So, for the last several decades, I have been collecting quotes. Every time I came across something pithy, important, meaningful, or interesting (to me, at least), I have copied it and plugged it into a text file on my computer (yikes! — I just checked, the text file was created January 5, 1993!). This morning I suddenly realized there’s a LOT of quotes in there. So I decided to pull out my favorite political or philosophical ones and share them here where people might appreciate them.
If there is a general takeaway, it is that we, as a species, have understood the danger and corruption of conservatism for thousands and thousands of years. It is clear the perversions of wealth, religion, and power we endure today were known and despised by good people in the time of the ancient Greeks, the Enlightenment, and the founding of America itself. And yet we still struggle against them, today. What does that say about humanity? I leave that as an exercise for the reader.
Further, it becomes clear that the “Founding Fathers” as well as the founders and early leading lights of the Republican Party — e.g. Abraham Lincoln and Teddy Roosevelt, among others — would have been appalled and opposed to the GOP as it stands today. Keep that in mind any time a GOPer pretends to be speaking for the Founding Fathers.
So what’s the point of all these quotes, anyway? Let’s begin with a story:
Once upon a time, a fool went to the great Rabbi Hillel, saying, “Rabbi! Teach me all of the Torah and the Talmud while I stand here on one leg.” Rabbi Hillel looked at the fool for a moment and then said, “That which is abhorrent to you, do not do to others. All the rest is commentary. Now go STUDY it.”
Oh, good story. Gotta remember it to tell all my friends. Why? Why tell other people? So you can make the point that fools are stupid? (Suggesting you are, therefore, not a fool.) So you can make the point that Rabbi Hillel was clever? (Thereby suggesting, by association, you are clever, too.) So you can make people laugh? (Because people like people who can make them laugh.) What is the point of knowing the story and recounting it?
Can you maybe find it in the story? Yes, you can. The point of the story is not to memorize clever stories, whether that story is a paragraph long or thousands of pages (as in the whole of the Talmud and Torah). The point is to STUDY the story. And STUDY the things which engage your mind, Analyze them. Work out why they are true or false. Compare them to the world and see how they fit. Work out if they are logically valid in terms of the subjects they address. Work out for yourself if they are really TRUE in ways that really matter.
This is the mistake too many people make — and which our educational system and churches are notorious for inculcating in our children — that the point is to memorize and parrot back what you are taught. That’s not education, that’s indoctrination. Whether it’s repeating back Bible stories or the sayings of Chairman Mao (or Tucker Carlson). If you can’t think for yourself about what you read or memorize— or have absorbed the idea that thinking for yourself is forbidden — what’s the point?
As I say, I did not write any of these (well, OK, I wrote a few of them, make of that what you will), but the inform my political and moral philosophy.
Here they are in no particular order… See what you think about them.
“Try to be nice, always be kind.” — the Twelfth Doctor, as played by Peter Capaldi, (episode: Twice Upon a Time, Writer, Steven Moffat, et al, 2017)
“My religion is Kindness.” — Dalai Lama
“Beauty, growth, progress — all result from the union of the unlike. Concord, as much as discord, requires the presence of at least two different notes.” — Eugene Wesley Roddenberry, Terran philosopher, ca. 1965
“Those who control the present, control the past and those who control the past control the future.” ― George Orwell, 1984
“Remember that there is nothing in being superior to some other man. The true nobility lies in being superior to your own previous self.” — W. L. Sheldon (Not Hemingway)
"There is nothing noble in being superior to another man. True nobility is being superior to your former self." — Alternate, "Kingsmen" version
“The object of terrorism is terrorism. The object of oppression is oppression. The object of torture is torture. The object of murder is murder. The object of power is power. Now do you begin to understand me? One does not establish a dictatorship in order to safeguard a revolution; one makes the revolution in order to establish the dictatorship. We know that no one ever seizes power with the intention of relinquishing it.” — (O'Brien to Winston Smith), "1984," George Orwell, 1949
“The Trump is out there! It can't be bargained with. It can't be reasoned with. It doesn't feel pity, or remorse, or fear. And it absolutely will not stop... ever, until you are penniless, homeless, and dead! And then it will steal and sell your corpse.” — with apologies to Kyle Reese, Terminator, 1984
“Conservatism consists of exactly one proposition: There must be in-groups whom the law protects but does not bind, alongside out-groups whom the law binds but does not protect.” — Frank Wilhoit
“Conservatism is based on the principle that I am free to do things to YOU that I would consider criminal if YOU did them to ME.” — Captain Frogbert, Daily Kos
“Conservatism is based off the idea that there are people who are better at birth than others and they should live privileged lives, with dignity, freedom and security at the expense of the others who must live lives of fear, humiliation and toil.” — Anonymous
“For we each of us deserve everything, every luxury that was ever piled in the tombs of the dead kings, and we each of us deserve nothing, not a mouthful of bread in hunger. Have we not eaten while another starved? Will you punish us for that? Will you reward us for the virtue of starving while others ate? No man earns punishment, no man earns reward. Free your mind of the idea of deserving, the idea of earning, and you will begin to be able to think.” ― Ursula K. Le Guin, The Dispossessed
“Choose your leaders with wisdom and forethought. To be led by a coward is to be controlled by what the coward fears. To be led by a fool is to be led by the opportunists who who control the fool. To be led by a thief is to offer up your most precious treasures to be stolen. Top be led by a liar is to ask to be told lies. To be led by a tyrant is to sell yourself and those you love into slavery.” — Octavia E. Butler, Parable of the Talents (Earthseed #2)
“Parsons always seem to be specially horrified about things like sunbathing and naked bodies. They don't mind poverty and misery and cruelty to animals nearly as much.” — Susan Ertz, The Story of Julian (New York: D. Appleton and Company, 1931), p. 246.
