Now there are some who think they confute a speaker the moment they ask, “What then ought we to do?” To these I will give the fairest and truest answer: not what you are doing now. — Demosthenes
EppsNet Archive: Quotations
Mordecai: What happens after?
The Stranger: Hmm?
Mordecai: What do we do when it’s over?
The Stranger: Then you live with it.
Human beings have a remarkable ability to accept the abnormal and make it normal. — Andy Weir, Project Hail Mary
The woman shall not wear that which pertaineth unto a man, neither shall a man put on a woman’s garment: for all that do so are abomination unto the Lord thy God. — Deuteronomy 22:5
For the things we have to learn before we can do them, we learn by doing them. — Aristotle
Lock up your libraries if you like; but there is no gate, no lock, no bolt that you can set upon the freedom of my mind. — Virginia Woolf
Equality vs. Freedom
The finest opportunity ever given to the world was thrown away because the passion for equality made vain the hope for freedom. — Lord Acton Formal equality before the law is in conflict, and in fact incompatible, with any activity of the government deliberately aiming at material or substantive equality of different people, and any policy aiming directly at a substantive ideal of distributive justice must lead to the destruction of the Rule of Law. To produce the same result for different people, it is necessary to treat them differently. To give different people the same objective opportunities is not to give them the same subjective chance. It cannot be denied that the Rule of Law produces economic inequality — all that can be claimed for it is that this inequality is not designed to affect particular people in a particular way. It is very significant and characteristic that socialists… Read more →
Danger, Folly and Presumption
The statesman who should attempt to direct private people in what manner they ought to employ their capitals, would not only load himself with a most unnecessary attention, but assume an authority which could safely be trusted to no council and senate whatever, and which would nowhere be so dangerous as in the hands of a man who had folly and presumption enough to fancy himself fit to exercise it. — Adam Smith Read more →
Messaging vs. Reality
I live in California. Gavin Newsom’s main flaw is that he’s very stupid. Democrats are not getting destroyed on messaging. I don’t even know what the Republican message is. I know the Democratic message is “MAGA Republicans, extreme MAGA Republicans, fascists.” Now that is a losing message, I grant you, because Democrats who aren’t insane, for whom politics does not play a destructive force in their life, have friends, neighbors, co-workers, family members, etc., who are Republicans and understand that while Republicans have different political views, they aren’t trying to put Democrats in gulags. Democrats are getting destroyed by reality. Republicans are running on GDP, inflation, lying about inflation, recession, lying about recession, gas prices, food prices, stock market, crime, border security, fentanyl deaths, energy independence, foreign policy, supply chain, social corruption, silencing, lies, pronouns and fucking with children. Actually, now that I think about it, maybe the Republicans could… Read more →
How to Keep Poor People Poor
If you want to see the poor remain poor, generation after generation, just keep the standards low in their schools and make excuses for their academic shortcomings and personal misbehavior. But please don’t congratulate yourself on your compassion. — Thomas Sowell Read more →
When You Want to Help People
“When you want to help people, you tell them the truth. When you want to help yourself, you tell them what they want to hear.”Thomas Sowell. ?Anna Devís & Daniel Rueda pic.twitter.com/do0UwAY2s5 — Cecilia Qui (@CeciliaQui1) October 14, 2022 Read more →
The Same as Everyone Else’s
Recognize that your struggle and your suffering is the same as everyone else’s, I think that’s the beginning of a responsible life. Otherwise, we are in a continual savage battle with each other with no possible solution, political, social, or spiritual. — Leonard Cohen Read more →
Transform Your Life!
People often ask me what is the most effective technique for transforming their life. It is a little embarrassing that after years and years of research and experimentation, I have to say that the best answer is— just be a little kinder. — Aldous Huxley Read more →
Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake. — Napoleon Bonaparte
Having perfected our disguise, we spend our lives searching for someone we don’t fool. — Robert Brault
The Management of the Life of the People
Even in [1931] the Macmillan Report could already speak of “the change of outlook of the government of [England] in recent times, its growing preoccupation, irrespective of party, with the management of the life of the people” and add that “Parliament finds itself increasingly engaged in legislation which has for its conscious aim the regulation of the day-to-day affairs of the community and now intervenes in matters formerly thought to be entirely outside its scope.” — F.A. Hayek, The Road to Serfdom Read more →
I should have loved freedom, I believe, at all times but in the time in which we live I am ready to worship it. — A. de Tocqueville
It is seldom that liberty of any kind is lost all at once. — D. Hume
What is freedom of expression? Without the freedom to offend, it ceases to exist. — Salman Rushdie
You can’t get much done in life if you only work on the days when you feel good. — Jerry West