Jolly Quotes

Construction and Creation

2011-12-25T07:00:00.000-08:00

The whole difference between construction and creation is exactly this: that a thing constructed can only be loved after it is constructed; but a thing created is loved before it exists.

Source: GK Chesterton, Appreciations and Criticisms of the Works of Charles Dickens, Chapter III "Pickwick Papers" (1911)

Procrastination

2011-12-24T07:00:00.000-08:00

My advice is to never do tomorrow what you can do today. Procrastination is the thief of time.

Source: Mark Twain, David Copperfield, Ch 12, 1850

Investment in Killing

2011-12-23T07:00:00.000-08:00

We're making the largest investment of capital that humankind has ever made in weapons over the next five years. We have decided, as a society, that that's where we should put our money, and that raises the deficits and, thus, the cost of our capital.

Source: Steve Jobs, Unsourced

On Trying

2011-12-22T07:00:00.000-08:00

My meaning simply is, that whatever I have tried to do in life, I have tried with all my heart to do well; that whatever I have devoted myself to, I have devoted myself to completely; that in great aims and in small, I have always been thoroughly in earnest.

Source: Mark Twain, David Copperfield Ch42, 1850

A Problem with Philanthropy

2011-12-21T07:00:00.000-08:00

And that's the problem with most philanthropy-- there's no measurement system. You give somebody some money to do something and most of the time you can really never measure whether you failed or succeeded in your judgment of that person or his ideas or their implementation. So if you can't succeed or fail, it's really hard to get better.

Source: Steve Jobs, Unsourced
Taken From: If You Want More Jobs, Look to Steve Jobs, Sovereign Man 10/6/2011

Tears

2011-12-20T07:00:00.000-08:00

Heaven knows we need never be ashamed of our tears, for they are rain upon the blinding dust of earth, overlying our hard hearts.

Source: Mark Twain, Great Expectations, 1861

The Chance of Contributing

2011-12-19T07:00:00.000-08:00

Most of the time, we're taking things. Neither you nor I made the clothes we wear; we don't make the food or grow the foods we eat; we use a language that was developed by other people; we use another society's mathematics. Very rarely do we get a chance to put something back into that pool. I think we have that opportunity now. And no, we don't know where it will lead. We just know there's something much bigger than any of us here.

Source: Steve Jobs, 1985 Playboy Interview
Taken From: If You Want More Jobs, Look to Steve Jobs, Sovereign Man 10/6/2011

Dignity and Holiness

2011-12-18T07:00:00.000-08:00

Dignity, and even holiness too, sometimes, are more questions of coat and waistcoat than some people imagine.

Source: Charles Dickens, Oliver Twist Ch37, 1838

Possibilities as Probabilities

2011-12-17T07:00:00.000-08:00

The most important thing in life is to stop saying ‘I wish’ and start saying ‘I will.’ Consider nothing impossible, then treat possibilities as probabilities.

Source: Mark Twain, Unsourced

On Communication

2011-12-16T07:00:00.000-08:00

I have heardit broached that orders should be given in great new ships byelectric telegraph. I admire machinery as much is any man, and amas thankful to it as any man can be for what it does for us. But itwill never be a substitute for the face of a man, with his soul init, encouraging another man to be brave and true.

Source: Charles Dickens, The Wreck of the Golden Mary

Death

2011-12-15T07:00:00.000-08:00

Death may beget life, but oppression can beget nothing other than itself.

Source: Charles Dickens, Unsourced

Danger

2011-12-14T21:02:00.000-08:00

It is dangerous to be right in matters on which the established authorities are wrong.

Source: Voltaire, Le Siècle de Louis XIV (1752)
Taken From: International Man, The Worst Advice You'll Ever Get, 2011/12/13

On Failing and Forging Ahead

2011-12-13T07:00:00.000-08:00

Sometimes life hits you in the head with a brick. Don't lose faith. I'm convinced that the only thing that kept me going was that I loved what I did. You've got to find what you love. And that is as true for your work as it is for your lovers. . . As with all matters of the heart, you'll know when you find it. ... So keep looking until you find it. Don't settle.

Source: Steve Jobs, Stanford Commencement Address, 2005/06/12
Taken From: If You Want More Jobs, Look to Steve Jobs, Sovereign Man 10/6/2011

Death

2011-12-12T07:00:00.000-08:00

[D]eath is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life's change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new.

Source: Steve Jobs, Stanford Commencement Address, 2005/06/12
Taken From: If You Want More Jobs, Look to Steve Jobs, Sovereign Man 10/6/2011

On Not Following The Crowd

2011-12-11T07:00:00.000-08:00

Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma-- which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of others' opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary

Source: Steve Jobs, Stanford Commencement Address, 2005/06/12
Taken From: If You Want More Jobs, Look to Steve Jobs, Sovereign Man 10/6/2011

.

