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Quotes
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FunnyNever argue with idiots because they will lower you to their level and beat you with experience. - Anonymous Don't argue with an idiot because people watching may not be able to tell the difference. - Anonymous Never wrestle with a pig. You both get dirty, but the pig likes it! - Anonymous I've slept like a baby: I woke up and cried every two hours. - Anonymous Nighty night, don't let the bad bugs byte! If they do use dynamite! - Anonymous Life is tragic: today you are here... tomorrow the same... - Anonymous Cleverly disguised as a responsible grown adult. - Anonymous Drive carefully! 90% of the people in the world are caused by accidents. - Anonymous Drive defensively. Buy a tank! - Anonymous Erotic is using a feather, kinky is using the whole bird. - Anonymous Sign at the Zoo: "Please do not feed the animals. If you have any suitable food, give it to the guard on duty." - Anonymous Sign in a nonsmoking area: "If we see you smoking, we will assume you are on fire and take appropriate action!" - Anonymous Sign on a fence: "Salesmen welcome! Dog food is expensive." - Anonymous Life is a sexually transmitted virus. - Anonymous Don't take life too seriously! No one gets out alive. - Anonymous You don't have to agree with me. You can be wrong if you want. - Anonymous My compliments to your primate ancestors. - Anonymous Anyone is now free to rub two primes together for their own gratification. - Anonymous (on RSA patent expiration) NO TRESPASSING! Trespassers will be shot! Survivors will be shot again! - Anonymous Hard work often pays off in time, but laziness always pays off now! - Anonymous Protesting is masturbation of the mind. - Anonymous If you're in a hole, the way to get out is to keep digging. - Anonymous If you see the mountain coming at you and your name isn't Mohammed... RUN... because it's a land slide. - Anonymous When in danger or in doubt, run in circles, scream and shout. - Anonymous Some days you are the dog, some days you are the hydrant... - Anonymous Lots of people have stomach trouble: no guts. - Anonymous Two farmers each claimed to own a certain cow. While one pulled on its head and the other pulled on its tail, the cow was milked by a lawyer. - Jewish parable Presumably from employee performance evaluations:
The federal government today announced that it is changing its emblem from an eagle to a condom because it more accurately reflects the government's political stance. A condom allows for inflation, halts production, destroys the next generation, protects a bunch of pricks, and gives you a sense of security while you're actually being screwed! – Anonymous
Sometimes I think the surest sign that intelligent life exists elsewhere in the universe is that none of it has tried to contact us. - Cartoon character Calvin I was so surprised at being born that I didn't speak for a year and a half. - Gracie Allen An Archaeologist is the best husband any woman can have: the older she gets, the more interested he is in her. - Agatha Christie The important thing in acting is to be able to laugh and cry. If I have to cry, I think of my sex life. If I have to laugh, I think of my sex life. - Glenda Jackson I got a new shadow. I had to get rid of the other one... It wasn't doing what I was doing. - Steven Wright I had to stop driving my car for a while... the tires got dizzy. - Steven Wright I am ready to meet my Maker. Whether my Maker is prepared for the great ordeal of meeting me is another matter. - Winston Churchill It matters not whether you win or lose, what matters is whether or not I lose. - Darin Weinberg When I was kidnapped, my parents immediately took action: they rented out my room. - Woody Allen In perpetrating a revolution, there are two requirements: someone or something to revolt against and someone to actually show up and do the revolting. - Woody Allen If you want to kill any idea in the world today, get a committee working on it. - Charles Franklin Kettering You give them guys in DC an inch and they all think they're rulers. - Archie Bunker What the world needs is more geniuses with humility, there are so few of us left. - Oscar Levant Whenever you hear the consensus of scientists agrees on something or other, reach for your wallet, because you're being had. - Michael Crichton Ninety percent of the politicians give the other ten percent a bad reputation. - Henry Kissinger I think the terror most people are concerned with is the IRS. - Malcolm Forbes (when asked if he was afraid of terrorism) To punish me for my contempt for authority, fate made me an authority myself. - Albert Einstein If we knew what it was we were doing, it would not be called research, would it? - Albert Einstein Put your hand on a hot stove for a minute, and it seems like an hour. Sit with a pretty girl for an hour, and it seems like a minute. That's relativity. - Albert Einstein Light travels faster than sound. That's why some people appear bright until you hear them speak. - Albert Einstein Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former. - Albert Einstein The difference between a genius and an idiot is that the first has its limits. - Albert Einstein A computer once beat me at chess, but it was no match for me at kick boxing. - Emo Philips Debugging is twice as hard as writing the code in the first place. Therefore, if you write the code as cleverly as possible, you are, by definition, not smart enough to debug it. - Brian W. Kernighan The two most common elements in the universe are hydrogen and stupidity. - Harlan Ellison May you live in interesting times and come to the attention of important people. - Eric Frank Russell (said to be a Chinese curse in one of his books) There are few nudities so objectionable as the naked truth. - Agnes Repplier All men are frauds. The only difference between them is that some admit it. I myself deny it. - H. L. Mencken To achieve the impossible dream, try going to sleep. - Joan Klempner Writing is not necessarily something to be ashamed of, but do it in private and wash your hands afterwards. - Robert Anson Heinlein Sex without love is merely healthy exercise. - Robert Anson Heinlein May the forces of evil become confused on their way to your house. - George Carlin
