Do not ascribe to malevolence what can be attributed to simple incompetence.
-Hanlon's Razor (most common name)
...it was an unwise apprentice who worked for a carpenter who'd sawn off his own damned thumb once through incompetence.
-Velociman
All opinions are not equal. Some are a very great more robust, sophisticated and well supported in logic and argument than others.
-Douglas Adams
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When a culture become factionalized, when it becomes us vs. them, everyone starts setting up consistently smaller camps...first it's democrats vs. republicans...then it's mainstream republicans vs. conservative republicans...then it's conservative republicans vs. religious right republicans (with the democrats having equal problems on their side). As soon as we forget that we're *all* US, it begins to fall apart.
-J. Michael Straczynski
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I admire the serene assurance of those who have religous faith. It is wonderful to observe the calm confidence of a Christian with four aces.
-Mark Twain
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Speech is conveniently located midway between thought and action, where it often substitutes for both.
-John Andrew Holmes
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I'm not concerned about all hell breaking loose, but that a PART of hell will break loose... it'll be much harder to detect.
-George Carlin
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We have too many high sounding words, and too few actions that correspond with them.
-Abigail Adams
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So of course, I am wrong more than occasionally.
The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposing ideas in mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function.Unfortunately, there are many in blogworld that fail this test, some of whom I thought would pass.
-F. Scott Fitzgerald
I make up my opinions from facts and reasoning, and not to suit any body but myself. If people don't like my opinions, it makes little difference as I don't solicit their opinions or votes.
-William Tecumseh Sherman
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Trying to determine what is going on in the world by reading newspapers is like trying to tell the time by watching the second hand of a clock.
-Ben Hecht
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From the "sad but true" category:
A journey of a thousand miles sometimes ends very, very badly...
-Unknown
You know that children are growing up when they start asking questions that have answers.
-John J. Plomp
Life is too short to drink bad wine.And in the "advice that should be obvious, but isn't" category:
-Winston Churchill
Never slap a man who's chewin' tobacco.
-Will Rogers
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Under the veil of the pompous and arrogant, often lives the sad and pathetic.
-Jack G. Montgomery
All the world's a stage and most of us are desperately unrehearsed.
-Sean O'Casey
Honesty is the best image.
-Tom Wilson
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If I have seen further, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants.
-Isaac Newton
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Most people would like to be delivered from temptation but would like it to keep in touch.
-Robert Orben
Wanting to be someone else is a waste of the person you are.
-Kurt Cobain
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Two paradoxes are better than one; they may even suggest a solution.
-Edward Teller
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If you can't be a good example, then you'll just have to be a horrible warning.
-Catherine Aird
Life does not cease to be funny when people die any more than it ceases to be serious when people laugh.
-George Bernard Shaw
Were one half of mankind brave and the other half cowards, the brave would be always beating the cowards. Were all brave they would lead an uneasy life; all would be continually fighting. But being all cowards we go on very well.
-Dr. Samuel Johnson
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There's a difference between a philosophy and a bumper sticker.
-Charles M. Schulz
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I wonder if the Emperor Honorius watching the Visigoths coming over the seventh hill could truly realize that the Roman Empire was about to fall. This is really just another page of history, isn't it? Will this be the end of our civilization? Turn the page.
-Captain Jean Luc Picard, "Best of Both Worlds Part 1", Star Trek: The Next Generation
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Today I made an appearance downtown
I am an expert witness because I say I am
And I said, "Gentlemen, and I use that world loosely,
I will testify for you, I'm a gun for hire, I'm a saint, I'm a liar.
Because there are no facts, there is no truth
Just data to be manipulated.
I can get you any result you like...
What's it worth to you?"
Because there is no wrong, there is no right
And I sleep very well at night
No shame, no solution, no remorse, no retribution...
Just people selling t-shirts
Just opportunity to participate in the pathetic little circus
And winning, winning, winning...