"The artist is the creator of beautiful things. To reveal art and conceal the artist is art’s aim. ...There is no such thing as a moral or an immoral book. Books are well written, or badly written. That is all. ...It is the spectator, and not life, that art really mirrors." — Oscar Wilde, the preface to The Picture of Dorian Gray, 1890.
"If you love life, don't waste time, for time is what life is made up of." — Bruce Lee
"Life is Pain, Highness. Anyone who says differently is selling something." — The Man In Black, "The Princess Bride"
“But it does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods or no God. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg.” — Thomas Jefferson, Notes on Virginia, 1782
“That's libertarians for you — anarchists who want police protection from their slaves.” — Kim Stanley Robinson
“Libertarianism is an ego-driven, self-centered and self-aggrandizing cult, largely consisting of white, middle-class young men who, upon discovering the relative freedom of college dorm life and, appalled by the restrictions placed upon them by people not their parents, rebel against the very concept of authority, investing their faith in nothing more than ego and id, self and lust. They indulge their most fatuous desires, often little more than getting stoned and trying to get laid, in the safe haven of the college campus, remaining highly protected by the structures of middle-class privilege, just as they were at home. They hate authority as long as the campus police are there to protect them from the scary poor people, and daddy’s credit card keeps doling out the booze, toys, food, and drugs.” — Captain Frogbert
"Nothing in all the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity." — Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
"We need religion to give grace and comfort to a world that's torn apart by religion" — Jon Stewart
“If you support Trump, you are on some level supporting his bigotry and racism. You don’t get to have a puppy and not pick up the poop.” — Charles Blow, New York Times
“99% of republicans make the rest look bad.” — Anonymous.
"The proposal of any new law or regulation of commerce which comes from this order [of merchants and manufacturers] ought always to be listened to with great precaution, and ought never to be adopted till after having been long and carefully examined, not only with the most scrupulous, but with the most suspicious attention. It comes from an order of men whose interest is never exactly the same with that of the public, who have generally an interest to deceive and even to oppress the public, and who accordingly have, upon many occasions, both deceived and oppressed it.” — Adam Smith, The Wealth of Nations, Book I, ch. 11
“If you can convince the lowest white man he’s better than the best colored man, he won’t notice you’re picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he’ll empty his pockets for you.” — Lyndon Baines Johnson
“I never meant to say that the Conservatives are generally stupid. I meant to say that stupid people are generally Conservative. I believe that is so obviously and universally admitted a principle that I hardly think any gentleman will deny it.” — John Stuart Mill, “The Contest in America” Fraser’s Magazine (February 1862).
“Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired, signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed.” — Dwight D. Eisenhower
“Worldly institutions fail because they require power and gold to operate. Power and gold attract wicked and greedy people. Wicked and greedy people are corruptors and betrayers. Therefore, worldly institutions become corrupt and betrayed.” — Kage Baker
“It is a movement composed of people who are economically comfortable and middle-class, who enjoy a relatively high standard of living, and yet who seethe with a sense that they have been done dirt, screwed over, betrayed—and they are determined to get revenge.” — Tom Nichols, The Atlantic
“I’m not going to censor myself to comfort your ignorance.” — Jon Stewart
"I like your Christ. I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ" — Indian philosopher, Bara Dada, ca. the mid-1920's
"If your god never disagrees with you, you might just be worshiping an idealized version of yourself." — Timothy Keller
“You can safely assume you've created God in your own image when it turns out that God hates all the same people you do.” — Anne Lamott
“Ronald Reagan Rule of Economics: To every problem, there are simple, easy-to-understand, wrong answers.” — Anonymous
"Do nothing from selfishness or empty conceit, but with humility of mind regard one another as more important than yourselves; do not merely look out for your own personal interests, but also for the interests of others.” — Philippians 2:3-4
“We love America just as much as they do. But in a different way. You see, they love America like a 4-year-old loves his mommy. Liberals love America like grown-ups. To a 4-year-old, everything Mommy does is wonderful and anyone who criticizes Mommy is bad. Grown-up love means actually understanding what you love, taking the good with the bad and helping your loved one grow. Love takes attention and work and is the best thing in the world.That's why we liberals want America to do the right thing. We know America is the hope of the world, and we love it and want it to do well.” — Al Franken
“A sweet lie is more gracious for us than a virulent but real truth.” ― Anton Chekhov
“It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it.” — Upton Sinclair
“There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there has always been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.” — Isaac Asimov
“That, in its essence, is fascism -- ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power.” — Franklin D. Roosevelt
“The preservation of the means of knowledge among the lowest ranks is of more importance to the public than all the property of all the rich men in the country.” — John Adams, A Dissertation on the Canon and the Feudal Law. (1765)
“I spent 33 years and four months in active military service and during that period I spent most of my time as a high class muscle man for Big Business, for Wall Street and the bankers. In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism. ...Looking back on it, I might have given Al Capone a few hints. The best he could do was to operate his racket in three districts. I operated on three continents.” — US Marine Gen. Smedley Butler, ca 1930
“Labor is prior to and independent of capital. Capital is only the fruit of labor, and could never have existed if labor had not first existed. Labor is the superior of capital, and deserves much the higher consideration.” — Abraham Lincoln, Republican, 1861.
"No society can be flourishing and happy, or which the far greater part of the members are poor and miserable” — Adam Smith, 1776
“On the whole, I prefer not to be lectured on patriotism by those who keep offshore maildrops in order to avoid paying their taxes.” — Molly Ivins
“Forgive me for noticing that conservatives seem to believe that the rich will work harder if we give them more, and the poor will work harder if we give them less.” — E. J. Dionne, Jr.
“Republicans... think the American standard of living is a fine thing -- so long as it doesn’t spread to all the people... And they admire of Government of the United States so much that they would like to buy it.” — Harry S. Truman
“Overcoming poverty is not a task of charity, it is an act of justice. Like Slavery and Apartheid, poverty is not natural. It is man-made and it can be overcome and eradicated by the actions of human beings.” — Nelson Mandela
“Of all the preposterous assumptions of humanity over humanity, nothing exceeds the criticisms made on the habits of the poor by the well-housed, well-warmed, and well-fed.” — Herman Melville
“Without the struggle of all against all, the wealth of the few would not be possible.” — Captain Frogbert
“The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much; it is whether we provide enough for those who have too little.” — FDR
“If any question why we died, Tell them, because our fathers lied.” — Rudyard Kipling
“The fears of one class of men are not the measure of the rights of another.” — George Bancroft (1800-1891)
“Senators are a never-ending source of amusement, amazement, and discouragement” — Will Rogers
"I am not a member of any organized political party. I am a Democrat." — Will Rogers
“Man will never be free until the last king is strangled with the entrails of the last priest.” — Denis Diderot
“Mankind can never be free until the last brick in the last church falls on the head of the last priest.” — Voltaire
“We must close union offices, confiscate their money, and put their leaders in prison. We must reduce workers salaries and take away their right to strike.” — Adolf Hitler, May 2, 1933
“Capitalism is the legitimate racket of the ruling class.” — Al Capone
“Capitalism is the astounding belief that the most wickedest of men will do the most wickedest of things for the greatest good of everyone” — John Maynard Keynes
Gandhi’s Seven Sins: Wealth without work; Pleasure without conscience; Knowledge without character; Commerce without morality; Science without humanity; Worship without sacrifice; Politics without principle
“Republicans moan and Republicans bitch, Our rich are too poor and our poor are too rich” — Anonymous
“If you want to live like a republican, vote Democratic.” — Harry Truman.
“The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society. Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country.” — Edward Bernays, Propaganda (1928).
