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I hate a Roman named Status Quo! Stuff your eyes with wonder, live as if you'd drop dead in ten seconds. See the world. It's more fantastic than any dream made or paid for in factories. Ask no guarantees, ask for no security, there never was such an animal. And if there were, it would be related to the great sloth which hangs upside down in a tree all day every day, sleeping its life away. To hell with that, shake the tree and knock the great sloth down on his ass.
Ray Bradbury - 1954 - Fahrenheit 451
Blessed is the man, who having nothing to say, abstains from giving wordy evidence of the fact.
George Eliot
I cannot convince myself that there is anyone so wise, so universally comprehensive in his judgment, that he can be trusted with the power to tell others: "You shall not express yourself thus, you shall not describe your own experiences; or depict the fantasies which your mind has created; or laugh at what others set up as respectable; or question old beliefs; or contradict the dogmas of the church, of our society, our economic systems, and our political orthodoxy."
Jake Zeitlin
In Germany they came first for the Communists, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Communist. Then they came for the Jews, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Jew. Then they came for the trade unionists, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a trade unionist. Then they came for the Catholics, and I didn't speak up because I was a Protestant. Then they came for me, and by that time no one was left to speak up.
Martin Niemoeller, German Lutheran Pastor (b.1892 d.1984)
Heaven is:
An English policeman
A French chef
A German engineer
An Italian lover
and everything organised by the Swiss
Hell is:
An English chef
A French engineer
A German policeman
A Swiss lover
and everything organised by the Italians
Unknown
Is there really someone who, searching for a group of wise and sensitive persons to regulate him for his own good, would choose that group of people who constitute the membership of both houses of Congress?
Robert Nozick
This generation will have to repent, not so much for the evil deeds of the wicked people, but for the appalling silence of the good people.
Martin Luther King
Society in every state is a blessing, but government even in its best state is but a necessary evil; in its worst state an intolerable one.
Thomas Paine, "Common Sense" (1776)
If you walk down the middle of the road you'll be hit by traffic coming from both directions.
Bryce Courtenay
Those who desire to give up freedom in order to gain security, will not have, nor do they deserve, either one.
Thomas Jefferson
It is not the function of our Government to keep the citizen from falling into error; it is the function of the citizen to keep the Government from falling into error.
Robert H. Jackson (1892-1954), U.S. Judge
Without censorship, things can get terribly confused in the public mind.
General William Westmoreland, during the war in VietNam
Don't resent getting old. A great many are denied that privilege
Unknown
Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former.
Albert Einstein
There may be a legal obligation to obey, but there will be no moral obligation to obey. When it comes to history, it will be the people who broke the law for freedom who will be remembered and honoured.
Tony Benn, UK Labour MP, 1995, regarding the Criminal Justice Act.
I contend that we are both atheists. I just believe in one fewer god than you do. When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours.
Stephen Roberts
There is no point in being paranoid - unless there's good reason!
Unknown
The secret to happiness, you see, is not found in seeking more but in developing the capacity to enjoy less.
Way of the Peaceful Warrior by Dan Millman.
So, where do you draw the line? When is a bad law serious enough to warrant action? A government doesn't pass a law that's "utterly abominable" until they've removed their citizens ability to fight back. Usually by passing laws to make the citizens "safe". In Nazi Germany most citizens didn't object even when some of them were dragged off to concentration camps. By that time they were too afraid to object, and justifiably so, the government had made them "safe" by removing their guns and their ability to fight back against "utterly abominable" laws. It's always the same, start off small, if no one objects then pass an even more oppressive law, no one complaining? More oppressive again. They kill you with incrementalism. By the time you wake up and realize it, you've lost not only your rights to change it, but the ability to as well. The time to object is when it's still at the small stage.
Chuck Bryant <3rdpig@bigfoot.com> from sci.geo.satellite-nav 9/Dec/02
If a million people say a foolish thing, it is still a foolish thing.
Anatole France [Jacques Anatole Thibault] (1844-1924)
The real wealth creation potential of an enterprise is inversely proportional to the number of MBA's employed therein.
Mark Fort
How can you govern a nation which has 246 kinds of cheese?
Charles de Gaulle
The trouble with the world is that the stupid are cocksure and the intelligent are full of doubt.
Bertrand Russell
To laugh often and much; to win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of children...to leave the world a better place...to know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived. This is to have succeeded.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
I beseech you in the bowels of Christ think it possible you may be mistaken
Oliver Cromwell - 1650
People who want to share their religious views with you almost never want you to share yours with them.
Unknown
I see only with deep regret that God punishes so many of His children for their numerous stupidities, for which only He Himself can be held responsible; in my opinion, only His nonexistence could excuse Him.
Albert Einstein - Letter to Edgar Meyer Jan 2 1915
The most foolish mistake we could possibly make would be to permit the conquered Eastern peoples to have arms. History teaches that all conquerors who have allowed their subject races to carry arms have prepared their own downfall by doing so.
Adolf Hitler - April 11 1942
Germans who wish to use firearms should join the SS or the SA - ordinary citizens don't need guns, as their having guns doesn't serve the State.
Heinrich Himmler - 1935
Another death that changes nothing in this conflict, but changes everything in one family.
Mourning a West Bank wife
Matthew Price, BBC News, Tulkarm
Freedom of the press is limited to those who own one
Journalist; A.J. Liebling
The conventional view serves to protect us from the painful job of thinking.
John Kenneth Galbraith
Sometimes I think we're alone in the universe, and sometimes I think
we're not. In either case, the idea is quite staggering.
Arthur C Clarke
Democracy must be something more than two wolves and a sheep voting on what to have for dinner.
James Bovard
There are two kinds of light - the glow that illuminates, and the glare that obscures.
James Thurber (1894 - 1961)
The darkest places in hell are reserved for those who maintain their neutrality in times of moral crisis.
Dante Alighieri
"Heaven has no rage like love to hatred turned, Nor hell a fury like a woman scorned,"
William Congreve (1670 - 1729). From his play - The Mourning Bride