-Don Henley, The Garden of Allah
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...a simple statement of priorities that explains the decisions made on what to publish and report, if you're willing think about it instead of simply rant and rage:
For most folks, no news is good news; for the press, good news is not news.
-Gloria Borger
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Every government is run by liars and nothing they say sould be believed.
-I. F. Stone
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....since I'm far too tired to write coherently, quotes:
The courage to be is the courage to accept oneself, in spite of being unacceptable.
-Paul Tillich
Liberty means responsibility; that is why most men dread it.
-George Bernard Shaw
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...can be found in this quote:
Only in a police state is the job of a policeman easy.Something to consider before we over-react and give away all of our freedoms.
-Orson Welles
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"The children won't leave without me, I won't leave without the King, and the King won't leave under any circumstances."
This is, of course, the famous quote from Queen Elizabeth (the Queen Mum), when it was suggested that the princesses be sent to Canada for safety during the WWII bombing of London. The fact the royals would not leave became symbolic of British resolve.
God bless the U.K.
"The most effective means of ensuring the government's accountability to the people is an aggressive, free, challenging, untrusting press."-Colin Powell
"Before the war is ended, the war party assumes the divine right to denounce and silence all opposition to war as unpatriotic and cowardly."-Senator Robert M. La Follette
While researching this post on Thomas Jefferson I ran across a quote from John Adams that made me think of the polarization of the United States and talk of the impending battle over the Supreme Court.
"Democracy... while it lasts is more bloody than either aristocracy or monarchy. Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There is never a democracy that did not commit suicide."Something to think about.
This will be my last post here until Tuesday, so I leave you some topical quotes...
"This nation will remain the land of the free only so long as it is the home of the brave."-Elmer Davis
"Those who expect to reap the blessings of freedom, must, like men, undergo the fatigue of supporting it."-Thomas Paine
"He that would make his own liberty secure, must guard even his enemy from opposition; for if he violates this duty he establishes a precedent that will reach himself."-Thomas Paine
"In the truest sense, freedom cannot be bestowed; it must be achieved."-Franklin D. Roosevelt
Happy 4th, Americans.
I'm in a Shakespearean mode of late, so I offer the words of Shylock, from The Merchant of Venice:
I am a Jew. Hath
not a Jew eyes? hath not a Jew hands, organs,
dimensions, senses, affections, passions? fed with
the same food, hurt with the same weapons, subject
to the same diseases, healed by the same means,
warmed and cooled by the same winter and summer, as
a Christian is? If you prick us, do we not bleed?
if you tickle us, do we not laugh? if you poison
us, do we not die? and if you wrong us, shall we not
revenge?
"Politicians, like diapers, have to be changed frequently--and for the very same reason."-Author Unknown
Have truer words ever been spoken?
"Even revolutionaries like chocolate chip cookies."-Trudeau's Doonesbury
Hello, Jack's readers. This is my second time guest-blogging here. I'm surprised Jack asked me to return, considering my own blog's lack of quality lately, but someone has to throw some quotes out now and then. May as well be me, I guess.
First I'd like to let you know that you will not get any thoughtful or visionary political commentary out of me. I find that sort of thing is best left to those with good blood pressure medication.
Now, how about a quote or two to bid Jack a bon voyage?
"A vacation is what you take when you can no longer take what you've been taking."-Earl Wilson
"A vacation should be just long enough that your boss misses you, and not long enough for him to discover how well he can get along without you."-Unknown
Enjoy yourself, Jack!
Any sufficiently advanced bureaucracy is indistinguishable from molasses.
-Unknown (see Clarke's Third Law)
The secret of eternal youth is arrested development.
-Alice Roosevelt Longworth
This is the devilish thing about foreign affairs: they are foreign and will not always conform to our whim.
-James Reston
Don't let it end like this. Tell them I said something.
-Pancho Villa, last words
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At times one remains faithful to a cause only because its opponents do not cease to be insipid.
