Some of my favorite quotes
(latest update: June 30, 2008)
“To consider the judges as the ultimate arbiters of all constitutional questions [is] a very dangerous doctrine indeed, and one which would place us under the despotism of an oligarchy. Our judges are as honest as other men and not more so. They have with others the same passions for party, for power, and the privilege of their corps.”
- Thomas Jefferson "History fails to record a single precedent in which nations subject to moral decay have not passed into political and economic decline. There has been either a spiritual awakening to overcome the moral lapse, or a progressive deterioration leading to ultimate national disaster."
-- General Douglas MacArthur "Glory is fleeting, but obscurity is forever”
- Napoleon Bonaparte "Don't be so humble - you are not that great"
- Golda Meir to a visiting diplomat "People demand freedom of speech to make up for the freedom of thought which they avoid"
- Soren Aabye Kierkegaard "Facts are stubborn things, and whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, or the dictates of our passions, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence."
- John Adams "We must lay before Him what is in us, not what ought to be in us."
C. S. Lewis "Give me chastity and continence, but not yet.”
Saint Augustine (354-430) Berlin, 1 Sept. 1939: Reich Leader Bouhler and Dr. Med. Brandt are charged with the responsibility of enlarging the competence of certain physicians, designated by name, so that patients who, on the basis of human judgment, are considered incurable, can be granted mercy death after a discerning diagnosis.
A. Hitler It is impossible to build sound Constitutional doctrine
on a mistaken understanding of Constitutional history...
The establishment clause had been expressely freighted with
Jeffersons misleading metaphor for nearly forty years...
There is simply no historical foundation for the proposition
that the framers intended to build a wall of seperation
[between church and state]...
The recent court decisions are in no way based on either
the language or the intent of the framers.
William H. Rehnquist
1985 Assoc. Justice U.S. Supreme Court
Wallace vs Jafree "The greatest evil is not done in those sordid dens of evil that Dickens loved to paint but is conceived and ordered (moved, seconded, carried, and minuted) in clear, carpeted, warmed, well-lighted offices, by quiet men with white collars and cut fingernails and smooth-shaven cheeks who do not need to raise their voices."
-C. S. Lewis "A Christian should not support a government that suppresses the faith or one that sanctions the taking of an innocent human life."
-Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia
"A good example is the best sermon."
--Ben Franklin "Life is tough. Life is tougher if you're stupid."
--John Wayne
"The hottest fires in hell are reserved for those who remain neutral in times of moral crisis."
-Edmund Burke You must do your duty in all things you can never do more, you should never wish to do less.
- Robert E. Lee "I have never let my schooling interfere with my education."
-Mark Twain "Duty is ours; the consequences are God's."
-Stonewall Jackson "Congress has not unlimited powers to provide for the general welfare, but only those specifically enumerated."
-Thomas Jefferson "Keep steady in the view of the great principles for which you contend. The safety of your homes and the lives of all you hold dear depend upon your courage and exertions. Let each man resolve to be victorious, and that the right of self government, liberty and peace shall find him a defender."
-General Robert E. Lee to his men, 1861 "He alone deserves to be remembered by his children who treasures up and preserves the memory of his fathers."
-Edmund Burke "The democracy will cease to exist when you take it away from those who are willing to work and give it to those who would not."
-Thomas Jefferson "The Red Legs [Federals troops with red leggings] made people...sign loyalty oaths, too, and that was just a bunch of nonsense as it always has been and always will be. You can't force people to be loyal by making them sign a piece of paper, and it was the experience of my family that made me be against loyalty oaths. And I have always been, was when I was Presdent and before and am now."
--Harry Truman on Oaths "The inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of the blessings.
The inherent blessing of socialism is the equal sharing of misery."
-Winston Churchill No man's life, liberty, or property are safe while the legislature is in session.
-Mark Twain (1866) "Just because you do not take an interest in politics doesn't mean politics won't take an interest in you."
-Pericles (430 B.C.) "Never buy a saddle until you have met the horse."
-Mort Zuckerman Publisher “Shall we expect some transatlantic military giant to step the ocean and crush us at a blow? Never! All the armies of Europe, Asia, and Africa combined, with all the treasure of the earth (our own excepted) in their military chest; with a Bonaparte for a commander, could not by force take a drink from the Ohio, or make a track on the Blue Ridge, in a trial of a thousand years. At what point then is the approach of danger to be expected? I answer, if it ever reach us, it must spring up amongst us. It cannot come from abroad. If destruction were our lot, we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of freemen, we must live through all time, or die by suicide."
-Abraham Lincoln "If ye love wealth greater than liberty, the tranquility of servitude greater than the animating contest for freedom, go home from us in peace. We seek not your consul, nor your arms. Crouch down and lick the hand that feeds you. May your chains set lightly upon you; and may posterity forget ye were our countrymen."
-- Samuel Adams "The best form of defense is attack."
- Karl von Clausewitz “Moral indignation is the standard strategy for endowing the idiot with dignity.”
-Marshall McLuhan "Of all tyrannies, a tyranny exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their consciences."
- C.S Lewis "Good intentions will always be pleaded for every assumption of authority. It is hardly too strong to say that the Constitution was made to guard the people against the dangers of good intentions. There are men in all ages who mean to govern well, but they mean to govern. They promise to be good masters, but they mean to be masters."
- Daniel Webster "If the government becomes a lawbreaker, it breeds contempt for law; it invites every man to become a law unto himself; it invites anarchy. To declare that in the administration of criminal law, the end justifies the means...would bring terrible retribution."
- (Justice Brandeis, J., dissenting) Olmstead v. United States, 277 U.S. 438, 485 (1928) "There is only one principle of war and that's this: Hit the other fellow, as quickly as you can, as hard as you can, where it hurts him most, when he ain't lookin'."
- Sir William Joseph Slim, British Army, Field Marshal "Not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be counted. "
- Albert Einstein
Growth for the sake of growth is the ideology of the cancer cell.
-Edward Abbey (1927-1989) I have noted that persons with bad judgment are most insistent that we do what they think best.
-Lionel Abel (1911-2001) "I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use. "
- Galileo Galilei "I'll moider da bum. "
- Heavyweight boxer Tony Galento, when asked what he thought of William Shakespeare "In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice. But, in practice, there is. "
- Jan L.A. van de Snepscheut "Good people do not need laws to tell them to act responsibly, while bad people will find a way around the laws."
- Plato "Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake."
- Napoleon Bonaparte "Some cause happiness wherever they go; others, whenever they go."
- Oscar Wilde "If you can count your money, you don't have a billion dollars."
- J. Paul Getty "Once you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be the truth."
- Sherlock Holmes (by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle) "I've had a wonderful time, but this wasn't it." - Groucho Marx "The optimist proclaims that we live in the best of all possible worlds, and the pessimist fears this is true."
- James Branch Cabell When the passions become masters, they are vices."
-Pascal, 1670 "All are lunatics, but he who can analyze his delusion is called a philosopher."
- Ambrose Pierce (1842-1914) "The true measure of a man is how he treats someone who can do him absolutely no good."
- Samuel Johnson (1709-1784) "All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident."
- Arthur Schopenhauer "While we are postponing, life speeds by."
- Seneca "Fill what's empty, empty what's full, and scratch where it itches."
- the Duchess of Windsor, when asked what is the secret of a long and happy life "If everyone knew everything about everyone, no one would have anything to do with anyone"
-Gregory Taylor "My advice to you is get married: if you find a good wife you'll be happy; if not, you'll become a philosopher. "
- Socrates "In science one tries to tell people, in such a way as to be understood by everyone, something that no one ever knew before. But in poetry, it's the exact opposite. "
- Paul Dirac (1902-1984) "Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one. "
- Albert Einstein "One of the symptoms of an approaching nervous breakdown is the belief that one's work is terribly important. "
- Bertrand Russell "Three o'clock is always too late or too early for anything you want to do. "
- Jean-Paul Sartre (1905-1980) "A doctor can bury his mistakes but an architect can only advise his clients to plant vines. "
- Frank Lloyd Wright "If you haven't got anything nice to say about anybody, come sit next to me. "
- Alice Roosevelt Longworth (1884-1980) "I think our governments will remain virtuous for many centuries as long as they are chiefly agricultural; and this will be as long as there shall be vacant lands in any part of America. When they get piled upon one another in large cities as in Europe, they will become corrupt as in Europe."
--Thomas Jefferson to James Madison, 1787. Papers 12:442 "A liberal's way to clean up a swamp is to go around and kill each mosquito one by one, but only after France and Germany say it's okay. What would France be contributing anyway? Their last military mobilization was loading Jews onto trains to concentration camps. The Warsaw ghetto held out longer than the French military."
-Ann Coulter "I view great cities as pestilential to the morals, the health and the liberties of man. True, they nourish some of the elegant arts; but the useful ones can thrive elsewhere; and less perfection in the others, with more health, virtue and freedom, would be my choice."
-Thomas Jefferson to Benjamin Rush, 1800. ME 10:173 "The United States is just a 280 million page supermarket tabloid."
