A strong conviction that something must be done is the parent of many
bad measures.
-- Daniel Webster
A strong conviction that something must be done is the parent of many
bad measures.
-- Daniel Webster
That government is best which governs least.
-- Henry David Thoreau, "Civil Disobedience"
... The Anarchists' [national] anthem is an international anthem that
consists of 365 raspberries blown in very quick succession to the tune
of "Camptown Races". Nobody has to stand up for it, nobody has to
listen to it, and, even better, nobody has to play it.
-- Mike Harding, "The Armchair Anarchist's Almanac"
We are all worms. But I do believe I am a glowworm.
-- Winston Churchill
Anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no
account be allowed to do the job.
-- Douglas Adams, "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy"
NAPOLEON: What shall we do with this soldier, Giuseppe? Everything he
says is wrong.
GIUSEPPE: Make him a general, Excellency, and then everything he says
will be right.
-- G. B. Shaw, "The Man of Destiny"
Peace cannot be kept by force; it can only be achieved by understanding.
-- Albert Einstein
In our civilization, and under our republican form of government, intelligence
is so highly honored that it is rewarded by exemption from the cares of office.
-- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
Good government never depends upon laws, but upon the personal qualities of
those who govern. The machinery of government is always subordinate to the
will of those who administer that machinery. The most important element of
government, therefore, is the method of choosing leaders.
-- Frank Herbert, "Children of Dune"
My experience with government is when things are non-controversial, beautifully
co-ordinated and all the rest, it must be that not much is going on.
-- J.F. Kennedy
When in doubt, do what the President does -- guess.
Forgive him, for he believes that the customs of his tribe are the laws
of nature!
-- G.B. Shaw
Let us never negotiate out of fear, but let us never fear to negotiate.
-- John F. Kennedy
I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World
War IV will be fought with sticks and stones.
-- Albert Einstein
The income tax has made more liars out of the American people than golf
has. Even when you make a tax form out on the level, you don't know
when it's through if you are a crook or a martyr.
-- Will Rogers
My central memory of that time seems to hang on one or five or maybe forty
nights -- or very early mornings -- when I left the Fillmore half-crazy and,
instead of going home, aimed the big 650 Lightning across the Bay Bridge at
a hundred miles an hour ... booming through the Treasure Island tunnel at
the lights of Oakland and Berkeley and Richmond, not quite sure which
turnoff to take when I got to the other end ... but being absolutely certain
that no matter which way I went I would come to a place where people were
just as high and wild as I was: no doubt at all about that.
-- Hunter S. Thompson
Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a
just man is also a prison.
-- Henry David Thoreau
It's the opinion of some that crops could be grown on the moon. Which raises
the fear that it may not be long before we're paying somebody not to.
-- Franklin P. Jones
What we need is either less corruption, or more chance to participate in it.
Patriotism is the virtue of the vicious.
-- Oscar Wilde
In war, truth is the first casualty.
-- U Thant
The fact that an opinion has been widely held is no evidence that it is not
utterly absurd; indeed, in view of the silliness of the majority of mankind,
a widespread belief is more often likely to be foolish than sensible.
-- Bertrand Russell, in "Marriage and Morals", 1929
The lion and the calf shall lie down together but the calf won't get much sleep.
-- Woody Allen
Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.
-- Martin Luther King, Jr.
A public debt is a kind of anchor in the storm; but if the anchor be
too heavy for the vessel, she will be sunk by that very weight which
was intended for her preservation.
-- Colton
A real diplomat is one who can cut his neighbor's throat without having
his neighbour notice it.
-- Trygve Lie
Democracy is a form of government that substitutes election by the
incompetent many for appointment by the corrupt few.
-- G.B. Shaw
The introduction of a new kind of music must be shunned as imperiling the
whole state, for styles of music are never disturbed without affecting
the most important political institutions. ... The new style, gradually
gaining a lodgement, quitely insinuates itself into manners and customs,
and from it ... goes on to attack laws and constitutions, displaying the
utmost impudence, until it ends by overturning everything.
-- Plato, "Republic", 370 B.C.
The Minnesota Board of Education voted to consider requiring all
students to do some “volunteer work” as a prerequisite to high school
graduation.
Senator Orrin Hatch said that "capital punishment is our society's
recognition of the sanctity of human life."
According to the tax bill signed by President Reagan on December 22,
1987, Don Tyson and his sister-in-law Barbara run a "family farm." Their
"farm" has 25,000 employees and grosses $1.7 billion a year. But as a "family
farm" they get tax breaks that save them $135 million a year.
Scott L. Pickard, spokesperson for the Massachusetts Department of
Public Works, calls them "ground-mounted confirmatory route markers." You
probably call them road signs, but then you don't work in a government agency.
It's not "elderly" or "senior citizens" anymore. Now it's "chrono-
logically experienced citizens."
According to the FAA, the propeller blade didn't break off, it was
just a case of "uncontained blade liberation."
-- Quarterly Review of Doublespeak (NCTE)
What is the robbing of a bank compared to the founding of a bank?
-- Bertold Brecht