LifeInspiration is the mother of invention. Desperation is its father. - Anonymous I seek not to know all the answers, but to understand the questions. - Anonymous Be careful what you wish for! You might get it! - Anonymous The road to hell is paved with good intentions. - Anonymous It's weird to see that this old saying isn't understood. It actually means that if you have good intentions and want someone else to act according to your ideas, all you do is walk a little closer to hell / evil. Your rules are not anybody else's rules, so don't ask someone else act upon them! There is a quote of Ayn Rand which is similar with the above quote: Do not consider Collectivists as "sincere but deluded idealists". The proposal to enslave some men for the sake of others is not an ideal; brutality is not "idealistic", no matter what its purpose. Do not ever say that the desire to "do good" by force is a good motive. Neither power-lust nor stupidity are good motives. The barrier for sexually strong women is shame, that of men is aggressiveness. - Anonymous You can't make an omelet without breaking any eggs. - Anonymous Some people like to motivate their actions saying this. But here is an answer to it: "I can't make any chickens if you jerks keep breaking all the eggs!" Some people live just to dream of success, while others live to crush those dreams. - Anonymous I'll be more enthusiastic about encouraging thinking outside the box when there's evidence of any thinking going on inside it. - Anonymous Learn from those people who say no / disagree, not from those who say yes / agree. - Anonymous A mere friend will agree with you, but a real friend will argue. - Russian proverb Not a single raindrop believes it is responsible for the flood. - Anonymous A gem is not polished without rubbing, nor a man made perfect without trials. - Chinese proverb
Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle. - Plato (also attributed to T.H. Thompson and John Watson) It is easier to forgive an enemy than to forgive a friend. - William Blake The reasonable man adapts himself to the world. The unreasonable man persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the unreasonable man. - George Bernard Shaw The fact that a believer is happier than a skeptic is no more to the point than the fact that a drunken man is happier than a sober one. The happiness of credulity is a cheap and dangerous quality. - George Bernard Shaw Don't let school interfere with your education. - Mark Twain Whenever you find you are on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect. - Mark Twain It is better to keep your mouth closed and let people think you are a fool than to open it and remove all doubt. - Mark Twain If you don't read the newspaper you are uninformed, if you do read the newspaper you are misinformed. - Mark Twain Freedom is not worth having if it does not include the freedom to make mistakes. - Mohandas Karamchand "Mahatma" Gandhi First they ignore you. Then they laugh at you. Then they fight you. Then you win. - Mahatma Gandhi You must be the change you wish to see in the world. - Mahatma Gandhi One who believes in himself has no need to convince others. - Lao Zi To lead people, walk beside them. As for the best leaders, the people do not notice their existence. The next best, the people honor and praise. The next, the people fear; and the next, the people hate. When the best leader's work is done people say, "We did it ourselves!" - Lao Zi Every man dies, but not every man really lives. - William Wallace (Braveheart) If I have seen further it is because I have stood on the shoulders of giants. - Isaac Newton Kill a few and you're a murderer, kill a million and you're a hero. - Cliffhanger, John Lithgow's character. Just to make this clear, it says that "leaders" (the heroes in that context) are mass murderers. What you are, you are by accident of birth; what I am, I am by myself. There are and always will be thousands of princes, but there is only one Beethoven. - Ludwig von Beethoven (addressing royalty) True friendship is a plant of slow growth. - George Washington Depth of friendship does not depend on length of acquaintance. - Rabindranath Tagore A friend is a present you give yourself. - Robert Louis Stevenson Friendship is like money, easier made than kept. - Samuel Butler We should be provided with a new body about the age of thirty or so when we have learnt to attend to it with consideration. - Freya Stark Sexuality is the great field of battle between biology and society. - Nancy Friday I consider promiscuity immoral. Not because sex is evil, but because sex is too good and too important. - Ayn Rand Marriage has many pains, but celibacy has no pleasures. - Samuel Johnson Wickedness is always easier than virtue, for it takes the shortcut to everything. - Samuel Johnson Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed persons can change the world. Indeed it's the only thing that ever has. - Margaret Mead I would rather be ashes than dust! I would rather that my spark would burn out in a brilliant blaze than it should be stifled by dry rot. I would rather be a superb meteor, every atom of me in magnificent glow, than a sleepy and permanent planet. The proper function of man is to live, not to exist. I shall not waste my days in trying to prolong them. I shall use my time. - Jack London It takes a lot of courage to show your dreams to someone else. - Erma Bombeck Ere many generations pass, our machinery will be driven by power obtainable at any point in the universe. It is a mere question of time when men will succeed in attaching their machinery to the very wheelwork of nature. - Nikola Tesla More than any other time in history, we face a crossroad. One path leads to despair and utter hopelessness. The other, to total extinction. Let us pray we have the wisdom to choose correctly. - Woody Allen Oooh, so Mother Nature needs a favor?! Well maybe she should have thought of that when she was besetting us with droughts and floods and poison monkeys! Nature started the fight for survival, and now she wants to quit because she's losing. Well I say, hard cheese. - Montgomery Burns Remember not only to say the right thing in the right place, but far more difficult still, to leave unsaid the wrong thing at the tempting moment. - Benjamin Franklin I prefer rogues to imbeciles because rogues sometimes take a rest. - Alexandre Dumas Changes in human conditions are brought about by the pioneering of the cleverest and most energetic men. They take the lead and the rest of mankind follows them little by little. - Ludwig von Mises Imagination is more important than knowledge. - Albert Einstein So long as they don't get violent, I want to let everyone say what they wish, for I myself have always said exactly what pleased me. - Albert Einstein It would be possible to describe