-Gregory Taylor "No one can earn a million dollars honestly. "
- William Jennings Bryan "Everything has been figured out, except how to live. "
- Jean-Paul Sartre "It is better to have a permanent income than to be fascinating. "
- Oscar Wilde "When ideas fail, words come in very handy. "
- Goethe (1749-1832) "In the end, everything is a gag. "
- Charlie Chaplin "You got to be careful if you don't know where you're going, because you might not get there."
- Yogi Berra "The graveyards are full of indispensable men. "
- Charles de Gaulle "You can pretend to be serious; you can't pretend to be witty. "
- Sacha Guitry (1885-1957) "Behind every great fortune there is a crime. "
- Honore de Balzac (1799-1850) "If women didn't exist, all the money in the world would have no meaning. "
- Aristotle Onassis (1906-1975) "I have an existential map; it has 'you are here' written all over it."
- Steven Wright "The covers of this book are too far apart. "
Ambrose Bierce (1842-1914) "Everywhere I go I'm asked if I think the university stifles writers. My opinion is that they don't stifle enough of them. "
- Flannery O'Connor "Anything that is too stupid to be spoken is sung. "
- Voltaire "No Sane man will dance. "
- Cicero (106-43 B.C.) "Show me a sane man and I will cure him for you. "
- Carl Gustav Jung "Vote early and vote often. "
- Al Capone (1899-1947) "If I were two-faced, would I be wearing this one?"
- Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865) "Happiness is good health and a bad memory. "
- Ingrid Bergman "You can get more with a kind word and a gun than you can with a kind word alone."
- Al Capone (1899-1947) "You seem to consider the judges as the final arbiters of all constitutional questions; a very dangerous doctrine indeed, and one that would put us under the despotism of an oligarchy."
-Thomas Jefferson "If our nation be destroyed, it would be from the judiciary."
Thomas Jefferson "Eulogy of The Dog"
By: George G. Vest
Gentlemen of the jury, the best friend a man has in this world may turn against him and become his enemy. His son or daughter whom he has reared with loving care may prove ungrateful. Those who are nearest and dearest to us---those who we trust with our happiness and our good name---may become traitors to their faith. The money that a man has he may lose. It flies away from him, perhaps when he needs it most. A man's reputation may be sacrificed in a moment of ill-considered action. The people who are prone to fall on their knees to do us honor when success is with us may be the first to throw the stone of malice when failure settles its clouds upon our heads. The one absolutely unselfish friend that man can have in this selfish world---the one that never deserts him, the one that never proves ungrateful or treacherous---is his dog. Gentlemen of the jury, a man's dog stands by him in prosperity and in poverty, in health and sickness. He will sleep on the cold ground where the wintry winds blow and the snow drives fiercely, if only he can be near his master's side. He will kiss the hand that has no food to offer, he will lick the wounds and sores that come in encounter with the roughness of the world. He guards the sleep of his pauper master as if he were a prince. When all other friends desert, he remains. When riches take wings and reputation falls to pieces he is as constant in his love as the sun in its journey through the heavens. If fortune drives the master forth an outcast in the world, friendless and homeless, the faithful dog asks no higher privilege than that of accompanying him to guard against danger, to fight against his enemies. And when the last scene of all comes, and death takes the master in its embrace, and his body is laid away in the cold ground, no matter if all other friends pursue their way, there by his graveside will the noble dog be found, his head between his paws, his eyes sad but open in alert watchfulness, faithful and true even to death. -Compiled from eye witness accounts of a trial summary delivered by George Graham Vest in 1870 at the old courthouse in Warrensburg, MO during a trial about the shooting of a farmer’s dog named “Old Drum” by a neighbor." "Every day I get up and look through the Forbes list of the richest people in America. If I'm not there, I go to work."
- Robert Orben "The cynics are right nine times out of ten. "
- Henry Louis Mencken (1880-1956) "There are some experiences in life which should not be demanded twice from any man, and one of them is listening to the Brahms Requiem.
- George Bernard Shaw "Attention to health is life's greatest hindrance. "
- Plato "Plato was a bore. "
- Friedrich Nietzsche "Nietzsche was stupid and abnormal. "
- Leo Tolstoy "I'm not going to get into the ring with Tolstoy. "
- Ernest Hemingway "Hemingway was a jerk. "
- Harold Robbins "How can I lose to such an idiot?"
- A shout from chessmaster Aaron Nimzovich (1886-1935) "History fails to record a single precedent in which nations subject to moral decay have not passed into political and economic decline. There has been either a spiritual awakening to overcome the moral lapse, or a progressive deterioration leading to ultimate national disaster."
- General Douglas MacArthur "Men have become the tools of their tools."
- Henry David Thoreau "Men and nations behave wisely once they have exhausted all the other alternatives. "
- Abba Eban "Copy from one, it's plagiarism; copy from two, it's research. "
- Wilson Mizner "Why don't you write books people can read?"
- Nora Joyce to her husband James "The most male voice in Christendom. Every man knows he is a sissy compared to Johnny Cash."
-Bono. "Some editors are failed writers, but so are most writers. "
- T. S. Eliot "Being on the tightrope is living; everything else is waiting."
- Karl Wallenda "The average person thinks he isn't."
- Father Larry Lorenzoni "Ask her to wait a moment - I am almost done. "
- Carl Friedrich Gauss (1777-1855), while working, when informed that his wife is dying "I think there is a world market for maybe five computers. "
- Thomas Watson (1874-1956), Chairman of IBM, 1943 "The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing. "
- Edmund Burke "I'm not a member of any organized political party, I'm a Democrat!"
- Will Rogers "There is no reason anyone would want a computer in their home. "
- Ken Olson, president, chairman and founder of Digital Equipment Corp., 1977 "640K ought to be enough for anybody."
- Bill Gates 1981 "The concept is interesting and well-formed, but in order to earn better than a 'C', the idea must be feasible. "
- A Yale University management professor in response to student Fred Smith's paper proposing reliable overnight delivery service (Smith went on to found Federal Express Corp.) "We don't like their sound, and guitar music is on the way out. "
- Decca Recording Co. rejecting the Beatles, 1962 "Everything that can be invented has been invented. "
- Charles H. Duell, Commissioner, U.S. Office of Patents, 1899 "Denial ain't just a river in Egypt. "
- Mark Twain (1835-1910) "After I'm dead I'd rather have people ask why I have no monument than why I have one. "
- Cato the Elder (234-149 BC, AKA Marcus Porcius Cato) "He can compress the most words into the smallest idea of any man I know. "
- Abraham Lincoln "Don't let it end like this. Tell them I said something. "
- last words of Pancho Villa (1877-1923) "The right to swing my fist ends where the other man's nose begins. "
- Oliver Wendell Holmes "The difference between fiction and reality? Fiction has to make sense. "
- Tom Clancy "It is better to be feared than loved, if you cannot be both. "
- Niccolo Machiavelli (1469-1527), "The Prince" "Whatever is begun in anger ends in shame. "
- Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790) "The President has kept all of the promises he intended to keep. "
- Clinton aide George Stephanopolous speaking on Larry King Live "We're going to turn this team around 360 degrees. "
- Jason Kidd, upon his drafting to the Dallas Mavericks "Half this game is ninety percent mental. "
- Yogi Berra "There is only one nature - the division into science and engineering is a human imposition, not a natural one. Indeed, the division is a human failure; it reflects our limited capacity to comprehend the whole. "
- Bill Wulf "He has all the virtues I dislike and none of the vices I admire."
- Sir Winston Churchill "This isn't right, this isn't even wrong."
- Wolfgang Pauli (1900-1958), upon reading a young physicist's paper "I've just learned about his illness. Let's hope it's nothing trivial."
- Irvin S. Cobb "We are not retreating - we are advancing in another Direction."
- General Douglas MacArthur "There are only two tragedies in life: one is not getting what one wants, and the other is getting it."
- Oscar Wilde "There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle."
- Albert Einstein "Every generalization is dangerous, especially this one."
— Mark Twain "The only real valuable thing is intuition."
— Albert Einstein "The best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of others."
— "Mahatma" Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi "The doors of wisdom are never shut."
— Benjamin Franklin "A day without laughter is a day wasted."
— Charlie Chaplin "Children seldom misquote you. In fact, they usually repeat word for word what you shouldn't have said."
— unknown "Imagination is the highest kite one can fly."
— Lauren Bacall "Good manners and bad breath will get you nowhere".
- Elvis Costello "Caution: Cape does not enable user to fly".
— Batman costume warning label, Wal-Mart, 1995 "I would recommend a solo flight to all prospective suicides. It tends to make clear the issue of whether one enjoys being alive or not".
— T. H. White, 'England Have My Bones,' 1936 "What you do speaks so loud that I cannot hear what you say".
-Ralph Waldo Emerson "Experience is the name that everyone gives to their mistakes".
-Oscar Wilde "Sometimes a scream is better than a thesis."
-Ralph Waldo Emerson "I've never had major knee surgery on any other part of my body."
