For the U.S. State Department
what we want them to mean.
“The general order-of-things that takes care of
fleas and moles
also takes care of men,
if they will have the same patience
that fleas and moles have,
to leave it to itself.”
Montaigne
Fire is the grassland's friend
and
the forest's foe.
“All things are good;
but all things are not good for every person,
nor right at all times.”
Hazrat Inayat Khan
"The political mind
is the product of men in public life who
have been twice spoiled.
They have been spoiled with praise
and they have been spoiled with abuse.
With them nothing is natural,
everything is artificial.
Calvin Coolidge
“When men stop believing in God
they don't believe in nothing;
they believe in anything."
G.K. Chesterton
"The line separating
good and evil
passes not through
states,
not between classes,
nor between political parties either,
but right thru
every human heart."
Alexander Solzhenitsyn
“When religion leaves the private sphere,
it becomes ideology like any other,
and must except to be criticized with the
same virulence as any other ideology.”
Philippe Val, publisher and editor of Charlie Hedo,
a satirical weekly in Paris
“Need obeys no law and forgets blushing.”
Sir Philip Sidney - 1603
Alexander Hamilton had a reputation
not unlike Bill Clinton's when
it came to women.
Martha Washington named one of the
Mount Vernon tomcats Hamilton.
"What man makes, man will mar:
only the super-human endures."
Joseph de Maistre
"While civilization is the product of human action
it is not the product of human design."
Michael Oakeshott
"Without a sense of proportion
there can be neither
good taste nor
genuine intelligence, nor
perhaps moral integrity."
Eric Hoffer
"We find freedom in a preference for
slow, small changes
which have behind them a
voluntary consensus...
and in our perception that it is more important for a society to move together
than for it to move
either fast or slow."
Michael Oakeshott, "The Poltical Economy of Freedom,"
Rationalism in Politics and Other Essays
"The problem of welfare economics
must ultimately dissolve into a
study of aesthetics and morals."
Frank H. Knight
"A goal
without a plan
is just a wish."
Antoine de Saint-Exupery
"There is a tide in the affairs of men
Which taken at the flood, leads on to fortune;
Omitted, all the voyage of your life
Is bound in shallows and in miseries."
Shakespeare, Julius Caesar Act 4, scene 3
“The ratio of angels to devils doesn’t change”
Dr.Michael Dertouzos of MIT
Stewart Brand and the Long Now project :
“You can know the past, but can’t change it.
You can effect the future, but you can’t know it.”
Only in the present can we act and know.
“I have but one lamp by which my feet are guided,
and that is the lamp of experience.
I know of no way of judging of the future
but by the past.”
Patrick Henry
“We know of [our existence] by accumulating perceptions
of ourselves.”
Felipe Fernandez-Armesto
“We are what we repeatedly do.” Aristotle
“Complete moral tolerance is possible only when men
have become completely indifferent
to each other - that is to say,
when society is at an end.”
James Fitzjames Stephen
Moral Relativism
Excusing cannibalism
because it's the "tribal custom."
“I decline utterly to be impartial as between
the Fire Brigade and the fire.”
Winston Churchill
“Only when the last king is strangled
in the entrails of the last priest
will we have freedom.” Lenin
The concept of cause applies to the objects of experience,
linking past to future through universal laws.
When we ask about the universe-as-a-whole
we are attempting to go beyond possible experiences
into a realm where the concept of cause
has no purchase,
and where the writ of reason does not run."
Roger Scruton, philospher
"Defeat with one
is better than
victory with the other."
Cicero 50 B.C.
(choosing Pompey over Caesar)
Rousseau was, "more capable of
feeling strongly than of
analyzing accurately."
Adam Smith 1723 - 1790
"It is not the wolf at the door,
but the termites in the walls
that require attention."
Charles L.Schultz, economist
"The issue is always the same:
the government or, the market.
There is no third way."
Ludwig von Mises
Socialism: An Economic & Sociological Analysis
“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, subsidise it”
Ronald Reagan
"A government which robs Peter to pay Paul
can always depend on the support of Paul."