everything scientifically, but it would make no sense; it would be without meaning, as if you described a Beethoven symphony as a variation of wave pressure. - Albert Einstein The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and all science. He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer pause to wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead: his eyes are closed. - Albert Einstein Peace cannot be kept by force. It can only be achieved by understanding. - Albert Einstein Whoever undertakes to set himself up as a judge of Truth and Knowledge is shipwrecked by the laughter of the gods. - Albert Einstein What we observe is not nature itself, but nature exposed to our method of questioning. - Werner Karl Heisenberg Forgive your enemies, but never forget their names. - John F. Kennedy When choosing between two evils, I always like to try the one I've never tried before. - Mae West The real danger is not that computers will begin to think like men, but that men will begin to think like computers. - Sydney J. Harris When one door closes, another opens. But we often look so regretfully upon the closed door that we don't see the one which has opened for us. - Alexander Graham Bell Shoot for the moon. Even if you miss, you'll land among the stars. - Les Brown Our greatest glory is not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall. - Confucius Genius may have its limitations, but stupidity is not thus handicapped. - Elbert Hubbard What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us. - Ralph Waldo Emerson The education of a man is never completed until he dies. - Robert E. Lee Where all men think alike, no one thinks very much. - Walter Lippmann Thinking is the hardest work there is, which is probably the reason why so few engage in it. - Henry Ford A real friend is one who walks in when the rest of the world walks out. - Walter Winchell Adversity makes men, prosperity makes monsters. - Victor Hugo Idealism is what precedes experience; cynicism is what follows. - David T. Wolf It's so easy to laugh. It's so easy to hate. It takes strength to be gentle and kind. - Stephen Morrissey It is better to be alone than to be in bad company. - George Washington No justification of virtue will enable a man to be virtuous. - Clive Staples Lewis The difference between a moral man and a man of honor is that the latter regrets a discreditable act, even when it has worked and he has not been caught. - Clive Staples Lewis Without the aid of trained emotions the intellect is powerless against the animal organism. - Clive Staples Lewis You don't have a Soul. You are a Soul. You have a body. - Clive Staples Lewis A proud man is always looking down on things and people; and, of course, as long as you're looking down, you can't see something that's above you. - Clive Staples Lewis Love anything and your heart will be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact you must give it to no one, not even an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements. Lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket, safe, dark, motionless, airless, it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. To love is to be vulnerable. - Clive Staples Lewis Until the day of his death, no man can be sure of his courage - Jean Anouilh Neither fire nor wind, birth nor death can erase our good deeds. - Siddhartha Gautama Buddha Love is composed of a single soul inhabiting two bodies. - Aristotle Anybody can become angry; that is easy, but to be angry with the right person and to the right degree and at the right time and for the right purpose, and in the right way, that is not within everybody's power and is not easy. - Aristotle Do not handicap your children by making their lives easy. - Robert Anson Heinlein This does NOT mean that you should make their lives hard! Never worry about theory as long as the machinery does what it's supposed to do. - Robert Anson Heinlein Theology is never any help; it is searching in a dark cellar at midnight for a black cat that isn't there. - Robert Anson Heinlein A man who has never gone to school may steal from a freight car; but if he has a university education he may steal the whole railroad. - Theodore Roosevelt We are shut up in schools and college recitation rooms for ten or fifteen years, and come out at last with a bellyful of words and do not know a thing. - Ralph Waldo Emerson Beware of the man who works hard to learn something, learns it, and finds himself no wiser than before. He is full of murderous resentment of people who are ignorant without having come by their ignorance the hard way. - Kurt Vonnegut Men are born ignorant, not stupid; they are made stupid by education. - Bertrand Russell The chicken noticed that the farmer came every day to feed it. It predicted that the farmer would continue to bring food every day. Inductivists think that the chicken had "extrapolated" its observations into a theory, and that each feeding time added justification to that theory. Then one day the farmer came and wrung the chicken's neck. This inductively justifies the conclusion that induction cannot justify any conclusion. - Bertrand Russell We all have our time machines. Some take us back, they're called memories. Some take us forward, they're called dreams. - Jeremy Irons Science isn't done by consensus. It's done by rigorous testing. - Orson Scott Card The greatest trick the Devil ever pulled was convincing the world that he didn't exist. - Baudelaire The results you produce in life are inversely proportional to the degree to which you are intimidated. - Robert J. Ringer Some people, no matter how old they get, never lose their beauty - they merely move it from their faces to their hearts. - Martin Buxbaum If you you think there is a solution, you're part of the problem. - George Carlin (on social issues) No matter how you care to define it, I do not identify with the local group, planet, species, race, nation, state, religion, party, union, club, association. I love and treasure individuals as I meet them. I loath and despise the group they identify with and belong to. - George Carlin
