on America the mediocre educational performance that exists today, we might well have viewed it as an act of war.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 02:28:46 -0500

Quote: If an unfriendly foreign power had attempted to impose on America the mediocre educational performance that exists today, we might well have viewed it as an act of war.
Author: A Nation at Risk, 1983
Tags: education

If an armed lunatic takes over my airplane, I am fundamentally not interested in handgun-control rhetoric. What I am concerned with is just one thing: stepping over a dead hijacker as I exit my safely-landed airplane.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 02:33:02 -0500

Quote: If an armed lunatic takes over my airplane, I am fundamentally not interested in handgun-control rhetoric. What I am concerned with is just one thing: stepping over a dead hijacker as I exit my safely-landed airplane.
Author: Kathleen Parker
Tags: 2nd amendment

If all the money spent on ramps, bus elevators, and the like in an attempt to make the world 'wheelchair accessible' had been spent on neurological research, no one would need ramps and elevators.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 04:40:45 -0500

Quote: If all the money spent on ramps, bus elevators, and the like in an attempt to make the world 'wheelchair accessible' had been spent on neurological research, no one would need ramps and elevators.
Author: L. Neil Smith
Tags: science

For almost three decades we've been trying to teach average Americans to act like 'stakeholders' in their economy. They learned. They're crying and whining for government bailouts just like the billionaire stakeholders in banks and investment houses.

Sat, 10 Jan 2009 23:56:31 -0500

Quote: For almost three decades we've been trying to teach average Americans to act like 'stakeholders' in their economy. They learned. They're crying and whining for government bailouts just like the billionaire stakeholders in banks and investment houses.
Author: P.J. O'Rourke
Tags: government

If all of us tried to go back-to-nature, most of us would starve rather quickly. These back-to-nature freaks can't do arithmetic.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 05:15:35 -0500

Quote: If all of us tried to go back-to-nature, most of us would starve rather quickly. These back-to-nature freaks can't do arithmetic.
Author: Robert A. Heinlein
Tags: politics

If all else fails, immortality can always be assured by spectacular error.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 05:12:15 -0500

Quote: If all else fails, immortality can always be assured by spectacular error.
Author: John Kenneth Galbraith
Tags: humor

If a nation or an individual values anything more than freedom, it will lose its freedom; and the irony is that if it is comfort or money it values more, it will lose that too.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 02:27:28 -0500

Quote: If a nation or an individual values anything more than freedom, it will lose its freedom; and the irony is that if it is comfort or money it values more, it will lose that too.
Author: W. Somerset Maugham
Tags: government

As a lifelong Star Trek fan, I would love to live in an age when the globe was united in peace and prosperity, but I am unwilling to endure the paradigm-wrecking nation-shattering nuclear war and eugenic-master-race tyranny required to get to that point.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 05:12:15 -0500

Quote: As a lifelong Star Trek fan, I would love to live in an age when the globe was united in peace and prosperity, but I am unwilling to endure the paradigm-wrecking nation-shattering nuclear war and eugenic-master-race tyranny required to get to that point.
Author: James Lileks
Tags: humor

If a nation expects to be ignorant and free... it expects what never was and never will be.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 02:36:26 -0500

Quote: If a nation expects to be ignorant and free... it expects what never was and never will be.
Author: Thomas Jefferson
Tags: government

Ideas are more powerful than guns. If we don't let our people have guns, why should we let them have ideas?

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 02:33:02 -0500

Quote: Ideas are more powerful than guns. If we don't let our people have guns, why should we let them have ideas?
Author: Josef Stalin
Tags: 2nd amendment

I would sooner believe that two Yankee professors lied, than that stones fell from the sky.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 03:06:45 -0500

Quote: I would sooner believe that two Yankee professors lied, than that stones fell from the sky.
Author: Thomas Jefferson, 1807, after hearing an eyewitness report of falling meteorites.
Tags: science

At the highest levels, there seems to be a belief that you can mandate reality, followed by a refusal to accept any information that runs counter to that mandate.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 02:27:28 -0500

Quote: At the highest levels, there seems to be a belief that you can mandate reality, followed by a refusal to accept any information that runs counter to that mandate.
Author: Jeffrey Finckenor, resignation letter from NASA, 2008
Tags: space

I would rather have a German division in front of me, than a French division behind me.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 04:58:28 -0500

Quote: I would rather have a German division in front of me, than a French division behind me.
Author: Gen. George S. Patton
Tags: history

I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too much liberty than to those attending too small a degree of it.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 02:27:28 -0500

Quote: I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too much liberty than to those attending too small a degree of it.
Author: Thomas Jefferson
Tags: government

Blaming Wall Street for being greedy is like scolding defensive linemen for being big and aggressive. The people on Wall Street never claimed to be public servants. They took no oath of office. They're in it for the money. We pay them to be in it for the money.

Sun, 11 Jan 2009 02:08:41 -0500

Quote: Blaming Wall Street for being greedy is like scolding defensive linemen for being big and aggressive. The people on Wall Street never claimed to be public servants. They took no oath of office. They're in it for the money. We *pay* them to be in it for the money.
Author: P.J. O'Rourke
Tags: business

I would like to electrocute everyone who uses the word 'fair' in connection with income tax policies.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 02:27:28 -0500

Quote: I would like to electrocute everyone who uses the word 'fair' in connection with income tax policies.
Author: William F. Buckley Jr.
Tags: government

Hire the people you trust, people who are passionate about their job, passionate about what they’re doing. Just leave them alone, and they’ll get the job done.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 05:04:56 -0500

Quote: Hire the people you trust, people who are passionate about their job, passionate about what they’re doing. Just leave them alone, and they’ll get the job done.
Author: Yvon Chouinard, founder of Patagonia apparel
Tags: advice

I wish that some way could be found to add up all the staggering costs imposed on millions of ordinary people, just so a relative handful of self-righteous environmental cultists can go around feeling puffed up with themselves.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 02:42:05 -0500

Quote: I wish that some way could be found to add up all the staggering costs imposed on millions of ordinary people, just so a relative handful of self-righteous environmental cultists can go around feeling puffed up with themselves.
Author: Dr. Thomas Sowell
Tags: politics

Elite education in the U.S. has become a frenetic assembly line of competitive college application to schools where ideological brainwashing is so pandemic that it's invisible.

Wed, 09 Sep 2009 12:21:48 -0400

Quote: Elite education in the U.S. has become a frenetic assembly line of competitive college application to schools where ideological brainwashing is so pandemic that it's invisible.
Author: Camille Paglia
Tags: education

If financial institutions are deemed too big and too complex to fail, their managers will have an incentive to make them big and complex.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 05:04:56 -0500

Quote: If financial institutions are deemed too big and too complex to fail, their managers will have an incentive to make them big and complex.
Author: The Economist, August 9, 2008
Tags: business

I try to only ridicule people whose efforts are sincere. Very little trouble has been caused in the world by insincere efforts. An occasional seduction maybe. There were very few insincere Stalinists or Nazis.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 05:15:35 -0500

Quote: I try to *only* ridicule people whose efforts are sincere. Very little trouble has been caused in the world by insincere efforts. An occasional seduction maybe. There were very few insincere Stalinists or Nazis.
Author: P.J. O'Rourke
Tags: history

I suspect that our race's tragedy has been played endless times. It may be that an intelligent race has to expand right up to its disaster point to achieve what is needed to break out of its planet and reach for the stars. It may always--or almost always--be a photo finish, with the outcome uncertain to the last moment.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 02:27:28 -0500

Quote: I suspect that our race's tragedy has been played endless times. It may be that an intelligent race has to expand right up to its disaster point to achieve what is needed to break out of its planet and reach for the stars. It may always--or almost always--be a photo finish, with the outcome uncertain to the last moment.
Author: Robert A. Heinlein
Tags: space

And those people should not be listened to who keep saying the voice of the people is the voice of God, since the riotousness of the crowd is always very close to madness.

Wed, 12 Nov 2008 02:28:50 -0500

Quote: And those people should not be listened to who keep saying the voice of the people is the voice of God, since the riotousness of the crowd is always very close to madness.
Author: Alcuin of York, 798 A.D.
Tags: government

I see in the near future a crisis approaching that unnerves me and causes me to tremble for the safety of my country. As a result of the war, corporations have been enthroned and an era of corruption in high places will follow, and the money power of the country will endeavor to prolong its reign by working upon the prejudices of the people until all wealth is aggregated in a few hands, and the Republic is destroyed.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 04:40:45 -0500

Quote: I see in the near future a crisis approaching that unnerves me and causes me to tremble for the safety of my country. As a result of the war, corporations have been enthroned and an era of corruption in high places will follow, and the money power of the country will endeavor to prolong its reign by working upon the prejudices of the people until all wealth is aggregated in a few hands, and the Republic is destroyed.
Author: Abraham Lincoln
Tags: history

I mean, no matter what else happens, look at the competition and it can't help but inspire optimism.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 05:12:15 -0500

Quote: I mean, no matter what else happens, look at the competition and it can't help but inspire optimism.
Author: Henry Vanderbilt
Tags: business

I know no method to secure the repeal of bad or obnoxious laws so effective as their stringent execution.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 02:51:38 -0500

Quote: I know no method to secure the repeal of bad or obnoxious laws so effective as their stringent execution.
Author: U.S. Grant
Tags: government

I hope we win the war on terrorism in time for people to remember what freedom was like...

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 02:27:28 -0500

Quote: I hope we win the war on terrorism in time for people to remember what freedom was like...
Author: Randall Clague
Tags: government

I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 05:00:47 -0500

Quote: I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work.
Author: Thomas A. Edison
Tags: advice

If at first you don't succeed, destroy all evidence that you tried.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 05:04:56 -0500

Quote: If at first you don't succeed, destroy all evidence that you tried.
Author: Steven Wright
Tags: humor

If Columbus had waited for decent ships we'd all still be in Europe. A man has to take some chances or he'll never get anywhere.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 05:15:35 -0500

Quote: If Columbus had waited for decent ships we'd all still be in Europe. A man has to take some chances or he'll never get anywhere.
Author: Robert A. Heinlein
Tags: advice

Every economist knows that minimum wages cause unemployment. That's not a statement, that's a definition.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 03:05:22 -0500

Quote: Every economist knows that minimum wages cause unemployment. That's not a statement, that's a definition.
Author: Milton Friedman
Tags: politics

If cowardly and dishonorable men sometimes shoot unarmed men... the evil must be prevented by the penitentiary and gallows, and not by a general deprivation of a constitutional privilege.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 04:49:42 -0500

Quote: If cowardly and dishonorable men sometimes shoot unarmed men... the evil must be prevented by the penitentiary and gallows, and not by a general deprivation of a constitutional privilege.
Author: Arkansas Supreme Court, 1878
Tags: government

Economics exists to made astrology look respectable.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 05:12:15 -0500

Quote: Economics exists to made astrology look respectable.
Author: John Kenneth Galbraith
Tags: politics

Confidence is the sweet spot between arrogance and despair.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 05:20:10 -0500

Quote: Confidence is the sweet spot between arrogance and despair.
Author: Moss Kanter
Tags: advice

Capitalism without bankruptcy is like Christianity without Hell.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 03:05:22 -0500

Quote: Capitalism without bankruptcy is like Christianity without Hell.
Author: Frank Borman
Tags: business

I don't know the key to success, but the key to failure is trying to please everybody.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 04:51:44 -0500

Quote: I don't know the key to success, but the key to failure is trying to please everybody.
Author: Bill Cosby
Tags: advice

If everyone is thinking alike, then someone isn't thinking.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 04:58:28 -0500

Quote: If everyone is thinking alike, then someone isn't thinking.
Author: Gen. George S. Patton
Tags: philosophy

If everything's under control, you're going too slow.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 05:12:15 -0500

Quote: If everything's under control, you're going too slow.
Author: Mario Andretti
Tags: advice

If guns are outlawed, only the government will have guns.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 02:33:02 -0500

Quote: If guns are outlawed, only the government will have guns.
Author: Edward Abbey
Tags: 2nd amendment

If history could teach us anything, it would be that private property is inextricably linked with civilization.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 02:43:43 -0500

Quote: If history could teach us anything, it would be that private property is inextricably linked with civilization.
Author: Ludwig von Mises
Tags: politics

Except for ending slavery, fascism, Nazism & communism, war has never solved anything.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 03:05:22 -0500

Quote: Except for ending slavery, fascism, Nazism & communism, war has never solved anything.
Tags: history

I have come to the conclusion that one useless man is a disgrace, two men are called a Law Firm, and three or more are called a Congress.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 02:27:28 -0500

Quote: I have come to the conclusion that one useless man is a disgrace, two men are called a Law Firm, and three or more are called a Congress.
Author: John Adams
Tags: government

If Howard Dean was living back [when Paul Revere came riding through] he would have yelled out the window, 'Shut up I'm trying to get some sleep in here!' It's a disgrace.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 02:35:13 -0500

Quote: If Howard Dean was living back [when Paul Revere came riding through] he would have yelled out the window, 'Shut up I'm trying to get some sleep in here!' It's a disgrace.
Author: Sen. Zell Miller
Tags: government

If it's a hobby for us and a job for you, then why are you doing such a shoddy job?

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 04:40:45 -0500

Quote: If it's a hobby for us and a job for you, then why are you doing such a shoddy job?
Author: Linus Torvalds to Microsoft
Tags: computers

For all but a vanishingly brief instant near the dawn of history, the word 'ship' will mean—'spaceship.'

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 02:48:06 -0500

Quote: For all but a vanishingly brief instant near the dawn of history, the word 'ship' will mean—'spaceship.'
Author: Arthur C. Clarke
Tags: space

Any space expedition, public or private, that accepted the casualty rates of the early American settlers, would be tied up in criminal and civil court indefinitely.

Tue, 27 Oct 2009 20:26:39 -0400

Quote: Any space expedition, public or private, that accepted the casualty rates of the early American settlers, would be tied up in criminal and civil court indefinitely.
Author: John Hare
Tags: space

Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn't pass it to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same, or one day we will spend our sunset years telling our children and our children's children what it was once like in the United States where men were free

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 02:27:28 -0500

Quote: Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn't pass it to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same, or one day we will spend our sunset years telling our children and our children's children what it was once like in the United States where men were free
Author: Ronald Reagan
Tags: government

DOS computers manufactured by companies such as IBM, Compaq, Tandy, and millions of others are by far the most popular, with about 70 million machines in use wordwide. Macintosh fans, on the other hand, may note that cockroaches are far more numerous than humans, and that numbers alone do not denote a higher life form.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 02:39:09 -0500

Quote: DOS computers manufactured by companies such as IBM, Compaq, Tandy, and millions of others are by far the most popular, with about 70 million machines in use wordwide. Macintosh fans, on the other hand, may note that cockroaches are far more numerous than humans, and that numbers alone do not denote a higher life form.
Author: NY Times, 1991
Tags: computers

Authority without wisdom is like a heavy axe without an edge, fitter to bruise than to polish.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 04:49:42 -0500

Quote: Authority without wisdom is like a heavy axe without an edge, fitter to bruise than to polish.
Author: Anne Bradstreet
Tags: government

Half the harm that is done in the world is due to people who want to feel important. They don't want to do harm—but the harm does not interest them . . . or they do not see it . . . because they are absorbed in the endless struggle to think well of themselves.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 05:04:56 -0500

Quote: Half the harm that is done in the world is due to people who want to feel important. They don't want to do harm—but the harm does not interest them . . . or they do not see it . . . because they are absorbed in the endless struggle to think well of themselves.
Author: T.S. Eliot
Tags: philosophy

An excellent plumber is infinitely more admirable than an incompetent philosopher. The society that scorns excellence in plumbing because plumbing is a humble activity, and tolerates shoddiness in philosophy because philosophy is an exalted activity, will have neither good plumbing nor good philosophy. Neither its pipes nor its theories will hold water.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 05:12:15 -0500

Quote: An excellent plumber is infinitely more admirable than an incompetent philosopher. The society that scorns excellence in plumbing because plumbing is a humble activity, and tolerates shoddiness in philosophy because philosophy is an exalted activity, will have neither good plumbing nor good philosophy. Neither its pipes nor its theories will hold water.
Author: John Gardner
Tags: philosophy

Buying Saudi oil is like sending LendLease to Hitler.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 03:05:22 -0500

Quote: Buying Saudi oil is like sending LendLease to Hitler.
Author: Bill White
Tags: politics

By a two-to-one margin, voters believe that, no matter how bad things are, Congress could always make it worse.

Sat, 15 Aug 2009 18:35:08 -0400

Quote: By a two-to-one margin, voters believe that, no matter how bad things are, Congress could always make it worse.
Author: Rasmussen Reports, Aug 2009
Tags: politics

I have wondered at times what the Ten Commandments would have looked like if Moses had run them through the US Congress.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 02:27:28 -0500

Quote: I have wondered at times what the Ten Commandments would have looked like if Moses had run them through the US Congress.
Author: Ronald Reagan
Tags: government

I have never yet met an MBA who cannot analyze a company to the point where it’s clearly not worth investing in.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 03:05:22 -0500

Quote: I have never yet met an MBA who cannot analyze a company to the point where it’s clearly not worth investing in.
Author: George Doriot, founder of the first venture capital firm in 1947
Tags: business

Government by the votes of illiterate and uneducated people isn't guaranteed to be good government or even rational government.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 02:27:28 -0500

Quote: Government by the votes of illiterate and uneducated people isn't guaranteed to be good government or even rational government.
Author: Jerry Pournelle
Tags: government

Government is a broker in pillage, and every election is sort of an advance auction sale of stolen goods.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 02:27:28 -0500

Quote: Government is a broker in pillage, and every election is sort of an advance auction sale of stolen goods.
Author: H.L. Mencken
Tags: government

Hanging one scoundrel, it appears, does not deter the next. Well, what of it? The first one is at least disposed of.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 05:12:15 -0500

Quote: Hanging one scoundrel, it appears, does not deter the next. Well, what of it? The first one is at least disposed of.
Author: H.L. Mencken
Tags: philosophy

Giving every man a vote has no more made men wise and free than Christianity has made them good.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 02:27:28 -0500

Quote: Giving every man a vote has no more made men wise and free than Christianity has made them good.
Author: H.L. Mencken
Tags: government

I have a basic rule about art. If I can duplicate it, it ain't art.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 05:20:10 -0500

Quote: I have a basic rule about art. If I can duplicate it, it ain't art.
Author: Neal Boortz
Tags: humor

Collectivists only revere democracy until it has voted them sufficient power… then democracy becomes a cumbersome inconvenience that allows selfish, ignorant fools and corporate shills to interfere with the brilliant work of great men.