-Friedrich Nietzsche
If you believe the doctors, nothing is wholesome; if you believe the theologians, nothing is innocent; if you believe the military, nothing is safe.
-Lord Salisbury
It is a mistake to think you can solve any major problems just with potatoes.
-Douglas Adams
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We don't handle randomness well.
-Dr. Lucy Jones, scientist in charge of the Southern California office of the U.S. Geological Survey
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If Jesus Christ were to come today, people would not even crucify Him. They would ask Him to dinner, and hear what he had to say, and make fun of it.
-Thomas Carlyle
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Love is like an hourglass, with the heart filling up as the brain empties.
-Jules Renard
I put it down as a fact that if all men knew what each said of the other, there would not be four friends left in the world.
-Pascal
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A little sincerity is a dangerous thing, and a great deal of it is absolutely fatal.
-Oscar Wilde
Always drink upstream from the herd.
-Will Rogers
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Although I have enjoyed the Star Wars movies, I am far from thinking that George Lucas is a deep thinker, nor do I feel he is one of the great artists of our age. He accidentally touched upon a nerve at the right time, just as Gene Roddenberry did in creating Star Trek, they both provided avenues of escape from an unpleasant reality to millions who were disenchanted and disconnected with the world around them.
However, I find rather insightful and particularly relevant at the moment one quote from the final movie in the Star Wars series, Return of the Jedi, a movie I find to be the weakest of all six made to date:
You’re going to find that many of the truths we cling to depend greatly on our own point of view.A comment to a post I wrote on how I feel the prison at Guantanamo Bay is unworthy of us as a nation was as follows:
-George Lucas, Star Wars Episode VI: Return of the Jedi
Yeah, right on target, Jack.Except, to qualify as POWs under Article 4 of the Geneva Convention, al Qaeda and Taliban detainees would have to have satisfied four conditions:
1. They would have to be part of a military hierarchy.
2. They would have to have worn uniforms or other distinctive signs visible at a distance
3. They would have to have carried arms openly.
4. They would have to have conducted their military operations in accordance with the laws and customs of war.
So, maybe not so on target.
And you know what? That awful, evil BushHitler even decided that the prison at Guantanamo would treat Taliban prisoners under the Geneva convention, because Afghanistan was a signatory to the convention. Bastard, isn't he?
I am not saying we should be adhering to the Geneva Convention for ANY reason other than it is the morally right thing to do, REGARDLESS of what our enemies do or how they behave.
Otherwise, if we let THEM set the standards for OUR behavior, how are we different?
I also have never used the term "BusHitler", nor have I ever called the current President a bastard.
---
It appears that many are allowing their point of view, and their defense of it, to cloud their reason, their judgement, and their very perceptions of right, wrong, and what is honorable behavior.
I can find no other reason for this defense of behaviors that are indefensible, a defense that essentially says, "They piss on our flag, and they desecrate their own supposed holy book, so it's OK if we do it too."
When I was a child, my parents always said in response to my statements of "everyone is doing it" with a rebuke of "and if they jump of a bridge, will you do it too?"
The right-wing once fought against moral relativism, and still does when it is convenient for the advancement of their side and their agenda.
Apparently, though, when moral relativism is convenient for them, they defend it beyond all reason.
Although I describe myself as a left-leaning centrist who tries to be a moderate, I find myself in a position of explaining concepts of honor and absolute standards in response to those who could reasonably be described as at the least right-leaning.
I have in the past noted how the extreme rhetoric of our current age resembles that of immediately before the American Civil War, and what I see now only strengthens the similarities.
The "other" is demonized, even if they are fellow Americans.
The attitude of "us versus the-rest-of-the-world, with the rest of the world now including all dissenting Americans" now prevails.
I am not forecasting another Civil War such as that which we suffered upon the election of Abraham Lincoln, the infrastructure and fundamental issues are different.