-Winston Bennett, University of Kentucky basketball forward "Smoking kills. If you're killed, you've lost a very important part of your life."
-Brooke Shields "Outside of the killings, Washington has one of the lowest crime rates in the country."
-Mayor Marion Barry, Washington, DC "We've got to pause and ask ourselves: How much clean air do we need?"
-Lee Iacocca "Please provide the date of your death."
-from an IRS letter "I was under medication when I made the decision to burn the tapes."
-Richard Nixon "We are sorry to announce that Mr Albert Brown has been quite unwell, owing to his recent death, and is taking a short holiday to recover."
-Parish Magazine "Men, I want you just thinking of one word all season. One word and one word only: Super Bowl."
-Bill Peterson, football coach "Be sure and put some of those neutrons on it."
-Mike Smith, Baseball pitcher, ordering a salad at a restaurant "We are not without accomplishment. We have managed to distribute poverty equally."
-Nguyen Co Thatch, Vietnamese foreign minister "The word "genius" isn't applicable in football. A genius is a guy like Norman Einstein."
-Joe Theisman, NFL football quarterback and sports analyst "I've read about foreign policy and studied -- I know the number of continents."
-George Wallace, 1968 presidential campaign "We don't necessarily discriminate. We simply exclude certain types of people."
-Colonel Gerald Wellman, ROTC Instructor "If we don't succeed, we run the risk of failure."
-Dan Quayle "We are ready for an unforseen event that may or may not occur."
-Dan Quayle "It isn't pollution that's harming the environment. It's the impurities in our air and water that are doing it."
-Dan Quayle "I love California. I practically grew up in Phoenix."
-Dan Quayle "Traditionally, most of Australia's imports come from overseas."
-Keppel Enderbery "The loss of life will be irreplaceable."
-Dan Quayle "A verbal contract isn't worth the paper it's written on."
-Samual Goldwyn "It is wonderful to be here in the great state of Chicago..."
-Dan Quayle "The people in the Navy look on motherhood as being compatible with being a woman."
-Rear Admiral James R. Hogg "I'm all in favor of keeping dangerous weapons out of the hands of fools. Let's start with typewriters."
- Frank Lloyd Wright "I stand by all the misstatements that I've made."
-Dan Quayle "Your food stamps will be stopped effective March 1992 because we received notice that you passed away. May God bless you. You may reapply if there is a change in your circumstances."
-Department of Social Services, Greenville, South Carolina "We apologize for the error in last week's paper in which we stated that Mr. Arnold Dogbody was a defective in the police force. We meant, of course, that Mr. Dogbody is a detective in the police farce."
-Correction Notice in the Ely Standard, a British newspaper "If somebody has a bad heart, they can plug this jack in at night as they go to bed and it will monitor their heart throughout the night. And the next morning, when they wake up dead, there'll be a record."
-Mark S. Fowler, FCC Chairman "Antidotes are what you take to prevent dotes."
-Anonymous "Be sure to include tranquilizers to ease the strain and monotony of life in a fallout shelter. A bottle of 100 should be sufficient for a family of four. Tranquilizers are not a narcotic, and are not habit-forming."
-Atomic Cafe "No man is ever old enough to know better."
-Holbrook Jackson "I don't deserve this award, but I have arthritis and I don't deserve that either."
-Jack Benny "When an actor comes to me and wants to discuss his character, I say, 'It's in the script.' If he says, 'But what's my motivation?, ' I say, 'Your salary.'"
-Alfred Hitchcock " "The most merciful thing that a family does to one of its infant members is to kill it."
--Margaret Sanger, Founder of Planned Parenthood "Birth control must lead ultimately to a cleaner race."
--Margaret Sanger, Founder of Planned Parenthood "We should hire three or four colored ministers, preferably with social-service backgrounds, and with engaging personalities. The most successful educational approach to the Negro is through a religious appeal. We don't want the word to go out that we want to exterminate the Negro population…"
--Margaret Sanger, Founder of Planned Parenthood "Eugenic sterilization is an urgent need ... We must prevent multiplication of this bad stock."
--Margaret Sanger, Founder of Planned Parenthood "Eugenics is … the most adequate and thorough avenue to the solution of racial, political and social problems.
--Margaret Sanger, Founder of Planned Parenthood "Birth control itself, often denounced as a violation of natural law, is nothing more or less than the facilitation of the process of weeding out the unfit, of preventing the birth of defectives or of those who will become defectives."
--Margaret Sanger, Founder of Planned Parenthood "The unbalance between the birth rate of the 'unfit' and the 'fit,' [is] the greatest present menace to civilization… the most urgent problem today is how to limit and discourage the over-fertility of the mentally and physically defective."
--Margaret Sanger, Founder of Planned Parenthood "The campaign for birth control is not merely of eugenic value, but is practically identical with the final aims of eugenics."
--Margaret Sanger, Founder of Planned Parenthood "Our failure to segregate morons who are increasing and multiplying… a dead weight of human waste… an ever-increasing, unceasingly spawning class of human beings who never should have been born at all."
--Margaret Sanger, Founder of Planned Parenthood "The undeniably feeble-minded should, indeed, not only be discouraged but prevented from propagating their kind."
--Margaret Sanger, Founder of Planned Parenthood "The procreation of [the diseased, the feeble-minded and paupers] should be stopped."
--Margaret Sanger, Founder of Planned Parenthood "The marriage bed is the most degenerative influence in the social order..."
--Margaret Sanger, Founder of Planned Parenthood "[Our objective is] unlimited sexual gratification without the burden of unwanted children..."
--Margaret Sanger, Founder of Planned Parenthood "[Mandatory] sterilization for [the insane and feeble-minded] is the answer."
--Margaret Sanger, Founder of Planned Parenthood "Give dysgenic groups [people with 'bad genes'] in our population their choice of segregation or [compulsory] sterilization."
--Margaret Sanger, Founder of Planned Parenthood I argue very well. Ask any of my remaining friends. I can win an argument on any topic, against any opponent. People know this, and steer clear of me at parties. Often, as a sign of their great respect, they don't even invite me."
-Dave Barry "The fellow that agrees with everything you say is either a fool or he is getting ready to skin you."
-Kin Hubbard "We do not want word to get out that we want to exterminate the Negro population"
-Margaret Sanger "By working faithfully eight hours a day, you may get to be a boss and work twelve hours a day."
-Robert Frost "Our character is what we do when we think no one is looking."
-H. Jackson Brown, Jr. "If the automobile had followed the same development cycle as the computer, a Rolls-Royce would today cost $100, get one million miles to the gallon, and explode once a year, killing everyone inside."
-Robert X. Cringely "Sure there have been injuries and deaths in boxing - but none of them serious."
- Alan Minter, Boxer "I think that the film Clueless was very deep. I think it was deep in the way that it was very light. I think lightness has to come from a very deep place if it's true lightness."
- Alicia Silverstone, Actress "How to store your baby walker: First, remove baby."
- Anonymous Manufacturer " This is no longer a slum neighborhood. I haven't heard of a Cubs fan being shot in a long time."
- Anonymous Wrigley Field Neighbor, Chicago, IL "During the scrimmage, Tarkanian paced the sideline with his hands in his pockets while biting his nails."
- AP report describing Fresno State basketball coach Jerry Tarkanian "Two grand slams in a week - man, that's seven or eight ribbies right there."
- Bill Madlock, Baseball broadcaster "You guys line up alphabetically by height." -
Bill Peterson, Florida State football coach "The internet is a great way to get on the net."
- Bob Dole, Republican presidential candidate "I get to go to lots of overseas places, like Canada." -
Britney Spears, Pop Singer "I discovered I scream the same way whether I'm about to be devoured by a Great White or if a piece of seaweed touches my foot."
- Axel Rose (Guns'n'Roses) "I saw a woman wearing a sweatshirt with 'Guess' on it. I said, 'Thyroid problem?'"
- Arnold Schwarzenegger "The hardest years in life are those between ten and seventy".
- Helen Hayes (at 73) "Wise men talk because they have something to say. Fools talk because they have to say something."
- Plato "Try not to become a man of success, but rather, try to become a man of value."
- Albert Einstein "Clothes make the man. Naked people have little or no influence on society."
-Mark Twain "Woman are meant to be loved, not to be understood".
-Oscar Wilde "Love is the only force capable of transforming an enemy into a friend".
-Martin Luther King, Jr. "If you love your job, you haven't worked a day in your life."
-Tommy Lasorda "Keep your face to the sunshine and you will not see the shadows".
- Helen Keller "You miss 100 percent of the shots you never take."
- Wayne Gretzky "People think we make $3 million and $4 million a year. They don't realize that most of us only make $500,000."
-Pete Incaviglia, baseball player, 1990 "Time you enjoy wasting, was not wasted."
-John Lennon "This American system of ours, call it Americanism, call it capitalism, call it what you will, gives each and every one of us a great opportunity if we only seize it with both hands and make the most of it."
- Al Capone "The problem with people who have no vices is that generally you can be pretty sure they're going to have some pretty annoying virtues."