Wed, 09 Sep 2009 02:13:12 -0400

Quote: Collectivists only revere democracy until it has voted them sufficient power… then democracy becomes a cumbersome inconvenience that allows selfish, ignorant fools and corporate shills to interfere with the brilliant work of great men.
Author: Sherman Logan
Tags: politics

George W. Bush, at his most beneficent, said if illegal immigrants wanted citizenship they would have to do three things: Pay taxes, learn English, and work in a meaningful job. Bush doesn't meet two out of three of those qualifications.

Sat, 10 Jan 2009 23:54:43 -0500

Quote: George W. Bush, at his most beneficent, said if illegal immigrants wanted citizenship they would have to do three things: Pay taxes, learn English, and work in a meaningful job. Bush doesn't meet two out of three of those qualifications.
Author: P.J. O'Rourke
Tags: humor

I fear FASB is beginning to stand for 'Flatten All Startup Businesses.'

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 05:15:35 -0500

Quote: I fear FASB is beginning to stand for 'Flatten All Startup Businesses.'
Author: Representative Richard H. Baker (R-La.)
Tags: business

I always knew I'd live to see the first man walk on the Moon. I never dreamed I'd see the last.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 05:12:15 -0500

Quote: I always knew I'd live to see the first man walk on the Moon. I never dreamed I'd see the last.
Author: Jerry Pournelle
Tags: space

An armed man is a citizen. An unarmed man is a subject.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 02:33:02 -0500

Quote: An armed man is a citizen. An unarmed man is a subject.
Tags: 2nd amendment

Great jobs, world class jobs, jobs people kill for... those jobs don't get filled by people emailing in resumes. Ever.

Tue, 10 Feb 2009 00:13:07 -0500

Quote: Great jobs, world class jobs, jobs people kill for... those jobs don't get filled by people emailing in resumes. Ever.
Author: Seth Godin
Tags: advice

Bringing the government in to run Wall Street is like saying, 'Dad burned dinner, let's get the dog to cook.'

Sat, 10 Jan 2009 23:40:49 -0500

Quote: Bringing the government in to run Wall Street is like saying, 'Dad burned dinner, let's get the dog to cook.'
Author: P.J. O'Rourke
Tags: government

I don't want to abolish government. I simply want to reduce it to the size where I can drag it into the bathroom and drown it in the bathtub.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 02:27:28 -0500

Quote: I don't want to abolish government. I simply want to reduce it to the size where I can drag it into the bathroom and drown it in the bathtub.
Author: Grover Norquist
Tags: government

Gun control is not about guns; it's about control.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 02:33:02 -0500

Quote: Gun control is not about guns; it's about control.
Tags: 2nd amendment

If extraterrestrial aliens had contacted the White House after the last lunar landing in 1972, and told the president that humans wouldn’t be allowed to move into space beyond earth orbit, and to pass the message on to his successors, but that the public was not to know this, it’s hard to imagine how policy actions would have been much different.

Thu, 23 Jul 2009 23:43:19 -0400

Quote: If extraterrestrial aliens had contacted the White House after the last lunar landing in 1972, and told the president that humans wouldn’t be allowed to move into space beyond earth orbit, and to pass the message on to his successors, but that the public was not to know this, it’s hard to imagine how policy actions would have been much different.
Author: Rand Simberg
Tags: space

Anybody who wants to be President badly enough to go through everything that it takes is intrinsically not to be trusted.

Mon, 29 Jun 2009 14:41:19 -0400

Quote: Anybody who wants to be President badly enough to go through everything that it takes is intrinsically not to be trusted.
Author: Rand Simberg
Tags: politics

If guns cause crime, then pencils cause misspelled words.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 02:33:02 -0500

Quote: If guns cause crime, then pencils cause misspelled words.
Tags: 2nd amendment

I used to dream of the day when my computer would be as easy to use as my mobile phone. It has happened, I no longer know how to use my phone.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 02:39:09 -0500

Quote: I used to dream of the day when my computer would be as easy to use as my mobile phone. It has happened, I no longer know how to use my phone.
Author: Bjorn Stroustrup, the inventor of C++
Tags: computers

Hard work will get you a professorship or a BMW. You need both work and luck for... a Nobel [Prize] or a private jet.

Fri, 30 Jan 2009 15:00:50 -0500

Quote: Hard work will get you a professorship or a BMW. You need both work and luck for... a Nobel [Prize] or a private jet.
Author: Nassim Nicholas Taleb
Tags: advice

I believe in the free speech that liberals used to believe in, the economic freedom that conservatives used to believe in, and the personal freedom that America used to believe in.

Wed, 02 Sep 2009 00:59:07 -0400

Quote: I believe in the free speech that liberals used to believe in, the economic freedom that conservatives used to believe in, and the personal freedom that America used to believe in.
Author: Doug Mataconis
Tags: politics

Any environmentalist who opposes space travel has no imagination whatever.

Mon, 20 Jul 2009 00:37:32 -0400

Quote: Any environmentalist who opposes space travel has no imagination whatever.
Author: James Lovelock
Tags: space

How do you know a great entrepreneur when you meet one? Great entrepreneurs would do a better job running the competition than their competitors are doing.

Tue, 26 May 2009 19:20:11 -0400

Quote: How do you know a great entrepreneur when you meet one? Great entrepreneurs would do a better job running the competition than their competitors are doing.
Author: David Hornik
Tags: business

But whether the Constitution really be one thing, or another, this much is certain - that it has either authorized such a government as we have had, or has been powerless to prevent it. In either case, it is unfit to exist.

Fri, 26 Jun 2009 14:23:00 -0400

Quote: But whether the Constitution really be one thing, or another, this much is certain - that it has either authorized such a government as we have had, or has been powerless to prevent it. In either case, it is unfit to exist.
Author: Lysander Spooner
Tags: government

Every rooster likes to think it brings the sun up.

Mon, 05 Jan 2009 22:24:08 -0500

Quote: Every rooster likes to think it brings the sun up.
Author: James Oberg
Tags: philosophy

Good ideas never come from Washington.

Tue, 15 Dec 2009 02:42:43 -0500

Quote: Good ideas never come from Washington.
Author: Arne Duncan, U.S. Secretary of Education
Tags: government

For when the plebs discover that they can vote themselves bread and circuses without limit and that the productive members of the body politic cannot stop them, they will do so, until the state bleeds to death, or in its weakened condition the state succumbs to an invader—the barbarians enter Rome.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 02:27:28 -0500

Quote: For when the plebs discover that they can vote themselves bread and circuses without limit and that the productive members of the body politic cannot stop them, they will do so, until the state bleeds to death, or in its weakened condition the state succumbs to an invader—the barbarians enter Rome.
Author: Robert A. Heinlein
Tags: government

For the sin of continually pointing out that the emperor has no clothes, libertarians are attacked as heartless bastards devoid of compassion for the less fortunate, despicable flacks for the rich or for business interests, unthinking dogmatists who place blind faith in the free market, or, at best, members of the lunatic fringe.

Tue, 01 Sep 2009 21:04:36 -0400

Quote: For the sin of continually pointing out that the emperor has no clothes, libertarians are attacked as heartless bastards devoid of compassion for the less fortunate, despicable flacks for the rich or for business interests, unthinking dogmatists who place blind faith in the free market, or, at best, members of the lunatic fringe.
Author: John Hasnas
Tags: politics

I should sooner live in a society governed by the first two thousand names in the Boston telephone directory than in a society governed by the two thousand faculty members of Harvard University.

Fri, 08 Jan 2010 21:38:13 -0500

Quote: I should sooner live in a society governed by the first two thousand names in the Boston telephone directory than in a society governed by the two thousand faculty members of Harvard University.
Author: William F. Buckley
Tags: politics

Being a libertarian means living with an almost unendurable level of frustration. It means being subject to unending scorn and derision despite being inevitably proven correct by events.

Tue, 01 Sep 2009 21:01:07 -0400

Quote: Being a libertarian means living with an almost unendurable level of frustration. It means being subject to unending scorn and derision despite being inevitably proven correct by events.
Author: John Hasnas
Tags: politics

Environmentalism has replaced socialism as the leading secular religion.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 03:05:22 -0500

Quote: Environmentalism has replaced socialism as the leading secular religion.
Author: Freeman Dyson
Tags: politics

Democracy and socialism have nothing in common but one word, equality. But notice the difference: while democracy seeks equality in liberty, socialism seeks equality in restraint and servitude.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 02:27:28 -0500

Quote: Democracy and socialism have nothing in common but one word, equality. But notice the difference: while democracy seeks equality in liberty, socialism seeks equality in restraint and servitude.
Author: Alexis de Tocqueville
Tags: government

As a general proposition, when told by unanimous elites that a particular course of action is urgent and necessary to avoid disaster, there’s a lot to be said for going fishing.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 05:12:15 -0500

Quote: As a general proposition, when told by unanimous elites that a particular course of action is urgent and necessary to avoid disaster, there’s a lot to be said for going fishing.
Author: Mark Steyn
Tags: politics

Even if the laws of arithmetic are ignored during campaigns, they provide a real constraint when making actual policy

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 02:51:30 -0500

Quote: Even if the laws of arithmetic are ignored during campaigns, they provide a real constraint when making actual policy
Author: Greg Mankiw
Tags: politics

Fanatical jihadism will continue to be a tactical problem, but its attacks, however devastating, will always be sporadic and local. Jihadism cannot destroy the U.S. But our own reckless politicians, spending us into oblivion and servitude to China, can.

Wed, 14 Oct 2009 03:30:37 -0400

Quote: Fanatical jihadism will continue to be a tactical problem, but its attacks, however devastating, will always be sporadic and local. Jihadism cannot destroy the U.S. But our own reckless politicians, spending us into oblivion and servitude to China, can.
Author: Camille Paglia
Tags: politics

Big government depends, in large part, on going around the country stirring up apathy — creating the sense that problems are so big, so complex, so intractable that even attempting to think about them for yourself gives you such a splitting headache it’s easier to shrug and accept as given the proposition that only government can deal with them.

Sun, 14 Jun 2009 13:25:21 -0400

Quote: Big government depends, in large part, on going around the country stirring up apathy — creating the sense that problems are so big, so complex, so intractable that even attempting to think about them for yourself gives you such a splitting headache it’s easier to shrug and accept as given the proposition that only government can deal with them.
Author: Mark Steyn
Tags: government

Freedom is not worth having if it does not include the freedom to make mistakes.

Wed, 07 Jan 2009 16:12:58 -0500

Quote: Freedom is not worth having if it does not include the freedom to make mistakes.
Author: Mahatma Gandhi
Tags: philosophy

Humor is emotional chaos remembered in tranquility.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 05:12:15 -0500

Quote: Humor is emotional chaos remembered in tranquility.
Author: James Thurber
Tags: humor

I don't mind occasionally having to reinvent a wheel; I don't even mind using someone's reinvented wheel occasionally. But it helps a lot if it is symmetric, contains no fewer than ten sides, and has the axle centered. I do tire of trapezoidal wheels with offset axles.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 04:40:45 -0500

Quote: I don't mind occasionally having to reinvent a wheel; I don't even mind using someone's reinvented wheel occasionally. But it helps a lot if it is symmetric, contains no fewer than ten sides, and has the axle centered. I do tire of trapezoidal wheels with offset axles.
Author: Joseph Newcomer
Tags: humor

Among the many misdeeds of the British rule in India, history will look upon the act of depriving a whole nation of arms, as the blackest.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 02:33:02 -0500

Quote: Among the many misdeeds of the British rule in India, history will look upon the act of depriving a whole nation of arms, as the blackest.
Author: Mahatma Gandhi
Tags: 2nd amendment

I do not represent public opinion; I represent the public. There is a wide difference between the two, between the real interests of the public, and the public's opinion of these interests.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 05:00:47 -0500

Quote: I do not represent public opinion; I represent the public. There is a wide difference between the two, between the real interests of the public, and the public's opinion of these interests.
Author: Theodore Roosevelt
Tags: politics

Among the natural rights of the colonists are these: First a right to life, secondly to liberty, thirdly to property; together with the right to defend them in the best manner they can.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 02:27:28 -0500

Quote: Among the natural rights of the colonists are these: First a right to life, secondly to liberty, thirdly to property; together with the right to defend them in the best manner they can.
Author: Samuel Adams
Tags: government

An appeaser is one who feeds a crocodile, hoping it will eat him last.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 05:04:56 -0500

Quote: An appeaser is one who feeds a crocodile, hoping it will eat him last.
Author: Winston Churchill
Tags: politics

An armed society is a polite society.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 02:33:02 -0500

Quote: An armed society is a polite society.
Author: Robert A. Heinlein
Tags: 2nd amendment

An economy hampered by restrictive tax rates will never produce enough revenue to balance our budget, just as it will never produce enough jobs or enough profits.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 02:27:28 -0500

Quote: An economy hampered by restrictive tax rates will never produce enough revenue to balance our budget, just as it will never produce enough jobs or enough profits.
Author: John F. Kennedy
Tags: government

An entrepreneur is someone that steals office supplies from home and brings them to work.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 04:51:02 -0500

Quote: An entrepreneur is someone that steals office supplies from home and brings them to work.
Author: Auren Hoffman
Tags: business

An expert is a man who has made all the mistakes which can be made, in a narrow field.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 05:20:10 -0500

Quote: An expert is a man who has made all the mistakes which can be made, in a narrow field.
Author: Niels Bohr
Tags: philosophy

An honest man can feel no pleasure in the exercise of power over his fellow citizens. ... There has never been a moment of my life in which I should have relinquished for it the enjoyments of my family, my farm, my friends & books.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 03:06:45 -0500

Quote: An honest man can feel no pleasure in the exercise of power over his fellow citizens. ... There has never been a moment of my life in which I should have relinquished for it the enjoyments of my family, my farm, my friends & books.
Author: Thomas Jefferson
Tags: government

An inventor is simply a fellow who doesn't take his education too seriously.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 04:53:17 -0500

Quote: An inventor is simply a fellow who doesn't take his education too seriously.
Author: Charles F. Kettering
Tags: business

I consider the foundation of the Constitution as laid on this ground that 'all powers not delegated to the United States, by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states or to the people.' To take a single step beyond the boundaries thus specially drawn around the powers of Congress, is to take possession of a boundless field of power, not longer susceptible of any definition.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 02:27:28 -0500

Quote: I consider the foundation of the Constitution as laid on this ground that 'all powers not delegated to the United States, by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states or to the people.' To take a single step beyond the boundaries thus specially drawn around the powers of Congress, is to take possession of a boundless field of power, not longer susceptible of any definition.
Author: Thomas Jefferson
Tags: government

An ultraintelligent machine could design even better machines; there would then unquestionably be an 'intelligence explosion,' and the intelligence of man would be left far behind. Thus the first ultraintelligent machine is the last invention that man need ever make, provided that the machine is docile enough to tell us how to keep it under control.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 02:39:09 -0500

Quote: An ultraintelligent machine could design even better machines; there would then unquestionably be an 'intelligence explosion,' and the intelligence of man would be left far behind. Thus the first ultraintelligent machine is the *last* invention that man need ever make, provided that the machine is docile enough to tell us how to keep it under control.
Author: Vernor Vinge
Tags: computers

An unlimited power to tax involves, necessarily, a power to destroy; because there is a limit beyond which no institution and no property can bear taxation.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 02:27:28 -0500

Quote: An unlimited power to tax involves, necessarily, a power to destroy; because there is a limit beyond which no institution and no property can bear taxation.
Author: John Marshall
Tags: government

And that is called paying the Dane-geld;
but we've proved it again and again,
that if once you have paid him the Dane-geld
you never get rid of the Dane.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 05:20:10 -0500

Quote: And that is called paying the Dane-geld;
but we've proved it again and again,
that if once you have paid him the Dane-geld
you never get rid of the Dane.
Author: Rudyard Kipling
Tags: history

And the first thing I would do in my government, I would have nobody to control me.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 02:27:28 -0500

Quote: And the first thing I would do in my government, I would have nobody to control me.
Author: Cervantes
Tags: government

And what is a good citizen? Simply one who never says, does or thinks anything that is unusual. Schools are maintained in order to bring this uniformity up to the highest possible point. A school is a hopper into which children are heaved while they are still young and tender; therein they are pressed into certain standard shapes and covered from head to heels with official rubber-stamps.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 02:28:46 -0500

Quote: And what is a good citizen? Simply one who never says, does or thinks anything that is unusual. Schools are maintained in order to bring this uniformity up to the highest possible point. A school is a hopper into which children are heaved while they are still young and tender; therein they are pressed into certain standard shapes and covered from head to heels with official rubber-stamps.
Author: H.L. Mencken
Tags: education

And when the drums of war have reached a fever pitch... the citizenry, infused with fear and blinded by patriotism, will offer up all of their rights unto the leader and gladly so.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 04:40:45 -0500

Quote: And when the drums of war have reached a fever pitch... the citizenry, infused with fear and blinded by patriotism, will offer up all of their rights unto the leader and gladly so.
Author: Julius Caesar
Tags: government

Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure nineteen pounds and six, result happiness. Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditures twenty pounds ought and six, result misery.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 04:53:12 -0500

Quote: Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure nineteen pounds and six, result happiness. Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditures twenty pounds ought and six, result misery.
Author: Charles Dickens
Tags: advice

Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 04:49:42 -0500

Quote: Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.
Author: Arthur C. Clarke
Tags: science

Anyone taken as an individual, is tolerably sensible and reasonable. As a member of a crowd, he at once becomes a blockhead.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 04:58:28 -0500

Quote: Anyone taken as an individual, is tolerably sensible and reasonable. As a member of a crowd, he at once becomes a blockhead.
Author: Friedrich von Schiller
Tags: philosophy

Anything that won't sell, I don't want to invent. Its sale is proof of utility, and utility is success.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 05:00:47 -0500

Quote: Anything that won't sell, I don't want to invent. Its sale is proof of utility, and utility is success.
Author: Thomas A. Edison
Tags: advice

Anything worth doing is worth doing for money.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 05:12:15 -0500

Quote: Anything worth doing is worth doing for money.
Author: G. Harry Stine
Tags: advice

Anyway, my point is, I just want those protestors to stop for one moment and think that if America really is as evil and imperialistic as they say, then why aren't they dead? If they think we just want oil, hell, we could take over the entire world and have not just all the oil in the world, but all the gold, all the diamonds, all the chimpanzees and orangutans, and all the corndogs. And who could stop us? France?