However...
The intolerance, intransigence, and excessive rhetoric of the time and how what is present now so closely resembles it can teach us a lesson that I expect and fear will be ignored.
We allowed the intolerance to get so intense in 1861 that in a very literal sense, brother fought against brother in a conflict that is still the most murderous in our entire bloody history, where more Americans were killed than in any other conflict, with over half a million dead in both the North and the South.
Now, we fling similar overheated rhetoric at each other, after all that has happened in the last four years, after the deaths, after the revelations, after the fact, denying any inconvenient facts in our quest for winning.
Winning at any and all costs.
No thought as to what consequences might arise, and what costs might be too dear to pay.
I do not believe in "my side" winning at any cost, if that cost is to destroy the principles upon which my country was founded.
I believe in both honor and fundamental principles.
I have principles upon which I base my opposition to the prison at Guantanamo Bay, principles that are independent of how our enemies behave, because I do believe in absolute standards, even if I am willing to listen, discuss, and upon occasion alter my standards based upon what others believe in strongly.
Those who choose to defend immoral and dishonorable acts based upon how our enemies behave are only fooling themselves with the moral relativism they themselves claim to despise when they see it in others.
I often wonder where my country is going when I read the defense of the indefensible by those who claim to have a higher patriotism than anyone else.
I often wonder where my country is going when I read accusations of "excessive idealism" and "not recognizing reality" from those who claim to be "realists", despite their unrealistic view of the world as evidenced by the reality that has arisen in the last four years.
Am I infallible?
No, I am not, nor do I claim to be.
However, neither are those who present themselves as such, although there are many who if you read their writings appear to admit no possibility of any fallibility on their own part.
Is there a conclusion to this commentary?
No, there is not, although I wish I could find one, because it would be comforting.
Instead, we are left only with uncertainty and doubt, and I am left wondering what to think of those who I number as friends who seem to be intent upon defending what I find indefensible.
In the end, we are left only with uncertainty and doubt, the dual curses of thought...
Sorry, no comfort offered here, only questions.
Technorati Tags: commentary, fundamentals, opinion, personal, politics, quotes, some thoughts
...comes a concise statement of the mistrust of government, any government, that I hold:
If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary. In forming a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: you must first enable government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself.More on this later, when I answer a question posed in response to my definition of "moderate" and how it is different from "centrist".
-James Madison
Technorati Tags: fundamentals, opinion, quotes
As scarce as truth is, the supply is always greater than the demand.
-Josh Billings
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...I find that sometimes, perhaps, they are one and the same...
Is that a dagger or a crucifix I see
Held so tightly in your hand?
-Peter Gabriel, song: The Blood of Eden
When ideas fail, words come in very handy.
-Goethe
Obviously crime pays, or there'd be no crime.
-G. Gordon Liddy
The direct use of force is such a poor solution to any problem, it is generally employed only by small children and large nations.
-David Friedman
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.
-H. L. Mencken
Could this apply to the hobby of blogging, too?
One of the symptoms of an approaching nervous breakdown is the belief that one's work is terribly important.
-Bertrand Russell
Nothing is so admirable in politics as a short memory.
-John Kenneth Galbraith
...and while I write up an essay on the French "Non!" to the EU Constitution and upload photos, here's some quotes for you:
Few people think more than two or three times a year. I've made an international reputation for myself by thinking once or twice a week. -George Bernard ShawLife is not so bad if you have plenty of luck, a good physique and not too much imagination.
-Christopher IsherwoodGod is the immemorial refuge of the incompetent, the helpless, the misrable. They find not oly sanctuary in His arms, but also a kind of superiority, soothing to their macerated ego's; He will set them above their betters.
-H. L. MenckenThe right to be heard does not automatically include the right to betaken seriously
-Hubert H. Humphrey
The fetters imposed on liberty at home have ever been forged out of the weapons provided for defence against real, pretended, or imaginary dangers from abroad.