“We must make our choice. We may have democracy, or we may have wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, but we can’t have both.” — Justice Louis D. Brandeis, American Jurist
“Republicans like for Americans to forget history so they can repeat the parts that made them money.” — Anonymous
“The modern conservative is engaged in one of man’s oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness.” — John Kenneth Galbraith
“Socialism never took root in America because the poor see themselves not as an exploited proletariat, but as temporarily embarrassed millionaires.” — John Steinbeck
“It is to the real advantage of every producer, every manufacturer and every merchant to cooperate in the improvement of working conditions, because the best customer of American industry is the well-paid worker.” — Franklin D. Roosevelt
“If capitalism is fair, then Unionism must be. If men have a right to capitalize their ideas and the resources of their country, then that implies the right of men to capitalize their labor.” — Frank Lloyd Wright
“There are two types of republicans, the rich and the stupid. The rich ones strive to keep the stupid ones stupid and the stupid ones strive to keep the rich ones rich.” — frankzappatista, Daily Kos
"There are two kinds of republican, millionaires and fools. Check your wallet to see which one you are." — Anonymous
“People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public, or in some contrivance to raise prices.” — Adam Smith
“The only difference between a Conservative pundit and Wormtongue is that Saruman never had the lobbyists Bank of America can afford.” — “MinistryofTruth,” Daily Kos Poster
“The trouble with the world is that the stupid are cocksure and the intelligent full of doubt.” — Bertrand Russell
“Conservatism makes no poetry, breathes no prayer, has no invention; it is all memory.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson
“Since the state must necessarily provide subsistence for the criminal poor while undergoing punishment, not to do the same for the poor who have not offended is to give a premium on crime.” — John Stuart Mill
“The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.” — H. L. Mencken
“Give a man a gun and he can rob a bank. Give a man a bank and he can rob the world.” — Anonymous
“These capitalists generally act harmoniously and in concert to fleece the people, and now that they have got into a quarrel with themselves, we are called upon to appropriate the people’s money to settle the quarrel.” — Abraham Lincoln, Republican
“Anyone who has the power to make you believe absurdities has the power to make you commit atrocities.” — Voltaire
“I can hire one half of the working class to kill the other half.” — Jay Gould
“The strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must.” — Thucydides, ca. 411 BCE
“It is a general rule of human nature that people despise those who treat them well, and look up to those who make no concessions.” — Thucydides, ca. 411 BCE
“The legitimate powers of government extend to such acts only as are injurious to others. But it does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods, or no God. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg.” — Thomas Jefferson
“Leaders shouldn’t attach moral significance to their ideas: Do that, and you can’t compromise.” — Peter Drucker
“I see one-third of a nation ill-housed, ill-clad, ill-nourished. The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much; it is whether we provide enough for those who have too little.” — Franklin Delano Roosevelt
“The moral test of government is how that government treats those who are in the dawn of life, the children; those who are in the twilight of life, the elderly; and those who are in the shadows of life, the sick, the needy and the handicapped.” — Hubert H. Humphrey
“Compassion is not weakness, and concern for the unfortunate is not socialism.” — Hubert H. Humphrey
“The definition of a liberal Republican is someone who, when you’re drowning some 30 feet offshore, throws you a 20 foot rope and boasts that he “went more than halfway.” — Mark Shields
“Don’t tell me what you believe. Tell me what you do and I’ll tell you what you believe.” — Meteor Blades, Daily Kos
“I like paying taxes... with them, I buy Civilization” — Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.
“Earth provides enough to satisfy every man’s need, but not every man’s greed.” — Mohandas K. Gandhi
“I don’t give ‘em hell, I just tell the truth and they think it’s hell.” — Harry S. Truman
“Liberalism is trust of the people, tempered by prudence. Conservatism is distrust of the people, tempered by fear.” — William Gladstone
“Modern Conservatism isn’t simply about them owning as much as possible; it’s also about breaking anything they can’t possess.” — Anonymous
“Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from religious convictions.” — Blaise Pascal, Pensees
“Corporation, n. An ingenious device for obtaining individual profit without individual responsibility.” — Ambrose Bierce, The Devil’s Dictionary
“Of all the enemies to public liberty war is, perhaps, the most to be dreaded, because it comprises and develops the germ of every other. War is the parent of armies; from these proceed debts and taxes; and armies, and debts, and taxes are the known instruments for bringing the many under the domination of the few. In war, too, the discretionary power of the Executive is extended; its influence in dealing out offices, honors, and emoluments is multiplied; and all the means of seducing the minds, are added to those of subduing the force, of the people. The same malignant aspect in republicanism may be traced in the inequality of fortunes, and the opportunities of fraud, growing out of a state of war, and in the degeneracy of manners and of morals engendered by both. No nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare.” — James Madison, Political Observations, 1795
“Patriotism is your conviction that this country is superior to all other countries because you were born in it.” — George Bernard Shaw
“It is far better to be feared than loved.” — Bertrand Russell