Opinion

2011-12-10T07:00:00.000-08:00

The opinion of 10,000 men is of no value if none of them know anything about the subject.

Source: Marcus Aurelius (Unsourced)
Taken From: International Man, Readers Respond 2011/12/05

The Next War

2011-12-09T07:00:00.000-08:00

The next war ... may well bury Western civilization forever.

Source: Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, Unsourced
Taken From: Antiwar.com Anti-War Quotes

Morality of Sacrifice

2011-12-08T07:00:00.000-08:00

Under a morality of sacrifice, the first value you sacrifice is morality; the next is self-esteem. When need is the standard, every man is both victim and parasite. As a victim, he must labor to fill the needs of others, leaving himself in the position of a parasite whose needs must be filled by others. He cannot approach his fellow men except in one of two disgraceful roles: he is both a beggar and a sucker.

John Galt (Fictional Character)
Taken From: Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged (1957)

Immoral and Moral Actions

2011-12-07T07:00:00.000-08:00

Such is the secret core of your creed, the other half of your double standard: it is immoral to live by your own effort, but moral to live by the effort of others - it is immoral to consume your own product, but moral to consume the products of others - it is immoral to earn, but moral to mooch - it is the parasites who are the moral justification for the existence of the producers, but the existence of the parasites is an end in itself - it is evil to profit by achievement, but good to profit by sacrifice - it is evil to create your own happiness, but good to enjoy it at the price of the blood of others.

John Galt (Fictional Character)
Taken From: Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged (1957)

Non-Aggression Axiom

2011-12-06T07:00:00.000-08:00

Whatever may be open to disagreement, there is one act of evil that may not, the act that no man may commit against others and no man may sanction or forgive. So long as men desire to live together, no man may initiate-do you hear me? no man may start-the use of physical force against other.

John Galt (Fictional Character)
Taken From: Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged (1957)

Man's Mind

2011-12-05T07:00:00.000-08:00

Man's mind is his basic tool of survival. Life is given to him, survival is not. His body is given to him, its sustenance is not. His mind is given to him, its content is not. To remain alive, he must act, and before he can act he must know the nature and purpose of his action.

John Galt (Fictional Character)
Taken From: Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged (1957)

On Acting against Justice

2011-12-04T07:00:00.000-08:00

When one acts on pity against justice, it is the good whom one punishes for the sake of the evil; when one saves the guilty from suffering, it is the innocent whom one forces to suffer.

Hank Rearden (Fictional Character)
Taken From: Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged (1957)

Freedom and Service

2011-12-03T07:00:00.000-08:00

You were called to freedom, brothers. Only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another.

Paul of Tarsus, Galatians 5:13

Human Action

2011-12-02T07:00:00.000-08:00

Human action originates change. As far as there is human action there is no stability, but ceaseless alteration. The historical process is a sequence of changes. It is beyond the power of man to stop it and to bring about an age of stability in which all history comes to a standstill. It is man's nature to strive after improvement, to beget new ideas, and to rearrange the conditions of his life according to these ideas.

Source: Ludwig Von Mises, Human Action, Chapter 12, Section 4, The Sphere of Economic Calculation: Stabilization, 1949

On Erroneous Views and Sanity

2011-12-01T07:00:00.000-08:00

However, it is clear that if the mere fact that a man shares erroneous views and acts according to his errors qualifies him as mentally disabled, it would be very hard to discover an individual to which the epithet sane or normal could be attributed. Then we are bound to call the past generations lunatic because their ideas about the problems of the natural sciences and concomitantly their techniques differed from ours. Coming generations will call us lunatics for the same reason. Man is liable to error. If to err were the characteristic feature of mental disability, then everybody should be called mentally disabled.

Source: Ludwig Von Mises, Human Action, Chapter 9, Section 2, The Role of Ideas: World View and Ideology, 1949

Majoritarianism

2011-11-30T07:00:00.000-08:00

Why should either two men live at the discretion of three, or three at the discretion of two. Both propositions are absurd from a reasonable point of view. If being a slave and owning a slave are both wrong relations, what different does it make whether there are a million slave owners and one slave, or one slave owner and a million slaves? Do robbery and murder cease to be what they are if done by ninety-nine percent of the population?

Source: Auberon Herbert, Unsourced
Taken From: Mises.org, Nov 16, 2011

Economics and Reality

2011-11-29T07:00:00.000-08:00

Economics deals with real man, weak and subject to error as he is, not with ideal beings, omniscient and perfect as only gods could be.