WomenWomen who seek to be equal with men lack ambition. - Timothy Leary You start out happy that you have no hips or boobs. All of a sudden you get them and it feels sloppy. Then just when you start liking them, they start drooping. - Cindy Crawford Having a bottom is living with the enemy. Not only do they spend their lives slowly inflating, they flirt with men while we're looking the other way. - Steven Moffat (written for a show) I try to take one day at a time, but sometimes several days attack me at once. - Jennifer Yane Behind every successful woman... is a substantial amount of coffee. - Stephanie Piro No one will ever win the battle of the sexes; there's too much fraternizing with the enemy. - Henry Kissinger Being a woman is a terribly difficult task since it consists principally in dealing with men. - Joseph Conrad I would like it if men had to partake in the same hormonal cycles to which we're subjected monthly. Maybe that's why men declare war - because they have a need to bleed on a regular basis. - Brett Butler The lovely thing about being forty is that you can appreciate twenty-five-year-old men more. - Colleen McCullough I want a man who's kind and understanding. Is that too much to ask of a millionaire? - Zsa Zsa Gabor Don't cook. Don't clean. No man will ever make love to a woman because she waxed the linoleum - Joan Rivers Women may be able to fake orgasms, but men can fake whole relationships. - James Shubert A lot of guys think the larger a woman's breasts are, the less intelligent she is. I think it's the opposite: the larger a woman's breasts are, the less intelligent the men become. - Anita Wise Boys will be boys, and so will a lot of middle-aged men. - Frank McKinney Hubbard The only time a woman really succeeds in changing a man is when he is a baby. - Natalie Wood Women are like elephants to me. I like to look at them, but I wouldn't want to own one. - W.C. Fields The old theory was "Marry an older man because they're more mature." But the new theory is: "Men don't mature. Marry a younger one." - Rita Rudner Women and cats will do as they please, and men and dogs should relax and get used to the idea. - Robert Anson Heinlein Women will forgive anything. Otherwise, the race would have died out long ago. - Robert Anson Heinlein I got a postcard from my gynecologist. It said, "Did you know it's time for your annual check-up?" No, but now my mailman does. - Cathy Ladman A male gynecologist is like an auto mechanic who has never owned a car. - Carrie Snow Inside some of us is a thin person struggling to get out, but they can usually be sedated with a few pieces of chocolate cake. - Anonymous I keep trying to lose weight... but it keeps finding me! - Anonymous Woman's Rule of Thumb: If it has tires or testicles, you're going to have trouble with it. - Anonymous The average woman would rather have beauty than brains, because the average man can see better than he can think. - Anonymous THREE wise men? Are you serious? - Anonymous
AlcoholBeauty is in the eye of the... beer holder. - Anonymous Work is the curse of the drinking classes. - Oscar Wilde A bottle of wine contains more philosophy that all the books in the world. - Louis Pasteur In wine there is wisdom. In beer there is strength. In water there is bacteria. - German proverb Everybody should believe in something. I believe I'll have another drink. - Anonymous You can't drown yourself in drink. I've tried, you float. - John Barrymore I don't have a drinking problem. I drink. I get drunk. I fall down, no problem. - Anonymous I drink to make other people interesting. - George Jean Nathan I feel sorry for people who don't drink. They wake up in the morning and that's the best they're going to feel all day. - Dean Martin Time is never wasted when you're wasted all the time. - Catherine Zandonella Alcohol may be man’s worst enemy, but in the Bible it says to love thy enemy. - Frank Sinatra Sometimes I don't drink so the next day I can remember having fun. - Mae West
... No bottles of wine or bacteria have been harmed while compiling these quotes :)
Insight into the criminal mindHow fortunate for governments that the people they administer don't think. - Adolf Hitler A lie told often enough becomes the truth. - Vladimir Lenin It is true that liberty is precious, so precious that it must be carefully rationed. - Vladimir Lenin
Liberty, economy, politicsWhere liberty is, there is my country. - Benjamin Franklin We must hang together, or we will most assuredly hang separately! - Benjamin Franklin Life, liberty, and property do not exist because men have made laws. On the contrary, it was the fact that life, liberty and property existed beforehand that caused men to make laws in the first place. - Fredric Bastiat See if the law takes from some persons what belongs to them, and gives it to other persons to whom it does not belong. See if the law benefits one citizen at the expense of another by doing what the citizen himself cannot do without committing a crime. Then abolish this law without delay, for it is not only an evil itself, but also it is a fertile source for further evils because it invites reprisals. - Fredric Bastiat Here I encounter the most popular fallacy of our times. It is not considered sufficient that the law should guarantee to every citizen the free and inoffensive use of his faculties for physical, intellectual and moral self-improvement. Instead, it is demanded that the law should directly extend welfare, education, and morality throughout the nation. This is the seductive lure of socialism. And I repeat: these two uses of the law are in direct contradiction to each other. - Frederic Bastiat And now that the legislators and do-gooders have so futiley inflicted so many systems upon society, may they finally end where they should have begun: May they reject all systems, and try liberty. - Frederic Bastiat Those who would give up essential Liberty to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety. - Benjamin Franklin Suppose you were an idiot. And suppose you were a member of Congress. But I repeat myself. - Mark Twain There is no distinctly American criminal class, except Congress. - Mark Twain Liberty means responsibility. That is why most men dread it. - George Bernard Shaw A government with the policy to rob Peter to pay Paul can be assured of the support of Paul. - George Bernard Shaw Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard. - Henry Louis Mencken There is only one honest impulse at the bottom of Puritanism, and that is the impulse to punish the man with a superior capacity for happiness. - Henry Louis Mencken Under democracy one party always devotes its chief energies to trying to prove that the other party is unfit to rule and both commonly succeed, and are right. - Henry Louis Mencken I believe in only one thing: liberty; but I do not believe in liberty enough to want to force it upon anyone. - Henry Louis Mencken When a candidate for public office faces the voters he does not face men of sense; he faces a mob of