“Oderint dum metuant” (Let them hate, so long as they fear) — Caligula
“If they can get you asking the wrong questions, they don’t have to worry about answers.” — Thomas Pynchon, Gravity’s Rainbow
“When Fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag carrying a cross” — Robert Sinclair, 1835
“It’s not enough for me to win. My enemies must lose.” — David Merrick
“The hottest places in hell are reserved for those who, in times of moral crisis, maintain a neutrality.” — Dante
“The law, in its majestic equality, forbids the rich as well as the poor to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal bread.” — Anatole France
“Don’t forget that most men with nothing would rather protect the possibility of becoming rich than face the reality of being poor.” — from the play 1776
“Better the occasional faults of a party living in the spirit of charity than the consistent omissions of a party frozen in the ice of its own indifference” — John F. Kennedy
“There are two things Republicans hate; being called a racist... and black people.” — Anonymous Kossack
“You can’t reason someone out of something they weren’t reasoned into.” — Jonathan Swift
“Should any American soldier be so base and infamous as to injure any prisoner. . . I do most earnestly enjoin you to bring him to such severe and exemplary punishment as the enormity of the crime may require… for by such conduct they bring shame, disgrace and ruin to themselves and their country.”— George Washington, September 14, 1775: Charge to the Northern Expeditionary Force
“As political equality is the remedy for political tyranny, so is economic equality the way of putting an end to the economic tyranny exercised by the few over the many through the superiority of wealth.” — Edward Bellamy (1891)
“People of privilege will always risk their complete destruction rather than surrender any material part of their advantage.” — John Kenneth Galbraith (1977)
“If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?” — Alexander Solzhenitsyn (The Gulag Archipelago)
“No woman can call herself free who does not own or control her body. No woman can call herself free until she can choose consciously whether she will or will not be a mother.” — Margaret Sanger (1963)
“The country is governed for the richest, for the corporations, the bankers, the land speculators, and for the exploiters.” — Helen Keller (1911)
“The two greatest obstacles to democracy in the United States are, first, the widespread delusion among the poor is that we have a democracy; and second, the chronic terror among the rich, lest we get it.” — Edward Dowling (1941)
“Power recognizes only power, and all of them who realize this have made gains.” — Malcolm X (1960s)
“Intelligence is not all that important in the exercise of power, and is often, in point of fact, useless.” — Henry Kissinger (1975)
“Love doubtfulness” (i.e. everything should be doubtful to us until we convince ourselves of it, we should come to spiritual understanding intellectually and not on blind acceptance of the explanations of others.) — Derech Eretz Zuta, Chapter 1, Verse 6, the Talmud
“I freed thousands of slaves, and could have freed thousands more, if they had known they were slaves.” — Harriet Tubman (c. 1901)
“If farmers and blacksmiths could win independence from an empire … if immigrants could leave behind everything they knew for a better life on our shores… if women could be dragged to jail for seeking the vote… if a generation could defeat a depression, and define greatness for all time… if a young preacher could lift us to the mountaintop with his righteous dream … and if proud Americans can be who they are and boldly stand at the altar with who they love… then surely, surely we can give everyone in this country a fair chance at that great American Dream.” — Michelle Obama
“The plural of anecdote is not data.” — Anonymous
“The process of communication involves a mutual agreement on the meaning of words.” — Charley Halsted
“First they came for the communists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a communist;
Then they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a socialist;
Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a trade unionist;
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—because I was not a Jew;
Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak out for me.” — Pastor Martin Niemöller
“If ignorance is bliss, why are these people so angry?” - Len Kaminsky
“I cannot forecast to you the action of Russia. It is a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma; but perhaps there is a key. That key is Russian national interest.” — Winston Churchill 1939
“Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel.”— Samuel Johnson
“Patriotism is the virtue of the vicious.”— Oscar Wilde
“I believe in morality, which is doing what is right regardless of what I an told. Not religion, which is doing what I am told, regardless of what is right.”— Anonymous
“Behind the ostensible government sits enthroned an invisible government owing no allegiance and acknowledging no responsibility to the people... To destroy this invisible government, to befoul this unholy alliance between corrupt business and corrupt politics is the first task of statesmanship.”— Teddy Roosevelt
“Journalism is printing what someone else does not want printed: everything else is public relations.”— George Orwell
“The right to be heard does not automatically include the right to be taken seriously.”— Hubert H. Humphrey
“Censorship is telling a man he can’t have a steak just because a baby can’t chew it.”— Mark Twain
“Nothing in all the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.”— M. L. King
"I'm a Fighting Liberal
You know, I've studied history, I've read about America and you know something, if it weren't for liberals, we'd be living in a dark, evil country, far worse than anything Bush could conjure up. A world where children were told to piss on the side of the road because they weren't fit to pee in a white outhouse, where women had to get back alley abortions and where rape was a joke, unless the alleged criminal was black, whereupon he was hung from a tree and castrated.