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 02:46:08 -0500

Quote: Anyway, my point is, I just want those protestors to stop for one moment and think that if America really is as evil and imperialistic as they say, then why aren't they dead? If they think we just want oil, hell, we could take over the entire world and have not just all the oil in the world, but all the gold, all the diamonds, all the chimpanzees and orangutans, and all the corndogs. And who could stop us? France?
Author: IMAO
Tags: politics

As a rule of thumb, Congressional legislation that is bipartisan is usually twice as bad as legislation that is partisan.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 02:42:05 -0500

Quote: As a rule of thumb, Congressional legislation that is bipartisan is usually twice as bad as legislation that is partisan.
Author: Thomas Sowell
Tags: politics

I cannot undertake to lay my finger on that article of the Constitution which grant[s] a right to Congress of expending, on objects of benevolence, the money of their constituents.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 02:27:28 -0500

Quote: I cannot undertake to lay my finger on that article of the Constitution which grant[s] a right to Congress of expending, on objects of benevolence, the money of their constituents.
Author: James Madison, 1794
Tags: government

As Americans we must always remember that we all have a common enemy, an enemy that is dangerous, powerful and relentless. I refer, of course, to the federal government.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 02:27:28 -0500

Quote: As Americans we must always remember that we all have a common enemy, an enemy that is dangerous, powerful and relentless. I refer, of course, to the federal government.
Author: Dave Barry
Tags: government

Assuming you can never lose your freedom is a mistake a free people get to make only once.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 02:27:28 -0500

Quote: Assuming you can never lose your freedom is a mistake a free people get to make only once.
Author: Judge Alex Kozinski, Ninth Circuit
Tags: government

At that time [1909] the chief engineer was almost always the chief test pilot as well. That had the fortunate result of eliminating poor engineering early in aviation

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 05:12:15 -0500

Quote: At that time [1909] the chief engineer was almost always the chief test pilot as well. That had the fortunate result of eliminating poor engineering early in aviation
Author: Igor Sikorsky
Tags: science

Freedom is something that cannot be passed on in the blood stream, or genetically. And it’s never more than one generation away from extinction. Every generation has to learn how to protect and defend it, or it’s gone and gone for a long, long time.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 02:27:28 -0500

Quote: Freedom is something that cannot be passed on in the blood stream, or genetically. And it’s never more than one generation away from extinction. Every generation has to learn how to protect and defend it, or it’s gone and gone for a long, long time.
Author: Ronald Reagan
Tags: government

Bad laws are the worst sort of tyranny.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 02:51:38 -0500

Quote: Bad laws are the worst sort of tyranny.
Author: Edmund Burke
Tags: government

Based on the substantial amount of money pumped into the [DC public schools] and the resultant test scores, I do not believe that money alone is going to solve the problem.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 02:28:46 -0500

Quote: Based on the substantial amount of money pumped into the [DC public schools] and the resultant test scores, I do not believe that money alone is going to solve the problem.
Author: Sen. Dianne Feinstein
Tags: education

Being a Mac user is like being a Navy Seal: a small, elite group of people with access to the most sophisticated technology in the world, whom everyone calls on to get the really tough jobs done quickly and efficiently.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 02:35:13 -0500

Quote: Being a Mac user is like being a Navy Seal: a small, elite group of people with access to the most sophisticated technology in the world, whom everyone calls on to get the really tough jobs done quickly and efficiently.
Tags: computers

Being against the military because you are against war is like being against the Fire Department because you are against fire.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 03:07:14 -0500

Quote: Being against the military because you are against war is like being against the Fire Department because you are against fire.
Author: USMC Maj. (ret.) Jim McDonough
Tags: 2nd amendment

Being powerful is like being a lady. If you have to tell people you are, you aren't.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 05:12:15 -0500

Quote: Being powerful is like being a lady. If you have to tell people you are, you aren't.
Author: Margaret Thatcher
Tags: advice

Being right too soon is socially unacceptable.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 05:15:35 -0500

Quote: Being right too soon is socially unacceptable.
Author: Robert A. Heinlein
Tags: advice

Benedict Arnold was a war hero, wounded in battle--before he turned against his country. Hitler was likewise a decorated and wounded veteran of the First World War. Being a war hero is not a lifetime 'get out of jail free' card, exempting you from responsibility for what you do thereafter.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 02:42:05 -0500

Quote: Benedict Arnold was a war hero, wounded in battle--before he turned against his country. Hitler was likewise a decorated and wounded veteran of the First World War. Being a war hero is not a lifetime 'get out of jail free' card, exempting you from responsibility for what you do thereafter.
Author: Thomas Sowell
Tags: politics

Beware the leader who bangs the drums of war in order to whip the citizenry into a patriotic fervor, for patriotism is indeed a double-edged sword. It both emboldens the blood, just as it narrows the mind.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 04:40:45 -0500

Quote: Beware the leader who bangs the drums of war in order to whip the citizenry into a patriotic fervor, for patriotism is indeed a double-edged sword. It both emboldens the blood, just as it narrows the mind.
Author: Julius Caesar
Tags: government

Bill Gates' greatest achievement was conditioning the average PC user to anticipate, expect, and accept mediocrity as the gold standard.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 05:04:56 -0500

Quote: Bill Gates' greatest achievement was conditioning the average PC user to anticipate, expect, and accept mediocrity as the gold standard.
Tags: computers

Build a man a fire, and he'll be warm for a day. Set a man on fire, and he'll be warm for the rest of his life.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 05:04:56 -0500

Quote: Build a man a fire, and he'll be warm for a day. Set a man on fire, and he'll be warm for the rest of his life.
Author: Terry Pratchett.
Tags: humor

But an invention is something that was 'impossible' up to then--that's why governments grant patents.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 05:15:35 -0500

Quote: But an invention is something that was 'impossible' up to then--that's why governments grant patents.
Author: Robert A. Heinlein
Tags: philosophy

Buy to the sound of cannons, sell to the sound of trumpets.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 04:40:45 -0500

Quote: Buy to the sound of cannons, sell to the sound of trumpets.
Author: Lord Rothschild
Tags: business

Certainly the game is rigged. Don't let that stop you; if you don't bet, you can't win.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 05:15:35 -0500

Quote: Certainly the game is rigged. Don't let that stop you; if you don't bet, you can't win.
Author: Robert A. Heinlein
Tags: advice

Chance of a lifetime, nuts! This is the greatest chance in all history. It's raining soup; grab yourself a bucket.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 02:48:06 -0500

Quote: Chance of a lifetime, nuts! This is the greatest chance in all history. It's raining soup; grab yourself a bucket.
Author: Delos (DD) Harriman, The Man Who Sold The Moon
Tags: space

Civilization and profits go hand in hand.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 04:52:41 -0500

Quote: Civilization and profits go hand in hand.
Author: Calvin Coolidge
Tags: business

Civilizations fail not because of a single bad mistake, but because of a series of bad mistakes.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 05:04:56 -0500

Quote: Civilizations fail not because of a single bad mistake, but because of a series of bad mistakes.
Author: Walter Cronkite
Tags: philosophy

Clearly, a civilization that feels guilty for everything it is and does will lack the energy and conviction to defend itself.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 05:12:15 -0500

Quote: Clearly, a civilization that feels guilty for everything it is and does will lack the energy and conviction to defend itself.
Author: Jean Francois Revel
Tags: history

Columbus would indeed have had to travel 12,000 miles to reach Asia and would surely have perished--but the American continents were in the way. Nobody had dreamed they existed and Columbus, who was completely wrong, won immortal fame by accident.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 05:12:15 -0500

Quote: Columbus would indeed have had to travel 12,000 miles to reach Asia and would surely have perished--but the American continents were in the way. Nobody had dreamed they existed and Columbus, who was completely wrong, won immortal fame by accident.
Author: Isaac Asimov
Tags: history

Committees do harm merely by existing.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 04:58:28 -0500

Quote: Committees do harm merely by existing.
Author: Freeman Dyson
Tags: business

Common sense is what tells you that the world is flat.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 05:20:10 -0500

Quote: Common sense is what tells you that the world is flat.
Tags: philosophy

Computers are a lot like air conditioners--they both work great until you open up Windows.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 02:39:09 -0500

Quote: Computers are a lot like air conditioners--they both work great until you open up Windows.
Tags: computers

Computers are good at following instructions, but not at reading your mind.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 02:39:09 -0500

Quote: Computers are good at following instructions, but not at reading your mind.
Author: Donald Knuth
Tags: computers

Conditions are never just right. People who delay action until all factors are favorable do nothing.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 05:04:56 -0500

Quote: Conditions are never just right. People who delay action until all factors are favorable do nothing.
Author: William Feather
Tags: advice

Congress has not unlimited powers to provide for the general welfare but only those specifically enumerated.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 02:27:28 -0500

Quote: Congress has not unlimited powers to provide for the general welfare but only those specifically enumerated.
Author: Thomas Jefferson
Tags: government

I cannot find any authority in the Constitution for public charity. To approve such spending would be contrary to the letter and the spirit of the Constitution and subversive to the whole theory upon which the Union of these States is founded.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 02:27:28 -0500

Quote: I cannot find any authority in the Constitution for public charity. To approve such spending would be contrary to the letter and the spirit of the Constitution and subversive to the whole theory upon which the Union of these States is founded.
Author: President Franklin Pierce
Tags: government

Consensus is invoked only in situations where the science is not solid enough. Nobody says the consensus of scientists agrees that E=mc^2.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 02:27:28 -0500

Quote: Consensus is invoked only in situations where the science is not solid enough. Nobody says the consensus of scientists agrees that E=mc^2.
Author: Michael Crichton
Tags: science

Conservatives are just as willing to distort the Constitution as liberals are. I say a pox on both their houses.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 02:27:28 -0500

Quote: Conservatives are just as willing to distort the Constitution as liberals are. I say a pox on both their houses.
Author: Justice Antonin Scalia
Tags: government

Conservatives view Liberals as political opponents. Liberals view Conservatives as evil incarnate.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 02:30:08 -0500

Quote: Conservatives view Liberals as political opponents. Liberals view Conservatives as evil incarnate.
Tags: politics

Considering all the consequences, the invention of agriculture may just be the worst mistake humanity ever made.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 04:40:45 -0500

Quote: Considering all the consequences, the invention of agriculture may just be the worst mistake humanity ever made.
Author: L. Neil Smith
Tags: history

Courage is what it takes to stand up and speak; courage is also what it takes to sit down and listen.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 05:04:56 -0500

Quote: Courage is what it takes to stand up and speak; courage is also what it takes to sit down and listen.
Author: Winston Churchill
Tags: advice

Death is the lot of all of us and the only way the human race has ever conquered death is by treating it with contempt. By living every golden minute as if one had all eternity.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 05:15:35 -0500

Quote: Death is the lot of all of us and the only way the human race has ever conquered death is by treating it with contempt. By living every golden minute as if one had all eternity.
Author: Robert A. Heinlein
Tags: advice

Democracies don't make great products.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 02:44:23 -0500

Quote: Democracies don't make great products.
Author: Jean-Louis Gasseé
Tags: business

Democracy is a device that insures we shall be governed no better than we deserve.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 02:27:28 -0500

Quote: Democracy is a device that insures we shall be governed no better than we deserve.
Author: George Bernard Shaw
Tags: government

Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch. Liberty is a well-armed sheep contesting the vote.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 02:27:28 -0500

Quote: Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch. Liberty is a well-armed sheep contesting the vote.
Tags: government

Democracy might be the most appropriate means of choosing government officials, but that does not imply that democracy equals freedom. Freedom requires more than the right to vote; it requires that each person be as unrestrained as possible from the arbitrary will of others--regardless of whether the others are conquering tyrants, hereditary oligarchs, black-robed judges, or a majority of neighbors or countrymen.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 02:27:28 -0500

Quote: Democracy might be the most appropriate means of choosing government officials, but that does not imply that democracy equals freedom. Freedom requires more than the right to vote; it requires that each person be as unrestrained as possible from the arbitrary will of others--regardless of whether the others are conquering tyrants, hereditary oligarchs, black-robed judges, or a majority of neighbors or countrymen.
Author: Thomas Sowell
Tags: government

Democracy must be something more than two wolves and a sheep voting on what to have for dinner.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 02:27:28 -0500

Quote: Democracy must be something more than two wolves and a sheep voting on what to have for dinner.
Author: James Bovard
Tags: government

I think of physics as the liberal arts of technology.

Wed, 06 Jan 2010 12:09:35 -0500

Quote: I think of physics as the liberal arts of technology.
Author: Richard Muller
Tags: science

Did you ever notice that, if you eliminate punctuation, 'The I.R.S.' spells 'THEIRS'?

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 05:20:10 -0500

Quote: Did you ever notice that, if you eliminate punctuation, 'The I.R.S.' spells 'THEIRS'?
Tags: humor

I can't think of anything that would do more toward putting us back on the road to liberty and personal responsibility than for the average American, and for the news media, to come to the understanding that we are not a democracy, nor were we supposed to be.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 02:27:28 -0500

Quote: I can't think of anything that would do more toward putting us back on the road to liberty and personal responsibility than for the average American, and for the news media, to come to the understanding that we are not a democracy, nor were we supposed to be.
Author: Neal Boortz
Tags: government

Diplomacy is the art of saying 'Nice Doggie!' till you can find a rock.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 05:04:56 -0500

Quote: Diplomacy is the art of saying 'Nice Doggie!' till you can find a rock.
Author: Wynn Catlin
Tags: politics

Do not let us mistake necessary evils for good.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 04:54:04 -0500

Quote: Do not let us mistake necessary evils for good.
Author: C.S. Lewis
Tags: philosophy

Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 05:00:47 -0500

Quote: Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.
Author: Theodore Roosevelt
Tags: advice

Does history record any case in which the majority was right?

