Thursday, January 9. 2020
Via Boudreaux at CD:
"To paraphrase Sheldon Richman, however, just because some people cannot be trusted with liberty does not mean other people can be trusted with power.
DBx: No single human inclination has done more harm to humanity than that which turns us to power as the first and surest ‘solution’ to problems imaginary and even real."
Wednesday, January 8. 2020
“Hypocrisy is the homage that vice pays to virtue”
François de La Rochefoucauld, via McArdle via Althouse on Gervais
Friday, December 13. 2019
Incompetence is the most massively common problem in the world.
Scott Adams
Wednesday, December 11. 2019
"If you can do it, it ain't bragging."
Babe Ruth
Wednesday, December 4. 2019
"A students work for B students at companies founded by D students that are run by C students."
Thanks to reader for reminding me of that old semi-truth. It does apply to me. I know that I am no genius, but I'm smart enough to hire very bright people who can make da business go good.
It's related to this one: "If you're so rich, how come you ain't smart?"
Thursday, November 21. 2019
Thanks to a reader -
Die Lösung
Nach dem Aufstand des 17. Juni
Ließ der Sekretär des Schriftstellerverbands
In der Stalinallee Flugblätter verteilen
Auf denen zu lesen war, daß das Volk
Das Vertrauen der Regierung verscherzt habe
Und es nur durch verdoppelte Arbeit
zurückerobern könne. Wäre es da
Nicht doch einfacher, die Regierung
Löste das Volk auf und
Wählte ein anderes?
- Bertolt Brecht
Translation:
The Solution
After the uprising of the 17th of June
The Secretary of the Writers' Union
Had leaflets distributed on the Stalinallee
Stating that the people
Had forfeited the confidence of the government
And could only win it back
By increased work quotas. Would it not in that case be simpler
for the government
To dissolve the people
And elect another?
Wednesday, November 20. 2019
People's needs and wants multiply without end, means do not.
Scott Adams
Monday, November 11. 2019
“Remember, under free markets the rich become powerful. But under socialism, the powerful become rich.”
Glenn Reynolds
Thursday, November 7. 2019
Idleness is the enemy of the soul.
St. Benedict, who recommended a life of hard work and prayer
Wednesday, November 6. 2019
The point of disinformation is not just to get people to accept a lie. It is to annihilate truth and to exhaust people’s defense of the truth.
Gary Kasparov, chess grandmaster and Russian political activist.
Friday, October 18. 2019
"[M]y duty as a songwriter is not to try to save the world, but rather to save the soul of the world. This requires me to live my life on the other side of truth, beyond conviction and within uncertainty, where things make less sense, absurdity is a virtue and art rages and burns; where dogma is anathema, discourse is essential, doubt is an energy, magical thinking is not a crime and where possibility and potentiality rule."
- Songwriter Nick Cave. Full context at Althouse
Saturday, September 28. 2019
My favorite car bumper stickers from the past:
- When all else fails, lower your standards
- The one who dies with the most toys, wins
- Please hit me. I need the money.
Your favorites, over the years?
Friday, September 27. 2019
"Fear is the path to the dark side. Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering."
Yoda
Tuesday, September 17. 2019
Two of a friend's favorite related quotes:
"Dress me slowly, I am in a hurry."
Napoleon Bonaparte, in preparation for a battle
"Slow is smooth, smooth is fast."
A Navy Seal saying.
Monday, September 9. 2019
"It isn't the mountains ahead to climb that wear you out; it's the pebble in your shoe."
Mohammad Ali
Monday, September 2. 2019
"Everywhere I look here, I see a miracle."
A pal, while visiting with his wife for a few days and some good hikes and swims in Wellfleet. That's the view of life to which I aspire.
Sunday, September 1. 2019
"It's around three years of the Trump apocalypse. How bad has it been thus far? Pretty good, right? How many things you were told to be afraid of happening actually happened"
Paraphrased from Scott Adams
Monday, August 19. 2019
Q: How can you tell a person from a human robot?
A: The robot will change its mind when presented with new data.
- Scott Adams
Friday, August 9. 2019
“Everything good that has happened to me has happened as a direct result of helping someone else. Everything.”
Actor Danny Trejo. Story at Am digest
Ain't that the truth?
Wednesday, July 31. 2019
“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 or arms. Crouch down and lick the hands which feed you. May your chains set lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that ye were our countrymen.”
Samuel Adams
Thursday, July 18. 2019
“Never before in all our history have these forces [the media and the opposition party] been so united against one candidate as they stand today. They are unanimous in their hate for me—and I welcome their hatred."
FDR, 1936, via Powerline
Wednesday, July 17. 2019
“Postmodern prose is perhaps best approached as an exercise in posturing and phonetics, of couching slim and trite observations in needlessly Byzantine language… Efforts to fathom deep meaning, or, very often, meaning of any kind, are generally exhausting and rarely rewarded. More often, what you’ll find is essentially a pile of language, carefully disorganised so as to obscure a lack of content.”
Shrinkwrapped, via AVI
Tuesday, July 16. 2019
Forsan et haec olim meminisse juvabit.
(Some day perhaps we will look back at even this, and smile.)
Virgil, Aeneid
Wednesday, July 10. 2019
Free-floating, petty gripes are a result of Miserabilism as a world view, the idea that viewing Western Civ as a hellish, gruesome burden destined to collapse of its sins and conceits is the only possible worldview for a Serious Person. Hence the more fault you find, the deeper you are. It comes from being grounded in nothing but the shallow soil of the present, with no sense of history except for a series of pre-approved narratives intended to culminate in an argument against the recent past, which was bad because it prevented the wonderful possible Tomorrow from happening Today. It’s a recipe for life-long alienation.
James Lileks
Monday, July 1. 2019
No prize, no dinner.
One of my tough daughters
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