-James Madison
4th US president (1751 - 1836)
A realist is one who knows that the pessimist is right.
-Jeff Ehrlich
Talk sense to a fool and he calls you foolish.
-Euripides
Society is produced by our wants and government by our wickedness.
-Thomas Paine
Equality may perhaps be a right, but no power on earth can ever turn it in to a fact.
-Honore de Balzac
The best minds are not in government. If any were, business would hire them away.
-Ronald Reagan
It is said that power corrupts, but actually it's more true that power attracts the corruptible. The sane are usually attracted by other things than power.
-David Brin
After all is said and done, more is said than done.
-Anonymous
It is not necessary to understand things in order to argue about them.
-Caron de Beaumarchais
Never try to reason the prejudice out of a man. It was not reasoned into him, and cannot be reasoned out.
-Sydney Smith
Never doubt that a small group of committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.
-Margaret Mead
Genius may have its limitations, but stupidity is not thus handicapped.
-Elbert Hubbard
We may not imagine how our lives could be more frustrating and complex--but Congress can.
-Cullen Hightower
It is dangerous to be right when the government is wrong.
-Voltaire
Next in importance to freedom and justice is popular education, without which neither freedom nor justice can be permanently maintained.
-James A. Garfield
It is well enough that the people of this nation do not understand our banking and monetary system, for if they did, I believe there would be a revolution before tomorrow morning.
-Henry Ford
Mankind have a great aversion to intellectual labor; but even supposing knowledge to be easily attainable, more people would be content to be ignorant than would take even a little trouble to acquire it.
-Samuel Johnson
Once a word has been allowed to escape, it cannot be recalled.
-Horace
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The only thing that saves us from the bureaucracy is inefficiency. An efficient bureaucracy is the greatest threat to liberty.
-Eugene McCarthy
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It's not the voting that's democracy; it's the counting.
-Tom Stoppard
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I've posted this quote before, but it bears repeating:
Like the wind crying endlessly through the universe, Time carries away the names and the deeds of conquerors and commoners alike. And all that we are, all that remains, is in the memories of those who cared we came this way for a brief moment.What memories will you leave behind?
-Harlan Ellison
Some thoughts in these days of changing long-held rules to fit the agenda of the party in power and rewriting recent history to avoid bad poll results:
Rogues are preferable to imbeciles because they sometimes take a rest.
-Alexandre DumasAny event, once it has occurred, can be made to appear inevitable by a competent historian.
-Lee SimonsonPolitics is perhaps the only profession for which no preparation is thought necessary.
-Robert Louis StevensonIn great affairs men show themselves as they wish to be seen; in small things they show themselves as they are.
-Nicholas Chamfort
A learning experience is one of those things that says, "You know that thing you just did? Don't do that."
-Douglas Adams
The optimist proclaims that we live in the best of all possible worlds; and the pessimist fears this is true.
-James Branch Cabell
If anything can survive the probe of humour it is clearly of value, and conversely all groups who claim immunity from laughter are claiming special privileges which should not be granted.
-Eric Idle
Everyone has talent. What is rare is the courage to follow the talent to the dark place where it leads.
-Unknown
Knowledge is power.
Power corrupts.
Study hard. Be evil.
-Unknown
Immorality: the morality of those who are having a better time.
-H. L. Mencken (1880 - 1956)
Character, or the lack thereof, is revealed in how someone with power treats someone without power and without the capacity to retaliate.
-Mark Shields
Be not ashamed of mistakes and thus make them crimes.
-Confucius (551 BC - 479 BC)
There are two types of people--those who come into a room and say, 'Well, here I am!' and those who come in and say, 'Ah, there you are.'
-Frederick L Collins
There is nothing worse than aggressive stupidity.
-Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749 - 1832)
Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities.
-Voltaire
We live in a Newtonian world of Einsteinian physics ruled by Frankenstein logic.