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 02:27:28 -0500

Quote: Does history record any case in which the majority was right?
Author: Robert A. Heinlein
Tags: government

I believe that the Good Lord gave us a finite number of heartbeats and I'm damned if I'm going to use up mine running up and down a street.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 05:20:10 -0500

Quote: I believe that the Good Lord gave us a finite number of heartbeats and I'm damned if I'm going to use up mine running up and down a street.
Author: Neil Armstrong
Tags: humor

Don't be afraid to take a big step when one is indicated. You can't cross a chasm in two small steps.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 04:58:28 -0500

Quote: Don't be afraid to take a big step when one is indicated. You can't cross a chasm in two small steps.
Author: David Lloyd George
Tags: advice

Don't ever think you know what's right for the other person. He might start thinking he knows what's right for you.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 05:20:10 -0500

Quote: Don't ever think you know what's right for the other person. He might start thinking he knows what's right for you.
Author: Paul Williams
Tags: advice

Don't go around saying the world owes you a living. The world owes you nothing. It was here first.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 05:12:15 -0500

Quote: Don't go around saying the world owes you a living. The world owes you nothing. It was here first.
Author: Mark Twain
Tags: advice

Don't tell people how to do things. Tell them what to do and let them surprise you with their results.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 04:58:28 -0500

Quote: Don't tell people how to do things. Tell them what to do and let them surprise you with their results.
Author: Gen. George S. Patton
Tags: advice

Don't worry about people stealing your ideas. If your ideas are any good, you'll have to ram them down people's throats.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 05:12:15 -0500

Quote: Don't worry about people stealing your ideas. If your ideas are any good, you'll have to ram them down people's throats.
Author: Howard Aiken
Tags: advice

Earlier Romans knew what it was to be Roman, why it was at least better than the alternative, and why their culture had to be defended. Later, in ignorance, they forgot what they knew, in pride mocked who they were, and in consequence disappeared.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 05:04:56 -0500

Quote: Earlier Romans knew what it was to be Roman, why it was at least better than the alternative, and why their culture had to be defended. Later, in ignorance, they forgot what they knew, in pride mocked who they were, and in consequence disappeared.
Author: Victor Davis Hanson
Tags: history

Economic history is a long record of government policies that failed because they were designed with a bold disregard for the laws of economics.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 02:27:28 -0500

Quote: Economic history is a long record of government policies that failed because they were designed with a bold disregard for the laws of economics.
Author: Ludwig von Mises
Tags: government

Engineering is the art of the practical and depends more on the total state of the art than it does on the individual engineer. When railroading time comes you can railroad--but not before.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 05:15:35 -0500

Quote: Engineering is the art of the practical and depends more on the total state of the art than it does on the individual engineer. When railroading time comes you can railroad--but not before.
Author: Robert A. Heinlein
Tags: science

Entrepreneurs have to be comfortable with never having their desk clear at the end of the day.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 05:20:10 -0500

Quote: Entrepreneurs have to be comfortable with never having their desk clear at the end of the day.
Author: Pete Petit
Tags: business

Entrepreneurship is the last refuge of the trouble making individual.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 05:12:15 -0500

Quote: Entrepreneurship is the last refuge of the trouble making individual.
Author: Mason Cooley
Tags: business

Envy plus rhetoric equals social justice.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 02:42:05 -0500

Quote: Envy plus rhetoric equals social justice.
Author: Thomas Sowell
Tags: politics

Equal opportunity for all, special privileges for none.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 04:49:42 -0500

Quote: Equal opportunity for all, special privileges for none.
Author: Andrew Jackson
Tags: government

Even a rather poverty stricken American of today has at his disposal more energy of more kinds than any Alexander or Caesar of the past can possibly have had. And while energy does not, of itself, bring happiness, lack of energy is very likely, of itself, to bring misery.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 02:46:24 -0500

Quote: Even a rather poverty stricken American of today has at his disposal more energy of more kinds than any Alexander or Caesar of the past can possibly have had. And while energy does not, of itself, bring happiness, lack of energy is very likely, of itself, to bring misery.
Author: Isaac Asimov
Tags: science

Even Intel doesn't know quite why some chip manufacturing processes work better than others. In the late 1990's it instituted a program called 'Copy EXACTLY!,' which required that new plants use equipment and procedures replicated from existing plants, right down to the color of paint on the wall.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 05:20:10 -0500

Quote: Even Intel doesn't know quite why some chip manufacturing processes work better than others. In the late 1990's it instituted a program called 'Copy EXACTLY!,' which required that new plants use equipment and procedures replicated from existing plants, right down to the color of paint on the wall.
Author: New York Times
Tags: computers

Every government degenerates when trusted to the rulers of the people alone. The people themselves, therefore, are its only safe depositories. And to render even them safe, their minds must be improved to a certain degree.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 02:27:28 -0500

Quote: Every government degenerates when trusted to the rulers of the people alone. The people themselves, therefore, are its only safe depositories. And to render even them safe, their minds must be improved to a certain degree.
Author: Thomas Jefferson: Notes on Virginia, 1782.
Tags: government

Everybody knows that nuclear fusion can only take place at tremendously high temperatures and pressures, in the presence of billions of dollars.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 04:40:45 -0500

Quote: Everybody knows that nuclear fusion can only take place at tremendously high temperatures and pressures, in the presence of billions of dollars.
Author: L. Neil Smith
Tags: science

Everybody thinks of changing humanity and nobody thinks of changing himself.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 04:40:45 -0500

Quote: Everybody thinks of changing humanity and nobody thinks of changing himself.
Author: Leo Tolstoy
Tags: philosophy

Everybody wants the government to 'do something!' until it does it to them.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 02:27:28 -0500

Quote: Everybody wants the government to 'do something!' until it does it to them.
Author: Rick Gaber
Tags: government

Government is good at one thing: It knows how to break your legs, hand you a crutch, and say, 'See, if it weren't for the government, you wouldn't be able to walk.'

Wed, 01 Apr 2009 02:40:17 -0400

Quote: Government is good at one thing: It knows how to break your legs, hand you a crutch, and say, 'See, if it weren't for the government, you wouldn't be able to walk.'
Author: Harry Browne
Tags: government

Everyone who uses a computer frequently has had, from time to time, a mad desire to attack the precocious abacus with an axe.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 02:39:09 -0500

Quote: Everyone who uses a computer frequently has had, from time to time, a mad desire to attack the precocious abacus with an axe.
Author: John D. Clark, 1972
Tags: computers

Everything is linear if plotted log-log with a fat magic marker.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 02:52:56 -0500

Quote: Everything is linear if plotted log-log with a fat magic marker.
Author: Mar's Law
Tags: science

Excessive laws are worse than useless. Many new laws confer legitimacy on what common sense would recognize as crimes.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 02:51:38 -0500

Quote: Excessive laws are worse than useless. Many new laws confer legitimacy on what common sense would recognize as crimes.
Author: Joseph Sobran
Tags: government

Expecting the world to treat you fairly because you are a good person is a little like expecting the bull not to attack you because you are a vegetarian.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 04:58:28 -0500

Quote: Expecting the world to treat you fairly because you are a good person is a little like expecting the bull not to attack you because you are a vegetarian.
Author: Dennis Wholey
Tags: philosophy

Experience hath shewn, that even under the best forms [of government] those entrusted with power have, in time, and by slow operations, perverted it into tyranny.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 02:27:28 -0500

Quote: Experience hath shewn, that even under the best forms [of government] those entrusted with power have, in time, and by slow operations, perverted it into tyranny.
Author: Thomas Jefferson
Tags: government

Experience should teach us to be most on our guard to protect liberty when the government's purposes are beneficial ... the greatest dangers to liberty lurk in insidious encroachment by men of zeal, well meaning but without understanding.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 02:27:28 -0500

Quote: Experience should teach us to be most on our guard to protect liberty when the government's purposes are beneficial ... the greatest dangers to liberty lurk in insidious encroachment by men of zeal, well meaning but without understanding.
Author: Louis D. Brandeis, Supreme Court Justice
Tags: government

Extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice. Moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 02:27:28 -0500

Quote: Extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice. Moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue.
Author: Barry Goldwater
Tags: government

Facts do not cease to exist simply because they are ignored.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 04:40:45 -0500

Quote: Facts do not cease to exist simply because they are ignored.
Author: Aldous Huxley
Tags: philosophy

Far and away the best prize that life has to offer is the chance to work hard at work worth doing.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 05:00:47 -0500

Quote: Far and away the best prize that life has to offer is the chance to work hard at work worth doing.
Author: Theodore Roosevelt
Tags: advice

Far from failing in its intended task, our educational system is in fact succeeding magnificently, because its aim is to keep the American people thoughtless enough to go on supporting the system.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 02:28:46 -0500

Quote: Far from failing in its intended task, our educational system is in fact succeeding magnificently, because its aim is to keep the American people thoughtless enough to go on supporting the system.
Author: Richard Mitchell
Tags: education

Fear is the foundation of most governments.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 05:12:15 -0500

Quote: Fear is the foundation of most governments.
Author: John Adams
Tags: government

Federal law is invariably carried to its most ludicrous extreme.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 02:51:38 -0500

Quote: Federal law is invariably carried to its most ludicrous extreme.
Author: Diane Alden
Tags: government

Few arguments in international diplomacy are so convincing as a convincing victory.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 05:20:10 -0500

Quote: Few arguments in international diplomacy are so convincing as a convincing victory.
Author: Paul Greenberg
Tags: history

I believe that it is better to tell the truth than a lie. I believe it is better to be free than to be a slave. And I believe it is better to know than to be ignorant.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 02:36:18 -0500

Quote: I believe that it is better to tell the truth than a lie. I believe it is better to be free than to be a slave. And I believe it is better to know than to be ignorant.
Author: H.L. Mencken
Tags: government

Few men desire liberty; most men wish only for a just master.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 02:27:28 -0500

Quote: Few men desire liberty; most men wish only for a just master.
Author: Sallust
Tags: government

Fifty-odd years ago [circa 1930] astrology was commonly regarded as a ridiculous former superstition, one all but a tiny minority had outgrown. It is now the orthodoxy of many, possibly a majority. This pathological change parallels the decay of public education.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 02:28:46 -0500

Quote: Fifty-odd years ago [circa 1930] astrology was commonly regarded as a ridiculous former superstition, one all but a tiny minority had outgrown. It is now the orthodoxy of many, possibly a majority. This pathological change parallels the decay of public education.
Author: Robert A. Heinlein
Tags: education

For a politician to complain about the press is like a ship's captain complaining about the sea.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 04:50:48 -0500

Quote: For a politician to complain about the press is like a ship's captain complaining about the sea.
Author: Enoch Powell
Tags: politics

For every complex problem there is a solution which is straightforward, simple, and wrong.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 05:12:15 -0500

Quote: For every complex problem there is a solution which is straightforward, simple, and wrong.
Author: H.L. Mencken
Tags: philosophy

For evidence that private property rather than democracy is the key to prosperity and freedom, I point to India and Hong Kong. In India the electoral franchise is wide and elections have long been regular, but property rights are weak. For most of the post-World War II era, in contrast, Hong Kong had no democracy, but property rights there have been among the strongest the world has ever seen. Indians are poor and shackled by a massively corrupt state; the people of Hong Kong are wealthy and free. Private property, not democracy, is the great guarantor of prosperity and liberty. And because it decentralizes power, it safeguards us from madmen with utopian hallucinations.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 02:27:28 -0500

Quote: For evidence that private property rather than democracy is the key to prosperity and freedom, I point to India and Hong Kong. In India the electoral franchise is wide and elections have long been regular, but property rights are weak. For most of the post-World War II era, in contrast, Hong Kong had no democracy, but property rights there have been among the strongest the world has ever seen. Indians are poor and shackled by a massively corrupt state; the people of Hong Kong are wealthy and free. Private property, not democracy, is the great guarantor of prosperity and liberty. And because it decentralizes power, it safeguards us from madmen with utopian hallucinations.
Author: Thomas Sowell
Tags: government

Force is the antithesis of freedom, but force must be used, if only to defend against other force.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 02:27:28 -0500

Quote: Force is the antithesis of freedom, but force must be used, if only to defend against other force.
Author: Thomas Sowell
Tags: government

Foreign aid might be defined as a transfer from poor people in rich countries to rich people in poor countries.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 04:58:28 -0500

Quote: Foreign aid might be defined as a transfer from poor people in rich countries to rich people in poor countries.
Author: Douglas Casey
Tags: politics

I believe that every individual is naturally entitled to do as he pleases with himself and the fruits of his labor, so far as it in no way interferes with any other men's rights.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 04:40:45 -0500

Quote: I believe that every individual is naturally entitled to do as he pleases with himself and the fruits of his labor, so far as it in no way interferes with any other men's rights.
Author: Abraham Lincoln
Tags: government

Forgive everybody everything everyday.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 04:58:28 -0500

Quote: Forgive everybody everything everyday.
Author: Dulles
Tags: philosophy

Four-fifths of all our troubles in this life would disappear, if we would only sit down and keep still.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 04:52:45 -0500

Quote: Four-fifths of all our troubles in this life would disappear, if we would only sit down and keep still.
Author: Calvin Coolidge
Tags: advice

Freedom has cost too much blood and agony to be relinquished at the cheap price of rhetoric.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 02:27:28 -0500

Quote: Freedom has cost too much blood and agony to be relinquished at the cheap price of rhetoric.
Author: Thomas Sowell
Tags: government

Freedom is not worth having if it does not connote freedom to err. It passes my comprehension how human beings, be they ever so experienced and able, can delight in depriving other human beings of that precious right.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 02:27:28 -0500

Quote: Freedom is not worth having if it does not connote freedom to err. It passes my comprehension how human beings, be they ever so experienced and able, can delight in depriving other human beings of that precious right.
Author: Mahatma Gandhi
Tags: government

I am not robbed by people who have more money than I. I am robbed by a government that wants to penalize my industry and give increasing portions of what I earn to people who do not emulate my principles, morals and ethics.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 02:27:28 -0500

Quote: I am not robbed by people who have more money than I. I am robbed by a government that wants to penalize my industry and give increasing portions of what I earn to people who do not emulate my principles, morals and ethics.
Author: Cal Thomas
Tags: government

From his neck down a man is worth a couple of dollars a day. From his neck up he is worth anything that his brain can produce.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 05:00:47 -0500

Quote: From his neck down a man is worth a couple of dollars a day. From his neck up he is worth anything that his brain can produce.
Author: Thomas A. Edison
Tags: philosophy

From the Far East I send you one single thought, one sole idea--written in red on every beachhead from Australia to Tokyo - 'There is no substitute for victory!'

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 04:58:28 -0500

Quote: From the Far East I send you one single thought, one sole idea--written in red on every beachhead from Australia to Tokyo - 'There is no substitute for victory!'
Author: Gen. Douglas MacArthur
Tags: history

Germans who wish to use firearms should join the SS or the SA. Ordinary citizens don't need guns, as their having guns doesn't serve the State.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 02:33:02 -0500

Quote: Germans who wish to use firearms should join the SS or the SA. Ordinary citizens don't need guns, as their having guns doesn't serve the State.
Author: Heinrich Himmler
Tags: 2nd amendment

Give a man the secure possession of bleak rock, and he will turn it into a garden; give him a nine years lease of a garden, and he will convert it to a desert... The magic of property turns sand into gold.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 02:43:43 -0500

Quote: Give a man the secure possession of bleak rock, and he will turn it into a garden; give him a nine years lease of a garden, and he will convert it to a desert... The magic of property turns sand into gold.
Author: Arthur Young
Tags: politics

Give me a stock clerk with a goal, and I will give you a man who will make history. Give me a man without a goal and I will give you a stock clerk.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 04:40:45 -0500

Quote: Give me a stock clerk with a goal, and I will give you a man who will make history. Give me a man without a goal and I will give you a stock clerk.
Author: J. C. Penney
Tags: advice

Giving money and power to government is like giving whiskey and car keys to teenage boys.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 02:27:28 -0500

Quote: Giving money and power to government is like giving whiskey and car keys to teenage boys.
Author: P.J. O'Rourke
Tags: government

Hydrazine is flammable, explosive, toxic, corrosive, carcinogenic, teratogenic, and mutagenic.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 05:20:10 -0500

Quote: Hydrazine is flammable, explosive, toxic, corrosive, carcinogenic, teratogenic, and mutagenic.
Tags: space

God grants liberty only to those who love it, and are always ready to guard and defend it.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 02:27:28 -0500

Quote: God grants liberty only to those who love it, and are always ready to guard and defend it.
Author: Daniel Webster
Tags: government

Going to war without France is like going deer hunting without an accordion.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 05:12:15 -0500

Quote: Going to war without France is like going deer hunting without an accordion.
Author: Jed Babbin, former Deputy Undersecretary of Defense
Tags: humor

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.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 02:27:28 -0500

Quote: 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.
Author: Daniel Webster
Tags: government

Good judgment comes from experience; experience comes from bad judgment.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 04:58:28 -0500

Quote: Good judgment comes from experience; experience comes from bad judgment.
Author: Fred Brooks
Tags: philosophy

Government expands to absorb revenue... and then some.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 02:27:28 -0500

Quote: Government expands to absorb revenue... and then some.
Author: Tom Wicker
Tags: government

Government is about coercion. Limiting government is the single most important instrument for guaranteeing liberty. We're working on a third generation which has little in the way of education about what our Constitution means and why it was written. Thus, we've fallen easy prey to charlatans, quacks, and hustlers.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 02:27:28 -0500

Quote: Government is about coercion. Limiting government is the single most important instrument for guaranteeing liberty. We're working on a third generation which has little in the way of education about what our Constitution means and why it was written. Thus, we've fallen easy prey to charlatans, quacks, and hustlers.
Author: Dr. Walter Williams
Tags: government

Government is not reason, it is not eloquence, it is force; like fire, a troublesome servant and a fearful master. Never for a moment should it be left to irresponsible action.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 02:27:28 -0500

Quote: Government is not reason, it is not eloquence, it is force; like fire, a troublesome servant and a fearful master. Never for a moment should it be left to irresponsible action.
Author: George Washington
Tags: government

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.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 02:27:28 -0500

Quote: 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.
Author: Ronald Reagan
Tags: government

Greed is good.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 04:58:28 -0500

Quote: Greed is good.
Author: Gordon Gekko
Tags: philosophy

As the modern nation-state has expanded, taking on ever more functions, the powers of the state bureaucracy have come to resemble the powers of an unaccountable aristocracy. Periodic elections merely deliver a somewhat different batch of aristocrats to the throne.

Wed, 10 Jun 2009 13:41:12 -0400

Quote: As the modern nation-state has expanded, taking on ever more functions, the powers of the state bureaucracy have come to resemble the powers of an unaccountable aristocracy. Periodic elections merely deliver a somewhat different batch of aristocrats to the throne.
Author: Will Wilkinson
Tags: government

Guard with jealous attention the public liberty. Suspect everyone who approaches that jewel. Unfortunately, nothing will preserve it but downright force. Whenever you give up that force, you are inevitably ruined.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 02:27:28 -0500

Quote: Guard with jealous attention the public liberty. Suspect everyone who approaches that jewel. Unfortunately, nothing will preserve it but downright force. Whenever you give up that force, you are inevitably ruined.
Author: Patrick Henry
Tags: government

Guard your honor. Let your reputation fall where it will. And outlive the bastards.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 04:40:45 -0500

Quote: Guard your honor. Let your reputation fall where it will. And outlive the bastards.
Author: Lois McMaster Bujold
Tags: advice

He who refuses to do arithmetic is doomed to talk nonsense.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 05:12:15 -0500

Quote: He who refuses to do arithmetic is doomed to talk nonsense.
Author: John McCarthy
Tags: science

He who waits to do a great deal of good at once will never do anything.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 05:05:33 -0500

Quote: He who waits to do a great deal of good at once will never do anything.
Author: Samuel Johnson
Tags: advice

Helping the poor through the government is like feeding the sparrows through cows.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 02:27:28 -0500

Quote: Helping the poor through the government is like feeding the sparrows through cows.
Author: Walter Williams
Tags: government

Hence it is, that democracies have ever been found incompatible with personal security or the rights of property; and have, in general, been as short in their lives as they have been violent in thier deaths."

