bluebird of bitterness

The best things in life aren’t things. –Art Buchwald

A man who has never gone to school may steal from a freight car; but if he has a university education, he may steal the whole railroad. ―Theodore Roosevelt

If the natural tendencies of mankind are so bad that it is not safe to permit people to be free, how is it that the tendencies of these organizers are always good? Do not the legislators and their appointed agents also belong to the human race? Or do they believe that they themselves are made of a finer clay than the rest of mankind? ―Frédéric Bastiat

In my day, we didn’t have self-esteem, we had self-respect, and no more of it than we had earned. ―Jane Haddam

We’ve become a culture where earning money doesn’t entitle you to it, but wanting it does. That is the essence of redistribution. ―Ken Blackwell

Freedom is unlikely to be lost all at once and openly. It is far more likely to be eroded away, bit by bit, amid glittering promises and expressions of noble ideals. —Thomas Sowell

Good motives aside, white condescension does more damage than good. White condescension says to a black child, “The rules used by other ethnic groups don’t apply to you. Forget about work hard, get an education, possess good values. No, for you, we’ll alter the rules by lowering the standards and expecting less.” Expect less, get less. ―Larry Elder

The failure to read good books both enfeebles the vision and strengthens our most fatal tendency — the belief that the here and now is all there is.  ―Allan Bloom

Nothing is really work unless you would rather be doing something else. – J. M. Barrie

Since the social victim has been oppressed by society, he comes to feel that his individual life will be improved more by changes in society than by his own initiative. Without realizing it, he makes society rather than himself the agent of change. The power he finds in his victimization may lead him to collective action against society, but it also encourages passivity within the sphere of his personal life. ―Shelby Steele

Some things have to be believed to be seen. —Madeleine L’Engle

Never argue with stupid people; they will drag you down to their level and then beat you with experience. ―Mark Twain

They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety. ―Benjamin Franklin

Friendship is unnecessary, like philosophy, like art, like the universe itself (for God did not need to create). It has no survival value; rather it is one of those things which give value to survival. —C. S. Lewis

The trouble with straw men is it only takes a single match to set them ablaze. —Andrew Klavan

We might think of dollars as being ‘certificates of performance.’ The better I serve my fellow man, and the higher the value he places on that service, the more certificates of performance he gives me. The more certificates I earn, the greater my claim on the goods my fellow man produces. That’s the morality of the market. In order for one to have a claim on what his fellow man produces, he must first serve him. ―Walter Williams

Of course there’s a lot of knowledge in universities: the freshmen bring a little in; the seniors don’t take much away, so knowledge sort of accumulates. ―Abbott Lawrence Lowell

To build may have to be the slow and laborious task of years. To destroy can be the thoughtless act of a single day. —Winston Churchill

Returning hate for hate multiplies hate, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that. ―Martin Luther King Jr.

Let me sum it up for you: We got some people who work for a living, and we got some people who vote for a living. ―Hank Williams Jr.

Behind every liberal philanthropist fortune is a huge capitalist score. Bill Gates and Warren Buffett can afford now to be liberal — an expensive indulgence — because in their early incarnations they were no-holds-barred capitalists who made lots of enemies conducting business without mercy and in search of pure profit. —Victor Davis Hanson

The further a society drifts from truth, the more it will hate those that speak it. —George Orwell

Hating people because of their color is wrong. And it doesn’t matter which color does the hating. It’s just plain wrong. —Muhammed Ali

You can lead a man to Congress, but you can’t make him think. —Milton Berle

We are fast approaching the stage of ultimate inversion: where the government is free to do as it pleases, while the citizens may act only by permission. ―Ayn Rand

Angry people who demand things don’t stop being angry when their demands are met. —Morgan Freeberg

The welfare of humanity is always the alibi of tyrants. ―Albert Camus

Not since the days of slavery have there been so many people who feel entitled to what other people have produced as there are in the modern welfare state. —Thomas Sowell

When the debate is lost, slander becomes the tool of the loser. —Socrates

It will be of little avail to the people that the laws are made by men of their own choice, if the laws be so voluminous that they cannot be read, or so incoherent that they cannot be understood; if they be repealed or revised before they are promulgated, or undergo such incessant changes that no man who knows what the law is today can guess what it will be tomorrow. ―James Madison

A professor is one who talks in someone else’s sleep. ―W. H. Auden

If liberals didn’t have double standards, they wouldn’t have any standards at all. —Burt Prelutsky

The care of human life and happiness, and not their destruction, is the first and only legitimate object of good government. ―Thomas Jefferson

My belief in free competitive economic enterprise does not rest solely or even mainly on arguments of economic efficiency, though, heaven knows, these are cogent enough. It rests essentially on the view that the free market is the only safe way of ensuring that productive effort is directed towards supplying what individuals actually want, and in a way which secures the dignity and independence of the worker. —Margaret Thatcher

Public affairs go on pretty much as usual: perpetual chicanery and rather more personal abuse than there used to be. —John Adams

Laws are like cobwebs, which may catch small flies, but let wasps and hornets break through. —Jonathan Swift

Under democracy one party always devotes its chief energies to trying to prove that the other party is unfit to rule — and both commonly succeed, and are right. —H. L. Mencken

A hermit is simply a person to whom civilization has failed to adjust itself. —Will Cuppy

The advantage of a classical education is that it enables you to despise the wealth which it prevents you from achieving. ―Russell Green

After a shooting spree, they always want to take the guns away from the people who didn’t do it.—William S. Burroughs

A claim for equality of material position can be met only by a government with totalitarian powers. —Friedrich Hayek

Envy is the root of the egalitarian ethos. —Robert Stacy McCain

Silence in the face of evil is itself evil: God will not hold us guiltless. Not to speak is to speak. Not to act is to act. —Dietrich Bonhoeffer

At the core of liberalism is the spoiled child — miserable, as all spoiled children are, unsatisfied, demanding, ill-disciplined, despotic and useless. Liberalism is a philosophy of sniveling brats. —P. J. O’Rourke