-David Russell
Well I'm standing by a river
But the water doesn't flow
It boils with every poison you can think of
And I'm underneath the streetlight
But the light of joy I know
Scared beyond belief way down in the shadows
And the perverted fear of violence
Chokes the smile on every face
And common sense is ringing out the bell
This ain't no technological breakdown
Oh no, this is the road to hell
-Chris Rea, The Road to Hell (part II)
Correct me if I'm wrong, but hasn't the fine line between sanity and madness gotten finer?
-George Price
A republic if you can keep it.Are we keeping it?
-Benjamin Franklin
...this quote seems appropriate:
The trouble with born-again Christians is that they are an even bigger pain the second time around.
-Herb Caen
When things go wrong, it is comforting to pin the blame on bad men. To do so implies that the world is a kind, gentle place and that if it weren't for a few nasty, selfish types we would all be happy.
-unknown from The Economist magazine (articles unattributed)
Often justice comes only for people who are rich.
-Cardinal Oscar Rodriguez Maradiaga
It's true, there are congressional checks on the judiciary, but we expect you to exercise them responsibly. The really effective congressional check, however, is the Senate's power to confirm.
-Ann Althouse
A great many people think they are thinking when they are merely rearranging their prejudices.
-William James
People demand freedom of speech to make up for the freedom of thought which they avoid.
-Soren Aabye Kierkegaard
The only reason some people get lost in thought is because it's unfamiliar territory.
-Paul Fix
Some rainy winter Sundays when there's a little boredom, you should always carry a gun. Not to shoot yourself, but to know exactly that you're always making a choice.
-Lina Wertmuller
You do not need to be loved, not at the cost of yourself. The single relationship that is truly central and crucial in a life is the relationship to the self. Of all the people you will know in a lifetime, you are the only one you will never lose.
-Jo Coudert
Hardness shatters; strength endures.
-Robert Jordan
If the world were a logical place, men would ride sidesaddle.
-Rita Mae Brown
I get up every morning determined to both change the world and have one hell of a good time. Sometimes this makes planning my day difficult.
-E. B. White
...we should consider this thought:
Fortune does not change men, it unmasks them.
-Suzanne Necker
...something I wrote back in January:
It is the falsehoods masquerading as truth that fear the light of scrutiny.I'll add something else:
Beware of those who proclaim that they themselves are the voice of morality.Make your own conclusions.
...I'll give you some cynical thoughts from others:
I sometimes think that God, in creating man, overestimated His ability.
-Oscar WildeScience has proof without any certainty. Creationists have certainty without any proof.
-Ashley MontagueIt was a book to kill time for those who like it better dead.
-Dame Rose MacaulayThere's a difference between a philosophy and a bumper sticker.
-Charles M. SchulzPeople seem to enjoy things more when they know a lot of other people have been left out of the pleasure.
-Russell BakerYou probably wouldn't worry about what people think of you if you could know how seldom they do.
-Olin Miller
The parting shot is from the master...
Martyrdom covers a multitude of sins.
-Mark Twain
A lifetime is more than sufficiently long for people to get what there is of it wrong.
-Piet Hein
Politics is not the art of the possible. It consists in choosing between the disastrous and the unpalatalbe.
-John Kenneth Galbraith
Women need a reason to have sex. Men just need a place.
-Billy Crystal
When people tell you how young you look, they are also telling you how old you are.
-Cary Grant
Harlan Ellison by many reports is a jerk, but he comes up with some incredible thoughts.
Something I try to remember:
Like the wind crying endlessly through the universe, Time carries away the names and the deeds of conquerors and commoners alike. And all that we are, all that remains, is in the memories of those who cared we came this way for a brief moment.
-Harlan Ellison
Any man whose errors take ten years to correct is quite a man.
-J. Robert Oppenheimer (on Albert Einstein)
When a man wants to murder a tiger he calls it sport; when a tiger wants to murder him he calls it ferocity.