-Elizabeth Taylor "We have staked the whole future of American civilization, not upon the power of government, far from it. We have staked the future upon the capacity of each and all of us to govern ourselves, to sustain ourselves, according to the Ten Commandments of God"
- James Madison "If you're going through hell, keep going."
-Walt Disney "Anyone who can walk to the welfare office can walk to work."
-Al Capone "What luck for rulers that men do not think."
- Adolf Hitler "Hollywood is a place where they'll pay you 50,000 dollars for a kiss and 50 cents for your soul."
- Marilyn Monroe "One man with courage is a majority."-- Thomas Jefferson "It's just a job. Grass grows, birds fly, waves pound the sand. I beat people up."
- Muhammad Ali "I never set out to hurt anybody deliberately unless it was, you know, important. Like a league game or something."
-Dick Butkus "I'm not smart enough to lie."
- Ronald Reagan "You can't get good Chinese takeout in China and Cuban cigars are rationed in Cuba. That's all you need to know about communism."
- P.J. O'Rourke "Freedom is not empowerment. Empowerment is what the Serbs have in Bosnia. Anybody can grab a gun and be empowered. It's not entitlement. An entitlement is what people on welfare get, and how free are they? It's not an endlessly expanding list of rights - the 'right' to education, the 'right' to health care, the 'right' to food and housing. That's not freedom, that's dependency. Those aren't rights, those are the rations of slavery - hay and a barn for human cattle."
- P.J. O'Rourke "If you think healthcare is expensive now, just wait until it's free."
-P.J. O'Rourke "Politics should be limited in scope to war, protection of property, and the occasional precautionary beheading of a member of the ruling class."
-P.J. O'Rourke "Giving money and power to government is like giving whiskey and car keys to teenaged boys."
-P.J. O'Rourke "Authority has always attracted the lowest elements in the human race. All through history, mankind has been bullied by scum. Those who lord it over their fellows and toss commands in every direction and would boss the grass in the meadow about which way to bend in the wind are the most depraved kind of prostitutes. They will submit to any indignity, perform any vile act, do anything to achieve power. The worst off-sloughings of the planet are the ingredients of sovereignty. Every government is a parliament of whores. The trouble is, in a democracy the whores are us."
-P.J. O'Rourke The free market is ugly and stupid, like going to the mall; the unfree market is just as ugly and just as stupid, except there's nothing in the mall and if you don't go there they shoot you."
P.J. O'Rourke "Actors--is there anything they don't know?"
-Homer Simpson "You can say that to an audience whose understanding of history goes back to breakfast"
-Bejamin Netanyahu "War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things. The decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks that nothing is worth war is much worse. The person who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself."
- John Stuart Mill "Anyone who imagines that bliss is normal is going to waste a lot of time running around shouting that he's been robbed. The fact is that most putts don't drop, most beef is tough, most children grow up to be just people, most successful marriages require a high degree of mutual toleration, and most jobs are more often dull than otherwise. Life is like an old time journey...delays, sidetracks, smoke, dust, cinders, and jolts, interspersed only occasionally by beautiful vistas, and thrilling bursts of speed. The trick is to thank the Lord for letting you have the ride."
-Gordon B Hinckley "When I began entering into the give and take of legislative bargaining in Sacramento, a lot of the most radical conservatives who had supported me during the election didn't like it.”Compromise" was a dirty word to them and they wouldn't face the fact that we couldn't get all of what we wanted today. They wanted all or nothing and they wanted it all at once. If you don't get it all, some said, don't take anything. "I'd learned while negotiating union contracts that you seldom got everything you asked for. And I agreed with FDR, who said in 1933: 'I have no expectations of making a hit every time I come to bat. What I seek is the highest possible batting average.' "If you got seventy-five or eighty percent of what you were asking for, I say, you take it and fight for the rest later, and that's what I told these radical conservatives who never got used to it.
- Ronald Reagan, in his autobiography, An American Life. "The art of war is of vital importance to the State. It is a matter of life and death, a road either to safety or to ruin. Hence it is a subject of inquiry which can on no account be neglected."
- Sun Tzu, "The Art Of War" "I against my brother, I and my brother against our cousin I, my brother and our cousin against the neighbours, All of us against the foreigner."
- Bedouin proverb "I must study politics and war that my sons may have liberty to study mathmatics and philosophy."
- John Adams "Of all the enemies to public liberty, war is, perhaps, the most to be dreaded, because it comprises and develops the germ of every other. War is the parent of armies; from these proceed debts and taxes; and armies, and debts, and taxes are the known instruments for bringing the many under the domination of the few. No nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare."
- James Madison "In a general view, there are few conquests that repay the charge of making them, and mankind are pretty well convinced that it can never be worth their while to go to war for profit's sake. If they are made war upon, their country invaded, or their existence at stake, it is their duty to defend and preserve themselves, but in every other light, and from every other cause, is war inglorious and detestable."
- Thomas Paine "Peace is a condition in which no civilian pays any attention to military casualties which do not achieve a page one lead story - unless that civilian is a close relative of one of the casualties. But, if there ever was a time in history when "peace" meant that there was no fighting going on, I have been unable to find out about it."
- Robert A. Heinlein, "Starship Troopers" "No war ought ever to be undertaken but under circumstances which render all intercourse of courtesy between the combatants impossible. It is a bad thing that men should hate each other; but it is far worse that they should contract the habit of cutting one another's throats without hatred. War is never lenient but where it is wanton; when men are compelled to fight in self-defence, they must hate and avenge: this may be bad; but it is human nature."
- Thomas B. Macaulay, "Milford's History of Greece", 1824. "It is the soldier, not the reporter, who has given us freedom of the press. It is the soldier, not the poet, who has given us freedom of speech. It is the soldier, not the campus organizer, who has given us the freedom to demonstrate. It is the soldier, who salutes the flag, who serves beneath the flag, and whose coffin is draped by the flag, who allows the protester to burn the flag."
- Charles M. Province "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 small chance of survival. There may even be a worse case: you may have to fight when there is no hope of victory, because it is better to perish than to live as slaves."
- Winston Churchill. "Never, never, in nothing great or small, large or petty, never give in except to convictions of honour and good sense. Never yield to force; never yield to the apparently overwhelming might of the enemy."
- Winston Churhcill "It is better that London should lie in ruins and ashes than that we should surrender."
- Winston Churchill "It is enough of a claim to historic greatness for a man to have saved his own country. Winston Churchill may have saved civilization."
- Thomas Sowell, "The Best of the Century" "The dogmas of the quiet past are inadequate to the stormy present. The occasion is piled high with difficulty, and we must rise to the occasion. We cannot escape history. We will be remembered in spite of ourselves. The fiery trial through which we pass will light us down in honour or dishonour, to the last generation. We shall nobly save, or meanly lose, our last best hope of Earth."
- Abraham Lincoln, American Civil War. "Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe, to assure the survival and success of liberty."
- John Fitzgerald Kennedy "The way to bring out the best in the British people is to attack them."
- Alasdair MacIntyre "World War is the second worst activity of mankind, the worst being acquiescence in slavery."
- On the Right "Americans, indeed all freemen, remember that in the final choice, a soldier's pack is not so heavy a burden as a prisoner's chains."
- Dwight D. Eisenhower "Sometimes true peace can only be found on the other side of war."
- Unknown "Pacifism in the face of war is not only irresponsible - it is immoral. Refusing to meet force with force in the name of peace will beget not peace, but further death and destruction, the very violence the pacifists seek to avoid."
- David Limbaugh "I'm not sure I can take your advice. You are dealing with English Gentlemen. We are dealing with monsters."
- Martin Buber, German Jewish Philosopher, in response to Mahatma Gandhi's suggestion that passive resistance be used to combat the Nazi government in Germany, as was used against the British in India. "It is better to be violent, if there is violence in our hearts, than to put on the cloak of nonviolence to cover impotence."
- GandhiM "It has been said of generals that they are always planning to fight the preceeding war. It can be said with equal irony of peace activists that they are usually trying to prevent the preceeding war."
- Anton Rappoport, "The Origins Of Violence" "Armaments do not, generally speaking, cause wars. This notion, the logical crux of all arguments in favor of disarmament, turns the causal relationship upside down. Actually, it is wars, or conflicts threatening war, that cause armaments, not the reverse."
- James Burnham, "The War We Are In" "As a rule, I am very careful to be shallow and conventional where depth and originality are wasted."
--Lucy Maud Montgomery "Life is fraught with opportunities to keep your mouth shut."
--Winston Churchill "We sleep soundly in our beds at night because rough men stand ready to do violence on our behalf."
- Winston Churchill "A thorn defends the rose, harming only those who would steal the blossom."
- Chinese Proverb "If we desire to secure peace, one of the most powerful instruments of our rising prosperity, it must be known that we are at all times ready for war."
- George Washington "Wars are caused by undefended wealth"
- General Douglas MacArthur "Ironically, peacable kingdoms, being nice, may tempt aggressors to devour them, while nations armed to the teeth, whether nice like the Swiss or nasty like Afghanistan, may live undisturbed for generations."