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 02:43:43 -0500

Quote: Hence it is, that democracies have ever been found incompatible with personal security or the rights of property; and have, in general, been as short in their lives as they have been violent in thier deaths."
Author: James Madison
Tags: government

Henry Ford didn't invent automobiles. In 1902, at least 50 US firms manufactured and sold cars mostly to wealthy customers as high end luxuries. ...Henry Ford famously said, 'If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses.'

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 05:20:10 -0500

Quote: Henry Ford didn't invent automobiles. In 1902, at least 50 US firms manufactured and sold cars mostly to wealthy customers as high end luxuries. ...Henry Ford famously said, 'If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses.'
Tags: business

Here in America we are descended in blood and spirit from revolutionists and rebels; men and women who dare to dissent from accepted doctrine. As their heirs, may we never confuse honest dissent with disloyal subversion.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 02:46:08 -0500

Quote: Here in America we are descended in blood and spirit from revolutionists and rebels; men and women who dare to dissent from accepted doctrine. As their heirs, may we never confuse honest dissent with disloyal subversion.
Author: Dwight D. Eisenhower
Tags: politics

High tax rates don't redistribute income; they redistribute people.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 02:27:28 -0500

Quote: High tax rates don't redistribute income; they redistribute people.
Author: George Gilder
Tags: government

High taxes, sometimes by diminishing the consumption of the taxed commodities, and sometimes by encouraging smuggling, frequently afford a smaller revenue to government than what might be drawn from more moderate taxes.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 02:27:28 -0500

Quote: High taxes, sometimes by diminishing the consumption of the taxed commodities, and sometimes by encouraging smuggling, frequently afford a smaller revenue to government than what might be drawn from more moderate taxes.
Author: Adam Smith
Tags: government

History does not long entrust the care of freedom to the weak or the timid.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 02:27:28 -0500

Quote: History does not long entrust the care of freedom to the weak or the timid.
Author: Dwight D. Eisenhower
Tags: government

History doesn't always repeat itself. Sometimes it just yells 'Why can't you remember anything I tell you?' and lets fly with a club.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 02:48:13 -0500

Quote: History doesn't always repeat itself. Sometimes it just yells 'Why can't you remember anything I tell you?' and lets fly with a club.
Author: John W. Campbell
Tags: history

History is more likely to repeat itself when you ask it to.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 02:48:13 -0500

Quote: History is more likely to repeat itself when you ask it to.
Author: Peggy Noonan
Tags: history

History teaches us that men and nations behave wisely once they have exhausted all other alternatives.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 02:48:13 -0500

Quote: History teaches us that men and nations behave wisely once they have exhausted all other alternatives.
Author: Abba Eban
Tags: history

History will be kind to me, for I intend to write it.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 02:48:13 -0500

Quote: History will be kind to me, for I intend to write it.
Author: Winston Churchill
Tags: history

History will remember the inhabitants of this century as the people who went from Kitty Hawk to the moon in 66 years, only to languish for the next 30 in low Earth orbit. At the core of the risk-free society is a self-indulgent failure of nerve.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 02:48:06 -0500

Quote: History will remember the inhabitants of this century as the people who went from Kitty Hawk to the moon in 66 years, only to languish for the next 30 in low Earth orbit. At the core of the risk-free society is a self-indulgent failure of nerve.
Author: Buzz Aldrin, Apollo 11 astronaut
Tags: space

Hope is not a strategy.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 05:15:35 -0500

Quote: Hope is not a strategy.
Author: Rick Page
Tags: advice

How many legs does a dog have if you call the tail a leg? Four. Calling a tail a leg doesn't make it a leg.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 04:34:40 -0500

Quote: How many legs does a dog have if you call the tail a leg? Four. Calling a tail a leg doesn't make it a leg.
Author: Abraham Lincoln
Tags: philosophy

How you behave towards cats here below determines your status in Heaven.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 05:15:35 -0500

Quote: How you behave towards cats here below determines your status in Heaven.
Author: Robert A. Heinlein
Tags: advice

If more of us valued food and cheer and song above hoarded gold, it would be a merrier world.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 04:40:45 -0500

Quote: If more of us valued food and cheer and song above hoarded gold, it would be a merrier world.
Author: J.R.R. Tolkien
Tags: advice

'Global warming' is just another term for 'good weather.'

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 05:20:10 -0500

Quote: 'Global warming' is just another term for 'good weather.'
Tags: humor

We have always known that eternal vigilance is the price of freedom. It's worse now, because capture of government is so much more important than it once was.

Thu, 13 Nov 2008 18:59:31 -0500

Quote: We have always known that eternal vigilance is the price of freedom. It's worse now, because capture of government is so much more important than it once was.
Author: Jerry Pournelle
Tags: government

The Constitution only gives people the right to pursue happiness. You have to catch it yourself.

Mon, 16 Feb 2009 15:19:54 -0500

Quote: The Constitution only gives people the right to pursue happiness. You have to catch it yourself.
Author: Benjamin Franklin
Tags: advice

There was a time when there was enough freedom that it hardly mattered which brand of crooks ran government. That has not been true for a long time -- not during most of your lifetimes, and for much of mine -- and it will probably never be true again.

Thu, 13 Nov 2008 18:59:16 -0500

Quote: There was a time when there was enough freedom that it hardly mattered which brand of crooks ran government. That has not been true for a long time -- not during most of your lifetimes, and for much of mine -- and it will probably never be true again.
Author: Jerry Pournelle
Tags: government

Selecting personally charismatic and compellingly persuasive leaders has rarely worked out well, for any nation, at any point in history.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 02:48:06 -0500

Quote: Selecting personally charismatic and compellingly persuasive leaders has rarely worked out well, for any nation, at any point in history.
Author: Carl Pham
Tags: history

Statesmen, therefore, will do well to abstain from a form a liberality which robs one man to enrich another. Their first care will be to secure the rights of property by the equity of the law.

Sun, 08 Feb 2009 17:49:24 -0500

Quote: Statesmen, therefore, will do well to abstain from a form a liberality which robs one man to enrich another. Their first care will be to secure the rights of property by the equity of the law.
Author: Marcus Tullius Cicero
Tags: government

Suppose the Second Amendment said 'A well-educated electorate being necessary for self-governance in a free state, the right of the people to keep and read books shall not be infringed.' Is there anyone who would suggest that means only registered voters have a right to read?

Sun, 24 May 2009 01:04:29 -0400

Quote: Suppose the Second Amendment said 'A well-educated electorate being necessary for self-governance in a free state, the right of the people to keep and read books shall not be infringed.' Is there anyone who would suggest that means only registered voters have a right to read?
Author: Robert Levy, Georgetown University
Tags: 2nd amendment

If you think healthcare is expensive now, just wait until it's free.

Thu, 13 Nov 2008 04:04:16 -0500

Quote: If you think healthcare is expensive now, just wait until it's free.
Author: P.J. O'Rourke
Tags: politics

Space isn't remote at all. It's only an hour's drive away if your car could go straight upwards.

Fri, 02 Oct 2009 21:31:42 -0400

Quote: Space isn't remote at all. It's only an hour's drive away if your car could go straight upwards.
Author: Fred Hoyle
Tags: space

Remember: Under a Republican President, whistleblowers are brave heroes, standing up for accountability and the rule of law. Under a Democratic President, they’re deranged partisans.

Tue, 23 Jun 2009 16:06:33 -0400

Quote: Remember: Under a Republican President, whistleblowers are brave heroes, standing up for accountability and the rule of law. Under a Democratic President, they’re deranged partisans.
Author: Glenn Reynolds
Tags: politics

Statistics can fool you. In fact it is fooling your government right now.

Fri, 02 Oct 2009 21:30:08 -0400

Quote: Statistics can fool you. In fact it is fooling your government right now.
Author: Nassim Nicholas Taleb
Tags: government

The real enemy — in the sense of the most important enemy — isn’t a bunch of flea-bitten jihadis sitting in a cave somewhere. It’s Western civilization’s craziness. We are setting our hair on fire and putting it out with a hammer.

Mon, 09 Nov 2009 19:07:24 -0500

Quote: The real enemy — in the sense of the most important enemy — isn’t a bunch of flea-bitten jihadis sitting in a cave somewhere. It’s Western civilization’s craziness. We are setting our hair on fire and putting it out with a hammer.
Author: Richard Fernandez
Tags: politics

The Berlin Wall did not fall. It was pushed.

Mon, 09 Nov 2009 19:03:02 -0500

Quote: The Berlin Wall did not fall. It was pushed.
Author: Bill Bennett
Tags: politics

The choice before the American people is the choice between two visions: on the one hand, the policies of limited government, economic growth, a strong defense, and a firm foreign policy; and on the other hand, policies of tax and spend, economic stagnation, international weakness and accommodation, and always, always, from them, 'Blame America first.'

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 02:27:28 -0500

Quote: The choice before the American people is the choice between two visions: on the one hand, the policies of limited government, economic growth, a strong defense, and a firm foreign policy; and on the other hand, policies of tax and spend, economic stagnation, international weakness and accommodation, and always, always, from them, 'Blame America first.'
Author: Ronald Reagan
Tags: government

The ten most dangerous words in the English language are, 'I'm from the federal government, and I'm here to help.'

Thu, 13 Nov 2008 03:54:09 -0500

Quote: The ten most dangerous words in the English language are, 'I'm from the federal government, and I'm here to help.'
Author: Ronald Reagan
Tags: government

You can’t fly Chicago-San Francisco on All Nippon Airlines or JAL. If you could, the domestic lines would be out of business in three weeks.

Mon, 09 Nov 2009 19:02:17 -0500

Quote: You can’t fly Chicago-San Francisco on All Nippon Airlines or JAL. If you could, the domestic lines would be out of business in three weeks.
Author: Fred Reed
Tags: politics

'Necessity' is the excuse for every infringement of freedom. It is the argument of the tyrant; it is the creed of the slave.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 02:27:28 -0500

Quote: 'Necessity' is the excuse for every infringement of freedom. It is the argument of the tyrant; it is the creed of the slave.
Author: Prime Minister William Pitt (the Younger)
Tags: government

...there is nothing more difficult to take in hand, more perilous to conduct, or more uncertain in its success, than to take the lead in the introduction of a new order of things. Because the innovator has for enemies all those who have done well under the old conditions, and lukewarm defenders in those who may do well under the new.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 05:12:15 -0500

Quote: ...there is nothing more difficult to take in hand, more perilous to conduct, or more uncertain in its success, than to take the lead in the introduction of a new order of things. Because the innovator has for enemies all those who have done well under the old conditions, and lukewarm defenders in those who may do well under the new.
Author: Machiavelli, The Prince
Tags: philosophy

...In the United States alone, approximately 25 million chickens are killed and eaten every day. It has been said that the difference between chicken hawks and people is that when chicken hawks eat more chickens, there are fewer chickens, but when people eat more chickens there are more chickens. The more fundamental difference is that people establish private property rights and, as a result, take the future into consideration; chicken hawks don't.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 02:43:43 -0500

Quote: ...In the United States alone, approximately 25 million chickens are killed and eaten every day. It has been said that the difference between chicken hawks and people is that when chicken hawks eat more chickens, there are fewer chickens, but when people eat more chickens there are more chickens. The more fundamental difference is that people establish private property rights and, as a result, take the future into consideration; chicken hawks don't.
Author: Prof. Dwight R. Lee, Univ. of Georgia
Tags: politics

...for every failure mode someone can envision, someone else must provide a solution... The proven costs of such solutions are money, schedule delays, and additional unknowns. I believe that many of our solutions to problems create more serious problems through added complication, dilution of effort, and increased time compression on already over-stressed work loads... Unless management and program personnel develop a sense of proportion, we will forever be trying to chase things to the last decimal point, frittering away limited resources on insignificant issues.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 02:27:28 -0500

Quote: ...for every failure mode someone can envision, someone else must provide a solution... The proven costs of such solutions are money, schedule delays, and additional unknowns. I believe that many of our solutions to problems create more serious problems through added complication, dilution of effort, and increased time compression on already over-stressed work loads... Unless management and program personnel develop a sense of proportion, we will forever be trying to chase things to the last decimal point, frittering away limited resources on insignificant issues.
Author: NASA Aerospace Safety Advisory Panel, 1990
Tags: space

...far from failing in its intended task, our educational system is in fact succeeding magnificently, because its aim is to keep the American people thoughtless enough to go on supporting the system.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 02:28:46 -0500

Quote: ...far from failing in its intended task, our educational system is in fact succeeding magnificently, because its aim is to keep the American people thoughtless enough to go on supporting the system.
Author: Richard Mitchell
Tags: education

It will be of little avail to the people that the laws are made by men of their own choice if the laws be so voluminous that they cannot be read, or so incoherent that they cannot be understood.

Mon, 24 Aug 2009 02:39:28 -0400

Quote: It will be of little avail to the people that the laws are made by men of their own choice if the laws be so voluminous that they cannot be read, or so incoherent that they cannot be understood.
Author: James Madison
Tags: government

You can bail out a bank; you can't bail out a generation. You can print money, but you can't print knowledge. It takes 12 years.

Sun, 11 Jan 2009 19:47:27 -0500

Quote: You can bail out a bank; you can't bail out a generation. You can print money, but you can't print knowledge. It takes 12 years.
Author: Dean Kamen
Tags: education

The difference in opinion between the Political Class and the rest of the nation is larger than the gap between the political parties.

Fri, 22 May 2009 12:50:27 -0400

Quote: The difference in opinion between the Political Class and the rest of the nation is larger than the gap between the political parties.
Author: Scott Rasmussen
Tags: politics

Today, there is a name for the political doctrine that rejoices in scarcity of everything except government. The name is environmentalism.

Mon, 23 Nov 2009 02:09:02 -0500

Quote: Today, there is a name for the political doctrine that rejoices in scarcity of everything except government. The name is environmentalism.
Author: George Will
Tags: politics

The United States, in its worst hour, was better than the alternatives at their best.

Thu, 22 Jan 2009 11:58:30 -0500

Quote: The United States, in its worst hour, was better than the alternatives at their best.
Author: Victor Davis Hanson
Tags: history

Sufficiently advanced cluelessness is indistinguishable from malice.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 04:53:56 -0500

Quote: Sufficiently advanced cluelessness is indistinguishable from malice.
Author: Clark's Law (J. Porter Clark, NASA)
Tags: humor

The politics of the left are now about power, ego, status, and the notion of control, rather than genuine concern for the planet, or the creed of egalitarianism or for freedoms of the people.

Thu, 22 Jan 2009 11:54:51 -0500

Quote: The politics of the left are now about power, ego, status, and the notion of control, rather than genuine concern for the planet, or the creed of egalitarianism or for freedoms of the people.
Author: VIctor Davis Hanson
Tags: politics

I'm a great believer in luck, and I find the harder I work, the more I have of it.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 05:00:47 -0500

Quote: I'm a great believer in luck, and I find the harder I work, the more I have of it.
Author: Thomas Jefferson
Tags: advice

I'm looking for a lot of men who have an infinite capacity not to know when something can't be done.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 05:12:15 -0500

Quote: I'm looking for a lot of men who have an infinite capacity not to know when something can't be done.
Author: Henry Ford
Tags: business

The free market is a bathroom scale. You may hate what you see when you step on the scale. 'Jeeze, 230 pounds!' But you can't pass a law making yourself weigh 185. Liberals think you can.

Sun, 11 Jan 2009 02:01:05 -0500

Quote: The free market is a bathroom scale. You may hate what you see when you step on the scale. 'Jeeze, 230 pounds!' But you can't pass a law making yourself weigh 185. Liberals think you can.
Author: P.J. O'Rourke
Tags: government

Ten years ago the most common password on the web was 'password' and today it's 'password1'.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 04:53:43 -0500

Quote: Ten years ago the most common password on the web was 'password' and today it's 'password1'.
Author: Chris Clark
Tags: computers

The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people's money.

Sun, 08 Feb 2009 05:04:46 -0500

Quote: The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people's money.
Author: Margaret Thatcher
Tags: government

What most people really object to when they object to a free market is that it is so hard for them to shape it to their own will. The market gives people what the people want instead of what other people think they ought to want. At the bottom of many criticisms of the market economy is really lack of belief in freedom itself.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 02:27:28 -0500

Quote: What most people really object to when they object to a free market is that it is so hard for them to shape it to their own will. The market gives people what the people want instead of what other people think they ought to want. At the bottom of many criticisms of the market economy is really lack of belief in freedom itself.
Author: Milton Friedman
Tags: government

The right to be heard does not automatically include the right to be taken seriously.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 05:12:15 -0500

Quote: The right to be heard does not automatically include the right to be taken seriously.
Author: Hubert H. Humphrey
Tags: politics

You are entitled to your own opinion but you are not entitled to your own facts.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 05:04:56 -0500

Quote: You are entitled to your own opinion but you are not entitled to your own facts.
Author: Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan
Tags: philosophy

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.

Thu, 29 Jan 2009 18:54:16 -0500

Quote: 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.
Author: Ronald Reagan
Tags: government

Right now the Republicans and Democrats in Washington seem, from the outside, to be an elite colluding against the voter.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 02:27:28 -0500

Quote: Right now the Republicans and Democrats in Washington seem, from the outside, to be an elite colluding against the voter.
Author: Peggy Noonan
Tags: government

Never confuse the stock market with the economy.