It is useless for the sheep to pass resolutions in favor of vegetarianism, while the wolf remains of a different opinion. —William Ralph Inge

A lot of fellows nowadays have a B.A., an M.S., or a Ph.D. Unfortunately, they don’t have a J.O.B. ―Fats Domino

Any man who thinks he can be happy and prosperous by letting the government take care of him, better take a closer look at the American Indian. —Henry Ford

There is not a single instance in history in which civil liberty was lost, and religious liberty preserved entire. If therefore we yield up our temporal property, we at the same time deliver the conscience into bondage. —John Witherspoon

Ambitious people climb, but faithful people build. —Julia Ward Howe

Education is that which remains when one has forgotten everything he learned in school. —Albert Einstein

The creation of art is not the fulfillment of a need, but the creation of a need. The world never needed Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony until he created it. Now we could not live without it. –Louis Kahn

A man’s admiration of absolute government is proportionate to the contempt he feels for those around him. —Alexis de Tocqueville

The first lesson of economics is scarcity: there is never enough of anything to fully satisfy all those who want it. The first lesson of politics is to disregard the first lesson of economics. —Thomas Sowell

In the Middle East there are two kinds of regimes — those that could be worse, and those that couldn’t be worse. —Bret Stephens

I don’t want any yes-men around me. I want everybody to tell me the truth even if it costs them their jobs. —Samuel Goldwyn

Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work. —Thomas Edison

Of course, there are dangers in religious freedom and freedom of opinion. But to deny these rights is worse than dangerous, it is absolutely fatal to liberty. The external threat to liberty should not drive us into suppressing liberty at home. –Harry Truman

The world always seems like it’s going to hell when you’re depressed. And, of course, it always is going to hell in some way. That’s what makes it so hard to tell the difference between Armageddon and the blues. –Andrew Klavan

Courage is the first of human qualities because it is the quality that guarantees all the others. —Winston Churchill

Ultimately, the only power to which man should aspire is that which he exercises over himself. –Elie Wiesel

I love long walks, especially when they’re taken by people who annoy me. –Noel Coward

There’s no trick to being a humorist when you’ve got the whole government working for you. –Will Rogers

No drug, not even alcohol, causes the fundamental ills of society. If we’re looking for the source of our troubles, we shouldn’t test people for drugs, we should test them for stupidity, ignorance, greed and love of power. –P. J. O’Rourke

In politics, few talents are as richly rewarded as the ability to convince parasites that they are victims. —Thomas Sowell

There is a theory which states that if ever anybody discovers exactly what the universe is for and why it is here, it will instantly disappear and be replaced by something even more bizarre and inexplicable. There is another theory which states that this has already happened. –Douglas Adams

Always forgive your enemies; nothing annoys them so much. –Oscar Wilde

If a society is to preserve stability and a degree of continuity, it must know how to keep its adolescents from imposing their tastes, attitudes, values and fantasies on everyday life. ―Eric Hoffer

Sometimes a man wants to be stupid if it lets him do a thing his cleverness forbids. ―John Steinbeck

Government is necessary because man is flawed; it is evil because it corrupts men and usurps liberty. That is why the American framers took such pains to limit and check its powers. —Andrew McCarthy

It will be a great day when taxpayers keep the money they earned and DC has to hold a bake sale to to raise the debt limit. –David Burge

I am concerned for the security of our great nation, not so much because of any threat from without, but because of the insidious forces working from within. —General Douglas MacArthur

If you want total security, go to prison. There you’re fed, clothed, given medical care, and so on. The only thing lacking is freedom. ―Dwight Eisenhower

By the time a man realizes that maybe his father was right, he usually has a son who thinks he’s wrong. –Charles Wadsworth

You can’t make socialists out of individualists. Children who know how to think for themselves spoil the harmony of the collective society, which is coming, where everyone is interdependent. –John Dewey, father of American public education

Politicians never accuse you of greed for wanting other people’s money, only for wanting to keep your own money. –Joseph Sobran

Do unto those downstream as you would have those upstream do unto you. –Wendell Berry

When a train goes through a tunnel and it gets dark, you don’t throw away the ticket and jump off. You sit still and trust the engineer. —Corrie Ten Boom

You have enemies? Good. That means you’ve stood up for something, sometime in your life. —Winston Churchill

The logical upshot of liberalism’s hatred of hypocrisy is that it is better for the liar to champion lying, the glutton to advocate gluttony, the adulterer to celebrate adultery, than for someone to preach the right thing if he himself occasionally does the wrong thing. Better to let your failings define you and be happy about it, than to let your ideals define you but then fall short of them, for that opens you up to the charge of hypocrisy.  –Jonah Goldberg

Idle minds are the devil’s research-and-development department. —Robert Stacy McCain

Build a man a fire, he’ll be warm for a day. Set a man on fire, he’ll be warm for the rest of his life. —Terry Pratchett

The problem isn’t that Johnny can’t read. The problem isn’t even that Johnny can’t think. The problem is that Johnny doesn’t know what thinking is; he confuses it with feeling. ―Thomas Sowell

It does not take a majority to prevail, but rather an irate, tireless minority, keen on setting brushfires of freedom in the minds of men. —Samuel Adams

We all want progress, but if you’re on the wrong road, progress means doing an about-turn and walking back to the right road; in that case, the man who turns back soonest is the most progressive. –C. S. Lewis

The state is the great fictitious entity by which everyone seeks to live at the expense of everyone else. –Frédéric Bastiat

American traditions and the American ethic require us to be truthful, but the most important reason is that truth is the best propaganda and lies are the worst. To be persuasive we must be believable; to be believable we must be credible; to be credible we must be truthful. It is as simple as that. —Edward R. Murrow

Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly, and applying the wrong remedies. –Groucho Marx

Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man’s character, give him power. –Abraham Lincoln