men whose chief distinguishing mark is the fact that they are quite incapable of weighing ideas, or even of comprehending any - men whose whole thinking is done in terms of emotion, and whose dominant emotion is dread of what they cannot understand. So confronted, the candidate must either bark with the pack or be lost. - Henry Louis Mencken Whenever 'A' attempts by law to impose his moral standards upon 'B', 'A' is most likely a scoundrel. - Henry Louis Mencken When buying and selling are controlled by legislation, the first things to be bought and sold are legislators. - Patrick Jake O'Rourke A little government and a little luck are necessary in life, but only a fool trusts either of them. - Patrick Jake O'Rourke Giving money and power to government is like giving whiskey and car keys to teenage boys. - Patrick Jake O'Rourke We hate our politicians so much that even if they tell us they lied, we don't believe them. - Peter Newman One of the best ways to get yourself a reputation as a dangerous citizen these days is to go about repeating the very phrases which our founding fathers used in the struggle for independence. - Charles Austin Beard 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, and this is necessary to close the circle of our felicity. - Thomas Jefferson I have never been able to conceive how any rational being could propose happiness to himself from the exercise of power over others. - Thomas Jefferson Timid men prefer the calm of despotism to the tempestuous sea of Liberty. - Thomas Jefferson Rightful liberty is unobstructed action according to our will within limits drawn around the equal rights of others. I do not add "within the limits of the law", because law is often but the tyrant's will, and always so when it violates the rights of the individual. - Thomas Jefferson Sometimes it is said that man cannot be trusted with the government of himself. Can he, then, be trusted with the government of others? - Thomas Jefferson I am interested in politics so that one day I will not have to be interested in politics. - Ayn Rand Do not consider Collectivists as "sincere but deluded idealists". The proposal to enslave some men for the sake of others is not an ideal; brutality is not "idealistic", no matter what its purpose. Do not ever say that the desire to "do good" by force is a good motive. Neither power-lust nor stupidity are good motives. - Ayn Rand The smallest minority on earth is the individual. Those who deny individual rights, cannot claim to be defenders of minorities. - Ayn Rand Regulation - which is based on force and fear - undermines the moral base of business dealings. It becomes cheaper to bribe a building inspector than to meet his standards of construction. Protection of the consumer by regulation is thus illusory. - Alan Greenspan When I was a kid I was told anyone could become President. Now I'm beginning to believe it. - Will Rogers The difference between death and taxes is that death doesn't get worse every time Congress meets. - Will Rogers Minimum wage laws tragically generate unemployment, especially among the poorest and least skilled or educated workers. Because a minimum wage, of course, does not guarantee any worker's employment, it only prohibits, by force of law, anyone from being hired at the wage which would pay his employer to hire him. - Murray Rothbard Every dollar spent to punish a drug user or seller is a dollar that cannot be spent collecting restitution from a robber. Every hour spent investigating a drug user or seller is an hour that could have been used to find a missing child. Every trial held to prosecute a drug user or seller is court time that could be used to prosecute a rapist in a case that might otherwise have been plea bargained. - Randy E. Barnett See, when the Government spends money, it creates jobs, whereas when the money is left in the hands of taxpayers, God only knows what they do with it. Bake it into pies, probably. Anything to avoid creating jobs. - Dave Barry 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. - Dave Barry Fiat currencies do not float, they just sink at different rates. - Clyde Harrison Government has lost its ability to ever blindside me again. I no longer read the news and believe the written pages. I no longer assume the guilt of those I see arrested. I have learned to open my eyes and see a story other than the one that the government and the media want me to see. - Sunni Liston The first lesson of economics is scarcity: there is never enough of anything to satisfy all those who want it. The first lesson of politics is to disregard the first lesson of economics. - Thomas Sowell The welfare state is the oldest con game in the world. First you take people's money away quietly and then you give some of it back to them flamboyantly. - Thomas Sowell He who regulates everything by laws, is more likely to arouse vices than reform them. - Benedict Spinoza Education (compulsory schooling, compulsory learning) is a tyranny and a crime against the human mind and spirit. Let all those who can, escape it any way they can. - John Holt The public school system: Usually a twelve year sentence of mind control. Crushing creativity, smashing individualism, encouraging collectivism and compromise, destroying the exercise of intellectual inquiry, twisting it instead into meek subservience to authority. - Walter Karp Government's view of the economy could be summed up in a few short phrases: If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. And if it stops moving, subsidize it. - Ronald Reagan Freedom is the recognition that no single person, no single authority or government has a monopoly on the truth, but that every individual life is infinitely precious, that every one of us put in this world has been put there for a reason and has something to offer. - Ronald Reagan The economic miracle that has been the United States was not produced by socialized enterprises, by government / union / industry cartels or by centralized economic planning. It was produced by private enterprises in a profit-and-loss system. And losses were at least as important in weeding out failures, as profits in fostering successes. Let government succor failures, and we shall be headed for stagnation and decline. - Milton Friedman Economic freedom is an essential requisite for political freedom. By enabling people to cooperate with one another without coercion or central direction, it reduces the area over which political power is exercised. - Milton Friedman Whenever we depart from voluntary cooperation and try to do good by