Sat, 03 Jan 2009 22:29:33 -0500

Quote: Never confuse the stock market with the economy.
Author: Ronald Reagan
Tags: business

...almost any sect, cult, or religion will legislate its creed into law if it acquires the political power to do so, and will follow it by suppressing opposition, subverting all education to seize early the minds of the young, and by killing, locking up, or driving underground all heretics.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 02:27:28 -0500

Quote: ...almost any sect, cult, or religion will legislate its creed into law if it acquires the political power to do so, and will follow it by suppressing opposition, subverting all education to seize early the minds of the young, and by killing, locking up, or driving underground all heretics.
Author: Robert A. Heinlein
Tags: government

If the climate science reviewers didn't see the background information, raw data, or source code, what exactly was peer reviewed? Did they just check the spelling?

Mon, 15 Feb 2010 21:41:03 -0500

Quote: If the climate science reviewers didn't see the background information, raw data, or source code, what exactly was peer reviewed? Did they just check the spelling?
Author: Randy Lea
Tags: science

There is no such thing as a good tax.

Mon, 24 Nov 2008 15:01:58 -0500

Quote: There is no such thing as a good tax.
Author: Winston Churchill
Tags: government

The past shows unvaryingly that when a people's freedom disappears, it goes not with a bang, but in silence amid the comfort of being cared for. That is the dire peril in the present trend toward statism. If freedom is not found accompanied by a willingness to resist, and to reject favors, rather than to give up what is intangible but precarious, it will not long be found at all.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 02:27:28 -0500

Quote: The past shows unvaryingly that when a people's freedom disappears, it goes not with a bang, but in silence amid the comfort of being cared for. That is the dire peril in the present trend toward statism. If freedom is not found accompanied by a willingness to resist, and to reject favors, rather than to give up what is intangible but precarious, it will not long be found at all.
Author: Richard Weaver
Tags: government

Let's be clear: the work of science has nothing whatever to do with consensus. Consensus is the business of politics. Science, on the contrary, requires only one investigator who happens to be right, which means that he or she has results that are verifiable by reference to the real world. In science, consensus is irrelevant. What is relevant is reproducible results.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 02:27:28 -0500

Quote: Let's be clear: the work of science has nothing whatever to do with consensus. Consensus is the business of politics. Science, on the contrary, requires only one investigator who happens to be right, which means that he or she has results that are verifiable by reference to the real world. In science, consensus is irrelevant. What is relevant is reproducible results.
Author: Michael Crichton
Tags: science

There is no such thing as consensus science. If it's consensus, it isn't science. If it's science, it isn't consensus. Period.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 02:27:28 -0500

Quote: There is no such thing as consensus science. If it's consensus, it isn't science. If it's science, it isn't consensus. Period.
Author: Michael Crichton
Tags: science

Last century over 170 million people were murdered by their own governments, and your government doesn't want you to have a gun. Doesn't that bother you just a little?

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 02:33:02 -0500

Quote: Last century over 170 million people were murdered by their own governments, and your government doesn't want you to have a gun. Doesn't that bother you just a little?
Tags: 2nd amendment

It may be that at some time in the dim future of the race the need for war will vanish: but that time is yet ages distant. As yet no nation can hold its place in the world, or can do any work really worth doing, unless it stands ready to guard its right with an armed hand.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 02:33:27 -0500

Quote: It may be that at some time in the dim future of the race the need for war will vanish: but that time is yet ages distant. As yet no nation can hold its place in the world, or can do any work really worth doing, unless it stands ready to guard its right with an armed hand.
Author: Theodore Roosevelt
Tags: politics

The state which separates its scholars from its warriors will have its thinking done by cowards and its fighting done by fools.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 03:05:22 -0500

Quote: The state which separates its scholars from its warriors will have its thinking done by cowards and its fighting done by fools.
Author: Thucydides
Tags: history

The buying of more books than one can read is nothing less than the soul reaching towards infinity.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 04:51:10 -0500

Quote: The buying of more books than one can read is nothing less than the soul reaching towards infinity.
Author: A. Edward Newton
Tags: advice

They don't hold White House lunches the way they used to at the beginning of the century. On Jan. 1, 1907, for example, the guest list was as follows: a Nobel prizewinner, a physical culturalist, a naval historian, a biographer, an essayist, a paleontologist, a taxidermist, an ornithologist, a field naturalist, a conservationist, a big-game hunter, an editor, a critic, a ranchman, an orator, a country squire, a civil service reformer, a socialite, a patron of the arts, a colonel of the cavalry, a former Governor of New York, the ranking expert on big-game mammals in North America and the President of the United States. All these men were named Theodore Roosevelt.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 02:46:37 -0500

Quote: They don't hold White House lunches the way they used to at the beginning of the century. On Jan. 1, 1907, for example, the guest list was as follows: a Nobel prizewinner, a physical culturalist, a naval historian, a biographer, an essayist, a paleontologist, a taxidermist, an ornithologist, a field naturalist, a conservationist, a big-game hunter, an editor, a critic, a ranchman, an orator, a country squire, a civil service reformer, a socialite, a patron of the arts, a colonel of the cavalry, a former Governor of New York, the ranking expert on big-game mammals in North America and the President of the United States. All these men were named Theodore Roosevelt.
Author: Edmund Morris
Tags: history

If one person has a right to something he didn't produce, simultaneously and of necessity it means that some other person does not have right to something he did produce. That's because, since there's no Santa Claus or Tooth Fairy, in order for government to give one American a dollar, it must, through intimidation, threats and coercion, confiscate that dollar from some other American. I'd like to hear the moral argument for taking what belongs to one person to give to another person.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 02:27:28 -0500

Quote: If one person has a right to something he didn't produce, simultaneously and of necessity it means that some other person does not have right to something he did produce. That's because, since there's no Santa Claus or Tooth Fairy, in order for government to give one American a dollar, it must, through intimidation, threats and coercion, confiscate that dollar from some other American. I'd like to hear the moral argument for taking what belongs to one person to give to another person.
Author: Walter Williams
Tags: government

If people are good only because they fear punishment and hope for reward then we are a sorry lot indeed.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 04:40:45 -0500

Quote: If people are good only because they fear punishment and hope for reward then we are a sorry lot indeed.
Author: Albert Einstein
Tags: philosophy

The Macintosh uses an experimental pointing device called a 'mouse.' There is no evidence that people want to use these things.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 02:39:09 -0500

Quote: The Macintosh uses an experimental pointing device called a 'mouse.' There is no evidence that people want to use these things.
Author: John C. Dvorak, Feb. 1984
Tags: computers

If people behaved like governments, you'd call the cops.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 04:40:45 -0500

Quote: If people behaved like governments, you'd call the cops.
Author: Kelvin Throop
Tags: government

If the brain were so simple we could understand it, we would be so simple we couldn't.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 04:40:45 -0500

Quote: If the brain were so simple we could understand it, we would be so simple we couldn't.
Author: Lyall Watson
Tags: science

If the Constitution becomes a 'living document' then it will mean whatever the ruling majority wants it to mean, and we will have a true democracy: a government of mob rule

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 02:27:28 -0500

Quote: If the Constitution becomes a 'living document' then it will mean whatever the ruling majority wants it to mean, and we will have a true democracy: a government of mob rule
Author: Neal Boortz
Tags: government

If the Government is big enough to give you everything you want, it is big enough to take away everything you have.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 02:27:28 -0500

Quote: If the Government is big enough to give you everything you want, it is big enough to take away everything you have.
Author: Gerald Ford
Tags: government

If the horse can't jump the hurdle, shoot the horse. Keep on doing this and eventually you will find a horse that can clear the jump--if you don't run out of horses. This is the sort of plausible pseudologic that most people bring to political affairs.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 04:50:48 -0500

Quote: If the horse can't jump the hurdle, shoot the horse. Keep on doing this and eventually you will find a horse that can clear the jump--if you don't run out of horses. This is the sort of plausible pseudologic that most people bring to political affairs.
Author: Robert A. Heinlein
Tags: politics

If there had only been government research establishments in the Stone Age, by now we would have had absolutely superb flint tools. But no one would have invented steel.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 02:27:28 -0500

Quote: If there had only been government research establishments in the Stone Age, by now we would have had absolutely superb flint tools. But no one would have invented steel.
Author: Arthur C. Clarke
Tags: government

If there is anything which it is the duty of the whole people to never entrust to any hands but their own--that thing is the preservation of their own liberties and institutions.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 02:30:08 -0500

Quote: If there is anything which it is the duty of the whole people to never entrust to any hands but their own--that thing is the preservation of their own liberties and institutions.
Author: Abraham Lincoln
Tags: politics

If we can put a man on the Moon, how come we can't put a man on the Moon?

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 02:27:28 -0500

Quote: If we can put a man on the Moon, how come we can't put a man on the Moon?
Author: Bill Engfer, Space Frontier Foundation
Tags: space

If we die, we want people to accept it. We're in a risky business, and we hope that if anything happens to us it will not delay the program. The conquest of space is worth the risk of life.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 02:27:28 -0500

Quote: If we die, we want people to accept it. We're in a risky business, and we hope that if anything happens to us it will not delay the program. The conquest of space is worth the risk of life.
Author: Gus Grissom (who died in the Apollo 1 fire)
Tags: space

If we fixed a hangnail the way our government fixes the economy, we'd slam a car door on it.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 02:27:28 -0500

Quote: If we fixed a hangnail the way our government fixes the economy, we'd slam a car door on it.
Author: Cullen Hightower
Tags: government

If you are Christians and love peace,' said a New Zealand savage to a civilized Englishman, 'why do you bring us gunpowder and muskets?'

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 02:33:49 -0500

Quote: If you are Christians and love peace,' said a New Zealand savage to a civilized Englishman, 'why do you bring us gunpowder and muskets?'
Author: House of Commons, Hansard, 1845
Tags: politics

In the United States, the working class are Democrats. The middle class are Republicans. The upper class are Communists.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 02:44:23 -0500

Quote: In the United States, the working class are Democrats. The middle class are Republicans. The upper class are Communists.
Author: Whittaker Chambers
Tags: politics

If you are going through hell, keep going.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 05:04:56 -0500

Quote: If you are going through hell, keep going.
Author: Winston Churchill
Tags: advice

If you can find something everyone agrees on, it's wrong.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 05:12:15 -0500

Quote: If you can find something everyone agrees on, it's wrong.
Author: Mo Udall
Tags: advice

If you can't be a good example, then you'll just have to be a horrible warning.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 04:53:05 -0500

Quote: If you can't be a good example, then you'll just have to be a horrible warning.
Author: Catherine Aird
Tags: advice

If you establish a democracy, you must in due time reap the fruits of a democracy... You will in due season have wars entered into from passion and not from reason... You will in due season find your property is less valuable, and your freedom less complete.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 02:27:28 -0500

Quote: If you establish a democracy, you must in due time reap the fruits of a democracy... You will in due season have wars entered into from passion and not from reason... You will in due season find your property is less valuable, and your freedom less complete.
Author: Benjamin Disraeli
Tags: government

If you had to identify, in one word, the reason why the human race has not achieved, and never will achieve, its full potential, that word would be 'meetings.'

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 04:58:28 -0500

Quote: If you had to identify, in one word, the reason why the human race has not achieved, and never will achieve, its full potential, that word would be 'meetings.'
Author: Dave Barry
Tags: humor

If you have any trouble sounding condescending, find a Unix user to show you how it's done.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 05:04:56 -0500

Quote: If you have any trouble sounding condescending, find a Unix user to show you how it's done.
Author: Scott Adams
Tags: computers

If you have been voting for politicians who promise to give you goodies at someone else's expense, then you have no right to complain when they take your money and give it to someone else.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 02:27:28 -0500

Quote: If you have been voting for politicians who promise to give you goodies at someone else's expense, then you have no right to complain when they take your money and give it to someone else.
Author: Thomas Sowell
Tags: government

If you have ten thousand regulations, you destroy all respect for the law.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 02:51:38 -0500

Quote: If you have ten thousand regulations, you destroy all respect for the law.
Author: Winston Churchill
Tags: government

If you love wealth more than liberty, the tranquility of servitude better than the animating contest of freedom, depart from us in peace. We ask not your counsel nor your arms... May your chains rest lightly upon you and may posterity forget that you were our countrymen.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 02:27:28 -0500

Quote: If you love wealth more than liberty, the tranquility of servitude better than the animating contest of freedom, depart from us in peace. We ask not your counsel nor your arms... May your chains rest lightly upon you and may posterity forget that you were our countrymen.
Author: Samuel Adams
Tags: government

If you pray hard enough, water will run uphill. How hard? Why, hard enough to make water run uphill, of course!

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 05:15:35 -0500

Quote: If you pray hard enough, water will run uphill. How hard? Why, hard enough to make water run uphill, of course!
Author: Robert A. Heinlein
Tags: philosophy

If you want irresponsible politicians to spend less, you must give them less to spend.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 04:50:48 -0500

Quote: If you want irresponsible politicians to spend less, you must give them less to spend.
Author: Irwin Schiff
Tags: politics

If you will not fight for the right when you can easily win without bloodshed; if you will not fight when your victory will be sure and not too costly; you may come to the moment when you will have to fight with all the odds against you and only a precarious chance of survival. There may be even a worse fate. You may have to fight when there is no hope of victory because it is better to perish than to live as slaves.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 05:04:56 -0500

Quote: If you will not fight for the right when you can easily win without bloodshed; if you will not fight when your victory will be sure and not too costly; you may come to the moment when you will have to fight with all the odds against you and only a precarious chance of survival. There may be even a worse fate. You may have to fight when there is no hope of victory because it is better to perish than to live as slaves.
Author: Winston Churchill
Tags: history

Imperialism degrades both oppressor and oppressed.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 02:27:28 -0500

Quote: Imperialism degrades both oppressor and oppressed.
Author: Robert A. Heinlein
Tags: government

When money is delivered in expectation of results, rather than for the results themselves, the decision makers have an obligation to put the money where they think it will likely accomplish something. This almost guarantees that nothing too far outside the norm will be funded, because it could make the decision-makers look very foolish.

Fri, 10 Apr 2009 03:11:50 -0400

Quote: When money is delivered in expectation of results, rather than for the results themselves, the decision makers have an obligation to put the money where they think it will likely accomplish something. This almost guarantees that nothing too far outside the norm will be funded, because it could make the decision-makers look very foolish.
Author: John Carmack
Tags: government

In 1794, Congress appropriated $15,000 for relief of French refugees. James Madison stood on the floor of the House to object, saying, 'I cannot undertake to lay my finger on that article of the Constitution which granted a right to Congress of expending, on objects of benevolence, the money of their constituents.'

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 02:27:28 -0500

Quote: In 1794, Congress appropriated $15,000 for relief of French refugees. James Madison stood on the floor of the House to object, saying, 'I cannot undertake to lay my finger on that article of the Constitution which granted a right to Congress of expending, on objects of benevolence, the money of their constituents.'
Tags: government

In all history the only bright rays cutting the gloom of oppression have come from men who would rather get hurt than give in.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 02:48:06 -0500

Quote: In all history the only bright rays cutting the gloom of oppression have come from men who would rather get hurt than give in.
Author: Jeff Cooper
Tags: 2nd amendment

In any moment of decision the best thing you can do is the right thing, the next best thing is the wrong thing, and the worst thing you can do is nothing.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 05:00:47 -0500

Quote: In any moment of decision the best thing you can do is the right thing, the next best thing is the wrong thing, and the worst thing you can do is nothing.
Author: Theodore Roosevelt
Tags: advice

In fact, the real engineering problems of space travel have been solved since World War II. Conquering space has long been a matter of money and politics.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 02:27:28 -0500

Quote: In fact, the real engineering problems of space travel have been solved since World War II. Conquering space has long been a matter of money and politics.
Author: Robert A. Heinlein
Tags: space

In science it often happens that scientists say, 'You know that's a really good argument; my position is mistaken,' and then they would actually change their minds and you never hear that old view from them again. They really do it. It doesn't happen as often as it should, because scientists are human and change is sometimes painful. But it happens every day. I cannot recall the last time something like that happened in politics or religion.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 02:27:28 -0500

Quote: In science it often happens that scientists say, 'You know that's a really good argument; my position is mistaken,' and then they would actually change their minds and you never hear that old view from them again. They really do it. It doesn't happen as often as it should, because scientists are human and change is sometimes painful. But it happens every day. I cannot recall the last time something like that happened in politics or religion.
Author: Carl Sagan
Tags: science

In the 21st century stupid people will have an inexhaustible supply of cheap, easy ways to screw up their lives.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 04:58:28 -0500

Quote: In the 21st century stupid people will have an inexhaustible supply of cheap, easy ways to screw up their lives.
Author: Duende
Tags: history

In the history of the world, no one has ever washed a rented car.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 04:40:45 -0500

Quote: In the history of the world, no one has ever washed a rented car.
Author: Larry Summers, president of Harvard
Tags: philosophy

In this sad world of ours, sorrow comes to all, and it often comes with bitter agony. Perfect relief is not possible, except with time. You cannot now believe that you will ever feel better. But this is not true. You are sure to be happy again. Knowing this, truly believing it, will make you less miserable now. I have had enough experience to make this statement.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 04:40:45 -0500

Quote: In this sad world of ours, sorrow comes to all, and it often comes with bitter agony. Perfect relief is not possible, except with time. You cannot now believe that you will ever feel better. But this is not true. You are sure to be happy again. Knowing this, truly believing it, will make you less miserable now. I have had enough experience to make this statement.
Author: Abraham Lincoln
Tags: philosophy

Socialism is a philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance, and the gospel of envy.

