"Patriotism is supporting your country all the time, your government when it deserves it." 

-- Mark Twain 

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"Only dull people are brilliant at breakfast."

-- Oscar Wilde

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Pleasure is the beginning and the end of living happily.

-- Epicurus

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As a well spent day brings happy sleep, so a life well spent brings happy death

-- Leonardo da Vinci

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Faith may be defined briefly as an illogical belief in the occurence of the improbable.

-- H. L. Mencken

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"One of the symptoms of an approaching nervous breakdown is the belief that one's work is terribly important."
-- Bertrand Russell

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"Any fool can make things bigger, more complex and more violent.  

It takes a touch of genius and a lot of courage

to move in the opposite direction."

--Albert Einstein

%%

I like pigs.  Dogs look up to us.  Cats look down on us.  Pigs treat us as equals.

-- Sir Winston Churchill

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Democracy is the system that lets the people say what they want and then gives it to them, good and hard.

-- H.L. Mencken

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"It has been my experience that folks who have no vices have very few virtues."

-- Abraham Lincoln

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The kind of man who wants the government to adopt and enforce his ideas 

is always the kind of man whose ideas are idiotic. 

-- H.L. Mencken

%%

There is only one honest impulse at the bottom of Puritanism, 
and that is the impulse to punish the man with a superior capacity
for happiness.

-- H.L. Mencken

%%

Politics is for people who have a passion for changing life but lack a passion for living it.

-- Tom Robbins

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Where it is a duty to worship the sun it is pretty sure to be a crime to examine the laws of heat.

 -- John Morley

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It stands to reason that where there's sacrifice, there's someone collecting sacrificial offerings.  
Where there's service, there's someone being served.  The man who speaks to you of sacrifice, 
speaks of slaves and masters.  And intends to be the master.

 -- Ayn Rand

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...originality consists of the achievement of new combinations, and not of the creation of something out of nothing.

 -- Richard V. Clemence

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The universe seems neither benign nor hostile, merely indifferent. 

 -- Carl Sagan

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One of the saddest lessons of history is this: If we've been bamboozled long
enough, we tend to reject any evidence of the bamboozle. We're no longer
interested in finding out the truth. The bamboozle has captured us.  It is
simply too painful to acknowledge -- even to ourselves -- that we've been so
credulous. (So the old bamboozles tend to persist as the new bamboozles
rise.) 
 
-- Carl Sagan, "The Fine Art of Baloney Detection," Parade, February 1, 1987

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Every coercive monopoly was created by government intervention into the economy: by special privileges, such as franchises or
subsidies, which closed the entry of competitors into a given field, by legislative action.

 -- Ayn Rand

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We often despise what is most useful to us.

 --  Aesop

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Freedom is not empowerment. Empowerment is what the Serbs have in Bosnia. Anybody can 
grab a gun and be empowered. It's not entitlement. An entitlement is what people on 
welfare get, and how free are they? It's not an endlessly expanding list of rights 
-- the "right" to education, the "right" to food and housing. That's not freedom, 
that's dependency. Those aren't rights, those are the rations of slavery -- 
hay and a barn for human cattle.
 


There is only one basic human right, the right to do as you damn well please. 
And with it comes the only basic human duty, the duty to take the consequences.  

-- P.J. O'Rourke 

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When buying and selling are controlled by legislation, the first things to be bought and sold are legislators.  

-- P.J. O'Rourke

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The college idealists who fill the ranks of the environmental movement seem willing to do 
absolutely anything to save the biosphere, except take science courses and learn something about it.

-- P.J. O'Rourke

%%


I like to do my principal research in bars, where people are more likely to tell the truth or, 
at least, lie less convincingly than they do in briefings and books.

-- P.J. O'Rourke

%%

War is steroids and free weights for government.

-- P.J. O'Rourke

%%


Everybody wants to save the earth; nobody wants to help Mom do the dishes.

-- P.J. O'Rourke


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All I ask is equal freedom.  When it is denied, as it always is, I take it anyhow.

 -- H.L. Mencken


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All government, in its essence, is organized exploitation, and in virtually all of its existing forms it is the implacable enemy of
every industrious and well-disposed man.

 -- H.L. Mencken


%%

We should listen first and foremost to our own experience...We should stop looking for saviors... Society has not existed for
thousands of years because it had a succession of saviors. It's existed because it has institutions and processes through which
people can realize their own goals.

 -- Thomas Sowell

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One of the greatest delusions in the world is the hope that the evils in this world are to be cured by legislation.

 -- Thomas Brackett Reed

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In most instances, all an argument proves is that two people are present.