Source: Ludwig Von Mises, Human Action, Chapter 4, Section 3, The Scale of Needs, 1949

Democratic Majoritarianism

2011-11-28T07:00:00.000-08:00

Whatever the system of government may be, the foundation upon which it is built and rests is always the opinion of those ruled that to obey and to be loyal to this government better serves their own interests than insurrection and the establishment of another regime. The majority has the power to do away with an unpopular government and uses this power whenever it becomes convinced that its own welfare requires it. In the long run there is no such thing as an unpopular government.

Source: Ludwig Von Mises, Human Action, Chapter 8, Section 2, A Critique of the Holistic and Metaphysical View of Society, 1949

On Success

2011-11-27T07:00:00.000-08:00

If we followed a rich person around all day, we’d eventually say, no wonder he’s successful, look at EVERYTHING he does.

Source: Dan Kennedy, Unsourced
Taken From: InternetIndependence.com, The One Thing You Need To Do, Oct 10, 2011

On Human Foreknowledge

2011-11-26T07:00:00.000-08:00

Whatever the system of government may be, the foundation upon which it is built and rests is always the opinion of those ruled that to obey and to be loyal to this government better serves their own interests than insurrection and the establishment of another regime. The majority has the power to do away with an unpopular government and uses this power whenever it becomes convinced that its own welfare requires it. In the long run there is no such thing as an unpopular government

Source: Ludwig Von Mises, Human Action, Chapter 6, Section 1, Uncertainty and Acting, 1949

Traditionalism

2011-11-25T07:00:00.001-08:00

For the core of traditionalism is not real historical facts, but an opinion about them, however mistaken, and a will to believe things to which the authority of ancient origin is attributed.

Source: Ludwig Von Mises, Human Action, Chapter 9, Section 3, The Role of Ideas: Might, 1949

Thanksgiving

2011-11-24T07:00:00.001-08:00

Gratitude is not only the greatest of virtues, but the parent of all others.

Source: Cicero, Pro Plancio 54 B.C.
Taken From: Early to Rise Newsletter, 11/24/2011

On False Dogma

2011-11-23T07:00:00.000-08:00

Hence, people concluded, the gain of one man is the damage of another; no man profits but by the loss of others.

Source: Ludwig Von Mises, Human Action, Chapter 24, Section 1, Harmony and Conflict of Interests: The Ultimate Source of Profit and Loss on the Market, 1949

Executioners

2011-11-22T07:00:00.000-08:00

It is the job of thinking people not to be on the side of the executioners.

Source: Albert Camus (As quoted in Howard Zinn's The People's History)
Taken From: Antiwar.com Quotes

On Utopia

2011-11-21T07:00:00.000-08:00

After the philosophers had abandoned the search for the absolute, the utopians took it up. They weave dreams about the perfect state. They do not realize that the state, the social apparatus of compulsion and coercion, is an institution to cope with human imperfection and that its essential function is to inflict punishment upon minorities in order to protect majorities against the detrimental consequences of certain actions. With "perfect" men there would not be any need for compulsion and coercion. But utopians do not pay heed to human nature and the inalterable conditions of human life.

Source: Ludwig Von Mises, Human Action, Chapter 2, Section 11, The Limitations on Praxeological Concepts, 1949

Duty

2011-11-20T07:00:00.000-08:00

What I did was merely my duty. Disobeying the laws of the time was just the normal thing to do.

Source: Andree Geulen-Herscovici
Taken From: Restoring the Republic with Truth and Fearlessness, Karen Kwiatkowski, June 6th 2001

About the Source, taken from the above article:Andree Geulen-Herscovici, an 86-year-old Belgian schoolteacher was recognized by Israel for saving 300 children from the Nazis. In 1942, she witnessed a Gestapo raid on the school. She then joined an underground rescue organization, and for more than two years, she quietly worked with other likeminded people to save these Jewish children from an evil state that would have seen their lives destroyed.
During the ceremony, she said the above.

On Value

2011-11-19T07:00:00.000-08:00

Value is not intrinsic, it is not in things. It is within us; it is the way in which man reacts to the conditions of his environment.

Source: Ludwig Von Mises, Human Action, Chapter 4, Section 2, The Scale of Value, 1949

On the Instinct of Aggression and Destruction

2011-11-18T07:00:00.000-08:00

One must not tell the masses: Indulge in your urge for murder; it is genuinely human and best serves your well-being. One must tell them: If you satisfy your thirst for blood, you must forego many other desires. You want to eat, to drink, to live in fine homes, to clothe yourselves, and a thousand other things which only society can provide. You cannot have everything, you must choose. The dangerous life and the frenzy of sadism may please you, but they are incompatible with the security and plenty which you do not want to miss either.