It’s hard to make predictions, especially about the future. –Yogi Berra

The worst thing about depression isn’t the sense that you’re accentuating the negative, it’s that you’re seeing things the way they really are, stripped of the illusions you use every day to divert yourself from the Yawning Maw of Futility. It’s the wind that blows off the snow and reveals the stone. –James Lileks

Never pick a fight with a man who buys pixels by the terabyte. –W. J. J. Hoge

There are three rules for writing a novel. Unfortunately, no one knows what they are. —W. Somerset Maugham

Clothes make the man. Naked people have little or no influence on society. –Mark Twain

A major source of objection to a free economy is precisely that it gives people what they want instead of what a particular group thinks they ought to want. Underlying most arguments against the free market is a lack of belief in freedom itself. —Milton Friedman

No tendency is quite so strong in human nature as the desire to lay down rules of conduct for other people. —William Howard Taft

Let every man, every corporation, and especially let every village, town, and city, every county and state, get out of debt and keep out of debt. It is the debtor that is ruined by hard times. —Rutherford B. Hayes

The Constitution only gives people the right to pursue happiness. You have to catch it yourself. –Benjamin Franklin

Those who expect to reap the blessings of freedom, must, like men, undergo the fatigues of supporting it. ―Thomas Paine

When people learn no tools of judgment and merely follow their hopes, the seeds of political manipulation are sown.—Stephen Jay Gould

The income tax has made liars out of more Americans than golf. –Will Rogers

I cannot imagine how the clockwork of the universe can exist without a clockmaker.  –Voltaire

If you have always believed that everyone should play by the same rules and be judged by the same standards, that would have gotten you labeled a radical 60 years ago, a liberal 30 years ago, and a racist today. –Thomas Sowell

Crying to get what you want is only successful in proportion to how cute you are. —Bill McCurry

Life, with its rules, its obligations, and its freedoms, is like a sonnet: You’re given the form, but you have to write the sonnet yourself. —Madeleine L’Engle

Everywhere I go I’m asked if I think the university stifles writers. My opinion is that they don’t stifle enough of them. There’s many a bestseller that could have been prevented by a good teacher. —Flannery O’Connor

The contest, for ages, has been to rescue liberty from the grasp of executive power. –Daniel Webster

Creativity is allowing oneself to make mistakes. Art is knowing which ones to keep. —Scott Adams

The true soldier fights not because he hates what is in front of him, but because he loves what is behind him. –G. K. Chesterton

I never graduated from Iowa, but I was only there for two terms — Truman’s and Eisenhower’s. ―Alex Karras

The difference between a politician and a pickpocket is that the pickpocket doesn’t get indignant when you tell him to keep his hands to himself. –Joseph Sobran

There are two ways of spreading light: to be the candle or the mirror that receives it. –Edith Wharton

People occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of them pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing had happened. –Winston Churchill

You’ll never find a better sparring partner than adversity. —Golda Meir

The trouble with socialism is that eventually you run out of other people’s money. —Margaret Thatcher

A cynic is a man who, when he smells flowers, looks around for a coffin.   ―H. L. Mencken

There is one thing stronger than all the armies in the world: and that is an idea whose time has come. –Victor Hugo

Though liberals do a great deal of talking about hearing other points of view, it sometimes shocks them to learn that there are other points of view. –William F. Buckley

Good manners will open doors that the best education cannot. ―Clarence Thomas

All men having power ought to be distrusted to a certain degree. ―James Madison

No beast is more savage than man, when possessed of power equal to his passion. —Plutarch

A liberal is someone who feels a great debt to his fellow man, which debt he proposes to pay off with your money. –G. Gordon Liddy

Socialism has a record of failure so blatant that only an intellectual could ignore or evade it. –Thomas Sowell

Giving money and power to government is like giving whiskey and car keys to teenage boys. –P. J. O’Rourke

The ultimate result of shielding men from the effects of folly is to fill the world with fools. –Herbert Spencer

Miracles are a retelling in small letters of the very same story which is written across the whole world in letters too large for some of us to see. –C. S. Lewis

You wouldn’t worry so much about what others think of you if you realized how seldom they do. –Eleanor Roosevelt

We have four boxes with which to defend our freedom: the soap box, the ballot box, the jury box, and the cartridge box. –Larry McDonald

When I was a young boy, they called me a liar. Now that I’m all grown up, they call me a writer. –Isaac Bashevis Singer

If stupidity got us in this mess, why can’t it get us out? –Will Rogers

By common consent gray hairs are a crown of glory; the only object of respect that can never excite envy. –George Bancroft

One useless man is a shame, two is a law firm, and three or more is a Congress. –John Adams

Don’t carry a grudge. While you’re carrying the grudge the other guy’s out dancing. –Buddy Hackett

Human beings, who are almost unique in having the ability to learn from the experience of others, are also remarkable for their apparent disinclination to do so. –Douglas Adams

The actions of men are the best interpreters of their thoughts. –John Locke

What this country needs is more unemployed politicians. –Edward Langley

Self esteem comes from achievements, not from lax standards and false praise. ―Condoleezza Rice

Rogues are preferable to imbeciles because they sometimes take a rest. –Alexander Dumas

When the people fear their government there is tyranny; when the government fears the people, there is liberty. —Thomas Jefferson

Sometimes our fate resembles a fruit tree in winter. Looking at its sad appearance, who would think that those stiff branches, those jagged twigs would turn green again and blossom and bear fruit next spring; but we hope they will, we know they will. —Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

If you don’t read the newspaper you are uninformed; if you do read the newspaper you are misinformed. —Mark Twain

The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress. —Frederick Douglass

College football is a sport that bears the same relation to education that bullfighting does to agriculture. ―Elbert Hubbard

We have the right, as individuals, to give away as much of our own money as we please in charity; but as members of Congress we have no right so to appropriate a dollar of the public money. —Col. David Crockett

My grandmother is over eighty and she still doesn’t need glasses. Drinks right out of the bottle. —Henny Youngman