- Seabury, "War: Ends & Means" "There is nothing so likely to produce peace as to be well prepared to meet the enemy."
- George Washington "Being powerful is like being a lady. If you have to tell people you are - you aren't."
- Margaret Thatcher "I returned, and saw under the sun, that the race is not (always) to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, neither yet bread to the wise, nor yet riches to men ofunderstanding, nor yet favour to men of skill; but time and chance happeneth to them all."
- Ecclesiastes 9.11 "War is a series of catastrophes that results in a victory."
- Georges Clemenceau "When all the world is overcharged with inhabitants, then the last remedy of all is war."
- Thomas Hobbes, "Leviathan" "In peace sons bury their fathers, but in war fathers bury their sons."
- King Croesus (550 B.C.) "One cannot play chess if one becomes aware of the pieces as living souls and of the fact that the Whites and the Blacks have more in common with each other than with the players. Suddenly one loses all interest in who will be champion."
- Anatol Rapoport "In a false quarrel there is no true valour."
- William Shakespeare "Winners never talk about glorious victories. Thats because they're the ones who see what the battle field looks like afterwards. Its only the losers who have glorious victories."
- Terry Pratchett, "Small Gods" "The tragedy of war is that it uses man's best to do man's worst."
- Harry Emerson Fosdick "Arms are instruments of ill omen.... When one is compelled to use them, it is best to do so without relish. There is no glory in victory, and to glorify it despite this is to exult in the killing of men.... When great numbers of people are killed, one should weep over them with sorrow. When victorious in war, one should observe mourning rites."
- Lao Tzu "Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who are cold and not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its labourers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children."
- President Dwight D. Eisenhower, 1953. "War hath no fury like a non combatant."
- Charles Edward Montague "It is fatal to enter any war without the will to win it."
- Douglas MacArthur, Republican Convention, 1952. "I don't consider myself dovish. And I certainly don't consider myself hawkish. Maybe I would describe myself as owlish - that is, wise enough to understand that you want to do everything possible to avoid war; that once you're committed to war, then ferocious enough to do whatever is necessary to get it over as quickly as possible in victory."
- Norman Schwartzkopf "War is not violence and killing, pure and simple; war is controlled violence, for a purpose. The purpose of war is to support your government's decisions by force. The purpose is never to kill the enemy just to be killing him but to make him do what you want him to do. Not killing... but controlled and purposeful violence."
- Robert A. Heinlein, "Starship Troopers" "The most expensive thing in the world is a second-best military establishment, good but not good enough to win."
-Robert A. Heinlein, "The Happy Days Ahead : Expanded Universe" "War challenges virtually every other institution of society - the justice and equity of its economy, the adequacy of its political systems, the energy of its productive plant, the bases, wisdom and purposes of its foreign policy."
-Walter Millis "The essence of war is violence. Moderation in war is imbecility."
- John A. Fisher "In wartime, truth is so precious that she should always be attended by a bodyguard of lies."
- Winston Churchill "Observe your enemies for they first find out your faults."
- Antisthenes "You can discover what your enemy fears most by observing the means he uses to frighten you."
- Eric Hoffer "Men of sense often learn from their enemies. It is from their foes, not their friends, that cities learn the lesson of building high walls and ships of war.... "
- Aristophanes "One should never permit a disorder to persist in order to avoid a war, for wars cannot be avoided and can only be deferred to the advantage of others."
- Niccolo Machiavelli (1513) "The quickest and most economical way of winning a military decision is to defeat an enemy not at his weakest but at his strongest point.
- Epaminondas. "Know you enemy, and know yourself, and you need not fear the outcome of a thousand battles."
"The purpose of war is peace, in peace prepare for war, in war prepare for peace."
"He who wishes to fight must first count the cost."
"When one is strong, appear weak, when one is weak, appear strong."
"He shall triumph who knows when to fight - and when not to fight."
"He shall triumph who can handle inferior & superior forces."
"To draw an enemy away from an entrenched position, strike at a place that he shall have to relieve."
"The Supreme Art Of War is to subdue the enemy without fighting."
- Sun Tzu, "The Art Of War" "Success can never be obtained by merely following a strategical formula. There is an effective answer to every maneuver, and for each example of successful strategic operation, an instance may be cited of its failure. The object of war is a better state of peace, even if only from your point of view. Hence it is essential to conduct war with constant regard to the peace you desire. In war, one does not win ; another loses by giving in. Sometimes in war, it is necessary to limit one's objectives and not eliminate other essential national actors ( ie countries ) so that one may ally with them in future."
- Handel, "War, Strategy & Intelligence" "The political object is the goal, war is the means of reaching it, and the means can never be considered in isolation from their purposes."
- Karl von Clausewitz "On War" "To wage a war for a purely moral reason is as absurd as to ravish a woman for a purely moral reason."
- H.L. Mencken "A prisoner of war is a man who tries to kill you and fails, and then asks you not to kill him."
- Winston Churchill "Every principle of freedom ceases to be valid at the point when its operation would be suicidal."
- Seabury, "War: Ends & Means" "For all soldiers: Remember your equipment was made by the lowest bidder."
- Alan Birkbeck "Never share a trench with anyone braver than yourself."
- Alan Birkbeck "Therefore it is unnecessary for a prince to have all the good qualities I have enumerated, but it is very necessary to appear to have them." >BR>- Niccolo Machiavelli "Power is not only what you have but what the enemy thinks you have."
- Saul Alinsky "The proper means of increasing the love we bear our native country is to reside some time in a foreign one."
-William Shenstone "Something that happened to me a few years ago reflects some of this. It was back in 1981, and I was attending my first big economic summit, which was held that year in Canada. The meeting place rotates among the member countries. The opening meeting was a formal dinner for the heads of government of the seven industrialized nations. Now, I sat there like the new kid in school and listened, and it was all Francois this and Helmut that. They dropped titles and spoke to one another on a first-name basis. Well, at one point I sort of leaned in and said, "My name's Ron." Well, in that same year, we began the actions we felt would ignite an economic comeback--cut taxes and regulation, started to cut spending. And soon the recovery began. Two years later another economic summit, with pretty much the same cast. At the big opening meeting we all got together, and all of a sudden, just for a moment, I saw that everyone was just sitting there looking at me. And one of them broke the silence. 'Tell us about the American miracle,' he said
- Ronald Reagan "Ten thousand officers and men named Smith died in the First World War. One thousand four hundred Campbells died, six thousand Joneses, and one thousand Murphys. Smith, Campbell, Jones and Murphy: the names of the United Kingdom, whose presence in regiments from all four countries speaks of the ebb and flow of peoples within these islands, of a common sacrifice, and a shared agony that burned in so many million hearts down the decades."
- Kevin Myers, "The Daily Telegraph" "Patriotism means unqualified and unwavering love for the nation, which implies not uncritical eagerness to serve, not support for unjust claims, but frank assessment of its vices and sins, and penitence for them.
-Alexander Solzhenitsyn, "From Under the Rubble" "The noblest fate that a man can endure is to place his own mortal body between his loved home and the war's desolation."
-Robert A. Heinlein, "Starship Troopers" In wartime, the degree of patriotism is directly proportional to distance from the front
-Phillip Caputo "Anyone who clings to the historically untrue - and thoroughly immoral - doctrine 'that violence never settles anything' I would advise to conjure up the ghosts of Napoleon Bonaparte and of the Duke of Wellington and let them debate it. The ghost of Hitler could referee, and the jury might well be the Dodo, the Great Auk and the Passenger Pigeon. Violence, naked force, has settled more issues in history than has any other factor, and the contrary opinion is wishful thinking at its worst. Breeds that forget this basic truth have always paid for it with their lives and freedom."
- Robert A. Heinlein, "Starship Troopers" "Now the trumpet summons us again: not as a call to bear arms, though arms we need; not as a call to battle, though in battle we are; but as a call to bear the burdens of a long, twilight struggle - year in and year out, rejoicing in hope, patient in tribulation, a struggle against the common enemies of man - tyranny, poverty, disease, and war itself."
- John Fitzgerald Kennedy "D-Day represents the greatest achievement of the American people and system in the 20th century."
- Stephen Ambrose "I have sworn upon the altar of God eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man."
-Thomas Jefferson "We cannot guarantee victory, but only deserve it."
- Winston Churchill "All great civilisations, in their early stages, are based on success in war."
- Kenneth Clark, "Civilization" "As far as we can look back into history, the downfall of any nation can be traced from the moment that nation became timid about spending its best blood."
- Frederick Russell Burnham "I am more afraid of an army of a hundred sheep led by a lion than an army of a hundred lions led by a sheep."
- Marshall Talleyrand of France (1754-1838) "The Ryukyu Islands (Okinawa) were conquered and united into one kingdom. To insure his rule, the king confiscated and banned possession of weapons by people other than his troops. A second ban on weapons was instituted by Japanese conquerors approximately 200 years later. These two incidents are generally credited as the cause for the intense development of the empty handed fighting techniques..."
- Special Forces (USA) manual ST 31-204 "It is the soldier, not the reporter Who has given us freedom of the PRESS.