using force, the bad moral value of force triumphs over good intentions. - Milton Friedman Why have we had such a decline in moral climate? I submit to you that a major factor has been a change in the philosophy which has been dominant, a change from belief in individual responsibility to belief in social responsibility. If you adopt the view that a man is not responsible for his own behavior, that somehow society is responsible, why should he seek to make his behavior good? - Milton Friedman Adam Smith's key insight was that both parties to an exchange can benefit and that, so long as cooperation is strictly voluntary, no exchange can take place unless both parties do benefit. - Milton Friedman Government is not reason, it is not eloquence it is force. Like fire it is a dangerous servant and a fearful master; never for a moment should it be left to irresponsible action. - George Washington Liberty is the only thing you can't have unless you give it to others. - William Allen White What light is to the eyes, what air is to the lungs, what love is to the heart, liberty is to the soul of man. - Robert Green Ingersoll Any excuse will serve a tyrant. - Aesop The more laws, the less justice. - Cicero The budget should be balanced, the treasury should be refilled, public debt should be reduced, the arrogance of officialdom should be tempered and controlled, and the assistance to foreign lands should be curtailed lest Rome become bankrupt. - Cicero. The only freedom which deserves the name, is that of pursuing our own good in our way, so long as we do not attempt to deprive others of theirs, or impede their efforts to obtain it. - John Stuart Mill What would happen to the individual if all the functions of the body were placed under the control of the consciousness is what would happen to a nation in which all individual activities were directed by government. - Henry George Free trade consists simply in letting people buy and sell as they want to buy and sell. It is protection that requires force, for it consists in preventing people from doing what they want to do. Protective tariffs are as much applications of force as are blockading squadrons, and their object is the same: to prevent trade. The difference between the two is that blockading squadrons are a means whereby nations seek to prevent their enemies from trading; protective tariffs are a means whereby nations attempt to prevent their own people from trading. What protection teaches us is to do to ourselves in time of peace what enemies seek to do to us in time of war. - Henry George When the people sacrifice Liberty for Security, they will neither have, nor deserve either. - Benjamin Franklin A ship has no freedom until the anchor is raised. - J.J. Luna Over two thousand years ago, Aristotle taught us that money should be durable, divisible, consistent, convenient, and value in itself. It should be durable, which is why wheat isn't money; divisible which is why works of art are not money; consistent which is why real estate isn't money; convenient, which is why lead isn't money; value in itself, which is why paper shouldn't be money. Gold answers to all these criteria. - Doug Casey Find out just what the people will submit to and you have found out the exact amount of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them; and these will continue until they are resisted with either words or blows, or with both. The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress. - Frederick Douglass The power which a multiple millionaire, who may be my neighbor and my employer, has over me is very much less than that which the petit functionnaire possesses who wields the coercive power of the state. - Friedrich Hayek The privacy and dignity of our citizens are being whittled away by sometimes imperceptible steps. Taken individually, each step may be of little consequence. But when viewed as a whole, there begins to emerge a society quite unlike any we have seen a society in which government may intrude into the secret regions of a person’s life. - William O. Douglas (1898-1980), U. S. Supreme Court Justice, Osborne v. United States. Among the many misdeeds of the British rule in India, history will look upon the depriving a whole nation of arms as the blackest. - Mahatma Ghandi Civilization can only revive when there shall come into being in a number of individuals a new tone of mind independent of the one prevalent among the crowd and in opposition to it, a tone of mind which will gradually win influence over the collective one, and in the end determine its character. It is only an ethical movement which can rescue us from the slough of barbarism, and the ethical comes into existence only in individuals. - Albert Schweitzer Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. - Lord Acton If you can't convince them, confuse them. - Harry S. Truman Central planning will eventually destroy individual liberty by concentrating all political power in one person or in a committee; furthermore, it will eventually end our prosperity by laying the dead hand of state control on the economy. - Robert M. Thornton What our generation has forgotten is that the system of private property is the most important guarantee of freedom, not only for those who own property, but scarcely less for those who do not. It is only because the control of the means of production is divided among many people acting independently that nobody has complete power over us, that we as individuals can decide what to do with ourselves. - Friedrich A. Hayek Human beings will generally exercise power when they can get it; and they will exercise it most undoubtedly, in popular governments, under pretense of public safety. - Daniel Webster A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largesse from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most benefits from the public treasury, with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy, always followed by a dictatorship. - Anonymous (not proven to belong to Alexander Fraser Tyler) Few of us seem to want to keep government out of our personal affairs and responsibilities. Many of us seem to favor various types of government guaranteed and compulsory "security." We say that we want personal freedom, but we demand government housing, government price controls, government-guaranteed jobs and wages. We boast that we are responsible persons, but we vote for candidates who promise us special privileges, government pensions, government subsidies, and government electricity. - Dean Russell A government that is big enough