Even squirrels know enough to store nuts, so that they will have something to eat when food gets scarce. But the welfare state has spawned a whole class of people who spend everything they get when times are good, and look to others to provide for their food and other basic needs when times turn bad. —Thomas Sowell

Our culture has accepted two huge lies: The first is that if you disagree with someone’s lifestyle, you must fear them or hate them. The second is that to love someone means you agree with everything they believe or do. Both are nonsense. You don’t have to compromise convictions to be compassionate. —Rick Warren

If guns cause crime, all of mine are defective. ―Ted Nugent

When tolerance becomes a one way street, it leads to cultural suicide. ―Allen West

Even if you’re on the right track, you’ll get run over if you just sit there. —Will Rogers

When I said that the mentally ill should be in institutions, public universities weren’t the kind of institutions I had in mind. —Robert Stacy McCain

The virtues of men are of more consequence to society than their abilities; and for this reason, the heart should be cultivated with more assiduity than the head. —Noah Webster

I gave up on new poetry myself thirty years ago, when most of it began to read like coded messages passing between lonely aliens in a hostile world. –Russell Baker

The American Republic will endure until the day Congress discovers that it can bribe the public with the public’s money. –Alexis de Tocqueville

It’s so simple to be wise. Just think of something stupid to say and then don’t say it. –Sam Levenson

Don’t worry about avoiding temptation. As you grow older, it will avoid you. –Winston Churchill

It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker, that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest. —Adam Smith

It is impossible to speak in such a way that you cannot be misunderstood. –Karl Popper

To liberals, compassion seems to be defined by how many people are dependent on the government; to conservatives, it’s defined by how many people no longer need help. One promotes dependence, the other freedom, responsibility and achievement. ―Star Parker

‎If we find ourselves with a desire that nothing in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that we were made for another world. –C. S. Lewis

There is no surer foundation for a beautiful friendship than a mutual taste in literature. –P. G. Wodehouse

Capitalism is relatively new in human history. Prior to capitalism, the way people amassed great wealth was by looting, plundering and enslaving their fellow man. Capitalism made it possible to become wealthy by serving your fellow man. Capitalists seek to find what people want and produce and market it as efficiently as possible. ―Walter Williams

Life has many good things. The problem is that most of these good things can be gotten only by sacrificing other good things. We all recognize this in our daily lives. It is only in politics that this simple, common sense fact is routinely ignored. —Thomas Sowell

I arise in the morning torn between a desire to improve the world and a desire to enjoy the world. This makes it hard to plan the day. –E. B. White

The suggestion that liberals aren’t moralizers is so preposterous it makes it hard for me to take any of them seriously when they wax indignant about “moralizers.” Almost every day, they tell us what is moral or immoral to think and to say about race, taxes, abortion — you name it. They explain it would be immoral for me to spend more of my own money on my own children when that money could be spent by government on other people’s children. In short, they think moralizing is fine. They just want to have a monopoly on the franchise. —Jonah Goldberg

The taxpayer: That’s someone who works for the government but doesn’t have to take the civil service examination. –Ronald Reagan

I took up writing because I needed money. And I continued to write because it’s safer than stealing and easier than working. –Robert Heinlein

A government which robs Peter to pay Paul can always depend on the support of Paul. —George Bernard Shaw

Fortune has rarely condescended to be the companion of genius. –Benjamin Disraeli

In matters of style, swim with the current. In matters of principle, stand like a rock. –Thomas Jefferson

They say African Americans. I say black people. I’ve only been to Africa once. I’ve been in America all my life. ―Herman Cain

Democracy extends the sphere of individual freedom; socialism restricts it. Democracy attaches all possible value to each man; socialism makes each man a mere agent, a mere number. Democracy and socialism have nothing in common but one word: equality. But notice the difference: while democracy seeks equality in liberty, socialism seeks equality in restraint and servitude. –Alexis de Tocqueville

The time you enjoy wasting is not wasted time. –Bertrand Russell

There are two ways to enslave a country. One is by the sword. The other is by debt. –John Adams

The secret of a good sermon is to have a good beginning and a good ending, and to have the two as close together as possible. –George Burns

The young have aspirations that never come to pass; the old have reminiscences of what never happened. –Saki

Being in a minority, even a minority of one, did not make you mad. There was truth and there was untruth, and if you clung to the truth even against the whole world, you were not mad. –George Orwell

Always do right. This will gratify some people and astonish the rest. –Mark Twain

I learned three important things in college — to use a library, to memorize quickly and visually, to drop asleep at any time given a horizontal surface and fifteen minutes. ―Agnes DeMille

Welfare states on both sides of the Atlantic have discovered that largesse to losers does not reduce their hostility to society, but only increases it. Far from producing gratitude, generosity is seen as an admission of guilt, and the reparations as inadequate compensations for injustices — leading to worsening behavior by the recipients. —Thomas Sowell

It is better to fail in originality than to succeed in imitation. –Herman Melville

My luck is so bad that if I bought a cemetery, people would stop dying. –Ed Furgol

It takes only one child to raze a village. –Florence King

The inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of blessings. The inherent blessing of socialism is the equal sharing of misery. —Winston Churchill

Believing takes practice. –Madeleine L’Engle

When somebody is determined to whup your ass, without regard to any concern for what is fair, you must recognize that the only alternative is to whup his ass by whatever means or methods are available. —Robert Stacy McCain

I can’t give you a sure-fire formula for success, but I can give you a formula for failure: try to please everybody all the time. –Herbert B. Swope

A lover without indiscretion is no lover at all. Circumspection and devotion are a contradiction in terms. –Thomas Hardy

Your money does not cause my poverty. Refusal to believe this is at the bottom of most bad economic thinking. —P. J. O’Rourke

What would men be without women? Scarce, sir… mighty scarce. –Mark Twain

Laughter is the closest thing to the grace of God. –Karl Barth

Old age is like everything else. To make a success of it, you’ve got to start young. –Fred Astaire