It is the soldier, not the poet, Who has given us freedom of SPEECH.
It is the soldier, not the campus ORGANIZER, Who has given us the freedom to DEMONSTRATE.
It is the soldier, not the lawyer, Who has given us the right to a FAIR TRIAL.
It is the soldier who salutes the flag, Serves under the flag And whose coffin is draped by the flag, Who gives the protester the right to burn the flag.
-Father D. E. O'Brien "It is a bad world, an incredibly bad world. But I have discovered in the midst of it a quiet and holy people who have learned a great secret. They have found a joy that is a thousand times better than any pleasure of our sinful life. They are despised and persecuted, but they care not. They are masters of their souls. They have overcome the world. These people are the Christians-and I am one of them."
Saint Cyprian (200-258). "How strangely will the Tools of a Tyrant pervert the plain Meaning of Words!"
- Samuel Adams (1722-1803), letter to John Pitts, January 21, 1776
"And whereas the greater part of the said tribe have been baptized and received into the Catholic Church, to which they are much attached, the United States will give annually, for seven years, one hundred dollars toward the support of a priest of that religion, who will engage to perform for said tribe the duties of his office, and also instruct as many of their children as possible, in the rudiments of literature."
- Thomas Jefferson, December 3, 1803, asking Congress to ratify a treaty with the Kaskaskia Indians. The treaty also allocated $300 to the building of a church. "To complain that a free economy favors the rich is like complaining that free speech favors the eloquent."
- Joseph Sobran Calvin and Hobbes Quotes: That's the difference between me and the rest of the world! Happiness isn't good enough for me! I demand euphoria! -- Calvin The purpose of writing is to inflate weak ideas, obscure pure reasoning, and inhibit clarity. With a little practice, writing can be an intimidating and impenetrable fog! -- Calvin Calvin: I'm a genius, but I'm a misunderstood genius.
Hobbes: What's misunderstood about you?
Calvin: Nobody thinks I'm a genius. Well, it just seemed wrong to cheat on an ethics test. -- Calvin Calvin: Can you make a living playing silly games?
Calvin's Dad: Actually, you can be among the most overpaid people on the planet. If you do the job badly enough, sometimes you don't get asked to do it again. -- Calvin The only skills I have the patience to learn are those that have no real application in life. -- Calvin Some people are pragmatists, taking things as they come and making the best of the choices available. Some people are idealists, standing for principle and refusing to compromise. And some people just act on any whim that enters their heads. I pragmatically turn my whims into principles! -- Calvin Sometimes I think the surest sign that intelligent life exists elsewhere in the universe is that none of it has tried to contact us. -- Calvin It seems like once people grow up, they have no idea what's cool. -- Calvin The real fun of living wisely is that you get to be smug about it. -- Calvin Calvin: Know what I pray for?
Hobbes: What?
Calvin: The strength to change what I can, the inability to accept what I can't, and the incapacity to tell the difference. I say, if your knees aren't green by the end of the day, you ought to seriously re-examine your life. -- Calvin It's psychosomatic. You need a lobotomy. I'll get a saw. -- Calvin Why waste time learning, when ignorance is instantaneous? -- Calvin Hobbes: What would you call the creation of the universe?
Calvin: The Horrendous Space Kablooie! If something is so complicated that you can't explain it in 10 seconds, then it's probably not worth knowing anyway. -- Calvin Who wouldn't be interested in everything we do?! -- Calvin I think we dream so we don't have to be apart so long. If we're in each other's dreams, we can play together all night. -- Calvin This one's tricky. You have to use imaginary numbers, like eleventeen ... -- Hobbes From now on, I'll connect the dots my own way. -- Calvin I'm learning real skills that I can apply throughout the rest of my life ... Procrastinating and rationalizing. -- Calvin Reality continues to ruin my life. -- Calvin Calvin: Sometimes when I'm talking, my words can't keep up with my thoughts. I wonder why we think faster than we speak.
Hobbes: Probably so we can think twice. I liked things better when I didn't understand them. -- Calvin Is it a right to remain ignorant? -- Calvin I think nighttime is dark so you can imagine your fears with less distraction. -- Calvin Miss Wormwood: What state do you live in? Calvin: Denial. Miss Wormwood: I don't suppose I can argue with that... What's the point of wearing your favorite rocketship underpants if nobody ever asks to see 'em? -- Calvin My life needs a rewind/erase button. -- Calvin Weekends don't count unless you spend them doing something completely pointless. -- Calvin You know, Hobbes, some days even my lucky rocketship underpants don't help. -- Calvin I imagine bugs and girls have a dim perception that nature played a cruel trick on them, but they lack the intelligence to really comprehend the magnitude of it. -- Calvin Susie: You'd get a good grade without doing any work.
Calvin: So?
Susie: It's wrong to get rewards you haven't earned.
Calvin: I've never heard of anyone who couldn't live with that. If you couldn't find any weirdness, maybe we'll just have to make some! -- Calvin I don't need to compromise my principles, because they don't have the slightest bearing on what happens to me anyway. -- Calvin As usual, goodness hardly puts up a fight. -- Calvin If we don't all watch the same TV, what will keep our culture homogeneous? -- Calvin My behaviour is addictive functioning in a disease process of toxic co-dependency. I need holistic healing and wellness before I'll accept any responsibility for my actions. -- Calvin My family is dysfunctional and my parents won't empower me. Consequently I'm not self actualized. -- Calvin Why do we drink cow's milk? Who was the first guy who first looked at a cow and said "I think I'll drink whatever comes out of these things when I squeeze 'em!"? -- Calvin Hobbes : What if the public doesn't like your work?
Calvin : They are not supposed to like it. This is avant-garde stuff! I'm criticizing the low brows who can't appreciate great art like this! I don't need to compromise my principles, because they don't have the slightest bearing on what happens to me anyway. -- Calvin Thank you. before I begin, I'd like everyone to notice that my report is in a professional, clear plastic binder...When a report looks this good, you know it'll get an 'A.' That's a tip kids. Write it down. -- Calvin Calvin : I think we have got enough information now, don't you?
Hobbes : All we have is one "fact" that you made up.
Calvin : That's plenty. By the time we add an introduction, a few illustrations and a conclusion, it'll look like a graduate thesis. If you want to stay dad you've got to polish your image. I think the image we need to create for you is "repentant but learning". -- Calvin "Dad buried in landslide! Jubilant throngs fill streets! Stunned father inconsolable - demands recount!" -- Calvin Often it takes some calamity to make us live in the present. Then suddenly we wake up and see all the mistakes we have made. But it is too late to change anything. -- Calvin Sometimes it seems things go by too quickly. We are so busy watching out for what's just ahead of us that we don't take the time to enjoy where we are. -- Calvin Hobbes : Shouldn't we read the instructions?
Calvin : Do I look like a sissy? You know what we need, Hobbes? We need an attitude. Yeah, you can't be cool if you don't have an attitude. -- Calvin Sometimes one should just look at things and think about things without doing things. -- Calvin It must be awful to be a girl. I'm sure it's frustrating knowing that men are bigger, stronger and better at abstract thought than women. Really, if you are a girl, what would make you go on living? --Calvin, Dictator-For-Life, of GROSS (Get Rid Of Slimy girlS) There's never enough time to do all the nothing you want. -- Calvin Golly, I'd hate to have a kid like me! -- Calvin This is so cool I've to go to the bathroom. -- Calvin I imagine girls and bugs have a dim perception that nature played a cruel trick on them but they lack the intelligence to really comprehend the magnitude of it. -- Calvin Dad are you vicariously living through me in the hope that my accomplishments will validate your mediocre life and in some way compensate for all the opportunities you botched ? -- Calvin If you care, you just get disappointed all the time. If you don't care nothing matters so you are never upset. -- Calvin Life is full of surprises but never when you need one. -- Calvin I'm killing time while I wait for life to shower me with meaning and happiness. -- Calvin "The dynamics of inter-being and mono logical imperatives in Dick and Jane : A study in psychic transrelational gender modes". Academia, here I come. -- Calvin Miss Wormwood : Calvin where was the Byzantine empire?