What has conservatism given America? A stable social order? A peaceful homelife? Respect for law and order? No. Hell, no. It hasn't given us anything we didn't have and it wants to take away our freedoms.
It was the liberals who opposed the Nazis while the conservatives were plotting to get their brown shirts or fund Hitler. It was the liberals who warned about Spain and fought there, who joined the RAF to fight the Germans, who brought democracy to Germany and Japan. Let us not forget it was the conservatives who opposed defending America until the Germans sank our ships. They would have done nothing as Britain came under Nazi control. It was they who supported Joe McCarthy and his baseless, drink fueled claims.
Without liberals, there would be no modern America, just a Nazi satellite state. Liberals weak on defense? Liberals created America's defense. The conservatives only need vets at election time.
It is time to stop looking for an accommodation with the right. They want none for us. They want to win, at any price. So, you have a choice: be a fighting liberal or sit quietly. I know what I am, what are you?" — Steve Gilliard
“When the power of love overcomes the love of power the world will know peace.”— Jimi Hendrix
“Fill each other’s cup but drink not from one cup.
Give one another of your bread but eat not from the same loaf.
Sing and dance together and be joyous, but let each one of you be alone,
Even as the strings of a lute are alone though they quiver with the same music.”— Khalil Gibran, The Prophet
“It is better to tolerate the small vices of our neighbors, else in the name of righteousness we cut the tendrils of community.”— William Schulz
“We build on foundations we did not lay. We warm ourselves beside fires we did not light. We cool ourselves under the shade of trees we did not plant. We drink from wells we did not dig. We profit from persons we did not know. We are forever bound in community.”— The Reverend Peter Raible
“If I have seen farther than others, it is because I was standing on the shoulders of giants.”— Isaac Newton
“I thought fantasy was all about battles and kings. Now I’m inclined to think that the real concerns of fantasy ought to be about not having battles, and doing without kings.”— Terry Pratchett
“The man who does not read good books has no advantage over the man who cannot read good books.”— Mark Twain
“A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines.”— Ralph Waldo Emerson
“There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old’s life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other, of course, involves orcs.”— John Rogers, Kung Fu Monkey
“Civilization, in a certain sense, can be reduced to the word, “Welcome.”— Stanley Crouch (from Ken Burns’ Jazz documentary)
“The power of accurate observation is commonly called cynicism by those who have not got it.”— George Bernard Shaw
“We will know we have succeeded in saying something that matters when we are told that it won’t be tolerated.”— Curtis White, The Middle Mind
“There is no denying that Hitler and Stalin are alive today...they are waiting for us to forget, because this is what makes possible the resurrection of these two monsters.” — President Jimmy Carter (reported in The Washington Post, August 6, 1980)
“Heterosexuality is not normal, it's just common.”— Dorothy Parker
“Gender is between the ears, sex is between the legs, and sexual orientation is between the sheets.” — Anonymous
“Homosexuality is found in over 450 species. Homophobia is found in only one. Which one seems unnatural now?”— Anonymous
“Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven.” — Matthew 7:21
“The devil can cite Scripture for his purpose. An evil soul producing holy witness Is like a villain with a smiling cheek, A goodly apple rotten at the heart. O, what a goodly outside falsehood hath!” ― William Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice
“I mean your country is told what laws are by an unelected council of wizards that try to guess what the ghost of Thomas Jefferson really meant.” — @ChoiceWendys, Twitter
“We are now ruled by a court of unelected fanatics who perjured their way into power supported by a corrupt and treasonous political party, all in the service of evil.”— Anonymous
“If the Republicans smother the life out of our ailing Republic, it’ll be in part because our feckless news media happily handed them the pillow and watched in the name of “fairness”— Toro Blanco, DKos
"The Trucker Convoy in Washington is the platonic ideal of being right-wing in that they're complaining about things that don't actually exist, not advocating for anything in particular, and are growing increasingly spiteful that people won't thank them for being annoying."— Brendel, on Twitter
“The Unborn” are a convenient group of people to advocate for. They never make demands of you; the are morally uncomplicated, unlike the incarcerated, addicted, or the chronically poor, they don’t resent your condescension or complain that you are not politically correct; unlike widows, they don’t ask you to question patriarchy; unlike orphans, they don’t need money, education, or childcare; unlike aliens, they don’t bring all that racial, cultural, and religious baggage that you dislike; they allow you to feel good about yourself without any work at creating or maintaining relationships; and when they are born, you can forget about them, because they cease to be unborn. It’s almost as if, by being born, they have died to you. You can love the unborn and advocate for them without substantially challenging your own wealth, power, or privilege, without re-imagining social structures, apologizing, or making reparations to anyone. They are, in short, the perfect people to love if you want to claim you love Jesus but actually dislike people who breathe.