Source: Ludwig Von Mises, Human Action, Chapter 8, Section 8, Human Society: The Instinct of Aggression and Destruction, 1949

Extraordinary

2011-11-17T07:00:00.000-08:00

The world does not reward average people well so I will be extraordinary.

Source: Ted Nicholas, Unsourced

Taken From: InternetIndependence.com, The One Thing You Need To Do, Oct 10, 2011

Chaos v Order

2011-11-16T07:00:00.000-08:00

Chaos is found in greatest abundance wherever order is being sought. Chaos always defeats order because it is better organized.

Source: Terry Pratchet, Ly Tin Wheedle in Discworld, 1994
Taken From: Butler Schaffer, A Cost/Benefit Analysis of the Human Spirit; Speech, 3/15/2003

Society

2011-11-15T07:00:00.000-08:00

Society, ... always involves men acting in cooperation with other men in order to let all participants attain their own ends.

Source: Ludwig Von Mises, Human Action, Chapter 8, Section 7, Human Society: The Great Society, 1949

On Society

2011-11-14T07:00:00.000-08:00

Society is joint action and cooperation in which each participant sees the other partner's success as a means for the attainment of his own.

Source: Ludwig Von Mises, Human Action, Chapter 8, Section 7, Human Society: The Great Society, 1949

On the Origins of Social Cooperation

2011-11-13T07:00:00.000-08:00

Neither love not charity nor any other sympathetic sentiments but rightly understood selfishness is what originally impelled man to adjust himself to the requirements of society, to respect the rights and freedoms of his fellow men and to substitute peaceful collaboration for enmity and conflict.

Source: Ludwig Von Mises, Human Action, Chapter 8, Section 6, Human Society: The Individual Within Society, 1949

Reciprocity

2011-11-12T07:00:00.000-08:00

Second, the reciprocal performances of the parties must in some sense be equal in value…. We cannot here speak of an exact identity, for it makes no sense at all to exchange, say, a book or idea in return for exactly the same book or idea. The bond of reciprocity unites men, not simply in spite of their differences but because of their differences….

Source: Lon L. Fuller, The Morality of Law, pp. 23–24, 1964
Taken From: Bruce Benson, The Enterprise of Customary Law, 6/29/2007

Rent a Cop

2011-11-11T07:00:00.000-08:00

As for the “rent-a-cops” who serve on the Jerry Springer show, is there any doubt that they are far superior to any public alternatives when it comes to breaking up a fight at the exact point when the combatants are appropriately half undressed?

Source: Walter Block, The Privatization of Roads & Highways, 2009, Pg 252

Economic History

2011-11-10T07:00:00.000-08:00

It is impossible to understand the history of economic thought if one does not pay attention to the fact that economics as such is a challenge to the conceit of those in power. An economist can never be a favorite of autocrats and demagogues. With them he is always the mischief-maker, and the more they are inwardly convinced that his objections are well founded, the more they hate him.

Source: Ludwig Von Mises, Human Action, Chapter 2, The Procedure of Economics, 1949

Debt-oholism

2011-11-09T07:00:00.000-08:00

If we can solve the debt problem by raising the debt ceiling then we should be able to solve drunk driving by raising the blood alcohol limit.

Source: John Jolly, Aug 16th, 2011

On Population Control

2011-11-08T07:00:00.000-08:00

[A] horrific notion was “the official policies that made it acceptable to hand out food aid to famine victims only if the women agreed to be sterilized.”

Source: Fred Pearce, Fatal Misconception by Matthew Connelly. The New Scientist: May 21, 2008:
Taken From: New Eugenics and the Rise of the Global Scientific Dictatorship: The Technological Revolution and the Future of Freedom, Part3

Utilty is

2011-11-07T07:00:00.000-08:00

Utility is a subjective phenomenon, rooted in individual preference. There are no units with which to measure utility, a fact that appears to be no more than a slight annoyance to those who would measure it.

Source: Walter Block, The Privatization of Roads & Highways, 2009, Pg 129

Darwinism in Reverse

2011-11-06T07:00:00.000-08:00

Dominic Lawson, writing a review of Connelly’s book for The Sunday Times, explained that: the population-control movement was bankrolled by America's biggest private fortunes - the Ford family foundation, John D Rockefeller III, and Clarence Gamble (of Procter & Gamble). These gentlemen shared not just extreme wealth but a common anxiety: the well-to-do and clever (people like them, obviously) were now having much smaller families than their ancestors, but the great unwashed - Chinamen! Indians! Negroes! - were reproducing themselves in an irresponsible manner. What they feared was a kind of Darwinism in reverse - the survival of the unfittest.