The difference between men and women is that, if given the choice between saving the life of an infant or catching a fly ball, a woman will automatically choose to save the infant, without even considering if there’s a man on base. —Dave Barry

The purpose of the writer is to keep civilization from destroying itself. –Bernard Malamud

“Need” now means wanting someone else’s money. “Greed” means wanting to keep your own. “Compassion” is when a politician arranges the transfer.” —Joseph Sobran

We know what happens to people who stay in the middle of the road. They get run over. —Ambrose Bierce

If people only made prudent marriages, what a stop to population there would be! –William Makepeace Thackeray

There are only two ways of telling the complete truth: anonymously and posthumously. —Thomas Sowell

I’m not young enough to know everything. ―J. M. Barrie

It’s neither the sheriff nor the priest that keeps the first auto mechanic honest in a small town; it’s the second mechanic. —Tim Nerenz

A great many people think they are thinking when they are merely rearranging their prejudices. –William James

Some mornings, it’s just not worth chewing through the leather straps. –Emo Phillips

Experience is that marvelous thing that enables you to recognize a mistake when you make it again. –F. P. Jones

The surest sign that intelligent life exists elsewhere in the universe is that it has never tried to contact us. –Bill Watterson

It’s the fellow who knows when to quit that the audience wants more of. –Will Rogers

Don’t go around saying the world owes you a living. The world owes you nothing. It was here first. –Mark Twain

Abortion is the only event that modern liberals think too violent and obscene to portray on TV. This is not because they are squeamish or prudish. It is because if people knew what abortion really looked like, it would destroy their pretense that it is a civilized answer to the problem of what to do about unwanted babies. ―Peter Hitchens

In three words I can sum up everything I’ve learned about life. It goes on. –Robert Frost

The way to love anything is to realize that it might be lost. –G. K. Chesterton

I can stand brute force, but brute reason is quite unbearable. There is something unfair about its use. It is hitting below the intellect. –Oscar Wilde

People see God every day; they just don’t recognize him. –Pearl Bailey

True love ennobles and dignifies the material labors of life; and homely services rendered for love’s sake have in them a poetry that is immortal. –Harriet Beecher Stowe

Weighing benefits against costs is the way most people make decisions — and the way most businesses make decisions, if they want to stay in business. Only in government is any benefit, however small, considered to be worth any cost, however large. —Thomas Sowell

Our new Constitution is now established, and has an appearance that promises permanency; but in this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes. —Benjamin Franklin

If a coyote’s in your living room pissing on your couch, it’s not the coyote’s fault. It’s your fault for not shooting him. —Ted Nugent

When buying and selling are controlled by legislation, the first things to be bought and sold are legislators. —P. J. O’Rourke

Darwinism by itself did not produce the Holocaust, but without Darwinism neither Hitler nor his followers would have had the necessary scientific underpinnings to convince themselves and their collaborators that one of the world’s greatest atrocities was really morally praiseworthy. ―Richard Weikart

Certain thoughts are prayers. There are moments when, whatever be the attitude of the body, the soul is on its knees. –Victor Hugo

The urge to save humanity is almost always a false front for the urge to rule it. —H. L. Mencken

There are two kinds of people: those who say to God, “Thy will be done,” and those to whom God says, “All right, then, have it your way.” –C. S. Lewis

If you’re going through hell, keep going. –Winston Churchill

It is not economical to go to bed early to save the candles if the result is twins. –Chinese Proverb

I am not impressed by the Ivy League establishments. Of course they graduate the best – it’s all they’ll take, leaving to others the problem of educating the country. They will give you an education the way the banks will give you money – provided you can prove to their satisfaction that you don’t need it. ―Peter DeVries

In everyone’s life, at some time, our inner fire goes out. It is then burst into flame by an encounter with another human being. We should all be thankful for those people who rekindle the inner spirit. –Albert Schweitzer

Marriage has many pains, but celibacy has no pleasures. –Samuel Johnson

Were there no God, we would be in this glorious world with grateful hearts and no one to thank. –Christina Rossetti

Facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, or the dictates of our passions, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence. –John Adams

I have never let my schooling interfere with my education. –Mark Twain

We sleep soundly in our beds because rough men stand ready in the night to visit violence on those who would do us harm. –George Orwell

Maybe the atheist cannot find God for the same reason a thief cannot find a policeman. –Anonymous

A great deal of intelligence can be invested in ignorance when the need for illusion is deep. –Saul Bellow

Friendship that flows from the heart cannot be frozen by adversity, as the water that flows from the spring cannot congeal in winter. –James Fenimore Cooper

If you can’t convince them, confuse them. –Harry Truman

I would rather walk with God in the dark than go alone in the light. –Mary Gardiner Brainard

A fanatic is someone who can’t change his mind and won’t change the subject. –Winston Churchill

The only thing in life achieved without effort is failure. –Anonymous

We seem to be moving steadily in the direction of a society where no one is responsible for what he himself did, but we are all responsible for what somebody else did, either in the present or in the past. –Thomas Sowell

There is nothing so powerful as truth, and often nothing so strange. –Daniel Webster

It is better to deserve honors and not have them than to have them and not deserve them. –Mark Twain

There is no proposition so clear that it cannot be rendered obscure and incomprehensible by a committee. –James Finnegan

Every man has a right to be wrong in his opinions, but no man has a right to be wrong in his facts. –Bernard Baruch

Conviction is worthless unless it is converted into conduct. –Thomas Carlyle

The truth can walk around naked; only lies must be clothed in euphemism. –Yiddish proverb

We have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion. Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people.  It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other. –John Adams

For what do we live, but to make sport for our neighbors, and laugh at them in our turn? –Jane Austen

The attempt to silence a man is the greatest honor you can bestow on him. It means that you recognize his superiority to yourself. –Joseph Sobran