 -- Tony Petito

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It is better to correct your own faults than those of another.

 --  Democritus

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A society that does not recognize that each individual has values of his own which he is entitled to follow 
can have no respect for the dignity of the individual and cannot really know freedom.

 -- F.A. Hayek

%%

This should be a man's attitude: 'Few things will disturb him at all; nothing will disturb him much.'

 -- Thomas Jefferson

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People seem not to see that their opinion of the world is also a confession of character.

 -- Ralph Waldo Emerson

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The kind of man who wants the government to adopt and enforce his ideas is always the kind of man whose ideas are idiotic.

 -- H.L. Mencken

%%

Every failure teaches a man something, to wit, that he will probably fail again.

-- H.L. Mencken

%%


There is no worse tyranny than to force a man to pay for what he does not want merely because you think it would be good for him.

 -- Robert Heinlein

%%

Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man's character, give him power.

-- Abraham Lincoln 

%%

Whoever claims that economic competition represents 'survival of the fittest' 
in the sense of the law of the jungle, provides the clearest possible evidence
of his lack of knowledge of economics.

 -- George Reisman

%%

The evils of tyranny are rarely seen but by him who resists it.

-- John Hay, 1872

%%

A nation of sheep will beget a government of wolves.

-- Edward R. Murrow

%%

It is not the responsibility of the government or the legal system to protect
a citizen from himself.

-- Justice Casey Percell

%%

Can our form of government, our system of justice, survive if one can be
denied a freedom because he might abuse it?

-- Harlon Carter

%%

Men are more apt to be mistaken in their generalizations than in their particular observations.

 -- Niccolo Machiavelli

%%

Enjoy yourself. It's later than you think.

--  Chinese proverb

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The best defense against logic is ignorance.

%%

It is easier to get forgiveness than permission.

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Only the wisest and the stupidest of men never change.

-- Confucius 

%%

The fact that man knows right from wrong proves his intellectual 
superiority to other creatures; but the fact that he can do wrong 
proves his moral inferiority to any creature that cannot.

-- Mark Twain, "What Is Man?"

%%

Talk sense to a fool and he calls you foolish.

-- Euripides 

%%


If you hate something thoroughly without knowing why,
 
you can be sure there is something of it in your own nature.

 -- Friedrich Hebbel

%%

Philosophy consists very largely of one philosopher arguing 

that all other philosophers are jackasses.  He usually proves it,

and I should add that he also usually proves that he is one himself.

 -- H.L. Mencken


%%

"When you wake up in the morning, Pooh," said Piglet at last,

"what's the first thing you say to yourself?"

"What's for breakfast?" said Pooh.  "What do you say, Piglet?"

"I say, I wonder what's going to happen exciting today?" said Piglet.

Pooh nodded thoughtfully.  "It's the same thing," he said.


%%
The pendulum of the mind oscillates between sense and nonsense, not between right and wrong.

-- Carl Jung 

%%

Kids, you tried your best and you failed miserably. The lesson is, never try.

-- Homer Simpson 

%%

Appear weak when you are strong, and strong when you are weak.

-- Sun Tzu, "The Art of War"

%%

Never give advice - a wise man won't need it, a fool won't heed it.

%%

The more laws and order are made prominent, the more thieves and robbers there will be.

-- Lao Tsu 

%%

Don't speak unless you can improve on the silence.

-- Spanish proverb 

%%

Praying is like a rocking chair - it'll give you something to do but it won't get you anywhere.

-- Gypsy Rose Lee 

%%

If you wish your merit to be known, acknowledge that of other people. 

-- Oriental Proverb

%%

Sometimes life can be as bitter as dragon tears.
 
But whether dragon tears are bitter or sweat depends 

entirely on how each man perceives them. 

-- Chinese proverb

%%

The opinion of the intelligent is better than the certainty of the ignorant. 

-- Egyptian proverb

%%

Trust but verify. 

-- Russian proverb

%%

We ourselves feel that what we are doing is just a drop in the ocean, 
but the ocean would be less because of that missing drop. 

-- Mother Teresa

%%

Who gossips to you will gossip of you. 

-- Turkish proverb

%%

It is hard for an empty bag to stand upright. 

-- Benjamin Franklin

%%

Work has a bitter root but sweet fruit.

-- German Proverb

%%

Wise men learn by other men's mistakes; fools by their own.

-- Chaucer

%%

The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience,
but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy.
-- Martin Luther King, Jr.