Source: Dominic Lawson, Fatal Misconception: The Struggle to Control World Population by Matthew Connelly. The Sunday Times: May 18, 2008:
Taken From: New Eugenics and the Rise of the Global Scientific Dictatorship: The Technological Revolution and the Future of Freedom, Part3

Totalitarianism

2011-11-05T07:00:00.000-07:00

You know, I know something about totalitarianism. I have been a totalitarian ruler. And I hate to admit, it was a great job while it lasted.

Source: Eduard Shevardnadze, Former Foreign Minister of the Soviet Union and former President of the Republic of Georgia
Taken from: Superclass, David Rothkpf, 2008

On Population Control

2011-11-04T07:00:00.000-07:00

In 1969 Robert McNamara, then president of the World Bank, said he was reluctant to finance health care "unless it was very strictly related to population control, because usually health facilities contributed to the decline of the death rate, and thereby to the population explosion."

Source: Review, Horrid History. The Economist: May 24, 2008

Taken From: New Eugenics and the Rise of the Global Scientific Dictatorship: The Technological Revolution and the Future of Freedom, Part3

Sentimental Humanitarianism

2011-11-03T07:00:00.000-07:00

Is not man the first thing to be considered? it will be asked. Is he not to be given preference over abstract rights, privileges, and so forth? What this question fails to see is that man's egotism renders impossible that kind of organization which would allow him to prosper to a degree. When he puts himself first in this sense, the victory is Pyrrhic. The only way to give him anything that will last is to place him in a structure where opportunity and ability may meet. This cannot be done by considering egotistic demands first; such shortsightedness destroys the supporting structure. Thus sentimental humanitarianism, ignorant of fundamental realities but ever attentive to desires, wrecks society.

Source: Richard Weaver, Ideas Have Consequences 1948

On the Fun Factor

2011-11-02T07:00:00.000-07:00

... the prospects for liberty have nothing to do with my own commitment to the process of trying to obtaining it. That is, I am going to keep trying, at exactly the same pace, no matter what the prospects are. My reasoning has little to do with the likelihood of success. I do it because I think it’s my moral obligation to do it, because I want to pass onto the next generation the flag, or the torch or the banner that’s been passed onto me, and because it is just so much fun.

Source: Walter Block, The Privatization of Roads & Highways, 2009, Pg 417

Equality

2011-11-01T07:00:00.000-07:00

When the rule of equality [reigns] ... no one knows where he belongs. Because he has been assured that he is "just as good as anybody else," he is likely to suspect that he is getting less than his deserts.

Source: Richard Weaver, Ideas Have Consequences 1948

On the US President

2011-10-31T07:00:00.000-07:00

In our system it is hard to overstate the centrality of the president. Others advise. The Congress can block. But he is the initiator and he key decision maker. I've seen presidents who didn't fully realize this even as they were entering office. And often when I read commentaries about what is happening in our government, they underplay the responsibility the president has either through his actions or through his decisions not to intervene.

Source: Colin Powell, Former Secretary of State (USA)
Taken From: Superclass, David Rothkpf, 2008, pg 146

Justice and Sovereignty

2011-10-30T07:00:00.000-07:00

In the absence of justice, what is sovereignty but organized robbery?

Source: St. Augustine, Unsourced
Taken From: Superclass, David Rothkpf, 2008, pg 145

Words Change Lives

2011-10-29T07:00:00.000-07:00

Words can change people’s lives.

Source: Craig Ballantyne
Taken From: InternetIndependence.com, How To Write Great Emails, 10/4/2011

Traditional Values

2011-10-28T07:00:00.000-07:00

The state, ceasing to express man's inner qualifications, turns into a vast bureaucracy designed to promote economic activity. It is little wonder that traditional values, however much they may be eulogized on commemorative occasions, today must dodge about and find themselves nooks and crannies if they are to survive at all.

Source: Richard Weaver, Ideas Have Consequences 1948

American Hires

2011-10-27T07:00:00.000-07:00

Intel can thrive today and never hire another American. It is not our desire, not is not our intention, but we can do that.

Source: Craig Barrett, Intel CEO
Taken From: Superclass, David Rothkpf, 2008, pg 120

On Education

2011-10-26T07:00:00.000-07:00

But all hinges on the interpretation of needs; if the primary need of man is to perfect his spiritual being and prepare for immortality, then education of the mind and the passions will take precedence over all else. The growth of materialism, however, has made this a consideration remote and even incomprehensible to the majority. Those who maintain that education should prepare one for living successfully in this world have won a practically complete victory.