I am not disposed to complain that I have planted and others have gathered the fruits. A man has cause for regret only when he sows and no one reaps. —Charles Goodyear

Calculus destroys self-esteem on contact. —James Lileks

Even people who claim everything is predestined, and that we can do nothing to change it, look before they cross the road. —Stephen Hawking

People want to help other people who are in need, but there’s a big difference between helping the local widow and helping the town drunk. —Morgan Freeberg

The common denominator of success — the secret of success of every person who has ever been successful — lies in the fact that he formed the habit of doing things that failures don’t like to do. —Albert E. N. Gray

The most important thing in communication is to hear what isn’t being said. —Peter Drucker

Patriotism is supporting your country all the time, and your government when it deserves it. —Mark Twain

No matter how cynical I get, I just can’t keep up. —Nora Ephron

Everybody has a plan until they get punched in the face. —Mike Tyson

If you are not prepared to use force to defend civilization, then be prepared to accept barbarism. —Thomas Sowell

A good player goes where the puck is. A great player goes where the puck is going to be. —Wayne Gretzky

Having daughters tends to help a guy get in touch with his inner social conservative. —Robert Stacy McCain

The further backward you can look, the further forward you are likely to see. —Winston Churchill

When people say they are going to wipe the slate clean, it’s your slate they mean to wipe. — P. J. O’Rourke

It’s long been known that the only thing that Communism is good at is turning large numbers of live peasants into large numbers of dead ones. —Moe Lane

For the Christian there can be no social or political panaceas, no easy escapes from personal responsibility achieved by collectivising guilt or virtue. The true ends of temporal life lie beyond it, and, though the tyrannical State may diminish virtue, the benevolent State cannot procure it. —Margaret Thatcher

In a strong wind, even turkeys can fly. —Mark Suster

When activists say we need to move past the partisan divide, what they mean is: Shut up and get with my program. Have you ever heard anyone say, “We need to get past all of this partisan squabbling and name-calling. That’s why I’m going to abandon all my objections and agree with you”? —Jonah Goldberg

It is customary in democratic countries to deplore expenditures on armaments as conflicting with the requirements of social services. There is a tendency to forget the most important social service a government can do for its people is to keep them alive and free. —Sir John Cotesworth Slessor, RAF

Pacifism only works if there’s someone else that’s strong around to keep things together — someone who’ll stick up for you. If everyone goes pacifist except the bad people, eventually one bad person with no conscience winds up ruling. —Sebastian Marshall

Tryin’ don’t get the job done. —John Wayne

It is said that man can not be trusted with government of himself. Can he, then, be trusted with the government of others? Or have we found angels in the forms of kings to govern him? Let history answer this question. —Thomas Jefferson

Nobody spends somebody else’s money as carefully as he spends his own. Nobody uses somebody else’s resources as carefully as he uses his own. So if you want efficiency and effectiveness, if you want knowledge to be properly utilized, you have to do it through the means of private property. —Milton Friedman

Much of the social history of the Western world over the past three decades has involved replacing what worked with what sounded good. —Thomas Sowell

It’s surprising how many problems can be solved by repealing a bad law rather than enacting a new one. —Peter J. Wallison

Monogamy is a huge time-saver. —Steve Sailer

If you’re not willing to have somebody hauled off at gunpoint over the project, then it’s probably not a legitimate concern of the state. —Kevin D. Williamson

Should we be rewriting history just to make people feel good? That’s not history, that’s psychiatry. —Ed Koch

The only difference between a tax man and a taxidermist is that the taxidermist leaves the skin. —Mark Twain

We have for years been building a society in which everybody plunders everybody, and while we are weary of being plundered, we enjoy the plunder. —Jerry Pournelle

I couldn’t wait for success, so I went ahead without it. —Jonathan Winters

However little the rich may deserve their wealth, the government deserves it even less. —Tom Smith

Blaming guns for murder is like blaming forks for obesity. —Rush Limbaugh

God often works more by the life of the illiterate seeking the things that are God’s, than by the ability of the learned seeking the things that are their own. —Anselm of Canterbury

In the druidical religion of liberalism, not separating your recyclables is a sin, but abortion is just a medical procedure. —Ann Coulter

The American people will never knowingly adopt socialism. But under the name of liberalism they will adopt every fragment of the socialist program, until one day America will be a socialist nation, without knowing how it happened. —Norman Thomas, six-time presidential candidate of the Socialist Party of America

There is some theoretical amount of honesty that is indistinguishable from mental illness. —Scott Adams

If you love wealth better than liberty, the tranquility of servitude better than the animating contest of freedom — go from us in peace. We ask not your counsels or your arms. Crouch down and lick the hands which feed you. May your chains set lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that you were our countrymen. —Samuel Adams

Racism is not dead, but it is on life support — kept alive by politicians, race hustlers and people who get a sense of superiority by denouncing others as “racists.” —Thomas Sowell

We have to differentiate between forgiving those that undertake evil, to be free of bondage to the past, and retaining a dispassionate recollection of the events, to protect the future from repeats. — Smitty

Without wishing to damp the ardor of curiosity or influence the freedom of inquiry, I will hazard a prediction that, after the most industrious and impartial researches, the longest liver of you all will find no principles, institutions or systems of education more fit in general to be transmitted to your posterity than those you have received from your ancestors. —John Adams

We are what we repeatedly do. —Will Durant

Just as a strongly flowing fountain is not blocked up by a handful of earth, so the compassion of the Creator is not overcome by the wickedness of his creatures. —St. Isaac the Syrian

Just because you have the right to do something doesn’t mean it’s the right thing to do. —James Taranto

We always ask where the time went. We never ask where it’s coming from. —James Lileks

The sole condition which is required in order to succeed in centralizing the supreme power in a democratic community, is to love equality, or to get men to believe you love it. Thus the science of despotism, which was once so complex, is simplified, and reduced to a single principle. —Alexis de Tocqueville