-George Bernard Shaw
People are so conditioned to take sides that a balanced analysis looks to them like hatred.
-Scott Adams (in Dilbert on 25 March 2005)
...remember this:
Beware of the man whose God is in the skies.
-George Bernard Shaw
...remember this:
One can always be kind to people about whom one cares nothing.
-Oscar Wilde
Where we have strong emotions, we're liable to fool ourselves.
-Carl Sagan
The real problem is not whether machines think but whether men do.
-B. F. Skinner
With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion.
-Steven Weinberg
We never fully grasp the import of any true statement until we have a clear notion of what the opposite untrue statement would be.
-William James
...here are two quotes to remember:
An Irishman is the only man in the world who will step over the bodies of a dozen naked women to get to a bottle of stout. -UnknownGod invented whiskey to keep the Irish from ruling the world.
-Ed McMahon
Makes perfect sense to me...
Furious activity is no substitute for understanding.
-H. H. Williams
The whole life of man is but a point of time; let us enjoy it.
-Plutarch (46 AD - 120 AD)
You can't depend on your eyes when your imagination is out of focus.
-Mark Twain
Never esteem anything as of advantage to you that will make you break your word or lose your self-respect.
-Marcus Aurelius Antoninus
A nation is a society united by delusions about its ancestry and by common hatred of its neighbors.
-William Ralph Inge
When we are planning for posterity, we ought to remember that virtue is not hereditary.
-Thomas Paine
And one of my favorites that I wish all of blogworld would remember:The test of courage comes when we are in the minority; the test of tolerance comes when we are in the majority.
If we don't change direction soon, we'll end up where we're going.
-Professor Irwin Corey
Reason and free inquiry are the only effectual agents against error.
-Thomas Jefferson
There is no expedient to which a man will not go to avoid the labor of thinking.
-Thomas A. Edison
I am patient with stupidity but not with those who are proud of it.
-Edith Sitwell
It only takes 20 years for a liberal to become a conservative without changing a single idea.
-Robert Anton Wilson
RADICALISM, n. The conservatism of to-morrow injected into the affairs of to-day.
-Ambrose Bierce
Honest criticism is hard to take, particularly from a relative, a friend, an acquaintance, or a stranger.
-Franklin P. Jones
They that will not be counseled, cannot be helped. If you do not hear reason she will rap you on the knuckles.
-Benjamin Franklin
Facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, or the dictates of our passion, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence.
-John Adams, Argument in Defense of the Soldiers in the Boston Massacre Trials, December 1770
I'd kill for a Nobel Peace Prize.
-Steven Wright
The standard of intellect in politics is so low that men of moderate mental capacity have to stoop in order to reach it.
-Hillaire Belloc
In the absence of intelligence politics will fill the void
-Frank Perretti
A long one from a real person, and a short one from a fictional character.
Finding the occasional straw of truth awash in a great ocean of confusion requires intelligence, vigilance, dedication, and courage. But if we don't practice these tough habits of thought, we cannot hope to solve the truly serious problems that face us - and we risk becoming a nation of suckers, up for grabs by the next charlatan who comes along.
-Carl SaganConquest is easy. Control is not.
-James T. Kirk
You can be a rank insider as well as a rank outsider.
-Robert Frost
Doug McKay, over at The Reality Stick, has written on how the day that the Space Shuttle Challenger was destroyed was a turning point in his life for more than one reason. He also writes something that I feel is worth adding to my quote collection:
...human stupidity will always trump human achievement...In his revelation of the second event of that day that was a turning point in his life, he also reminds those engaged in the HIV/AIDS discussion elsewhere in blogworld (one which resembles more of an imbroglio due to statements from all sides rather than a reasoned debate) that regardless of belief in what is the actual root cause of AIDS, some people die from some cause after being diagnosed HIV+, and shows us the effects that those deaths do have on those they leave behind.