Prisoners? Immigrants? The sick? The poor? Widows? Orphans? All the groups that are specifically mentioned in the Bible? They all get thrown under the bus for the unborn.”
— Dave Barnhart, June 25, 2018
"If [danger] ever reach us, it must spring up amongst us. It cannot come from abroad. If destruction be our lot, we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of freemen, we must live through all time, or die by suicide." — Abraham Lincoln, Jan. 27, 1838, speaking before the Young Men’s Lyceum of Springfield, Illinois
"When Republicans say ‘socialism’ they really mean ‘government giving money to people who don’t vote like I do.'" — G.D. Kalmbach
“I believe in an America where the separation of church and state is absolute – where no Catholic prelate would tell the President (should he be Catholic) how to act, and no Protestant minister would tell his parishioners for whom to vote – where no church or church school is granted any public funds or political preference – and where no man is denied public office merely because his religion differs from the President who might appoint him or the people who might elect him."— John F. Kennedy
“Between the Christianity of this land and the Christianity of Christ, I recognize the widest possible difference —- so wide that to receive the one as good, pure, and holy, is of necessity to reject the other as bad, corrupt, and wicked. To be the friend of the one is of necessity to be the enemy of the other. I love the pure, peaceable, and impartial Christianity of Christ; I therefore hate the corrupt, slave-holding, women-whipping, cradle-plundering, partial and hypocritical Christianity of this land. Indeed, I can see no reason but the most deceitful one for calling the religion of this land Christianity…”— Frederick Douglass
“We need two political parties in this country that are both living in reality, and you ain’t one of them!”— Tim Ryan, U.S. Representative for Ohio's 13th congressional district (2003-2023), Democrat
"As always, the proximate cause of any problem is the conservative solution promoted to address the problem." — Captain Frogbert, Daily Kos
"A body of men, holding themselves accountable to nobody, ought not to be trusted by anybody.”— Thomas Paine, The Rights of Man, 1791
"When you act like Jesus, unbelievers will rarely give you trouble, but those in the church will turn against you."— Unidentified Calvinist Pastor
"No example in history has yet shown a power of reason or nature that has once been able to persuade a man whose professional avarice argues on the other side.”— Henry Fielding, Tom Jones, 1749
“It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it.” — Upton Sinclair
“It is not our differences that divide us, it is our inability to recognize, accept, and celebrate those differences.”— Audre Lorde
“Beauty, growth, progress — all result from the union of the unlike. Concord, as much as discord, requires the presence of at least two different notes.”— Eugene Wesley Roddenberry, Terran philosopher, ca. 1965
"It seems the more someone shouts “LIBERTY!” the more outraged they are when someone exercises it."— A Citizen, Daily Kos
“Too many people believe that “freedom” requires the unthinking acceptance of all possibilities, regardless of their origin, motivation, or truth value. And yet, certainly, it would be illogical to imagine freedom requires the blind acceptance of falsehood. To discover truth, we must expose all conceivable principles to the crucible of logic and burn away all that is false to expose the purity of absolute truth. For only in the presence of absolute truth is true freedom possible.” — Anonymous
"Facts don't exist to make smart people feel superior to dumb people, but conspiracy theories do exist to make dumb people feel superior to smart people."— Paranoid Ninja, Twitter
“A vital element in keeping the peace is our military establishment. Our arms must be mighty, ready for instant action, so that no potential aggressor may be tempted to risk his own destruction…
This conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience. The total influence -— economic, political, even spiritual -- is felt in every city, every statehouse, every office of the federal government. We recognize the imperative need for this development. Yet we must not fail to comprehend its grave implications. Our toil, resources and livelihood are all involved; so is the very structure of our society. In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military–industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists, and will persist.
We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals so that security and liberty may prosper together.”
