 Aim at perfection in everything, though in most things it is unattainable. However, they who aim at it, and persevere, will come much nearer to it than those whose laziness and despondency make them give it up as unattainable.
Lord Chesterfield
http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/l/lord_chesterfield.html
Among individuals, as among nations, respect for the rights of others is peace.
Benito Juárez
Blue gray haired old Christian spinsters bitter for wasting all those fruitful years now just waiting for those pearly gates. These are truly the wicked. You have seen them before. With their bogus self-righteousness they strut and sneer. How far we have not come.
Chuck Smalkowski
"Just Another Salem," American Atheist, August 2006
A government big enough to give you everything you want is a government big enough to take from you everything you have.
Gerald Ford
The inhabitants of the earth are of two sorts: those with brains, but no religion, and those with religion, but no brains.
Abul'-Ala' al-Ma'arri (973-1057) (Syrian poet)
Christian — One who is willing to serve three Gods, but draws the line at one wife.
H. L. Mencken
A Mencken Chrestomathy
God is the immemorial refuge of the incompetent, the helpless, the miserable. They find not only sanctuary in His arms, but also a kind of superiority, soothing to their macerated egos: He will set them above their betters.
H. L. Mencken
Minority Report: H. L. Mencken's Notebooks
Anyone who denies the law of non-contradiction should be beaten and burned until he admits that to be beaten is not the same as not to be beaten, and to be burned is not the same as not to be burned.
Avicenna
a friend on paltalk...
Keep away from people who try to belittle your ambitions. Small people always do that, but the really great make you feel that you, too, can become great.
Mark Twain
I love Thanksgiving turkey...it's the only time in Los Angeles that you see natural breasts.
Arnold Schwarzenegger
Capital punishment is as fundamentally wrong as a cure for crime as charity is wrong as a cure for poverty.
Henry Ford
"Poverty has no cause. Only prosperity has causes."
Jane Jacobs
The Economy of Cities
As a general rule, people, even the wicked, are much more naíve and simple-hearted than we suppose. And we ourselves are, too.
Fyodor M. Dostoevsky
The Brothers Karamazov
There can be nothing more dreadful than that the actions of a man should be subject to the will of another.
Kant
In a time of universal deception, telling the truth is a revolutionary act.
George Orwell
You goddamn fool, do you think I consider their question debatable?
Ayn Rand
Atlas Shrugged Part One Chapter VII "The Exploiters And The Exploited"
Here is Rick Warren, Grand Inquisitor, a man who can see the human race only as a vast Amway sales force for fundamentalism.
Robert Price
The Reason-Driven Life
If anarchy is identified with chaos, destruction and death, then the distinction between anarchy and government does not tell us much.
Kenneth N. Waltz
Anarchy and It's Consequences.
Freedom is not the product of our power and wealth. Our power and wealth are a product of our freedom.
Senator John McCain, R-Arizona
C-SPAN Road to the White House 2008, Annual GOPAC Dinner
I would remind you that extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice! And let me remind you also that moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue!
Barry Goldwater
Acceptance Speech as the 1964 Republican Presidential Candidate
The whole is more than the sum of its parts.
Aristotle
Metaphysica
I never talk about myself. My work is me. I do my best, and if I like it, I hope somebody else likes it, too.
Steve Ditko
Showcase #73, April, 1968
All the reasons which make the initiation of physical force an evil, make the retaliatory use of physical force a moral imperative.
Ayn Rand
Capitalism: Who Needs It?- The Nature of Government
Accept the fact that the achievement of your happiness is the only moral purpose of your life, and that happiness—not pain or mindless self-indulgence—is the proof of your moral integrity, since it is the proof and the result of your loyalty to the achievement of your values.
Ayn Rand
Atlas Shrugged, "This Is John Galt Speaking"
Failure is simply the opportunity to begin again, this time more intelligently.
Henry Ford
In America, religion is relatively nonmystical. Religious teachers here are predominantly good, healthy materialists. They follow common sense. They would not stand in our way. The majority of religious people in this country do not accept on faith the idea of jumping into a cannibal’s pot and giving away their last shirt to the backward people of the world. Many religious leaders preach this today, because of their own leftist politics; it’s not inherent in being religious. There are many historical and philosophical connections between altruism and religion, but the function of religion in this country is not altruism. You would not find too much opposition to Objectivism among religious Americans. There are rational religious people. In fact I was pleased and astonished to discover that some religious people support Objectivism. If you want to be a full Objectivist, you cannot reconcile that with religion; but that doesn’t mean religious people cannot be individualists and fight for freedom. They can, and this country is the best proof of it.
Ayn Rand
Ayn Rand Answers: The Best of Her Q&A, edited by Robert Mayhew, 2005, p. 63. (Hat tip to Michael Kelly for this reference)
She's the sort of woman who lives for others -- you can tell the others by their hunted expression.
C.S. Lewis
The Screwtape Letters
Making workable choices occurs in a crucible of informative mistakes. Thus Intelligence accepts fallibility. And when absolute (infallible) choices are not known, Intelligence takes chance with limited data in an arena where mistakes are not only possible but also necessary.