-Douglas R. McKay
The next time you feel like complaining, remember that your garbage disposal probably eats better than 30 percent of the people in the world.
-Robert Orben
...that concisely expresses something very complex.
Only very few will ever truly understand why this lyric is very meaningful for me:
It's only in uncertaintyIt does have to do with the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle, the universe, and infinite possibilities...
That we're naked and alive
-Peter Gabriel, That Voice Again
Since I can't generate anything on my own at the moment, here are some thoughts that are worth thinking more about:
The marvel of all history is the patience with which men and women submit to burdens unnecessarily laid upon them by their governments.
-William H. BorahThe 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. MenckenWe can forgive you for killing our sons. But we will never forgive you for making us kill yours.
-Golda Meir to Anwar Saddat just before the peace talks
...take them as commentary on whatever you will, that is what happens regardless of what I write. No matter how much I try to make myself clear, some people insist upon vewing things through their own lenses and maintain they are both unbiased and completely correct...
History never looks like history when you are living through it. -John W. GardnerFear is the main source of superstition, and one of the main sources of cruelty. To conquer fear is the beginning of wisdom
-Bertrand RussellViolence is the last refuge of the incompetent
-Isaac AsimovBrutality begins where skill ends.
-Egon von NeindorffIf we see cruelty or wrong that we have the power to stop, and do nothing, we make ourselves share in the guilt.
-Anna SewellIgnorance, when voluntary, is criminal, and a man may be properly charged with that evil which he neglected or refused to learn how to prevent.
-Dr. Samuel JohnsonAny man who afflicts the human race with ideas must be prepared to see them misunderstood.
-H. L. MenckenHonesty is a good thing, but it is not profitable to its possessor unless it is kept under control.
-Don MarquisDo what you feel in your heart to be right - for you'll be criticized anyway. You'll be damned if you do, and damned if you don't.
-Eleanor RooseveltThe average person thinks he isn't.
-Father Larry LorenzoniIn the end, we are all worm-food.
-John M. GrantThere is one certain means by which I can be sure never to see my country's ruin -- I will die in the last ditch.
-William Of Orange
Talk sense to a fool and he calls you foolish.
-Euripides
...that is still relevant today, especially for those who feel the mainstream media is "too biased", here is a notation from the past (note the date):
The pencil of the Holy Ghost hath laboured more indescribing the afflictions of Job than the felicties of Solomon.Things haven't changed, even though it's been 400 years.
-Francis Bacon (1561 - 1626)
...where John of Argghhh! is having a debate over the words on a particular bumper sticker, comes my quote for the day:
It is always "My country, right or wrong!" but it's never "My country is never wrong."I recommend you go read both John's original post and the debate in the comments, where there is a fine example of having a reasonable debate, and a good discussion on what is reasonable dissent.
-SangerM
A free society is a place where it's safe to be unpopular.
-Adlai Stevenson
The clash of ideas is the sound of freedom.
-Lady Bird Johnson
Live among men as if God beheld you; speak to God as if men were listening.
-Seneca
Work and struggle and never accept an evil that you can change.
-Andre Gide
It is not a bad idea to get in the habit of writing down one's thoughts. It saves one having to bother anyone else with them.
-Isabel Colegate
Sometimes people carry to such perfection the mask they have assumed that in due course they actually become the person they seem.
-W. Somerset Maugham
Always forgive your enemies; nothing annoys them so much.
-Oscar Wilde
The secret to life is meaningless unless you discover it yourself.
-W. S. Maugham
A statment lifted from Brian in a comment he posted at Dean's World that I think bears repeating:
Everyone has a bias. If you don't notice it in someone, it's because your bias is similar.Think about it...
...from Jeff Jarvis:
The big problem with Rather is not bias. It's foolishness. Always has been.It's not limited to Dan Rather, but applies to his entire profession, and far beyond...
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Thanks to The Moderate Voice for the link.