On Failing and Forging Ahead

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

Last Hope

Religion now seems to me one of the last best hopes for society, as it is one of the main institutions still competing valiantly with an excessive and overblown government.

Source: Walter Block, Libertarianism and Libertinism
Taken From: Journal of Libertarian Studies, Fall 1994

Trouble

The world has gotten itself into trouble with its heavy reliance on the dollar.

Vladimir Putin (Oct 2008, Russian/Chinese conference in Moscow)

World Currency Crisis

The world is in permanent monetary crisis, but once in a while, the crisis flares up acutely, and we noisily shift gears from one flawed monetary system to another.  We go back and forth from fixed paper rates to fluctuating rates, to some inchoate and aborted blend of the two.  Each new system, each basic change, is hailed extravagantly by economists, bankers, the financial press, politicians, and central banks, as the final and permanent solution to our persistent monetary woes.

Dr. Murray Rothbard (February 1986, The World Currency Crisis)

Life

I think everybody should get rich and famous and do everything they ever dreamed of so they can see that it’s not the answer.

Jim Carrey (April, 2006; Reader’s Digest)

Intervention

If you want government to intervene domestically, you’re a liberal. If you want government to intervene overseas, you’re a conservative. If you want government to intervene everywhere, you’re a moderate. If you don’t want government to intervene anywhere, you’re an extremist.

Joe Sobran (1946–2010)

Voting

If you vote and you elect dishonest incompetent people and they get into office and screw everything up well you are responsible for everything they have done.  You caused the problem, you voted them in, you have no right to complain.

Comedian George Carlin

Yes-Men

Billionaires live in a world of yes-men. They can’t stand to be told no.

Murray Rothbard

Price and Value

Price is what you pay. Value is what you get.

Warren Buffett

Rights

A right is not what someone gives you; it's what no one can take from you.

Ramsey Clark

Secret of Change

The secret of substantive change, the guarantee of change, and the dynamic through which change occurs all lie hidden within the process of restoring and purifying the human person,

Archbishop Anastasios (Yannoulatos) taken from Facing the World: Orthodox Christian Essays on Global Concerns, 1994

Inflation and Gratification

Inflation thereby encourages a mentality of immediate gratification that is plainly at variance with the discipline and eternal perspective required to exercise principles of biblical stewardship - such as long-term investment for the benefit of future generations.

Thomas E. Woods, Jr. (Money and Morality: The Christian Moral Tradition and the bEst Monetary Regime, 2003)

Republic v Democracy

The guiding principle of republics is that they exercise narrow powers delegated to them by the people, who themselves, as individuals, posses such powers.  They cannot spring as they do in democracies, ex nihilo, from the mob's collective whim.

James Ostrowski (Direct Citizen Action, 2010)

Schools

Government schools are glorified daytime prisons operating in an atmosphere of legally enforced nihilism which defaults into the pseudo-religion of hedonism.

James Ostrowski (Direct Citizen Action, 2010)

VCRs

I say to you that the VCR is to the American film producer and the American public as the Boston strangler is to the woman home alone.

Jack Valenti's (ex-MPAA president in a statement to a U.S. Congressional panel, 1982)

Adjusted to ill-fitting beliefs

If you're well-adjusted to ill-fitting beliefs that permeate society, you're going to have trouble

David Schnarch, Ph.D. (Passionate Marriage, 1997)

Taliban vs Current Afghan Gov't

The people of Afghanistan keep loosing their trust in the government because of the high amount of corrupted government officials. The general view of the Afghans is that the current government is worst than the Taliban. 

Paktya Provincial Council (Leaked by WikiLeaks, 2010)

US Foreign Policies and Drugs

The defective US policies of former US President George W. Bush are the basis of insecurity in the Mideast. The US forces marched into Afghanistan about eight years ago by means of grandiose schemes to establish security, eradicate radicalism and terrorism, and also combat drug production and smuggling ... Due to wrong policies, nonetheless, insecurity has mushroomed throughout the conflict-stricken country and production of illicit drugs has jumped from several hundred tons to nine thousand tons.

Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki, 6/10/2010

Philosopher Kings

After some 2,400 years of worshiping at the feet of Plato’s “philosopher kings,” is it not time to shift to a new paradigm?  Why do any of us pay any more attention to such established drivel than we do to a woman with her tarot cards, or who claims to read the future by squeezing a goat’s testicles?

Butler Shaffer - LRC Blog, 07/22/2010

Spud

You can praise God by peeling a spud if you peel it to perfection

Reverend. J.D. Liddell (Chariots of Fire, 1981)