Frank Herbert
Darwi Odrade character in _Chapterhouse Dune_
Just as the shepherd is superior in kind to his sheep, so, too, the shepherds of men, or, in other words, their rulers, are superior in kind to their peoples. This, according to Philo, was the argument advanced by Caligula, the Emperor, who drew from the analogy the perfectly true conclusion that either Kings are Gods or their subjects brute beasts. The reasoning of Caligula, of Hobbes, and of Grotius is fundamentally the same. Far earlier, Aristotle, too, had maintained that men are not by nature equal, but that some are born to be slaves, others to be masters. Aristotle was right: but he mistook the effect for the cause. Nothing is more certain than that a man born into a condition of slavery is a slave by nature. A slave in fetters loses everything -- even the desire to be freed from them. He grows to love his slavery, as the companions of Ulyesses grew to love their state of brutish transformation. If some men are by nature slaves, the reason is that they have been made slaves against nature. Force made the first slaves: cowardice has perpetuated the species.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Lots to do! Beat the Germans! Save the world! Don't forget the welfare state!
The Doctor
The Doctor Dances (Doctor Who, Season 27, Episode 10)
It is part of the general pattern of misguided policy that our country is now geared to an arms economy which was bred in an artificially induced psychosis of war hysteria and nurtured upon an incessant propaganda of fear.
Douglas MacArthur
"Nothing in the world can take the place of Persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination are omnipotent. The slogan 'press on' has solved and always will solve the problems of the human race."
Calvin Coolidge
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A 'nice' man only knows how to be agreeable. He doesn't know how to challenge women and he can't or won't set the lead. And he filters everything he says through the belief that women are fragile little flowers who need to handled with OH so much care lest they be broken. YUUCH. One more thing: women don't trust his communication because he just won't dare say anything that might offend them. Now a pleasant man is something quite different: pleasant is power, held in proper restraint and exercised with precision and elegance. A pleasant man will speak his mind, set the lead, but he also knows how to listen and show the proper degree of interest and respect. He may put himself first, but he also genuinely cares for and cares about his woman (or women). They are of great importance to him as long as they treat him right and work within the rules that he has made very clear. Most important: his world is his own. He never, NEVER makes the WOMAN his world, around which he orbits. He does allow her to come into his world and occasionally even be at the center WITH him.
Ross Jeffries
Ross Jeffries' Persuasion/Seduction Newsletters, September 20, 2006
Show me just what Muhammad brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached.
Manuel Paleologos II
14th Century Byzantine Christian Emperor
"One of the hardest parts of my job is to connect Iraq to the war on terror."
George W. Bush
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/09/06/eveningnews/main1979106.shtml
I don't give a damn about my critics. I have yet to meet a good one.
Ayn Rand
The Phil Donahue Show
I think regret is the toughest word in the English language, and one should try to live one's life so you don't feel regret.
William Shatner
When a psychologist or psychiatrist testifies during a defendant's competency hearing, the psychologist or psychiatrist shall wear a cone-shaped hat that is not less than two feet tall. The surface of the hat shall be imprinted with stars and lightning bolts. ... [He] shall be required to don a white beard that is not less than 18 inches in length, and shall punctuate crucial elements of his testimony by stabbing the air with a wand [and] the bailiff shall dim the courtroom lights and administer two strikes to a Chinese gong.
Duncan Scott
New Mexico State Senator, exasperated with voodoo science in the courts, proposing legislation covering state licensing guidelines for mental health professionals
Be yourself; everyone else is already taken.
Oscar Wilde
The Picture of Dorian Gray
Yes, there is a Santa Claus, someone who distributes unconditional joy, and every day is Christmas. And Santa Claus is you.
Ted Keer
http://rebirthofreason.com/Forum/GeneralForum/0741_2.shtml#50
"The skyline of New York is a monument of a splendor that no pyramids or palaces will ever equal or approach. But America's skyscrapers were not built by public funds nor for a public purpose: they were built by the energy, initiative and wealth of private individuals for personal profit. And, instead of impoverishing the people, these skyscrapers, as they rose higher and higher, kept raising the people's standard of living ..."
Ayn Rand
One cannot apprehend that which is automatically, until one recognizes the particulars as they are and not.
Bridget Armozel
When I was talking about science education with a friend a while back.
If you're trying to convince us, then you need to demonstrate that you understand Objectivism before presuming to criticize it.
William Dwyer
http://rebirthofreason.com/Forum/Dissent/0107.shtml#14
It is an ironic truth that those who seek to create systems which most assume the perfectibility of humans end up building the systems which are most soul destroying and most rigid, systems that rot from within until like great creaking rotten oak trees they collapse on top of themselves leaving a sour smell and decay. We saw it happen in 1989 with the astonishing fall of the USSR. Conversely, those systems which best take into account the complex, frail, brilliance of human nature and build in flexibility, checks and balances, and tolerance tend to survive beyond all hopes.
Adam Bosworth
http://www.adambosworth.net/archives/000031.html
Egotist: A person of low taste, more interested in himself than in me.
Ambrose Bierce
Men will not be free until the last King is strangled with the entrails of the last priest.
Francois Marie Arouet de Voltaire
Cynic: A blackguard whose faulty vision sees things as they are, not as they ought to be.
Ambrose Bierce
Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed people can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.
Margaret Mead
Never raise your hand to your kids. It leaves your groin unprotected.
Red Buttons
"Terrorists can do anything they like. We are businessmen, we will be going back to work. It won't hamper our business, it won't stop our work."
Dilip Khadaria
"Indian police hunt for clues to train bombers", Baku Today
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