The best things and best people rise out of their separateness; I’m against a homogenized society because I want the cream to rise. — Robert Frost

Much of economics isn’t difficult, or rather, the difficulty is in cooking up arguments to “prove” that commonsense conclusions are wrong. The fact is that many commonsense conclusions are quite correct, and it takes a lot of education to get you to believe different. —Jerry Pournelle

Enlightened legislation or enlightened social activity of whatever kind, does play into the hands of people with agendas of their own… If you legalize euthanasia, you provide a field day for people who like killing other people. —J. G. Ballard

For every action there is an equal and opposite government program. —Bob Wells

Character may be manifested in the great moments, but it is made in the small ones. —Winston Churchill

There isn’t a parallel of latitude but thinks it would have been the equator if it had its rights. –Mark Twain

We don’t aspire to be citizens of the world. America suits us just fine. —Andrew McCarthy

When plunder becomes a way of life, men create for themselves a legal system that authorizes it and a moral code that glorifies it. ―Frédéric Bastiat

Heroes understand the vast moral gulf between those who target the innocent and those who target those who target the innocent. —John Nolte

Every power grab is the new base camp for the next power grab. —Mark Steyn

If government ownership of land and natural resources was the best way to protect the environment, then we should have found a Garden of Eden in the Soviet Union after the Iron Curtain came down.  Instead, there was one environmental horror story after another. —Malcolm Wallop

We don’t want to know how to make government work. We want to know how to make it stop. —P. J. O’Rourke

Progress might have been all right once, but it has gone on too long. —Ogden Nash

Conservatives think liberals should be ignored; liberals think conservatives should be incarcerated. Tell me again, who’s intolerant? —Martin Rose

Talking to experts does make a difference. Many of the great disasters of our time have been committed by experts. —Thomas Sowell

The moment the idea is admitted into society, that property is not as sacred as the laws of God, and that there is not a force of law and public justice to protect it, anarchy and tyranny commence. —John Adams

Your generosity is reflected in what you do with your own money, not in what you do with other people’s money. If I give a lot of money to charity, then I am generous. If you give a smaller fraction of your money to charity, then you are less generous. But if you want to tax me in order to give my money to charity, that does not make you generous. —Arnold Kling

Free people are not equal and equal people are not free. —Jerry Pournelle

Lord, the money we spend on government and it’s not one bit better than the government we got for one-third the money twenty years ago. —Will Rogers

Human felicity is produced not so much by great pieces of good fortune that seldom happen, as by little advantages that occur every day. —Benjamin Franklin

‎To compel a man to subsidize with his taxes the propagation of ideas which he disbelieves and abhors is sinful and tyrannical. — Thomas Jefferson

No Christian assumes the Jews are right about everything, but they knew God during tens of centuries during which my ancestors were worshiping trees and eating each other, so when they talk, I listen. —Steve Graham

I think that the main issue with inequality is not the gap between the rich and the poor. It is the gap between the earnings of top business leaders and the salaries of academics and journalists. —Arnold Kling

To learn who rules over you, simply find out who you are not allowed to criticize. ―Voltaire

In an era of universal deceit, the truth is a revolutionary act. —George Orwell

Don’t worry about people stealing your ideas. If they’re any good, you’ll have to ram them down people’s throats. —Howard Aiken

Life is tough. It’s tougher if you’re stupid. —John Wayne

A general dissolution of principles and manners will more surely overthrow the liberties of America than the whole force of the common enemy. While the people are virtuous they cannot be subdued; but when once they lose their virtue then will be ready to surrender their liberties to the first external or internal invader. ―Samuel Adams

We have to believe in free will. We’ve got no choice. —Isaac Bashevis Singer

It’s a good thing to have all the props pulled out from under us occasionally. It gives us some sense of what is rock under our feet, and what is sand. —Madeleine L’Engle

He that goeth about to persuade a multitude that they are not so well off as they ought to be, shall never want for attentive and favorable hearers. –Richard Hooker

The difference between reality and fiction is that fiction has to make sense. —Tom Clancy

A little government and a little luck are necessary in life, but only a fool trusts either of them. —P. J. O’Rourke

College is the only place where you can rebel by doing exactly what people in authority tell you to do. —Steve Graham

I find that when I tell lawyer jokes to a mixed audience, the lawyers don’t think they’re funny and the non-lawyers don’t think they’re jokes. —Chief Justice John Roberts

A tyranny may exist without an individual tyrant. A whole government, even a democratically elected one, may be tyrannical. –Joseph Sobran

The first victims of poseur environmentalism will always be developing countries. In order for you to put biofuel in your Prius and feel good about yourself for no reason, real actual people in faraway places have to starve to death. —Mark Steyn

Fairy tales don’t teach children that monsters exist. Children already know that monsters exist. Fairy tales teach children that monsters can be killed. —G. K. Chesterton

Wisdom doesn’t necessarily come with age. Sometimes age just shows up all by itself. —Tom Wilson

Science without religion is lame; religion without science is blind. —Albert Einstein

Throughout history, poverty is the normal condition of man. Advances which permit this norm to be exceeded — here and there, now and then — are the work of an extremely small minority, frequently despised, often condemned, and almost always opposed by all right-thinking people. Whenever this tiny minority is kept from creating, or (as sometimes happens) is driven out of a society, the people then slip back into abject poverty. This is known as “bad luck.” —Robert Heinlein

People who enjoy meetings should not be in charge of anything. —Thomas Sowell

In the beginning of a change, the patriot is a scarce man, and brave, and hated and scorned. When his cause succeeds, the timid join him, for then it costs nothing to be a patriot. —Mark Twain

Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph. ―Thomas Paine

The problem with cats is that they get the exact same look on their face whether they see a moth or an axe-murderer. —Paula Poundstone

It’s discouraging to think how many people are shocked by honesty and how few by deceit. —Noel Coward

The truth is like a lion. You don’t have to defend it. Let it loose. It will defend itself. ―St. Augustine

