Random Opinions, Thoughts, and Quotes

• Men fight for liberty and win it with hard knocks. Their children, brought up easy, let it slip away again, poor fools. And their grandchildren are once more slaves.
       ~D.H. Lawrence, 1922 (Courtesy of Jim Hansen)

• Justice will not be served until those who are unaffected are as outraged as those who are.
       -Benjamin Franklin (Courtesy of Jim Hansen)

• The 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. Mencken (Courtesy of Jim Hansen)

• Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves.
         - William Pitt, British Prime Minister (1759-1806)

• If it doesn't move and you want it to; use WD-40.  If it moves and you don't want it to; use duct tape.  Nothing else needed except possibly a pair of Vise-Grip pliers.
         - Unknown

• In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice; In practice, there is.
       - Unknown (Courtesy of Jim Hansen)

• Progressives are like Slinkies.... They're really good for nothing but they still bring a smile to your face when you push them down a flight of stairs.
         - Unknown Author (Courtesy of Jim Hansen)

• Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn't do than by the ones you did.
       - Mark Twain (Courtesy of Jim Hansen)

• Only in America does a homeless vet sleep in a cardboard box, while a draft dodger sleeps in the White House.
         - Unknown Author

• Pro is to con as progress is to congress.
         - Unknown author, "appropriated" without permission from Patrick MacDonald

• Previous comments notwithstanding, one of the hazards of voicing an opinion is the small probability you may be wrong.  Apple surprised me when Jobs returned and snatched it back from the brink.  Now one wonders who the savior of Microsoft will be?
  (Mac Quad G5, iMac, MacBook Pro concurrently running OSX and Windows.  All this in addition to an HP Windows workstation.)
  It is safe to say that my predictions of Apple's demise were a bit premature.
         - PAB

• If Mitt Romney is the answer, it must have been a silly question.
         - PAB

• It could probably be shown by facts and figures that there is no distinctly native American criminal class except Congress.
         - Mark Twain

• No man's freedom and liberty are safe when the legislature is in session.
         - Thomas Jefferson

• The public is stupid.
         - Mark "Warthog" Schalgeter

• Time is a great teacher, but unfortunately it kills all its pupils.
         - Hector Berlioz

• The advertisement is the most truthful part of a newspaper.
         - Thomas Jefferson

• The first time I ever saw a jet, I shot it down.
         - General Chuck Yeager, USAF, describing his first confrontation with an Me262

• Suppose you were an idiot. And suppose you were a member of Congress. But I repeat myself.
         - Mark Twain

• All Congresses and Parliaments have a kindly feeling for idiots, and a compassion for them, on account of personal experience and heredity.
         - Mark Twain

• In the first place God made idiots. This was for practice. Then He made school boards.
         - Mark Twain

• 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.
         - President Ronald Reagan

• Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former.
         - Albert Einstein

• I regard it as the chief duty of the state to protect the individual and give him the opportunity to develop into a creative personality; that is to say; the state should be our servant and not we its slaves.
         - Albert Einstein

• Professor Goddard does not know the relation between action and reaction and the need to have something better than a vacuum against which to react. He seems to lack the basic knowledge ladled out daily in high schools.
         - New York Times Editorial, 1921

• Nothing in life is so exhilarating than to be shot at without result.
         - Sir Winston Churchill

• This year will go down in history. For the first time, a civilized nation has full gun registration! Our streets will be safer, our police more efficient, and the world will follow our lead into the future!
         - Adolf Hitler, April 15, 1935

• No man shall ever be debarred the use of arms. The strongest reason for the people to retain the right to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in government.
         - Thomas Jefferson

• They that would give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.
         - Ben Franklin, 1759

• If ye love wealth better than liberty, the tranquility of servitude better than the animating contest of freedom... go home from us in peace. We ask not your counsels nor arms. May your chains set lightly upon you and may posterity forget that ye were our countrymen.
         - Samuel Adams, 1776

• First they came for the Jews.
  I was silent. I was not a Jew.
  Then they came for the Communists.
  I was silent. I was not a Communist.
  Then they came for the Catholics.
  I was silent. I was not a Catholic
  Then they came for the trade unionists.
  I was silent. I was not a trade unionist.
  Then they came for me.
  There was no one else left to speak for me.
         - Pastor Martin Niemoller, Nazi Germany, WWII

• A well-regulated population being necessary to the security of a police state, the right of the Government to keep and destroy arms shall not be infringed.
         - S. Thompson, M.D.

• In the aftermath of the tragedy at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado, our esteemed president had the following comments:
  
  We do know that we must do more to reach out to our children and teach them to express their anger and to resolve their conflicts with words, not weapons.
         - president Clinton, 20 April, 1999
  
  We also have to take this moment, once again, to hammer home to all the children of America that violence is wrong.
         - president Clinton, 20 April, 1999
  
  What is ironic is that these comments were made on the eve of the fifth week of the bombing of Yugoslavia.

• Character is the way you act and the things you do when no one is watching you.
         - U.S. Representative J.C. Watts of Oklahoma  (Courtesy of Jerry Presley)

• 95% of Life is Showing Up!
         - C.K. Bergin  (Courtesy of Ann Bergin)

• Courage is feeling the fear and doing it anyway!
         - C.K. Bergin  (Courtesy of Ann Bergin)

• War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things. The decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks that nothing is worth war is much worse. 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

• If you will not fight for the right when you can easily win without bloodshed. If you will not fight when your victory will be sure and not so costly, you may come to the moment when you will have to fight with all the odds against you and only a precarious chance for survival. There may be a worse case. You may have to fight when there is no chance of victory, because it is better to perish than to live as slaves.
         - Sir Winston Churchill

• Always looking for appropriate ones... If you have any good suggestions, let me know.
         - PAB

Revised: 30 May 2011