to give you all you want is big enough to take it all away. - Barry Goldwater Liberty is meaningless if it is only the liberty to agree with those in power. - Ludwig Mises Louis 14 was very frank and sincere when he said "I am the State". The modern statist is modest. He says "I am the servant of the State", but he implies that the State is God. You could revolt against a Bourbon king, and the French did it. This was a struggle of man against man. But you cannot revolt against the God State and against his humble handy man, the bureaucrat. - Ludwig von Mises Liberty will not descend to people. People must rise themselves to liberty. It is a blessing that must be earned before it can be enjoyed. - Caleb C. Colton 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, 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 The control of the production of wealth is the control of human life itself. - Hilaire Belloc The will of men is not shattered, but softened, bent, and guided. Men are seldom forced by it to act, but they are constantly restrained from acting. Such a power does not destroy, but it prevents existence. It does not tyrannize, but it compresses, enervates, extinguishes, and stupefies people, until each nation is reduced to be nothing better than a flock of timid and industrious animals, of which the government is the shepherd. - Alexis de Tocqueville Americans are so enamored of equality, they would rather be equal in slavery than unequal in freedom. - Alexis de Tocqueville The person who used political power to force others to conform to his ideas seems inevitably to become corrupted by the power he holds. In due course he comes to believe that power and wisdom are the same thing and, since he has power, he must also have wisdom. At this point he begins to lose his ability to distinguish between what is morally right and what is politically expedient. - Ben Moreell A new public opinion must be created privately and unobtrusively. The existing one is maintained by the press, by propaganda, by organization, and by financial and other influences which are at its disposal. The unnatural way of spreading ideas must be opposed by the natural one, which goes from man to man and relies solely on the truth of the thoughts and the hearer's receptiveness for new truth. - Albert Schweitzer The proliferation of bureaucrats and its invariable accompaniment, much heavier tax levies on the productive part of the population, are the recognizable signs, not of a great, but of a decaying society. Historians know that both phenomena were especially marked in the declining eras of the Roman Empire in the West and of its successor state, the Eastern or Byzantine Empire. - William Henry Chamberlin A society of sheep must in time beget a government of wolves. - Bertrand de Jouvenel All that is required for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing. - Sir Edmund Burke Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human liberty; it is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves. - William Pitt No matter who you vote for, the government gets elected. - Anonymous The price of freedom is the probability of crime. The price of protection is the probability of slavery. - Dan Geer The direct use of physical force is so poor a solution to the problem of limited resources that it is commonly employed only by small children and great nations. - David Friedman, The Machinery of Freedom No man's life, liberty or fortune is safe while our legislature is in session. - Benjamin Franklin No nation was ever ruined by trade. - Benjamin Franklin When government sports a "surplus," this implies that the political pickpockets have stolen more funds than they can possibly dream of spending. The property is not theirs to keep! Conversely, when "deficits" are reported, this means that the kleptomaniacs have not been able to steal sufficient funds to cover their profligacy. - Ilana Mercer Any society that values wealth above freedom will lose its freedom, and will ultimately lose its wealth as well. - William Somerset Maugham The "role and mission" of politicians and bureaucrats is to acquire and exercise power. To that end they will say anything, do anything and use any excuse. It should be no surprise to anyone when their promises turn out hollow; they were not made for the purpose of being kept and they are not concerned with or interested in doing so. - Craig Spencer 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 own conscience. - Clive Staples Lewis Who can endure a doctrine which would allow only dentists to say whether our teeth were aching, only cobblers to say whether our shoes hurt us, and only governments to tell us whether we were being well governed? - Clive Staples Lewis No nation keeps its word. A nation is a big, blind worm, following what? Fate perhaps. A nation has no honor, it has no word to keep. - Carl Jung People will do anything, no matter how absurd, in order to avoid facing their own soul. - Carl Jung A prince is a bandit who doesn't move. - Mancur Olsen The twentieth century proved, if you were paying any attention, that taxation is the great enemy of civilization. How do you think Hitler paid for that army? With voluntary contributions? How did Stalin pay for the Gulag Archipelago? With bake sales? Ultimately, all the hot, warm and cold wars and genocides and classicides and nuclearcides of the dismal twentieth century were paid for by taxation. Barbarism is the price we pay for taxation. - James Ostrowski An income tax form is like a laundry list: either way you lose your shirt. - Fred Allen But what shall we substitute in its place? you say. What? A ferocious animal has sucked the blood of my family. I tell you to rid yourselves of this beast, and you ask me what you shall put in its place? - Voltaire (when asked what he would put in the place of the Christianity that he was criticizing) Indeed liberty is the divine source of all human happiness. - Cato Religion is regarded by the common people as true, by the wise as false, and by rulers as useful. - Seneca the Younger A tyrant must put on the appearance of uncommon devotion to religion. Subjects are less apprehensive of illegal treatment from a ruler whom they consider god-fearing and pious. On the other hand, they do less easily move against him, believing that he has the gods on his side. - Aristotle Democracy is when the indigent, and not the men of property, are the rulers. - Aristotle The propaganda of the victors becomes the history of the vanquished. - Rodney William Whitaker There is no worse tyranny