Mon, 24 Nov 2008 15:03:51 -0500

Quote: Socialism is a philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance, and the gospel of envy.
Author: Winston Churchill
Tags: government

Institutions purely democratic must, sooner or later, destroy liberty or civilization or both.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 02:27:28 -0500

Quote: Institutions purely democratic must, sooner or later, destroy liberty or civilization or both.
Author: T.B. Macaulay
Tags: government

It does not take a majority to prevail ... but rather an irate, tireless minority, keen on setting brushfires of freedom in the minds of men.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 02:27:28 -0500

Quote: It does not take a majority to prevail ... but rather an irate, tireless minority, keen on setting brushfires of freedom in the minds of men.
Author: Samuel Adams
Tags: government

It has always been in the interest of the federal government to encourage certain attitudes and ideas that support our fundamental freedoms and the responsibilities that go with them. A viable, living republic depends on it. The government, however, does not have the right to legislate what we must believe.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 02:27:28 -0500

Quote: It has always been in the interest of the federal government to encourage certain attitudes and ideas that support our fundamental freedoms and the responsibilities that go with them. A viable, living republic depends on it. The government, however, does not have the right to legislate what we must believe.
Author: Alan Caruba
Tags: government

It has been discovered that the best way to insure implicit obedience is to commence tyranny in the nursery.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 04:51:18 -0500

Quote: It has been discovered that the best way to insure implicit obedience is to commence tyranny in the nursery.
Author: Benjamin Disraeli
Tags: government

It has long, however, been my opinion, and I have never shrunk from its expression... that the germ of dissolution of our federal government is in the constitution of the federal Judiciary... working like gravity by night and by day, gaining a little today and a little tomorrow, and advancing its noiseless step like a thief, over the field of jurisdiction, until all shall be usurped.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 02:27:28 -0500

Quote: It has long, however, been my opinion, and I have never shrunk from its expression... that the germ of dissolution of our federal government is in the constitution of the federal Judiciary... working like gravity by night and by day, gaining a little today and a little tomorrow, and advancing its noiseless step like a thief, over the field of jurisdiction, until all shall be usurped.
Author: Thomas Jefferson
Tags: government

It is a bad sign when the people of a country stop identifying themselves with the country and start identifying with a group. A racial group. Or a religion. Or a language. Anything, as long as it isn't the whole population.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 02:27:28 -0500

Quote: It is a bad sign when the people of a country stop identifying themselves with the country and start identifying with a group. A racial group. Or a religion. Or a language. Anything, as long as it isn't the whole population.
Author: Robert A. Heinlein
Tags: government

Immigration, multi-culturalism, democracy. Pick any two.

Wed, 10 Jun 2009 17:03:04 -0400

Quote: Immigration, multi-culturalism, democracy. Pick any two.
Author: Rand Simberg
Tags: politics

We could have done Apollo with a lot fewer people, but we couldn’t have done it with any more.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 03:05:22 -0500

Quote: We could have done Apollo with a lot fewer people, but we couldn’t have done it with any more.
Author: Max Faget
Tags: space

It is a good thing that we do not get as much government as we pay for.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 02:27:28 -0500

Quote: It is a good thing that we do not get as much government as we pay for.
Author: Will Rogers
Tags: government

It is a paradoxical truth that tax rates are too high today and tax revenues are too low--and the soundest way to raise revenues in the long run is to cut rates now.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 02:27:28 -0500

Quote: It is a paradoxical truth that tax rates are too high today and tax revenues are too low--and the soundest way to raise revenues in the long run is to cut rates now.
Author: John F. Kennedy
Tags: government

It is a signal advantage of taxes on articles of consumption that they contain in their own nature a security against excess. They prescribe their own limit; which cannot be exceeded without defeating the end proposed, that is, an extension of the revenue. When applied to this object, the saying is as just as it is witty, that, 'in political arithmetic, two and two do not always make four.' If duties are too high, they lessen the consumption; the collection is eluded; and the product to the treasury is not so great as when they are confined within proper and moderate bounds. This forms a complete barrier against any material oppression of the citizens by taxes of this class, and is itself a natural limitation of the power of imposing them.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 03:06:45 -0500

Quote: It is a signal advantage of taxes on articles of consumption that they contain in their own nature a security against excess. They prescribe their own limit; which cannot be exceeded without defeating the end proposed, that is, an extension of the revenue. When applied to this object, the saying is as just as it is witty, that, 'in political arithmetic, two and two do not always make four.' If duties are too high, they lessen the consumption; the collection is eluded; and the product to the treasury is not so great as when they are confined within proper and moderate bounds. This forms a complete barrier against any material oppression of the citizens by taxes of this class, and is itself a natural limitation of the power of imposing them.
Author: Alexander Hamilton
Tags: government

It is amazing that people who think we cannot afford to pay for doctors, hospitals, and medication somehow think that we can afford to pay for doctors, hospitals, medication and a government bureaucracy to administer 'universal health care.'

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 02:27:28 -0500

Quote: It is amazing that people who think we cannot afford to pay for doctors, hospitals, and medication somehow think that we can afford to pay for doctors, hospitals, medication *and* a government bureaucracy to administer 'universal health care.'
Author: Thomas Sowell
Tags: government

It is bad to be oppressed by a minority, but it is worse to be oppressed by a majority. For there is a reserve of latent power in the masses which, if it is called into play, the minority can seldom resist. But from the absolute will of an entire people there is no appeal, no redemption, no refuge but treason.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 04:40:45 -0500

Quote: It is bad to be oppressed by a minority, but it is worse to be oppressed by a majority. For there is a reserve of latent power in the masses which, if it is called into play, the minority can seldom resist. But from the absolute will of an entire people there is no appeal, no redemption, no refuge but treason.
Author: Lord Acton
Tags: government

It is clear that anyone working with rocket fuels is outstandingly mad. I don't mean garden-variety crazy or merely raving lunatic. I mean a record-shattering exponent of far-out insanity.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 05:12:15 -0500

Quote: It is clear that anyone working with rocket fuels is outstandingly mad. I don't mean garden-variety crazy or merely raving lunatic. I mean a record-shattering exponent of far-out insanity.
Author: Isaac Asimov
Tags: space

It is common sense to take a method and try it, if it fails, admit it frankly and try another. But above all, try something.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 05:00:47 -0500

Quote: It is common sense to take a method and try it, if it fails, admit it frankly and try another. But above all, try something.
Author: Theodore Roosevelt
Tags: advice

It is easier to fight for one's principles than to live up to them.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 04:49:42 -0500

Quote: It is easier to fight for one's principles than to live up to them.
Author: Alfred Adler
Tags: philosophy

It is easy to be conspicuously 'compassionate' if others are being forced to pay the cost.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 05:20:10 -0500

Quote: It is easy to be conspicuously 'compassionate' if others are being forced to pay the cost.
Author: Murray N. Rothbard
Tags: politics

It is hard to imagine a more stupid or more dangerous way of making decisions than by putting those decisions in the hands of people who pay no price for being wrong.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 02:42:05 -0500

Quote: It is hard to imagine a more stupid or more dangerous way of making decisions than by putting those decisions in the hands of people who pay no price for being wrong.
Author: Thomas Sowell
Tags: government

Power corrupts. Powerpoint corrupts absolutely.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 04:58:28 -0500

Quote: Power corrupts. Powerpoint corrupts absolutely.
Author: Edward R. Tufte
Tags: business

It is much more important to kill bad bills than to pass good ones.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 04:52:49 -0500

Quote: It is much more important to kill bad bills than to pass good ones.
Author: Calvin Coolidge
Tags: government

It is not the function of our government to keep the citizen from falling into error; it is the function of the citizen to keep the government from falling into error.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 02:27:28 -0500

Quote: It is not the function of our government to keep the citizen from falling into error; it is the function of the citizen to keep the government from falling into error.
Author: Justice Robert H. Jackson
Tags: government

It is not the responsibility of the government or the legal system to protect a citizen from himself.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 02:27:28 -0500

Quote: It is not the responsibility of the government or the legal system to protect a citizen from himself.
Author: Justice Casey Percell
Tags: government

It is possible to commit no mistakes and still lose. That is not a weakness; that is life.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 05:12:15 -0500

Quote: It is possible to commit no mistakes and still lose. That is not a weakness; that is life.
Author: Jean Luc Picard
Tags: philosophy

It is seldom that liberty of any kinds is lost all at once.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 02:27:28 -0500

Quote: It is seldom that liberty of any kinds is lost all at once.
Author: David Hume
Tags: government

The greatest challenge to any thinker is stating the problem in a way that will allow a solution.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 04:51:39 -0500

Quote: The greatest challenge to any thinker is stating the problem in a way that will allow a solution.
Author: Bertrand Russell
Tags: advice

It is the besetting vice of democracies to substitute public opinion for law. This is the usual form in which the masses of men exhibit their tyranny.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 02:44:23 -0500

Quote: It is the besetting vice of democracies to substitute public opinion for law. This is the usual form in which the masses of men exhibit their tyranny.
Author: James Fenimore Cooper
Tags: government

It is time to stop pretending that Europeans and Americans share a common view of the world, or even that they occupy the same world. On the all-important question of power--the efficacy of power, the morality of power, the desirability of power--American and European perspectives are diverging.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 02:46:08 -0500

Quote: It is time to stop pretending that Europeans and Americans share a common view of the world, or even that they occupy the same world. On the all-important question of power--the efficacy of power, the morality of power, the desirability of power--American and European perspectives are diverging.
Author: Steven den Beste
Tags: politics

It is true that liberty is precious--so precious that it must be rationed.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 02:27:28 -0500

Quote: It is true that liberty is precious--so precious that it must be rationed.
Author: Vladimir Ilyich Lenin
Tags: government

The advantage of a free market is that it allows millions of decision-makers to respond individually to freely determined prices, allocating resources -- labor, capital and human ingenuity-- in a manner that can't be mimicked by a central plan, however brilliant the central planner.

Fri, 10 Apr 2009 03:12:28 -0400

Quote: The advantage of a free market is that it allows millions of decision-makers to respond individually to freely determined prices, allocating resources -- labor, capital and human ingenuity-- in a manner that can't be mimicked by a central plan, however brilliant the central planner.
Author: F.A. Hayek
Tags: government

It just doesn't matter how horrible the Windows experience is to any given employee, because in the vast majority of cases, that employee is forced to use it anyway. The same goes for Office, and Outlook. If you don't like it, you can always quit and get a job being forced to use Windows and Office and Outlook somewhere else.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 02:39:36 -0500

Quote: It just doesn't matter how horrible the Windows experience is to any given employee, because in the vast majority of cases, that employee is forced to use it anyway. The same goes for Office, and Outlook. If you don't like it, you can always quit and get a job being forced to use Windows and Office and Outlook somewhere else.
Author: Jack Miller
Tags: computers

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.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 02:51:38 -0500

Quote: 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.
Author: Martin Luther King
Tags: government

It says a lot about the state of hypersonic airbreathing propulsion that when the X-43 was boosted from Mach 0.8 to Mach 10 by a rocket, and then managed to briefly not slow down using a scramjet, this was considered a landmark accomplishment for the scramjet, and utterly unremarkable for the rocket.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 02:38:57 -0500

Quote: It says a lot about the state of hypersonic airbreathing propulsion that when the X-43 was boosted from Mach 0.8 to Mach 10 by a rocket, and then managed to briefly not slow down using a scramjet, this was considered a landmark accomplishment for the scramjet, and utterly unremarkable for the rocket.
Author: Josh Hopkins
Tags: space

It stands to reason that where there's sacrifice, there's someone collecting sacrificial offerings. Where there's service, there's someone being served. The man who speaks to you of sacrifice, speaks of slaves and masters. And intends to be the master.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 04:51:06 -0500

Quote: It stands to reason that where there's sacrifice, there's someone collecting sacrificial offerings. Where there's service, there's someone being served. The man who speaks to you of sacrifice, speaks of slaves and masters. And intends to be the master.
Author: Ayn Rand
Tags: government

It takes more man-hours in this country to pay federal income taxes than it does to build every car, van and truck produced in this country during the same year.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 05:20:10 -0500

Quote: It takes more man-hours in this country to pay federal income taxes than it does to build every car, van and truck produced in this country during the same year.
Author: Money Magazine
Tags: government

It turns out people want keyboards. When Apple first started out, people couldn't type. We realized: Death would eventually take care of this.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 05:04:56 -0500

Quote: It turns out people want keyboards. When Apple first started out, people couldn't type. We realized: Death would eventually take care of this.
Author: Steve Jobs
Tags: computers

It would be an absurdity for jurors to be required to accept the judge's view of the law, against their own opinion, judgment, and conscience.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 02:51:38 -0500

Quote: It would be an absurdity for jurors to be required to accept the judge's view of the law, against their own opinion, judgment, and conscience.
Author: John Adams
Tags: government

The best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter.

Mon, 24 Nov 2008 15:04:18 -0500

Quote: The best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter.
Author: Winston Churchill
Tags: politics

It's amazing how much 'mature wisdom' resembles being too tired.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 05:15:35 -0500

Quote: It's amazing how much 'mature wisdom' resembles being too tired.
Author: Robert A. Heinlein
Tags: advice

It's not like Windows users don't have any power; I think they are happy with Windows, and that's an incredibly depressing thought.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 02:39:09 -0500

Quote: It's not like Windows users don't have any power; I think they are happy with Windows, and that's an incredibly depressing thought.
Author: Steve Jobs
Tags: computers

It's not NASA's job to send a man to Mars. It's NASA's job to make it possible for the National Geographic Society to send a man to Mars.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 05:15:35 -0500

Quote: It's not NASA's job to send a man to Mars. It's NASA's job to make it possible for the National Geographic Society to send a man to Mars.
Author: Rand Simberg
Tags: space

It's not that I am smart, it's just that I stay with problems longer.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 04:40:45 -0500

Quote: It's not that I am smart, it's just that I stay with problems longer.
Author: Albert Einstein
Tags: advice

Just because James Madison forgot to ban it, that doesn't mean you ought to do it.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 03:06:45 -0500

Quote: Just because James Madison forgot to ban it, that doesn't mean you ought to do it.
Author: David Keene
Tags: government

Just because something doesn't do what you planned it to do doesn't mean it's useless.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 05:00:47 -0500

Quote: Just because something doesn't do what you planned it to do doesn't mean it's useless.
Author: Thomas A. Edison
Tags: advice

Just imagine what Leonardo Da Vinci could have accomplished if he had had email.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 05:04:56 -0500

Quote: Just imagine what Leonardo Da Vinci could have accomplished if he had had email.
Author: William Hunt
Tags: computers

Keep away from people who try to belittle your ambitions. Small people always do that, but the really great make you feel that you, too, can become great.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 05:12:15 -0500

Quote: Keep away from people who try to belittle your ambitions. Small people always do that, but the really great make you feel that you, too, can become great.
Author: Mark Twain
Tags: advice

Keep the company of those who seek the truth, and run from those who have found it.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 05:04:56 -0500

Quote: Keep the company of those who seek the truth, and run from those who have found it.
Author: Vaclav Havel
Tags: advice

It is hard for those who live near a Police Station to believe in the triumph of violence.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 02:49:54 -0500

Quote: It is hard for those who live near a Police Station to believe in the triumph of violence.
Author: T.S. Eliot
Tags: politics

Law is often but the tyrant's will, and always so when it violates the right of an individual.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 02:51:38 -0500

Quote: Law is often but the tyrant's will, and always so when it violates the right of an individual.
Author: Thomas Jefferson
Tags: government

Laws that forbid the carrying of arms...disarm only those who are neither inclined nor determined to commit crimes. An unarmed man may be attacked with greater confidence than an armed man.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 02:33:02 -0500

Quote: Laws that forbid the carrying of arms...disarm only those who are neither inclined nor determined to commit crimes. An unarmed man may be attacked with greater confidence than an armed man.
Author: Thomas Jefferson
Tags: 2nd amendment

Lawyers are the only persons for whom ignorance of the law is not punished.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 05:12:15 -0500

Quote: Lawyers are the only persons for whom ignorance of the law is not punished.
Author: Jeremy Bentham
Tags: humor

Learning is not compulsory. Neither is survival.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 05:04:56 -0500

Quote: Learning is not compulsory. Neither is survival.
Author: W. Edwards Deming
Tags: philosophy

Let this be the distinctive mark of an American that in cases of commotion, he enlists himself under no man's banner, inquires for no man's name, but repairs to the standard of the laws. Do this, and you need never fear anarchy or tyranny. Your government will be perpetual.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 02:27:28 -0500

Quote: Let this be the distinctive mark of an American that in cases of commotion, he enlists himself under no man's banner, inquires for no man's name, but repairs to the standard of the laws. Do this, and you need never fear anarchy or tyranny. Your government will be perpetual.
Author: Thomas Jefferson
Tags: government

Let us not seek the Republican answer or the Democratic answer, but the right answer.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 02:44:23 -0500

Quote: Let us not seek the Republican answer or the Democratic answer, but the right answer.
Author: John F. Kennedy
Tags: science

Liberty cannot be preserved without a general knowledge among the people.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 02:27:28 -0500

Quote: Liberty cannot be preserved without a general knowledge among the people.
Author: John Adams
Tags: government

Liberty has never come from government. Liberty has always come from the subjects of government. The history of liberty is the history of resistance.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 02:27:28 -0500

Quote: Liberty has never come from government. Liberty has always come from the subjects of government. The history of liberty is the history of resistance.
Author: Woodrow Wilson
Tags: government

Liberty is always dangerous, but it is the safest thing we have.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 02:27:28 -0500

Quote: Liberty is always dangerous, but it is the safest thing we have.
Author: Harry Emerson Fosdick
Tags: government

The real destroyer of the liberties of the people is he who spreads among them bounties, donations and benefits.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 02:30:08 -0500

Quote: The real destroyer of the liberties of the people is he who spreads among them bounties, donations and benefits.
Author: Plutarch
Tags: politics

Liberty is an opportunity for doing good, but this is only so when it is also an opportunity for doing wrong.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 02:27:28 -0500

Quote: Liberty is an opportunity for doing good, but this is only so when it is also an opportunity for doing wrong.
Author: F.A. Hayek
Tags: government

Liberty is never unalienable; it must be redeemed regularly with the blood of patriots or it always vanishes. Of all the so-called natural human rights that have ever been invented, liberty is least likely to be cheap and is never free of cost.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 02:27:28 -0500

Quote: Liberty is never unalienable; it must be redeemed regularly with the blood of patriots or it always vanishes. Of all the so-called natural human rights that have ever been invented, liberty is least likely to be cheap and is never free of cost.
Author: Robert A. Heinlein
Tags: government

Liberty is the great parent of science and of virtue; and a nation will be great in both in proportion as it is free.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 02:27:28 -0500

Quote: Liberty is the great parent of science and of virtue; and a nation will be great in both in proportion as it is free.
Author: Thomas Jefferson
Tags: government

The whole history of the world is summed up in the fact that, when nations are strong, they are not always just, and when they wish to be just, they are no longer strong.