George Bernard Shaw
“Democracy must be something more than
two wolves and a sheep
voting on what to have for dinner.”
James Bovard
“The way to crush the bourgeoisie is to grind them
between the millstones of
taxation and inflation.”
Vladimir Lenin
"Every monopoly and all exclusive privileges
are granted at the expense of the public."
Pres.Andrew Jackson - 1832
in reference to the Second Bank of the United States
“Government is that great fiction through which everybody endeavors to live at the expense
of everybody else.”
Frederic Bastiat (1801-1850)
“In general, the art of government consists of
taking as much money as possible from
one party of the citizens
to give to the other.”
Voltaire (1764)
“War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things.
The person who has nothing for which he is willing to fight,
nothing which is more important than
his own personal safety,
is a miserable creature
and has no chance of being free
unless made and kept so by the exertions
of better men than himself.”
John Stuart Mill
“Our public officials and the attendant factions and community groups are so far gone into their never-never-land of crossing “t’s” and dotting “i’s” that they barely know how to bring an issue to resolution. In their world, it’s never over. Process is life.”
Daniel Henninger
Over-indebtedness is most commonly started by,
"new opportunities to invest at a
big prospective profit,
as compared with ordinary profits and interest...
Easy money is the great cause of
over-borrowing."
The Debt-Deflation Theory
of Great Depressions
Irving Fisher
Econometrica, p.348, 1933
"The beginning of wisdom
is to call things
by their right names."
Chinese proverb
Bureaucrat
"pedal misapplications"
Dept.of Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood
= driver error
Mortgage bankers
"involuntary prepayment"
= default on mortgage
Apparatchik
asked:
Is Moamar Gadhafi a dictator?
FoxNews' James Rosen
answered:
I don't think he came to office through
a democratic process.
State dept.spokesman P.J.Crowley
Government Project Manager
"strategic misrepresentation"
= lying
"Law extends only so far
as its enforcement
is able to reach."
George H. Sabine
"the adjacent possible"
Steven Johnson
"I judge of your sight by my sight,
of your ear by my ear,
of your reason by my reason,
of your resentment by my resentment,
of your love by my love.
I neither have, nor can have,
any other way of judging about them."
The Theory of Moral Sentiments by Adam Smith - 1759
The Exception Proves the Rule
exceptio probat regulam in casibus non exceptis
"the exception confirms the rule in cases not excepted"
An exception establishes that a rule exists
requiring an exception from its command.
"You may be sure that inaccurate language
is not only in itself a mistake: it implants
evil in men's souls." Plato - Phaedo, 114 e
"We certainly must not stop eating
for fear of choking." Deng Xiaoping
"The third-rate mind is only happy when it is
thinking with the majority.
The second-rate mind is only happy when it is
thinking with the minority.
The first-rate mind is only happy when it is
thinking." A.A.Milne
"Ideas are works of bricolage."
Steven Johnson
Book III of Milton’s Paradise Lost, where God
answers the question of why He created men
and angels who could rebel against Him. Of man,
He responds:
“… I made him just and right,
Sufficient to have stood, though free to fall.
Such I created all th’ ethereal Powers
And Spirits, both them who stood and them
who failed; Freely they stood who stood,
and fell who fell. …”
Answer to the question on financial institutions that have
become too-big-to-fail, by R.Fisher, pres. FRB of Dallas
Before the Battle at Little Bighorn, Indian agents
counted 37,391 Indians on the reservations; after the battle a U.S. Army count showed 11,660 Indians. The number of Indian dead varies from 36 to 300. How did the population increase by 25,731? The reservation agents salaries varied according to the Indian population ...
incentives matter.
"I don't know the secret to success,
but the secret to failure is trying to please
everybody." Bill Cosby
"Nothing is more obstinate
than a fashionable
consensus."
Margaret Thatcher
There is no vice
but it is the
shadow of a virtue
Duns Scotus
"Man, when separated from
law and justice
is the worst of all animals."
Aristole
"Everything should be made as
simple as possible,
but not simpler."
Albert Einstein
"In nature there are no
rewards or punishments,
there are consequences."