Calvin : I'll take "outer planets" for $100. How many boards would the Mongols hoard if the Mongol hordes got bored? -- Calvin I thrive on change... I thrive on making other people change. -- Calvin Be careful or be road-kill. -- Calvin A good compromise leaves everyone mad. -- Calvin Given that sooner or later we're all just going to die, what's the point of learning about integers? -- Calvin Miss Wormwood, could we arrange our seats in a little circle and have a little discussion? Specifically, I'd like to debate whether cannibalism ought to be grounds for leniency in murders since it is less wasteful. -- Calvin The only skills I have patience to learn are those that have no real application in life. -- Calvin "You don't get to be mom if you can't fix everything just right." -Calvin "If people could put rainbows in zoos, they'd do it." -Hobbes "Summer is butter on your chin and corn mush between every tooth." -Calvin "If we wanted more leisure, we'd invent machines that do things less efficiently." -Calvin's dad "To make a bad day worse, spend it wishing for the impossible." -Calvin "If good things lasted forever, would we appreciate how precious they are?" -Hobbes "I suppose the secret to happiness is learning to appreciate the moment." -Calvin "Weekends don't count unless you spend them doing something completely pointless." -Calvin "It's hard to be mad at someone who misses you while you're asleep." -Calvin "Oops, I always forget the purpose of competition is to divide people into winners and losers." -Hobbes being sarcastic "Someday I'll write my own philosophy book." -Calvin "Some things don't need the thought people give them." -Hobbes "Mom knows EVERYTHING" -Calvin "I'm a simple man with complex tastes." -Calvin "Endorsing products is the American way of expressing individuality." -Calvin "One of the joys of being a kid is that experiences are new and therefore more intense." -Calvin sniffing mustard "It's great to have a friend who appreciates an earnest discussion of ideas." -Calvin "That's the problem with science. You've got a bunch of empiricists trying to describe things of unimaginable wonder." -Calvin "All this modern technology just makes people try to do everything at once." -Hobbes "I suppose if we couldn't laugh at things that don't make sense, we couldn't react to a lot of life." -Hobbes "I don't understand this! Not a single part of my horoscope came true! ... The paper should print Mom's daily predictions. Those sure come true." -Calvin "I don't know which is worse, ...that everyone has his price, or that the price is always so low." -Calvin "I propose we leave math to the machines and go play outside." --- Calvin It takes an uncommon mind to think of these things. --- Calvin "That's the problem with nature, something's always stinging you or oozing mucous all over you. Let's go and watch TV." --- Calvin As a math atheist, I think I should be excused from this. --- Calvin, to Hobbes This game lends itself to certain abuses. --- Calvin I'm just very selective about the reality I choose to accept. --- Calvin I have plenty of common sense, I just choose to ignore it. --- Calvin I'm looking for something that can deliver a 50-pound payload of snow on a small feminine target. Can you suggest something? Hello...? --- Calvin "My ethicator machine must've had a built-in moral compromise spectral release phantasmatron! I'm a genius!" --- Calvin "Until you stalk and overrun, you can't devour anyone." --- Hobbes "The inside of my head was exploding with fireworks. Fortunately, my last thought turned out the lights when it left." --- Calvin "Mom and dad say I should make my life an example of the principles I believe in. But every time I do, they tell me to stop it." --- Calvin Verbing weirds language. --- Calvin. "Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports. It is impossible to rightly govern the world without God and the Bible."
- George Washington "The highest glory of the American Revolution was this; it connected, in one indissoluble bond the principles of civil government with the principles of Christianity."
- John Quincy Adams "It cannot be emphasized too strongly or too often that this great nation was founded, not by religionists, but by Christians; not on religions, but on the gospel of Jesus Christ! For this very reason peoples of other faiths have been afforded asylum, prosperity, and freedom of worship here."
- Patrick Henry "We have staked the future of all of our political institutions upon the capacity of mankind for self-government, upon the capacity of each and all of us to govern ourselves, to control ourselves, to sustain ourselves according to the Ten Commandments of God."
- James Madison "The moral principles and precepts contained in the Scripture ought to form the basis of all our civil constitutions and laws. All the miseries and evil men suffer from vice, crime, ambition, injustice, oppression, slavery, and war, proceed from their despising or neglecting the precepts contained in the Bible."
- Noah Webster "Providence has given our people the choice of their rulers, and it is the duty, as well as privilege and interest, of a Christian nation to select and prefer Christians for their rulers."
- John Jay, first Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court "A Bible and a newspaper in every house, a good school in every district--all studied and appreciated as they merit--are the principle support of virtue, morality, and civil liberty."
- Benjamin Franklin; March 1778 "We have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion. Avarice, ambition, revenge, or gallantry, would break the strongest cords of our Constitution as a whale goes through a net. Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate for the government of any other."
- John Adams, Oct. 11, 1798 "God who gave us life gave us liberty. And can the liberties of a nation be thought secure if we have removed their only firm basis: a conviction in the minds of men that these liberties are the gift of God? That they are not to be violated but with His wrath? Indeed, I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just; that His justice cannot sleep forever."
- Thomas Jefferson "We have staked the future of all of our political institutions upon the capacity of mankind for self-government, upon the capacity of each and all of us to govern ourselves, to control ourselves, to sustain ourselves according to the Ten Commandments of God."
- James Madison "Those people who will not be governed by God will be ruled by tyrants."
- William Penn "Bad men cannot make good citizens. It is when a people forget God that tyrants forge their chains. A vitiated state of morals, a corrupted public conscience, is incompatible with freedom. No free government, or the blessings of liberty, can be preserved to any people but by a firm adherence to justice, moderation, temperance, frugality, and virtue; and by a frequent recurrence to fundamental principles."
-Patrick Henry "No country upon earth ever had it more in its power to attain blessings. Much to be regretted indeed would it be, were we to depart from the road which Providence has pointed us to, so plainly; I cannot believe it will ever come to pass. The Great Governor of the Universe has led us too long and too far to forsake us in the midst of it. We may, now and then, get bewildered; but I hope and trust that there is good sense and virtue enough left to recover the right path."
- George Washington What was the very first thing Congress did after completing the final wording of the 1st Amendment? A resolution calling for a national day of Prayer:
RESOLVED, That a joint committee of both Houses be directed to wait upon the President of the United States, to request that he would recommend to the people of the United States a day of public thanksgiving and prayer, to be observed by acknowledging, with grateful hearts, that many signal favors of almighty God, especially by affording them the opportunity peaceably to establish a Constitution of government for their safety and happiness.
US Congress, 25 Sep 1789 "Definitely the Kansas City Chiefs. I met, like, 10 of them a few weeks ago. We did some exhibition thing and they were all really fun. I want them to do well."
-- Anna Kournikova, in a Stacey Pressman Page 2 article, on her favorite football team and why she likes them. "It is a form of killing. You're ending a life."
-Ron Fitzsimmons, Executive director of the National Coalition of Abortion Providers "I think we have deluded ourselves into believing that people don't know that abortion is killing."
- Faye Wattleton, former president of Planned Parenthood Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch. Liberty is a well-armed lamb contesting the vote.
--Benjamin Franklin When the people find that they can vote themselves money, that will herald the end of the republic.
--Benjamin Franklin One of the quirkier things about non-Christian critics of Christianity is how they will take a verse or two from the Bible, build an uninformed interpretation around it, and then completely disregard every other verse that makes it clear that the interpretation is hopelessly incorrect.
--Vox Day They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither safety nor liberty .
--Benjamin Franklin Where liberty dwells, there is my country .
--Benjamin Franklin God grant that not only the love of liberty but a thorough knowledge of the rights of man may pervade all the nations of the earth, so that a philosopher may set his foot anywhere on its surface and say: This is my country. .
--Benjamin Franklin If you would not be forgotten
As soon as you are dead and rotten,
Either write things worthy reading,
Or do things worth the writing.
--Benjamin Franklin Never confuse motion with action.
--Benjamin Franklin This will be the best security for maintaining our liberties. A nation of well-informed men who have been taught to know and prize the rights which God has given them cannot be enslaved. It is in the religion of ignorance that tyranny begins.
--Benjamin Franklin Any fool can criticize, condemn and complain and most fools do.
--Benjamin Franklin To find out a girl’s faults, praise her to her girl friends.
--Benjamin Franklin Freedom is not a gift bestowed upon us by other men, but a right that belongs to us by the laws of God and nature.
--Benjamin Franklin Only a virtuous people are capable of freedom. As nations become more corrupt and vicious, they have more need of masters.
--Benjamin Franklin Rebellion to tyrants is obedience to God.
--Benjamin Franklin The Constitution only gives people the right to pursue happiness. You have to catch it yourself.
--Benjamin Franklin He’s a fool who cannot conceal his wisdom.
--Benjamin Franklin What is the use of a new-born child? (When asked the use of a new invention)
--Benjamin Franklin ...a frequent recurrence to fundamental principles...is absolutely necessary to preserve the blessings of liberty and keep a government free.
--Benjamin Franklin You cannot strengthen the weak by weakening the strong,
You cannot help small men by tearing down big men,
You cannot help the poor by destroying the rich,
You cannot lift the wage earner
by pulling down the wage payer,
You cannot keep out of trouble
by spending more than your income,
You cannot further the brotherhood of man
by inciting class hatreds,
You cannot establish security on borrowed money,
You cannot build character and courage
by taking away a man's initiative and independence,
You cannot help men permanently by doing for them
what they could and should do for themselves.
-Abraham Lincoln "History is a vast early warning system."
-Norman Cousins "Hard work spotlights the character of people: some turn up their sleeves, some turn up their noses, and some don't turn up at all."
-Sam Ewig "One of the penalties for refusing to participate in politics is that you end up being governed by your inferiors."
-Plato "A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until a majority of voters discover that they can vote themselves largess out of the public treasury."
-Alexander Tytler "The politicians don't just want your money. They want your soul. They want you to be worn down by taxes until you are dependent and helpless. When you subsidize poverty and failure, you get more of both."