— Dwight D. Eisenhower, 1961
“One of the remarkable things in our politics is prominent Democrats assuming and/or wishcasting that Republicans are acting in good faith while Republicans smear them as radical left-wing groomers” — Jerry McMillan, Twitter
"In the minds of conservatives there are:
- Two races: White and political
- Two genders: Male and political
- Two sexualities: Straight and political
- Two religions: Christian and political"
— Awful Falafel Waffles ROFL (Daily Kos)
“DARVO” Deny, Attack, Reverse Victim & Offender
"An appeaser is one who feeds a crocodile, hoping it will eat him last."— Winston Churchill
“When an honest man speaks, he says only what he believes to be true; and for the liar, it is correspondingly indispensable that he considers his statements to be false. For the bullshitter, however, all these bets are off: he is neither on the side of the true nor on the side of the false. His eye is not on the facts at all, as the eyes of the honest man and of the liar are, except insofar as they may be pertinent to his interest in getting away with what he says. He does not care whether the things he says describe reality correctly. He just picks them out, or makes them up, to suit his purpose.”— Harry G. Frankfurt, On Bullshit, 2005
“You will not fuck with my children’s future. You will not destroy the freedoms my grandfather fought two world wars to defend. Fuck off you over-promoted rubber bath toy. Britain is revolted by you and you little gang of masturbatory prefects.”— Hugh Grant on Boris Johnson, 2019
“Every line of serious work that I have written since 1936 has been written, directly or indirectly against totalitarianism and for democratic socialism as I understand it.” — George Orwell, 1946
"This country has socialism for the rich, rugged individualism for the poor."— Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr.
“Being a Humanist means trying to behave decently without expectation of rewards or punishment after you are dead.”— Kurt Vonnegut
“You can safely assume you’ve created God in your own image when it turns out that God hates all the same people you do.”— Anne Lamott
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And, finally, a few palate cleansers...
“Oh, Benson... Dear Benson, you are so mercifully free of the ravages of intelligence.” — Evil Genius, (played by David Warner), Time Bandits, Handmade Films, 1981
Pilot: I speak 12 languages!
Co-pilot: Being able to order a beer in 12 languages is not speaking 12 languages!
(From a 1995 video game called “Daedalus Encounter.”)
“Of course I talk to myself. I like a good speaker, and I appreciate an intelligent audience.”— Dorothy Parker, The Ladies of the Corridor, 1953
"For I was talking aloud to myself. A habit of the old: they choose the wisest person present to speak to; the long explanations needed by the young are wearying.”— Gandalf, The Lord of the Rings, J. R. R. Tolkien, 1954
Every 'c' in Pacific Ocean is pronounced differently.
"Adjectives in English absolutely have to be in this order: opinion-size-age-shape-colour-origin-material-purpose Noun. So you can have a lovely little old rectangular green French silver whittling knife. But if you mess with that order in the slightest you'll sound like a maniac.It's an odd thing that every English speaker uses that list, but almost none of us could write it out. And as size comes before color, green great dragons can't exist."— Mark Forsythe, The Elements of Eloquence,
“The secret of life is honesty and fair dealing. If you can fake that, you've got it made.”— Groucho Marx
"People say I'm a plagiarist! That I "steal" their jokes. Their words, not mine!"
“Believe me, my young friend, there is nothing - absolutely nothing - half so much worth doing as simply messing about in boats.”—Kenneth Grahame, The Wind in the Willows
"People assume that time is a strict progression of cause to effect. But actually, from a non-linear, non-subjective viewpoint -- it's more like a big ball of wibbly-wobbly... timey-wimey... stuff." The Tenth Doctor, David Tenant
"Still a little whimsical in the brain pan. Seems calm enough though." — Mal, in "Firefly" The Train Job (2002)
"English is a pirate bred from Anglo-Saxon and everybody it could mug in an alley."— BlackSheep, Daily Kos
“English can be weird. It can be understood through tough thorough thought, though.”— David Burgh, on Twitter, 2015
“A language is a dialect with an army and navy.”—Max Weinreich, sociolinguist
"If a person who indulges in gluttony is a glutton, and a person who commits a felony is a felon, then God is an iron." — Spider Robinson
“Facts are meaningless. You could use facts to prove anything even remotely true.”—Homer Simpson
“Three o'clock in the morning. The soft April night is looking at my windows and caressingly winking at me with its stars. I can't sleep, I am so happy.” ― Anton Chekhov, About Love and Other Stories, 1895
"The sullen murmur of the bees shouldering their way through the long unmown grass,"— Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray, 1890
“The war tried to kill us in the spring. As grass greened the plains of Nineveh and the weather warmed, we patrolled the low-slung hills beyond the cities and towns. We moved over them and through the tall grass on faith, kneading paths into the windswept growth like pioneers. While we slept, the war rubbed its thousand ribs against the ground in prayer. When we pressed onward through exhaustion, its eyes were white and open in the dark. While we ate, the war fasted, fed by its own deprivation. It made love and gave birth and spread through fire.” — Kevin Powers, The Yellow Birds, 2012