There is a class of colored people who make a business of keeping the troubles, the wrongs, and the hardships of the Negro race before the public. Some of these people do not want the Negro to lose his grievances, because they do not want to lose their jobs. There is a certain class of race-problem solvers who don’t want the patient to get well. —Booker T. Washington

Once you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth. ―Arthur Conan Doyle

All the greatest things are simple, and many can be expressed in a single word: freedom; justice; honor; duty; mercy; hope. —Winston Churchill

You don’t have a soul. You are a soul. You have a body. —C. S. Lewis

Men are animals, but women don’t like animals, so men behave. That’s roughly my definition of civilization. —Yuval Levin

Politicians are predisposed not to see spending other people’s money as a problem, because spending other people’s money is what politicians do for a living. If politicians thought there was something wrong with it, they would be in a different line of work. —Michael F. Cannon

One of the most important reasons for studying history is that virtually every stupid idea that is in vogue today has been tried before and proved disastrous before, time and again. —Thomas Sowell

Talking to lefties is like trying to talk to children. Rational argument and facts don’t impress. —Dennis Byrne

Perhaps the most important fact about power is that the powerful are almost always sincere. They honestly believe they are doing good. Every Sauron considers himself a Boromir. —Mencius Moldbug

The sad truth is that you can have peace processes all you like, but if one side is committed to war, then it’s war. —John Podhoretz

I cannot believe that the purpose of life is to be happy. I think the purpose of life is to be useful, to be responsible, to be compassionate. It is, above all to matter, to count, to stand for something, to have made some difference that you lived at all. –Leo Rosten

It is time people realized that “human rights codes” are a weapon employed by the state to suppress disapproved behaviour by the individual. —David Warren

Arguments are to be avoided; they are always vulgar and often convincing. ―Oscar Wilde

Legalizing abortion to get government out of the bedroom is like legalizing cannibalism to get government out of the kitchen. — Joseph Sobran

Atheists can be good people; they just have no objective way to judge the conduct of those who are not. —Michael Gerson

The more you socialize the costs of personal liberty, the more license you give others to regulate it. —Jonah Goldberg

The real argument against aristocracy is that it always means the rule of the ignorant; for the most dangerous of all forms of ignorance is ignorance of work. —G. K. Chesterton

One of the easiest things in the world to do is to tell other people how to raise their children. This is especially easy if you have no children of your own. —Robert Stacy McCain

The aim of public education is not to fill the young of the species with knowledge and awaken their intelligence. The aim is simply to reduce as many individuals as possible to the same safe level, to breed and train a standardized citizenry, to put down dissent and originality. –H. L. Mencken

What do you call it when someone steals someone else’s money secretly? Theft. What do you call it when someone takes someone else’s money openly by force? Robbery. What do you call it when a politician takes someone else’s money in taxes and gives it to someone who is more likely to vote for him? Social Justice. —Thomas Sowell

Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves. –William Pitt the Younger

The hardest job kids face today is learning good manners without seeing any. –Fred Astaire

Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their own conscience. –C.S. Lewis

Three may keep a secret, if two of them are dead. –Benjamin Franklin

To acquire the habit of reading is to construct for yourself a refuge from almost all the miseries of life. —W. Somerset Maugham

No man can put a chain about the ankle of his fellow man without at last finding the other end fastened about his own neck. –Frederick Douglass

The real case against socialism is not its economic inefficiency, though on all sides there is evidence of that. Much more fundamental is its basic immorality. —Margaret Thatcher

The believer in God has to account for the existence of unjust suffering; the atheist has to account for everything else. —Milton Steinberg

When more of the people’s sustenance is exacted through the form of taxation than is necessary to meet the just obligations of government and expenses of its economical administration, such exaction becomes ruthless extortion and a violation of the fundamental principles of free government. —Grover Cleveland

This government isn’t too big to fail, it’s too big to succeed. —Sarah Palin

Socialism is the religion people get when they lose their religion. —Richard John Neuhaus

When will we get done with the fool idea that the way to make a party grow is to scare away everybody who has an extra dollar in his pocket? God forbid that the Democratic Party should become a mere gathering of the unsuccessful! —John W. Davis, Democratic presidential nominee, 1924

When I was a boy I was told that anybody could become president; I’m beginning to believe it. —Clarence Darrow

The truth is incontrovertible. Malice may attack it; ignorance may deride it; but in the end, there it is. —Winston Churchill

A man can’t be taken to hell, or sent to hell: you can only get there on your own steam. —C. S. Lewis

It remains to be seen which program will cause greater societal damage: China’s one-child policy or America’s one-parent policy. —P. J. O’Rourke

Let’s keep people with weird religious faiths out of government. Especially those who have a weird religious faith IN government. —David Burge

To understand the workings of American politics, you have to understand this fundamental law: Conservatives think liberals are stupid. Liberals think conservatives are evil. —Charles Krauthammer

Some people say that taxes are the price we pay for civilization. But the runaway taxes of our time are the price we pay for being gullible. —Thomas Sowell

The sun, with all those planets revolving around it and dependent on it, can still ripen a bunch of grapes as if it had nothing else in the universe to do. —Galileo Galilei

Government exists to protect us from each other. Where government has gone beyond its limits is in deciding to protect us from ourselves. —Ronald Reagan

Like so many liberal icons, Marx seldom bathed and left his wife and children in poverty. As Phyllis Schlafly says, no wonder liberal women think men are pigs: Their men are pigs. —Ann Coulter

I pretended to be someone I wanted to be, and I finally became that person. —Cary Grant

I don’t believe in astrology; I’m a Sagittarius and we’re skeptical. —Arthur C. Clarke

First thing a bureaucracy does is put the bureaucrats in charge, by tying the hands of the non-bureaucrats. Anyone who doesn’t know that has never seen one in action. —Morgan K. Freeberg

Some men are graduated from college cum laude, some are graduated summa cum laude, and some are graduated mirabile dictu. —William Howard Taft