than to force a man to pay for what he does not want merely because you think it would be good for him. - Robert Anson Heinlein You can have peace. Or you can have freedom. Don't ever count on having both at once. - Robert Anson Heinlein I am free, no matter what rules surround me. If I find them tolerable, I tolerate them; if I find them too obnoxious, I break them. I am free because I know that I alone am morally responsible for everything I do. - Robert Anson Heinlein Political tags - such as royalist, communist, democrat, populist, fascist, liberal, conservative, and so forth - are never basic criteria. The human race divides politically into those who want people to be controlled and those who have no such desire. - Robert Anson Heinlein 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 their freedoms. - Robert Anson Heinlein The universe never did make sense; I suspect it was built on government contract. - Robert Anson Heinlein Freeze or fry, the problem is always industrial capitalism, and the solution is always international socialism. - Malcolm Ross Just so that there is no misunderstanding: he is mocking the claims of socialists. In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act. - George Orwell You suffer your property to be pillaged, your fields devastated, your houses stripped of their goods, and all this by one whom you have yourselves raised to power, and whose dignity you maintain with your lives! He who crushes you has but two eyes, but two hands, but one body. All that he has more than you comes from you. Yours are the many eyes that spy out your acts, the many hands that strike you, the many feet that trample you in the dust: all the power with which he injures you is your own. From indignities that the beasts themselves would not endure you can free yourselves by simply willing it. Resolve to serve no more, and you are free. Withdraw your support from the Colossus that crushes you, and it will crumble in the dust. - Etienne de la Boetie To be governed is to be watched, inspected, spied upon, directed, law-ridden, regulated, penned up, indoctrinated, preached at, checked, appraised, seized, censured, commanded, by beings who have neither title, nor knowledge, nor virtue. - Pierre-Joseph Proudhon To be governed is to have every operation, every transaction, every movement noted, registered, counted, rated, stamped, measured, numbered, assessed, licensed, refused, authorized, endorsed, admonished, prevented, reformed, redressed, corrected. - Pierre-Joseph Proudhon To be governed is, under pretext of public utility and in the name of the general interest, to be laid under contribution, drilled, fleeced, exploited, monopolized, extorted from, exhausted, hoaxed and robbed; then, upon the slightest resistance, at the first word of complaint, to be repressed, fined, vilified, annoyed, hunted down, pulled about, beaten, disarmed, bound, imprisoned, shot, judged, condemned, banished, sacrificed, sold, betrayed, and, to crown all, ridiculed, derided, outraged, dishonored. - Pierre-Joseph Proudhon Some of the environmental lobbyists of the Western nations are the salt of the earth, but many of them are elitists. They've never experienced the physical sensation of hunger. They do their lobbying from comfortable office suites in Washington or Brussels. If they lived just one month amid the misery of the developing world, as I have for fifty years, they'd be crying out for tractors and fertilizer and irrigation canals and be outraged that fashionable elitists back home were trying to deny them these things. - Norman Borlaug Truth is treason in the empire of lies. - Ron Paul When the tyrant has disposed of foreign enemies by conquest or treaty, and there is nothing more to fear from them, then he is always stirring up some war or other, in order that the people may require a leader. - Plato Civilization is the result of personal decision and self-determination on an individual level. - William Maderas
Cyrus the GreatCyrus the Great, Emperor of Persia, 539 BC I announce that I will respect the traditions, customs and religions of the nations of my empire and never let any of my governors and subordinates look down on or insult them until I am alive. From now on, till (Ahura) Mazda grants me the kingdom favor, I will impose my monarchy on no nation. Each is free to accept it, and if any one of them rejects it, I never resolve on war to reign. Until I am the king of Iran, Babylon, and the nations of the four directions, I never let anyone oppress any others, and if it occurs, I will take his or her right back and penalize the oppressor. And until I am the monarch, I will never let anyone take possession of movable and landed properties of the others by force or without compensation. Until I am alive, I prevent unpaid, forced labor. Today, I announce that everyone is free to choose a religion. People are free to live in all regions and take up a job provided that they never violate other's rights. No one could be penalized for his or her relatives' faults. I prevent slavery and my governors and subordinates are obliged to prohibit exchanging men and women as slaves within their own ruling domains. Such a traditions should be exterminated the world over. I implore to (Ahura) Mazda to make me succeed in fulfilling my obligations to the nations of Iran (Persia), Babylon, and the ones of the four directions.
Zen storiesOnce Confucius was walking on the mountains and he came across a woman weeping by a grave. He asked the woman what her sorrow was, and she replied, "We are a family of hunters. My father was eaten by a tiger. My husband was bitten by a tiger and died. And now my only son!" "Why don't you move down and live in the valley? Why do you continue to live up here?" asked Confucius. And the woman replied, "But sir, there are no tax collectors here!" Confucius added to his disciples, "You see, a bad government is more to be feared than tigers." - Lin Yutang
Once upon a time, a king carried by his slaves wanted to cross a rope bridge. He called all the slaves and asked: "Is it safe? Someone go ahead and cross." All but one stared at each other and began to point and say "Your excellency, send him, he is wisest and can tell you if it is safe." Each poor slave pointed at another, and another. Finally, one said, "Let me go across, sire." Having crossed the bridge, he cut the rope.
VariousThese quotes are here only because they are used in GOT CCG. No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main. - John Donne |
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