Horace Annesley Vachell 1861-1955
The Face of Clay
"It is what it is
but...
it will be what you make it."
Pat Summitt, Univ.of Tennessee
women's basketball coach
on being diagnosed with Alzheimer's;
a reference to her diagnosis of
the existential human condition.
For an "irrevocable delete" of a Facebook account go to:
http://on.fb.me/n50emK
"Our system delays the deletion process in case you change your mind and no longer want to permanently delete your account. Note that logging in to your account again will undo a pending deletion request."
They don't say how long the delay will be...more ifo at
http://on.fb.me/pxjtS2
Federal Notice with Product
"Caution: Federal law requires us to
advise that the rocks in this
educational product may contain
lead and might be harmful if
swallowed."
Rick Woldenberg, Learning Resources Inc.
The product is igneous or volcanic rocks...oh my!
"Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof."
Matthew 6:34
....................................................................................
"I do not ask you about fifteen days ago.
But what about fifteen days hence?
There was no response.
Umon answered: "Every day is a good day."
There is a difference
take-it-or-leave-it
Hobson's Choice
your-money-or-your-life
Hobbes Choice
"No plan of operations extends
with any certainty
beyond the first contact
with the main hostile force."
Helmuth Carl Bernard Graf von Moltke
"If you're not happy with
what you are doing,
you better do something else."
Vincent Diener, California farmer
A schedule defends from
chaos and whim
Chinese fortune cookie;
spreadsheets help too.
Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge?
Where is the knowledge we have lost in information?
T.S. Eliot, The Rock, 1934
“Cowardice asks the question—is it safe?
Expediency asks the question—is it politic?
Vanity asks the question—is it popular?
But conscience asks the question—is it right? …
There comes a time when one must take a position
that is neither safe,
nor politic,
nor popular,
but one must take it because it is right.”
Martin Luther King Jr.
"There are two kinds of power
you have to fight.
The first is money;
and that's just our system.
The other is the people
close around you,
knowing when to accept
their criticism,
knowing when to say no."
Martin Scorsese
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 framing a government which is
to be administered by men over men,
the great difficulty lies in this:
you must first enable the government
to control the governed;
and in the next place oblige it to
control itself.
James Madison
Federalist No.51
1788
"The only thing that saves us from
the bureaucracy is its
inefficiency."
Eugene McCarthy 1916 - 2005
Massachusetts listed only seven occupations
for women in 1843; 50 years later the state
listed over 300 job-types for women.
First they came for the Socialists,
and I did not speak out --
Because I was not a Socialist.
Then they came for the Trade Unionists,
and I did not speak out --
Because I was not a Trade Unionist.
Then they came for the Jews,
and I did not speak out --
Because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for me --
and there was no one left to speak for me.
Martin Niemoller, German pastor
Re-using a eco-chic cotton bag 131 times =
the carbon footprint of one, plastic, grocery
bag; and if you re-use it as a wastebasket
liner its even better (or take them back to
the store).
Evidence: Life Cycle Assessment of Supermarket Carrier Bags
http://www.american.com/archive/2011/march/a-punching-bag-no-more
"The blackest dispair that can take hold of any society
is the fear that living honestly
is futile."
Corrado Alvaro
The Good Old Days
So many people had their
noses cut off that
medieval medical textbooks
speculated about techniques
for growing them back
Signing of the
Declaration of Independence
on a U.S. 24 cent stamp
issued in 1869
I've woken up on mornings such as this
And thought exactly the same as I'm thinking now
Every night for a year I've slept alone
My cold damp room looks worse than me
I got a fear of death that creeps on every night
I know I won't die soon but then again I might
Just like water down the drain I'm wasting away
And oh, doctors can't help, a ghost of a man, that's me
And oh, water down the drain flows to the sea
The pattern of my life keeps on hauntin' me
Like moisture from the ocean fills the sky
Comes on down to the ground as time goes by
Please don't weep for me when I'm gone
I got a fear of death that creeps on every night
And I know I won't die soon but then again I might
Please don't weep for me when I'm gone
A fear of death that creeps on every night