Tuesday, October 21. 2008
Give me chastity and continence, but not yet. Saint Augustine
Monday, October 20. 2008
If you believe what you like in the gospels, and reject what you don't like, it is not the gospel you believe, but yourself. Saint Augustine
Sunday, October 19. 2008
I have read in Plato and Cicero sayings that are wise and very beautiful; but I have never read in either of them: Come unto me all ye that labor and are heavy laden. Saint Augustine
Friday, October 17. 2008
Men go abroad to wonder at the heights of mountains, at the huge waves of the sea, at the long courses of the rivers, at the vast compass of the ocean, at the circular motions of the stars, and they pass by themselves without wondering. Saint Augustine
Thursday, October 16. 2008
This is the very perfection of a man, to find out his own imperfections. Saint Augustine
Wednesday, October 15. 2008
Pray as though everything depended on God. Work as though everything depended on you. Saint Augustine
Tuesday, October 14. 2008
This is worse than a friggin' divorce. I've lost half my net worth and I still have my wife. Mike Cuccurillo at Lehman/Barclays
Saturday, October 11. 2008
"When the freedom they wished for most was the freedom from responsibility, then Athens ceased to be free and never was free again." Edith Hamilton
Friday, October 10. 2008
"When I look at the wealth I have lost over the past two months, what I think about is the hours of work I put in to build it. That money, to me, is now lost time that, in retrospect, I could have spent better with my wife, family, and friends because my work is just a good job to pay the bills, and not a mission. My family is my mission." A friend
Thursday, October 2. 2008
"When there's a will to fail, obstacles can be found." John McCarthy, as quoted in Trying to Try at Overcoming Bias
Wednesday, October 1. 2008
You should make a point of trying every experience once, excepting incest and folk dancing. Sir Arnold Bax. More on learning from experience at Sippican.
Tuesday, September 30. 2008
"If someone wrote in the back of your yearbook, 'You can be whatever you want to be,' that was really dumb because you can't be a fish. It is just not going to work out for you." Prof Peter Lawler (of No Left Turns, as quoted here)
Monday, September 29. 2008
It is a joy to be hidden and a tragedy never to be discovered. D. W. Winnicott
Sunday, September 28. 2008
America is like a healthy body and its resistance is threefold: its patriotism, its morality, and its spiritual life. If we can undermine these three areas, America will collapse from within. Joseph Stalin (perhaps - can't prove it)
Saturday, September 27. 2008
"I wanted to acknowledge luck; the chance and benevolence of it in my life, and the brutality of it in the lives of others, who might not be allowed the good fortune of a lifetime to correct it." "I was always a character actor, but I looked like Little Red Riding Hood." Westport, Connecticut's Paul Newman, RIP Photo: Newman with wife Joanne Woodward, at home. Good people.
Friday, September 26. 2008
The tragedy of modern man is not that he knows less and less about the meaning of his own life, but that it bothers him less and less. Václav Havel (h/t, LGF)
Thursday, September 25. 2008
"Nothing is so permanent as a temporary government program." Milton Friedman
Thursday, September 18. 2008
When in trouble or in doubt, run in circles, scream and shout. Anon.
Tuesday, September 16. 2008
I wondered whether conservatives and right-liberals understand left-liberals better than they are understood in return because many of them used to be left-liberals. Peter Risdon, via Thompson. So true. True of most of us here at Maggie's.
Monday, September 15. 2008
“Zoom!" What was that? That was your life, mate. Oh, that was quick, do I get another? Sorry, that's your lot. Basil Fawlty, as quoted by Gagdad Bob in a piece on the 10th Commandment
Friday, September 12. 2008
"Having overthrown feudalism and slavery and then outgrown its own personal and familial form, capitalism has evolved a new political ideology, welfare liberalism, which absolves individuals of moral responsibility and treats them as victims of social circumstance. .. new modes of social control, which deal with the deviant as a patient and substitute medical rehabilitation for punishment. It has given rise to a new culture, the narcissistic culture of our time, which has translated the predatory individualism of the American Adam into a therapeutic jargon that celebrates not so much individualism as solipsism, justifying self-absorption as "authenticity" and awareness." Christopher Lasch, The Culture of Narcissism
Thursday, September 11. 2008
Asked if her son Track who is headed to Iraq was on a mission from God, she said she didn't know about that. "I don't know if the task is from God, Charlie," Palin said. "What I know is that my son has made a decision. I am so proud of his independent and strong decision he has made, what he decided to do and serving for the right reasons and serving something greater than himself and not choosing a real easy path where he could be more comfortable and certainly safer." Link here
"I can't believe I'm losing to this idiot." .
Monday, September 8. 2008
If you push the stick forward, the houses get bigger, if you pull the stick back they get smaller. Flying is not dangerous; crashing is dangerous. If something hasn't broken on your helicopter, it's about to. I want to die like my grandfather did, peacefully in his sleep. Not screaming in terror like his passengers. Flying at night is the same as flying in the day, except you can't see. I had a fighter pilot’s breakfast - two aspirin, a cup of coffee and a puke. The three best things in life are a good landing, a good orgasm, and a good shit. A night carrier landing is one of the few opportunities to experience all three at the same time. Lots more here.
Friday, September 5. 2008
If I’d had a crystal ball a few years ago, I might have asked a few more questions when Sarah decided to join the PTA. It wouldn’t have mattered, though; when my wife starts talking about reform, corruption and making government work for the people, it’s just best to get out of the way. Todd Palin, Sept. 4, 2008 I’ve been an imperfect servant of my country for many years. But I have been her servant first, last and always. And I’ve never lived a day, in good times or bad, that I didn’t thank God for the privilege. John McCain, Sept 4, 2008 I fell in love with my country when I was a prisoner in someone else's. I loved it not just for the many comforts of life here. I loved it for its decency; for its faith in the wisdom, justice and goodness of its people. I loved it because it was not just a place, but an idea, a cause worth fighting for. I was never the same again. I wasn't my own man anymore. I was my country's. John McCain, Sept 4, 2008
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