Source: Richard Weaver, Ideas Have Consequences 1948

Slavery to Freedom

2011-10-25T07:00:00.000-07:00

... knowledge is the pathway from slavery to freedom.

Source: Frederick Douglass, see Wikipedia entry for source
Taken From: LewRockwell.com, Blog post by Charles Burris, 2011/09/11

Absoulte power is kind of neat

2011-10-24T07:00:00.000-07:00

Power corrupts. Absolute power is kind of neat.

Source: John Lehman, former US Secretary of the Navy
Taken From: Superclass, David Rothkpf, 2008

On Working for the Lord and for Others

2011-10-23T07:00:00.000-07:00

Much of the effort of modern politicians is devoted to convincing us that men serve best when they are serving one another. But the one consideration which would make this true is left out; service to others is the best service when the effort of all is subsumed under a transcendental conception. Material gratification does not provide this, and here one has the reason why a secularized state finally breeds an intense hatred of politicians, who are trying to get men to accept one another as taskmasters. Work is not to be performed "as ever in my great Taskmaster's eye," but for my neighbor, whom I despise.

Source: Richard Weaver, Ideas Have Consequences 1948

Political Finance

2011-10-22T07:00:00.000-07:00

The real truth ... is, as you know and I know, that a financial element in the larger centers has owned the Government ever since he days of Andrew Jackson - and I am not wholly excepting the Administration of W.W. [Woodrow Wilson]

Source: Franklin Roosevelt in a letter to one of Woodrow Wilson's top advisors
Taken From: Superclass, David Rothkpf, 2008, pg 152

Education and Direction

2011-10-21T07:00:00.000-07:00

Yet the prevailing conception is that education must be such as will enable one to acquire enough wealth to live on the plain of the bourgeoisie [middle class]. That kind of education does not develop the aristocratic virtues. It neither encourages reflection nor inspires a reverence for the good.

Source: Richard Weaver, Ideas Have Consequences 1948

Secret Cabal

2011-10-20T07:00:00.000-07:00

The only way I can get to sleep at night is by imagining a secret cabal of highly competent puppetmasters who are handling the important decisions while our elected politicians debate flag burning and the definition of marriage.

Source: Scott Adams, unsourced
Taken From: Superclass, David Rothkpf, 2008, pg254

Corrupto-Capitalism

2011-10-19T07:00:00.000-07:00

I’m not anti-capitalist. I actually support capitalism, I think it’s a good thing. I just think you can have capitalism without corruption,

Source: Alessio Rastani, October, 2011
Taken From: Huffington Post, "Alessio Rastani: I Just Want To Help People", 2011/10/11

Entitlement

2011-10-18T07:00:00.000-07:00

Where we once thought ourselves collectively strong, we now regard ourselves as individually entitled.

Source: Strauss and Howe, The Fourth Turning, 1997, pg 1

Irresponsibility

2011-10-17T07:00:00.000-07:00

The enforced irresponsibility has itself become a factor in pathology, for a burden of responsibility is, after all, the best means of getting anyone to think straight.

Source: Richard Weaver, Ideas Have Consequences 1948

Friends and Chocolate

2011-10-16T07:00:00.000-07:00

There is nothing better than a friend, unless it is a friend with chocolate.

Source: Charles Dickens, Unsourced
Taken From: Unknown

Nature and Purpose

2011-10-15T07:00:00.000-07:00

... a look at the nature of things is imperative, for our conception of metaphysical reality finally governs our conception of everything else, and, if we feel that creation does not express purpose, it is impossible to find an authorization for purpose in our lives. Indeed, the assertion of purpose in a world we felt to be purposeless would be a form of sentimentality.

Source: Richard Weaver, Ideas Have Consequences 1948

Freedom

2011-10-14T07:00:00.000-07:00

I only ask to be free. The butterflies are free.

Source: Charles Dickens, Bleak House, 1853
Taken From: Unknown

Dreams and Logic

2011-10-13T07:00:00.000-07:00

It must be apparent that logic depends upon the dream, and not the dream upon it.

Source: Richard Weaver, Ideas Have Consequences 1948

Free and Equal

2011-10-11T07:00:00.000-07:00

An American political writer of the last century, confronted with the statement that all men are created free and equal, asked whether it would not be more accurate to say that no man was ever created free and no two men ever created equal.