%%

Bear in mind this sacred principle, that though the will of the majority is in all cases to prevail, 
that will to be rightful must be reasonable; that the minority possess their equal rights, 
which equal law must protect, and to violate would be oppression.  
-- Thomas Jefferson

%%

When I was a young man, I wanted to change the world. 

I found it was difficult to change the world, so I tried to change my nation. 

When I found I couldn't change the nation, I began to focus on my town. 

I couldn't change the town and as an older man, I tried to change my family.
 
Now, as an old man, I realize the only thing I can change is myself, 

and suddenly I realize that if long ago I had changed myself, 

I could have made an impact on my family. 

My family and I could have made an impact on our town. 

Their impact could have changed the nation and I could indeed have changed the world.

-- attributed to an Unknown Monk (c. 1100 AD)

%%

And in the end it's not the years in your life that count. It's the life in your years.

-- Abraham Lincoln 

%%

And Pooh gave Christopher Robin the biggest Pooh hug he could give because he knew 

that goodbyes were not far away. 

%%

You don't love a woman because she is beautiful, but she is beautiful because you love her.

%%

Love can sometimes be magic. But magic can sometimes...just be an illusion.

-- Javan 

%%


It is one of the superstitions of the human mind to have imagined that virginity could be a virtue.

-- Voltaire 

%%

The trouble with people is their trouble with people.
%%

Tell a man there are 300 billion stars in the universe and he'll believe you. 

Tell him a bench has wet paint on it and he'll have to touch to be sure.

%%

Experience is what you get when you didn't get what you wanted.

%%

The less you bet, the more you lose when you win.

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The most difficult thing in the world is to know how to do a thing
 
and to watch someone else doing it wrongly, without commenting.

%%

The probability of someone watching you is proportional to the stupidity of your action.

%%

The sum of the intelligence on the planet is a constant; the population is growing.

%%

If luck comes, who comes not? If luck comes not, who comes?

-- Chinese proverb 
%%

Isn't the best defense always a good attack?

-- Ovid 

%%
Let others praise ancient times; I am glad I was born in these.

-- Ovid (43 B.C.-A.D. 18)

%%

The two most abundant things in the universe are hydrogen and stupidity.

 -- Harlan Ellison

%%
The urge to save humanity is almost always only a false-face for the urge to rule it. 

-- H.L. Mencken

%%
We must respect the other fellow's religion, 

but only in the sense and to the extent that we respect his theory

that his wife is beautiful and his children smart. 

-- H.L. Mencken

%%
The worst government is the most moral. 

One composed of cynics is often very tolerant and humane.
 
But when fanatics are on top there is no limit to oppression. 

-- H.L. Mencken

%%
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

%%
The idea that the sole aim of punishment is to prevent crime is obviously grounded 

upon the theory that crime can be prevented, which is almost as dubious as the notion 

that poverty can be prevented.
 
-- H.L. Mencken

%%
It is the fundamental theory of all the more recent American law...that the average citizen

is half-witted, and hence not to be trusted to either his own devices or his own thoughts. 

-- H.L. Mencken

%%
No one in this world . . . has ever lost money by underestimating the intelligence 

of the great masses of the plain people.  Nor has anyone ever lost public office thereby. 

-- H.L. Mencken

%%
Individual rights are not subject to a public vote; 

a majority has no right to vote away the rights of a minority;
 
the political function of rights is precisely to protect minorities from oppression by majorities

(and the smallest minority on earth is the individual). 

-- Ayn Rand

%%
The smallest minority on earth is the individual. 

Those who deny individual rights, cannot claim to be defenders of minorities. 

-- Ayn Rand

%%
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

%%
Concentrated political power is the most dangerous thing on earth. 

--Rudolph Rummel

%%
He who dares not offend cannot be honest. 

--Thomas Paine

%%
The most formidable weapons against errors of every kind is reason. 

I have never used any other, and I trust I never shall. 

--Thomas Paine

%%
Independence is my happiness, and I view things as they are,
 
without regard to place or person; my country is the world, and my religion is to do good.
 
--Thomas Paine

%%
Some writers have so confounded society with government, as to leave little or no distinction

between them; whereas they are not only different, but have different origins. 

Society is produced by our wants, and government by our wickedness; 

the former promotes our happiness positively by uniting our affections, 

the latter negatively by restraining our vices. 

The one encourages intercourse, the other creates distinctions. 

The first is a patron, the last a punisher. 

--Thomas Paine

%%
Those who expect to reap the blessings of freedom must . . . undergo the fatigues of supporting it. 
--Thomas Paine

%%
Always do right. This will surprise some people and astonish the rest. 

--Mark Twain

%%
I have never let my schooling interfere with my education. 