-James Dale Davidson "There is nothing more frightful than ignorance in action."
-Johann von Goethe "The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary."
-H. L. Mencken "My formula for success is rise early, work late, and strike oil."
-- J. Paul Getty "A bank is a place where they lend you an umbrella in fair weather and ask for it back when it begins to rain."
- Adlai Stevenson (1900-1965) "A leader in the Democratic Party is a boss, in the Republican Party he is a leader."
- Harry S. Truman "At the core of modern liberalism is the spoiled child - miserable, as all spoiled children are, unsatisfied, demanding, ill-disciplined, despotic and useless. Liberalism is a philosophy of sniveling brats."
--P.J. O'Rourke "Government is like a baby. An alimentary canal with a big appetite at one end and no sense of responsibility at the other."
--Ronald Reagan "When I was young, I said to God, 'God, tell me the mystery of the universe.' But God answered, 'that knowledge is for me alone.' So I said, 'God, tell me the mystery of the peanut.' Then God said, 'Well, George, that's more nearly your size.'"
--George Washington Carver "An infallible method of conciliating a tiger is to allow oneself to be devoured."
--Konrad Adenauer "Success has nothing to do with what you gain in life or accomplish for yourself. It's what you do for others."
--Danny Thomas "Writing is a socially acceptable form of schizophrenia."
--E. L. Doctorow "Every man, either to his terror or consolation, has some sense of religion."
--James Harrington "Courage is the fear of being thought a coward."
--Horace Smith "I have noticed even people who claim everything is predestined, and that we can do nothing to change it, look before they cross the road."
--Stephen Hawking "Through clever and constant application of propaganda, people can be made to see paradise as hell, and also the other way around, to consider the most wretched sort of life as paradise."
- Adolf Hitler "Mein Kampf" "A liberal is a man too broadminded to take his own side in a quarrel."
- Robert Frost "A lie gets halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to get its pants on."
- Winston Churchill "A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty."
- Winston Churchill "All women become like their mothers. That is their tragedy. No man does. That is his."
- Oscar Wilde "Always do right; this will gratify some people and astonish the rest."
- Mark Twain "An expert is a man who has stopped thinking - he knows!"
- Frank Lloyd Wright "Any fool can criticize, condemn, and complain -- and most fools do."
- Dale Carnegie "Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent. It takes a touch of genius -- and a lot of courage -- to move in the opposite direction."
- Albert Einstein "Anyone who can walk to the welfare office can walk to work."
- Al Capp "Avoid having your ego so close to your position that when your position falls, your ego goes with it."
- Colin Powell "The warning message we sent the Russians was a calculated ambiguity that would be clearly understood."
- Alexander Haig "Avant-garde music is sort of research music. You're glad someone's done it but you don't necessarily want to listen to it."
--Brian Eno "A man sits with a pretty girl for an hour and it seems shorter than a minute. But tell that same man to sit on a hot stove for a minute, it is longer than any hour. That's relativity."
- Albert Einstein "A man can't be too careful in the choice of his enemies."
- Oscar Wilde "A man's feet should be planted in his country, but his eyes should survey the world."
- George Santayana "A people that values its privileges above its principles soon loses both."
- Dwight D. Eisenhower "You can't find any true closeness in Hollywood, because everybody does the fake closeness so well."
- Carrie Fisher “Nothing is more dangerous in wartime than to live in the temperamental atmosphere of a Gallop poll, always feeling one's pulse and taking ones temperature...”
-Winston Churchill Report on the war, House of commons sept, 30 1941 "Before God we are all equally wise - and equally foolish."
-Albert Einstein "Education is what remains after one has forgotten everything he learned in school.
-Albert Einstein "Great spirits have always found violent opposition from mediocrities. The latter cannot understand it when a man does not thoughtlessly submit to hereditary prejudices but honestly and courageously uses his intelligence."
-Albert Einstein "I want to know God's thoughts. The rest are details."
-Albert Einstein "If I have seen farther than others, it is because I was standing on the shoulders of giants."
-Albert Einstein "If we knew what we were doing, it wouldn't be called research, would it? "
-Albert Einstein "Imagination is more important than knowledge. "
-Albert Einstein "In the middle of difficulty lies opportunity. "
-Albert Einstein "It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education. "
-Albert Einstein "Not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be counted. "
-Albert Einstein "Nothing will benefit human health and increase the chances for survival of life on Earth as much as the evolution to a vegetarian diet. "
-Albert Einstein "The hardest thing in the world to understand is the income tax."
-Albert Einstein "The release of atomic energy has not created a new problem. It has merely made more urgent the necessity of solving an existing one."
-Albert Einstein "There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle."
-Albert Einstein "We can't solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them."
-Albert Einstein George Washington's 1789 Thanksgiving Proclamation:
Whereas it is the duty of all nations to acknowledge the providence of Almighty God, to obey His will, to be grateful for His benefits, and humbly to implore His protection and favor; and Whereas both Houses of Congress have, by their joint committee, requested me "to recommend to the people of the United States a day of public thanksgiving and prayer, to be observed by acknowledging with grateful hearts the many and signal favors of Almighty God, especially by affording them an opportunity peaceably to establish a form of government for their safety and happiness:" Now, therefore, I do recommend and assign Thursday, the 26th day of November next, to be devoted by the people of these States to the service of that great and glorious Being who is the beneficent author of all the good that was, that is, or that will be; that we may then all unite in rendering unto Him our sincere and humble thanks for His kind care and protection of the people of this country previous to their becoming a nation; for the signal and manifold mercies and the favorable interpositions of His providence in the course and conclusion of the late war; for the great degree of tranquility, union, and plenty which we have since enjoyed; for the peaceable and rational manner in which we have been enable to establish constitutions of government for our safety and happiness, and particularly the national one now lately instituted' for the civil and religious liberty with which we are blessed, and the means we have of acquiring and diffusing useful knowledge; and, in general, for all the great and various favors which He has been pleased to confer upon us. And also that we may then unite in most humbly offering our prayers and supplications to the great Lord and Ruler of Nations and beseech Him to pardon our national and other transgressions; to enable us all, whether in public or private stations, to perform our several and relative duties properly and punctually; to render our National Government a blessing to all the people by constantly being a Government of wise, just, and constitutional laws, discreetly and faithfully executed and obeyed; to protect and guide all sovereigns and nations (especially such as have show kindness to us), and to bless them with good governments, peace, and concord; to promote the knowledge and practice of true religion and virtue, and the increase of science among them and us; and, generally to grant unto all mankind such a degree of temporal prosperity as He alone knows to be best. Given under my hand, at the city of New York, the 3d dy of October, A.D. 1789.
(signed) G. Washington "The Romans make a desert and call it peace,"
- Galgacus, a Caledonian chieftain, in a speech to his army before meeting the Romans in battle in 86 AD. "History will be kind to me for I intend to write it."
- Winston Churchill "The 7 Modern Sins: Politics without principles, Pleasures without conscience, Wealth without work, Knowledge without character, Industry without morality, Science without humanity, Worship without sacrifice."
- Canon Frederic Donaldson "It is necessary for us to learn from others' mistakes. You will not live long enough to make them all yourself."
- Admiral Hyman G. Rickover "The man with a toothache thinks everyone happy whose teeth are sound. The poverty-stricken man makes the same mistake about the rich man."
- George Bernard Shaw "The probability that we may fail in the struggle ought not to deter us from the support of a cause we believe to be just."
- Abraham Lincoln "The real heretic is not the atheist or agnostic (who are often decent people) but those who murmur "it doesn't matter what you believe, as long as it makes you feel good." This turns religion into a subjective matter, like taste in furnishings, and robs theology of its claim to ultimate truth."
- Sydney J. Harris "An atheist's most embarrassing moment is when he feels profoundly thankful for something, but can't think of anybody to thank for it."
- Mary Ann Vincent. "A pint of sweat, saves a gallon of blood."
- General George S. Patton "A determined soul will do more with a rusty monkey wrench than a loafer will accomplish with all the tools in a machine shop."
- Robert Hughes "In a free society, every opportunity comes with three obligations. First, you must seize it. You must mold it into a work that brings value to others. Second, you must live it. Opportunity is nurtured only by action. Third, you must defend the freedom to pursue opportunities. You must embrace these three obligations as if the future of the United States depended on it. In fact, it does."
- Robert C. Goizueta "Never tell people how to do things. Tell them what to do and they will surprise you with their ingenuity."
-General George S. Patton "Although at the moment they may be equal in their lack of a real answer, the man who replies "I'll find out," is much more valuable to his employer, his neighbor, and to himself than the man who replies "l don't know."
- Anonymous "Don't expect to build up the weak by pulling down the strong."
- Calvin Coolidge "Our real problem, then, is not our strength today; it is rather the vital necessity of action today to ensure our strength tomorrow."
- Dwight D. Eisenhower "Where there is no shame, there is no honor."
- African Proverb "In matters of style swim with the current; In matters of principle, stand like a rock."
- Thomas Jefferson < | 