Mon, 24 Nov 2008 15:04:51 -0500

Quote: The whole history of the world is summed up in the fact that, when nations are strong, they are not always just, and when they wish to be just, they are no longer strong.
Author: Winston Churchill
Tags: history

Liberty means responsibility. That is why most men dread it.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 02:27:28 -0500

Quote: Liberty means responsibility. That is why most men dread it.
Author: George Bernard Shaw
Tags: government

Liberty without learning is always in peril and learning without liberty is always in vain.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 02:27:28 -0500

Quote: Liberty without learning is always in peril and learning without liberty is always in vain.
Author: John F. Kennedy
Tags: government

Life is complex; it has real and imaginary parts.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 05:12:15 -0500

Quote: Life is complex; it has real and imaginary parts.
Author: Greg Benford
Tags: humor

Life is not fair. It's just fairer than death, that's all.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 05:04:56 -0500

Quote: Life is not fair. It's just fairer than death, that's all.
Author: William Goldman
Tags: philosophy

Life is tough. Life is tougher if you're stupid.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 04:40:45 -0500

Quote: Life is tough. Life is tougher if you're stupid.
Author: John Wayne
Tags: advice

Look out the window, not in the mirror.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 05:20:10 -0500

Quote: Look out the window, not in the mirror.
Tags: advice

Loss of freedom seldom happens overnight. Oppression doesn't stand on the doorstep with toothbrush mustache and swastika armband--it creeps up insidiously step by step, and all of a sudden the unfortunate citizen realizes that it is gone.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 02:27:28 -0500

Quote: Loss of freedom seldom happens overnight. Oppression doesn't stand on the doorstep with toothbrush mustache and swastika armband--it creeps up insidiously step by step, and all of a sudden the unfortunate citizen realizes that it is gone.
Author: Baron Lane
Tags: government

Luck is a bonus that follows careful planning--it's never free.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 05:15:35 -0500

Quote: Luck is a bonus that follows careful planning--it's never free.
Author: Robert A. Heinlein
Tags: advice

Mac OS X: because making Unix user-friendly is easier than debugging Windows.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 02:35:13 -0500

Quote: Mac OS X: because making Unix user-friendly is easier than debugging Windows.
Tags: computers

Makin' mock o' uniforms that guard you when you sleep, is cheaper than them uniforms, and they're starvation cheap.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 05:20:10 -0500

Quote: Makin' mock o' uniforms that guard you when you sleep, is cheaper than them uniforms, and they're starvation cheap.
Author: Rudyard Kipling
Tags: history

Many bad policies are simply good policies taken too far.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 02:42:05 -0500

Quote: Many bad policies are simply good policies taken too far.
Author: Thomas Sowell
Tags: politics

Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of them pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing ever happened.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 05:04:56 -0500

Quote: Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of them pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing ever happened.
Author: Winston Churchill
Tags: advice

Modern cyberspace is a deadly festering swamp, teeming with dangerous programs such as 'viruses,' 'worms,' 'Trojan horses' and 'licensed Microsoft software' that can take over your computer and render it useless.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 02:39:09 -0500

Quote: Modern cyberspace is a deadly festering swamp, teeming with dangerous programs such as 'viruses,' 'worms,' 'Trojan horses' and 'licensed Microsoft software' that can take over your computer and render it useless.
Author: Dave Barry
Tags: computers

More battles have been won or lost by quartermasters than by any general staff.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 04:40:45 -0500

Quote: More battles have been won or lost by quartermasters than by any general staff.
Author: Lois McMaster Bujold
Tags: history

More people have ascended bodily into heaven than have shipped great software on time.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 05:12:15 -0500

Quote: More people have ascended bodily into heaven than have shipped great software on time.
Author: Jim McCarthy
Tags: computers

One has to belong to the intelligentsia to believe things like that: no ordinary man could be such a fool.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 04:58:28 -0500

Quote: One has to belong to the intelligentsia to believe things like that: no ordinary man could be such a fool.
Author: George Orwell
Tags: philosophy

Most of the presidential candidates' economic packages involve 'tax breaks,' which is when the government, amid great fanfare, generously decides not to take quite so much of your income. In other words, these candidates are trying to buy your votes with your own money.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 02:27:28 -0500

Quote: Most of the presidential candidates' economic packages involve 'tax breaks,' which is when the government, amid great fanfare, generously decides not to take quite so much of your income. In other words, these candidates are trying to buy your votes with your own money.
Author: Dave Barry
Tags: government

Most people can't think, most of the remainder won't think, and the small fraction who do think mostly can't do it very well.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 05:15:35 -0500

Quote: Most people can't think, most of the remainder won't think, and the small fraction who do think mostly can't do it very well.
Author: Robert A. Heinlein
Tags: philosophy

Most people want security in this world, not liberty.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 02:27:28 -0500

Quote: Most people want security in this world, not liberty.
Author: H.L. Mencken
Tags: government

Mothers all want their sons to grow up to be president, but they don't want them to become politicians in the process.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 04:50:48 -0500

Quote: Mothers all want their sons to grow up to be president, but they don't want them to become politicians in the process.
Author: John F. Kennedy
Tags: politics

Much of what are called 'social problems' consists of the fact that intellectuals have theories that do not fit the real world. From this they conclude that it is the real world which is wrong and needs changing.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 02:42:05 -0500

Quote: Much of what are called 'social problems' consists of the fact that intellectuals have theories that do not fit the real world. From this they conclude that it is the real world which is wrong and needs changing.
Author: Thomas Sowell
Tags: politics

Murphy's revenge: The more reliable you make a system, the longer it will take you to figure out what's wrong when it breaks.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 05:04:56 -0500

Quote: Murphy's revenge: The more reliable you make a system, the longer it will take you to figure out what's wrong when it breaks.
Author: Sean Donelan
Tags: humor

My country, right or wrong,' is a thing that no patriot would think of saying except in a desperate case. It is like saying, 'My mother, drunk or sober.'

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 04:58:28 -0500

Quote: My country, right or wrong,' is a thing that no patriot would think of saying except in a desperate case. It is like saying, 'My mother, drunk or sober.'
Author: Gilbert Keith Chesterton
Tags: politics

In a poorer and less socialist era, we produced a nationwide network of roads and bridges and subway systems that were the envy of the world. Today we are unable even to maintain them.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 03:05:22 -0500

Quote: In a poorer and less socialist era, we produced a nationwide network of roads and bridges and subway systems that were the envy of the world. Today we are unable even to maintain them.
Author: Milton Friedman
Tags: politics

My first grade class had 63 kids in it, one teacher, no assistant. Before the end of the second semester all 63 could read.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 05:15:35 -0500

Quote: My first grade class had 63 kids in it, one teacher, no assistant. Before the end of the second semester all 63 could read.
Author: Robert A. Heinlein
Tags: history

My formula for success? Rise early, work late, strike oil.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 04:40:45 -0500

Quote: My formula for success? Rise early, work late, strike oil.
Author: J.P. Getty
Tags: advice

My government's got a war on drugs. But get this: The two most widely abused and addictive and destructive of all substances are both perfectly legal.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 04:40:45 -0500

Quote: My government's got a war on drugs. But get this: The two most widely abused and addictive and destructive of all substances are both perfectly legal.
Author: Kurt Vonnegut
Tags: government

My interest is in the future because I am going to spend the rest of my life there.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 04:53:25 -0500

Quote: My interest is in the future because I am going to spend the rest of my life there.
Author: Charles F. Kettering
Tags: philosophy

Mystical references to 'society' and its programs to 'help' may warm the hearts of the gullible but what it really means is putting more power in the hands of bureaucrats.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 02:42:05 -0500

Quote: Mystical references to 'society' and its programs to 'help' may warm the hearts of the gullible but what it really means is putting more power in the hands of bureaucrats.
Author: Thomas Sowell
Tags: politics

NASA has two remarkable records: first, a space program far more successful than anyone had dared hope; and, second, the most incredibly bumbling, stupid, inept public relations of any government agency.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 02:27:28 -0500

Quote: NASA has two remarkable records: first, a space program far more successful than anyone had dared hope; and, second, the most incredibly bumbling, stupid, inept public relations of any government agency.
Author: Robert A. Heinlein
Tags: space

National health insurance means combining the efficiency of the Postal Service with the compassion of the IRS and the cost accounting of the Pentagon.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 04:40:45 -0500

Quote: National health insurance means combining the efficiency of the Postal Service with the compassion of the IRS and the cost accounting of the Pentagon.
Author: Louis Sullivan
Tags: government

Naturally the common people don't want war ... but after all it is the leaders of a country who determine policy, and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along .... All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country.

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 05:12:15 -0500

Quote: Naturally the common people don't want war ... but after all it is the leaders of a country who determine policy, and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along .... All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country.
Author: Hermann Goering
Tags: politics

All entries

1: What has happened in the past will happen in the future.2: Consider the obvious seriously, for few people will see it.3: Consider the consequences.

40 years after the Wright Brothers made their first flight, more than a million people had flown in a plane; 40 years after man first went into space, fewer than 500 people have followed them there.

A bad design with a good presentation is doomed eventually. A good design with a bad presentation is doomed immediately.

A business plan should be used as an opportunity to sell your company, not your product.

A careful definition of words would destroy half the agenda of the political left and scrutinizing evidence would destroy the other half.

A computer without Windows is like a dog without bricks tied to its head.

A cult is a religion with no political power.

A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves money from the public treasury. Democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy, always followed by dictatorship.

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.

A dying culture invariably exhibits personal rudeness. Bad manners. Lack of consideration for others in minor matters. A loss of politeness, of gentle manners, is more significant than a riot.

A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds

A free people ought not only to be armed and disciplined, but they should have sufficient arms and ammunition to maintain a status of independence from any who might attempt to abuse them, which would include their own government.

A free society is one where it is safe to be unpopular.

A good battle plan that you act on today can be better than a perfect one tomorrow.

A government that is big enough to give you all you want is big enough to take it all away.

A government with the policy to rob Peter to pay Paul can be assured of the support of Paul.

A judicial activist is a judge who interprets the Constitution to mean what it would have said if he, instead of the Founding Fathers, had written it.

A lack of consensus is no excuse for a lack of leadership.

A large bank always tends to become larger, and a small one tends to become smaller.

A lawyer with a briefcase can steal more than a thousand men with guns.

A Liberal believes that schools should teach children about self esteem, the environment, diversity, etc. A Conservative believes that schools should teach children reading, writing, math and history.

A liberal is someone who will give you the shirt off of somebody else's back.

A lot of people out there pay good lip service to the idea of personal freedom--right up to the point that someone tries to do something that they don't personally approve of.

A man can never have too many books, too much red wine or too much ammunition.

A man may fail many times but he isn't a failure until he begins to blame somebody else.

A man who is not a liberal by the time he's 20 has no heart, and a man who is not a conservative by the time he's 40 has no brain.

A man who stands for nothing will fall for anything.

A monarch's neck should always have a noose around it--it keeps him upright.

A multitude of laws in a country is like a great number of physicians, a sign of weakness and malady.

A nation of sheep will beget a government of wolves.

A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty.

A patriot must always be ready to defend his country against his government.

A people that values its privileges above its principles soon loses both.

A perfect democracy, a ‘warm body’ democracy in which every adult may vote and all votes count equally, has no internal feedback for self-correction. It depends solely on the wisdom and self-restraint of citizens… which is opposed by the folly and lack of self-restraint of other citizens.

A politician in power tends to remain in power.

America sometimes fails to live up to its ideals... So has every nation since history began. But it must be admitted that so far, the United States of America has the most magnificent set of ideals any nation has ever failed to live up to.

America is unique, strong, great because of our commitment to personal freedom... We are a free people who consented to be governed. Not vice versa.

A pure democracy can admit no cure for the mischiefs of faction. A common passion or interest will be felt by a majority, and there is nothing to check the inducements to sacrifice the weaker party.

A society that puts equality ahead of freedom will wind up with neither.

A society which maintains that the interest of the individual is neglible compared to the interest of the nation is a lawless society.

A system of licensing and registration is the perfect device to deny gun ownership to the bourgeoisie.

A vote is like a rifle; its usefulness depends upon the character of the user.

A wise and frugal government, which shall restrain men from injuring one another, which 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.

Always there has been some terrible evil at home or some monstrous foreign power that was going to gobble us up if we did not blindly rally behind it.

Above all the unity of a nation's spirit and will are worth far more than the freedom of the spirit and will of an individual.

Action may not always bring happiness, but there is no happiness without action.

America wasn't founded so we could all be better. America was founded so we could all be anything we damned well pleased.

A politician thinks of the next election -- a statesman of the next generation.

Activism is a way for useless people to feel important, even if the consequences of their activism are counterproductive for those they claim to be helping and damaging to the fabric of society as a whole.

Advertisements contain the only truths to be relied on in a newspaper.

After two years in Washington, I often long for the realism and sincerity of Hollywood.

All bad precedents begin as justifiable measures.

All parts should go together without forcing. You must remember that the parts you are reassembling were disassembled by you. Therefore, if you can't get them together again, there must be a reason. By all means, do not use a hammer.

All that is needed to give rise to a mighty nation is a simple, irrevocable guarantee that individual members of the productive class be permitted to keep whatever they create.

All the gold in California Is in a bank in the middle of Beverly Hills in somebody else's name. So if you dreaming about California, It don't matter at all where you've played before, California's a brand new game.

All inanimate objects are scientifically divided into three categories: Those that break down, those that don't work, and those that can't be repaired.

All we have of freedom--all we use or know--This our fathers bought for us, long and long ago.

Almighty Ruler of the all, Whose Power extends to great and small, Who guides the stars with steadfast law, Whose least creation fills with awe, O grant thy mercy and thy grace, To those who venture into space.

Almost all the world's constitutions are documents in which governments tell the people what their privileges are. Our Constitution is a document in which 'We the people' tell the government what it is allowed to do.

Almost everyone who has read history in a more than casual manner knows that when the great figure of God appears in a controversy, the shooting cannot be far off.

America has built a health-care system with incentives that inexorably generate terrible and perverse results.

Although I can accept talking scarecrows, lions, and great wizards of emerald cities, I find it hard to believe there is no paperwork involved when your house lands on a witch.

Always surround yourself with people who are smarter than you are. Then allow them to take the credit for successes, while you take the blame for their failures.

Amateurs built the Ark. Professionals built the Titanic.

America is at that awkward stage. It's too late to work within the system, but too early to shoot the bastards.

Americans have the right and advantage of being armed--unlike the citizens of other countries whose governments are afraid to trust the people with arms.

If an unfriendly foreign power had attempted to impose on America the mediocre educational performance that exists today, we might well have viewed it as an act of war.

If an armed lunatic takes over my airplane, I am fundamentally not interested in handgun-control rhetoric. What I am concerned with is just one thing: stepping over a dead hijacker as I exit my safely-landed airplane.

If all the money spent on ramps, bus elevators, and the like in an attempt to make the world 'wheelchair accessible' had been spent on neurological research, no one would need ramps and elevators.

For almost three decades we've been trying to teach average Americans to act like 'stakeholders' in their economy. They learned. They're crying and whining for government bailouts just like the billionaire stakeholders in banks and investment houses.

If all of us tried to go back-to-nature, most of us would starve rather quickly. These back-to-nature freaks can't do arithmetic.

If all else fails, immortality can always be assured by spectacular error.

If a nation or an individual values anything more than freedom, it will lose its freedom; and the irony is that if it is comfort or money it values more, it will lose that too.

As a lifelong Star Trek fan, I would love to live in an age when the globe was united in peace and prosperity, but I am unwilling to endure the paradigm-wrecking nation-shattering nuclear war and eugenic-master-race tyranny required to get to that point.

If a nation expects to be ignorant and free... it expects what never was and never will be.

Ideas are more powerful than guns. If we don't let our people have guns, why should we let them have ideas?

I would sooner believe that two Yankee professors lied, than that stones fell from the sky.

At the highest levels, there seems to be a belief that you can mandate reality, followed by a refusal to accept any information that runs counter to that mandate.

I would rather have a German division in front of me, than a French division behind me.

1: What has happened in the past will happen in the future.
2: Consider the obvious seriously, for few people will see it.
3: Consider the consequences.

Blaming Wall Street for being greedy is like scolding defensive linemen for being big and aggressive. The people on Wall Street never claimed to be public servants. They took no oath of office. They're in it for the money. We pay them to be in it for the money.

I try to only ridicule people whose efforts are sincere. Very little trouble has been caused in the world by insincere efforts. An occasional seduction maybe. There were very few insincere Stalinists or Nazis.