--Mark Twain

%%
Don't go around saying the world owes you a living. The world owes you nothing. It was here first. 

--Mark Twain

%%
All our acts, reasoned and unreasoned, are selfish. 

--Mark Twain

%%
When will the world learn that a million men are of no importance compared with one man? 

--Henry David Thoreau

%%
I heartily accept the motto, "That government is best which governs least";

... Carried out, it finally amounts to this, which also I believe: 

"That government is best which governs not at all"; 

and when men are prepared for it, that will be the kind of government which they will have.

--Henry David Thoreau

%%
Anyone in a free society where the laws are unjust has an obligation to break the law. 

--Henry David Thoreau

%%
There is no worse tyranny than to force a man to pay for what he does not want 

merely because you think it would be good for him. 

--Robert Heinlein

%%
Sometimes it is said that man cannot be trusted with the government of himself. 

Can he, then, be trusted with the government of others? 

--Thomas Jefferson, 1801 inaugural address

%%
They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety

deserve neither liberty nor safety.
 
--Benjamin Franklin, Historical Review of Pennsylvania, 1759. 

%%
I hold it, that a little rebellion, now and then, is a good thing, 

and as necessary in the political world as storms in the physical.
 
--Thomas Jefferson, Letter to James Madison, January 30, 1787 

%%
This country, with its institutions, belongs to the people who inhabit it. 

Whenever they shall grow weary of the existing government, they can exercise 

their constitutional right of amending it or their revolutionary right to dismember it
 
or overthrow it.
 
--Abraham Lincoln, 4 April 1861 

%%
No one is bound to obey an unconstitutional law and no courts are bound to enforce it. 

--16 Am. Jur. Sec. 177 late 2d, Sec 256 

%%
Government is not reason, it is not eloquence, it is force; 

like fire, a troublesome servant and a fearful master.

Never for a moment should it be left to irresponsible action. 

--George Washington, in a speech of January 7, 1790 

%%
The prestige of government has undoubtedly been lowered considerably by the Prohibition law.

For nothing is more destructive of respect for the government and the law of the land than 

passing laws which cannot be enforced. It is an open secret that the dangerous increase
 
of crime in this country is closely connected with this. 

--Albert Einstein, "My First Impression of the U.S.A.", 1921 

%%
The Bible is not my book, and Christianity is not my religion. 

I could never give assent to the long, complicated statements of Christian dogma.

--Abraham Lincoln 

%%
It would be thought a hard government that should tax its people one tenth part. 

--Benjamin Franklin 

%%
The price of liberty is, always has been, and always will be blood. 
 
The person who is not willing to die for his liberty has already lost it 

to the first scoundrel who is willing to risk dying to violate 

that person's liberty. Are you free? 

-- Andrew Ford 

%%
I have never made but one prayer to God, a very short one: 

"O Lord, make my enemies ridiculous." And God granted it.
 
--Voltaire 

%%
When only cops have guns, it's called a "police state". 

-- Claire Wolfe

%%
Taking my gun away because I might shoot someone is like cutting my tongue out 

because I might yell "Fire!" in a crowded theater. 

-- Peter Venetoklis 

%%
Gun Control: The theory that a woman found dead in an alley, raped and strangled 

with her panty hose, is somehow morally superior to a woman explaining to police 

how her attacker got that fatal bullet wound. 

-- L. Neil Smith 

%%
Yesterday I parked my car in a tow-away zone... when I came back the entire area was missing.

-- Stephen Wright 

%%
If toast always lands butter-side down, and cats always land on their feet, 

what happen if you strap toast on the back of a cat and drop it? 

-- Stephen Wright 

%%
I saw a sign at a gas station. It said 'help wanted'. 

There was another sign below it that said 'self service'. 

So I hired myself. Then I made myself the boss. I gave myself a raise. 

I paid myself. Then I quit.  

-- Stephen Wright 

%%
When I have a kid, I want to buy one of those strollers for twins. 

Then put the kid in and run around, looking frantic.

-- Stephen Wright 

%%
Right now I'm having amnesia and deja-vu at the same time. 

I think I've forgotten this before. 

-- Stephen Wright 

%%
I used to work in a fire hydrant factory. You couldn't park anywhere near the place. 

-- Stephen Wright 

%%
I planted some bird seed. A bird came up. Now I don't know what to feed it. 

-- Stephen Wright 

%%
In school, every period ends with a bell. 

Every sentence ends with a period.

Every crime ends with a sentence.
 
-- Stephen Wright 

%%
Why is the alphabet in that order? Is it because of that song?
 
-- Stephen Wright