Source: Richard Weaver, Ideas Have Consequences 1948

Life's Racecourse

2011-10-10T07:00:00.000-07:00

Life's racecourse is fixed ... Nature has only a single path and that path is run but once

Source: Cicero, Unsourced
Taken From: Strauss and Howe, The Fourth Turning, 1997

Of the Ox and the Lion

2011-10-09T07:00:00.000-07:00

It is generally assumed that the erasing of all distinctions will usher in the reign of pure democracy. But the inability of pure democracy to stand for something intelligible leaves it merely a verbal deception. If it promises equality before the law, it does no more than empires and monarchies have done and cannot use this as a ground to assert superiority. If it promises equality of condition, it promises injustice, because one law for the ox and the lion is tyranny.

Source: Richard Weaver, Ideas Have Consequences 1948

On the Fall of Education

2011-10-08T07:00:00.000-07:00

... it is precisely because we have lost our grasp of the nature of knowledge that we have nothing to educate with for the salvation of our order. Americans certainly cannot be reproached for failing to invest adequately in the hope that education would prove a redemption. They have built numberless high schools, lavish in equipment, only to see them, under the prevailing scheme of values, turned into social centers and institutions for improving the personality, where teachers, living in fear of constituents, dare not enforce scholarship. They have built colleges on an equal scale, only to see them turned into playgrounds for grown-up children or centers of vocationalism, and professionalism. Finally, they have seen pragmatists, as if in peculiar spite against the very idea of hierarchy, endeavoring to turn classes into democratic forums, where the teacher is only a moderator, and no one offends by presuming to speak with superior knowledge.

Source: Richard Weaver, Ideas Have Consequences 1948

Organization

2011-10-07T07:00:00.000-07:00

The politicians and the businessmen are not interested in saving souls, but they are interested in preserving a minimum of organization, for upon that depend their posts and their incomes.

Source: Richard Weaver, Ideas Have Consequences 1948

Nation Founding

2011-10-06T07:00:00.000-07:00

...a nation can be born in a day if the ideals of the people can be changed.

Source: Vachel Lindsay, Bryan, Bryan, Bryan, Bryan Collected Works, 1925
Taken From: Strauss and Howe, The Fourth Turning, 1997 pg231

Temporally Temporary

2011-10-05T07:00:00.000-07:00

The worship of comfort, then, is only another aspect of our decision to live wholly in this world. Yet here man encounters an anomaly: the very policy of living wholly in this world, of having no traffic with that other world which cannot be "proved," turns one's attention wholly to the temporary and so actually impairs his effectiveness.

Source: Richard Weaver, Ideas Have Consequences 1948

The Prophet

2011-10-04T07:00:00.000-07:00

...the mark of the prophet is to speak the truth in love with courage - come what may.

Source: Cornel West, The American evasion of philosophy: a genealogy of pragmatism, 1989
Taken From: Strauss and Howe, The Fourth Turning, 1997 pg231

Poetic Life

2011-10-03T07:00:00.000-07:00

From a biological standpoint, human life almost reads like a poem. It has its own rhythm and beat, its internal cycles of growth and decay.

Source: Lin Yutang, Unsourced
Taken From: Strauss and Howe, The Fourth Turning, 1997

Plato's Cave

2011-10-02T07:00:00.000-07:00

Seen from another point of view, the "monopoly of mainstream media" is a translation into actuality of Plato's celebrated figure of the cave. The defect of the prisoners, let us recall, is that they cannot perceive the truth. The wall before them, on which the shadows play, is the screen on which press, motion picture, and radio project their account of life. The chains which keep the prisoners from turning their heads are the physical monopoly which the engines of publicity naturally possess. And is it not pathetically true that these victims, with their limited vision, are "in the habit of conferring honors among themselves to those who are the quickest to observe the passing shadows and to remark which of them went before and which followed after, and which were together"?

Source: Richard Weaver, Ideas Have Consequences 1948

Primitive Religions and Environmentalism

2011-10-01T07:00:00.000-07:00

Is there a primitive religion that can match 'environmentalism' for attributing natural calamity to the transgressions of man?

Source: Charls Krauthammer, Jan 22nd, 1996; Environmentalists Testing The Limits Of Our Credulity Chicago Tribune
Taken From: Strauss and Howe, The Fourth Turning, 1997 pg231

Lessons

2011-09-30T07:00:00.000-07:00

Yet, the painful lessons we would like to forget are precisely the ones which should be kept for reference. Santayana has reminded us that those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it, and not without reason did Plato declare that a philosopher much have a good memory.

Source: Richard Weaver, Ideas Have Consequences 1948

Men at Work

2011-09-29T07:00:00.000-07:00

An employer was recently heard to remark that we have plenty of persons today who can tell us why a machine will not work but none will tell us why men will not work.

Source: Richard Weaver, Ideas Have Consequences 1948

Spoiled Child and Consumption

2011-09-28T07:00:00.000-07:00

The spoiled child is simply one who has been allowed to believe that his consumptive faculty can prescribe the order of society.

