Friday, November 12. 2010
If people are doing better, increase taxes because they can afford it. If people are doing worse, raise taxes so as to be able to "help" them with more government spending.
Commenter John, here at Maggie's yesterday
Tuesday, November 9. 2010
“America demonstrates invincibly one thing that I had doubted up to now: that the middle classes can govern a state…despite their small passions, their incomplete education, their vulgar habits, they can obviously provide a practical sort of intelligence and that turns out to be enough.”
Alexis-Charles-Henri Clérel de Tocqueville, in Democracy in America, via this new site.
That's a perfect description of us Maggie's Farmers. This French aristocrat understood America better than most of our own elites and pundits do today. de Toqueville came to love the idea of America - and Americans (despite - or because of - our not being French aristocrats).
Monday, November 8. 2010
Why are there are no "Men's Studies"? Because there's nothing much about the male brain to study except "Come naked, bring food."
Anon.
Friday, October 29. 2010
People today are still living off the table scraps of the sixties. They are still being passed around - the music and the ideas.
Bob Dylan
Tuesday, October 26. 2010
"What happens in the cornfield stays in the cornfield."
Anon.
Pic is beautiful central Ohio, on Sunday.
Wednesday, October 6. 2010
Reading maketh a full man, conference, a ready man, and writing, an exact man.
Francis Bacon, as quoted at Rick Moran's REFLECTIONS ON SIX YEARS OF BLOGGING
Tuesday, October 5. 2010
You say, 'If I had a little more, I should be very satisfied.' You make a mistake. If you are not content with what you have, you would not be satisfied if it were doubled.
Charles Haddon Spurgeon
The wise Rev. Spurgeon might be right, but I'd be willing to give it a try anyway just to find out for myself.
Monday, October 4. 2010
Many go fishing all their lives without knowing that it is not fish they are after.
Thoreau
Thursday, September 30. 2010
If I knew for a certainty that a man was coming to my house with the conscious design of doing me good, I should run for my life.
Henry David Thoreau
Wednesday, September 29. 2010
How vain it is to sit down to write when you have not stood up to live.
Henry David Thoreau
Tuesday, September 28. 2010
As for doing good; that is one of the professions which is full. Moreover I have tried it fairly and, strange as it may seem, am satisfied that it does not agree with my constitution.
Henry David Thoreau
Friday, September 24. 2010
"Isn't it great to live in a society where the penalty for lying to a congressman can be up to 30 years in jail, but the penalty for a congressman lying to you is another two years in office."
Peter Schmuck, a Baltimore Sun sports writer, concerning the indictment of Roger Clemens
Thursday, September 2. 2010
The only reward of virtue is virtue; the only way to have a friend is to be one.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Wednesday, September 1. 2010
To understand the workings of American politics, you have to understand this fundamental law: Conservatives think liberals are stupid. Liberals think conservatives are evil.
Charles Krauthammer. Worth repeating. We are reminded of this via Driscoll
Monday, August 30. 2010
It was a high counsel that I once heard given to a young person, Always do what you are afraid to do.
Ralph Waldo Emerson, a man whose writings I have never been able to really understand. Even tried to read his bio. No dice. He was big on the lecture circuit once upon a time. Perhaps I am not smart enough.
Friday, August 27. 2010
"A good politician is quite as unthinkable as an honest burglar."
H.L.Mencken. h/t, Vanderleun
Thursday, August 26. 2010
"You have to act like an MD before you can become an MD."
Anon. ("MD" being Managing Director, but you could also insert "Partner" in the same sentence.)
Monday, August 23. 2010
"The world is a book and those who do not travel only read the first page."
Attributed to many, including St. Augustine, Theodore Roosevelt, and Eleanor Roosevelt. This, however, is pure Teddy:
"Life is a great adventureaccept it in such a spirit."
Wednesday, August 11. 2010
Liberals believe you build a good society from the top down; conservatives believe you build a society from the bottom up.
Michael Medved, via Reb
Tuesday, August 3. 2010
"Marriage is a duel to the death which no man of honour should decline."
G.K. Chesterton
Monday, August 2. 2010
"The real argument against aristocracy is that it always means the rule of the ignorant. For the most dangerous of all forms of ignorance is ignorance of work."
G.K. Chesterton, 1918
Wednesday, July 28. 2010
"Science is the belief in the ignorance of experts."
Richard Feynman, via The Difference between True Science and Cargo-Cult Science at Pajamas
Sunday, July 25. 2010
No believer will find his faith shaken by evidence that is evidence only in the light of assumptions he does not share and considers flatly wrong.
Stanley Fish. h/t, Dr. Bob
Tuesday, July 20. 2010
This reminds me of a Winston Churchill story that Stephen Fry likes to tell. During Churchill's last stint as Prime Minister, in the fifties, he was regretfully informed that one of his backbench MPs had been arrested the previous night for exposing himself on Hampstead Heath. After a pause, Churchill asked about the weather. Was it not very cold last night? Indeed sir, one of the coldest nights on record. Said Churchill after another thoughtful pause: "It makes you proud to be British."
via Samizdata
|