Source: Richard Weaver, Ideas Have Consequences 1948

What the World Owes

2011-09-27T07:00:00.000-07:00

If cities encourage man to believe that he is superior to the limitations of nature, science encourages him to believe that he is exempt from labor. In effect, what modern man is being told is that the world owes him a living.

Source: Richard Weaver, Ideas Have Consequences 1948

The 1960s

2011-09-26T07:00:00.000-07:00

I can just see, having done arbitration in the industrial scene, that the employers will love this generation, that they are not going to press very many grievances, there won't be much trouble, they are going to do their jobs, they are going to be easy to handle. There aren't going to be riots. There aren't going to be revolutions. There aren't going to be many strikes.

Source: Clark Kerr, Spotlight on the college student, 1959
Taken From: Strauss and Howe, The Fourth Turning, 1997 pg169

Egotism

2011-09-25T07:00:00.000-07:00

All persons chronically diseased are egotists, whether the disease be of the mind or the body; whether it be sin, sorrow, or merely the more tolerable calamity of some endless pain, or mischief among the cords of mortal life. Such individuals are made acutely conscious of self, by the torture in which it dwells. Self, therefore, grows to be so prominent an object with them that they cannot but present it to the face of every casual passer-by.

Source: Nathaniel Hawthorne, Egotism; or, The Bosom-Serpent, 1843
Taken From: Richard Weaver, Ideas Have Consequences 1948

Entitlement

2011-09-24T07:00:00.000-07:00

Demagogic leaders have told the common man that he is entitled to much more than he is getting; they have not told him the less pleasant truth that, unless there is to be expropriation ... the increase must come out of greater productivity.

Source: Richard Weaver, Ideas Have Consequences 1948

On Thinking about General Actions

2011-09-23T07:00:00.000-07:00

It is a profoundly erroneous truism, repeated by all copy-books and by eminent people when they are making speeches, that we should cultivate the habit of thinking what we are doing. The precise opposite is the case. Civilization advances by extending the number of important operations which we can perform without thinking about them.

Source: Alfred Whitehead, Introduction to Mathematics, 1911
Taken From: Friedrich Hayek, The Use of Knowledge in Society

On Origins

2011-09-22T07:00:00.000-07:00

He who thus considers things in their ﬁrst growth and origin... will obtain the clearest view of them.

Source: Aristotle (Politics: 24–25)
Taken From: Daniel J. D’Amico, The Prison in Economics: Private and Public Incarceration in Ancient Greece (PDF)

Threat to the Spoiled

2011-09-21T07:00:00.000-07:00

[The castigation of profitable, hard workers] looks alarmingly like a dull hatred of every form of personal superiority. The spoiled children perceive correctly that the superior person is certain, sooner or later, to demand superior things of them, and this interferes with consumption and, above all, with thoughtlessness.

Source: Richard Weaver, Ideas Have Consequences 1948

Starvation

2011-09-20T07:00:00.000-07:00

In a country where the sole employer is the State, opposition means death by slow starvation.

Source: Leon Trotsky, The Revolution Betrayed, Ch11 1936
Taken From: Richard Weaver, Ideas Have Consequences 1948

On Sacredness

2011-09-19T07:00:00.000-07:00

It is likely ... that human society cannot exist without some resource of sacredness. Those states which have sought openly to remove it have tended in the end to assume divinity themselves.

Source: Richard Weaver, Ideas Have Consequences 1948

More On DDT

2011-09-18T07:00:00.000-07:00

A Ugandan Health Minister said in 2002 that, “Our people’s lives are of primary importance. The West is concerned about the environment because we share it with them. But it is not concerned about malaria because it is not a problem there. In Europe, they used DDT to kill anopheles mosquitoes that cause malaria. Why can’t we use DDT to kill the enemy in our camp?”

Source: Paul Driessen, Eco-Imperialism: Green Power, Black Death. (Merril Press: 2004), page 73
Taken From: New Eugenics and the Rise of the Global Scientific Dictatorship: The Technological Revolution and the Future of Freedom, Part3

On DDT (Stops Malaria)

2011-09-17T07:00:00.000-07:00

Michael Crichton, an author and PhD molecular biologist, plainly stated, “Banning DDT is one of the most disgraceful episodes in the twentieth century history of America. We knew better, and we did it anyway, and we let people around the world die, and we didn’t give a damn.”

A Reminder for this Member of Bourgeois

2011-09-16T07:00:00.000-07:00

The man of culture finds the whole past relevant; the bourgeois and the barbarian find relevant only what has some pressing connection with their appetites.

Source: Richard Weaver, Ideas Have Consequences 1948