Marshall McLuhan A point of view can be a dangerous luxury when substituted for insight and understanding. +
Edmund Burke By hating vices too much, they come to love men too little. +
François de La Rochefoucauld No persons are more frequently wrong, than those who will not admit they are wrong. +
John Maynard Keynes The difficulty lies not so much in developing new ideas as in escaping from old ones. +
Friedrich A. Hayek It is because every individual knows little and, in particular, because we rarely know which of us knows best that we trust the independent and competitive efforts of many to induce the emergence of what we shall want when we see it. +
Socrates Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle. +
Cicero Kindness is stronger than fear. +
Arthur C. Clarke Civilization and Religion are incompatible and Faith is believing what you know isn't true. +
Arthur Schopenhauer All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident. +
Thomas Paine If a house of legislation is to be composed of men of one class, for the purpose of protecting a distinct interest, all the other interests should have the same. The inequality, as well as the burthen of taxation, arises from admitting it in one case, and not in all. Had there been a house of farmers, there had been no game laws; or a house of merchants and manufacturers. the taxes had neither been so unequal nor so excessive. It is from the power of taxation being in the hands of those who can throw so great a part of it from their own shoulders, that it has raged without a check. +
Ludwig Von Mises Nobody ever recommended a dictatorship aiming at ends other than those he himself approved. He who advocates dictatorship always advocates the unrestricted rule of his own will +
John F. Kennedy If by a "Liberal" they mean someone who looks ahead and not behind, someone who welcomes new ideas without rigid reactions, someone who cares about the welfare of the people-their health, their housing, their schools, their jobs, their civil rights and their civil liberties-someone who believes we can break through the stalemate and suspicions that grip us in our policies abroad, if that is what they mean by a "Liberal", then I'm proud to say I'm a "Liberal.” +
Napoleon Bonaparte Ability is of little account without opportunity. +
Leo Tolstoy Government is an association of men who do violence to the rest of us. +
Virgil Fortune favors those who dare. +
John Maynard Keynes It is better to be roughly right than precisely wrong. +
Adam Smith 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. +
Juvenal It is a poor thing to lean upon the fame of others, lest the pillars give way and the house fall down in ruin. +
Leo Tolstoy We can know only that we know nothing. And that is the highest degree of human wisdom +
Cicero While there's life, there's hope. +
Thomas Jefferson Difference of opinion is advantageous in religion. The several sects perform the office of a Censor morum over each other. Is uniformity attainable? Millions of innocent men, women, and children, since the introduction of Christianity, have been burnt, tortured, fined, imprisoned; yet we have not advanced one inch towards uniformity. What has been the effect of coercion? To make one half the world fools, and the other half hypocrites. To support roguery and error all over the earth. Let us reflect that it is inhabited by a thousand millions of people. That these profess probably a thousand different systems of religion. That ours is but one of that thousand. That if there be but one right, and ours that one, we should wish to see the 999 wandering sects gathered into the fold of truth. But against such a majority we cannot effect this by force. Reason and persuasion are the only practicable instruments. To make way for these, free enquiry must be indulged; and how can we wish others to indulge it while we refuse it ourselves. +
Oliver Wendell Holmes The biggest tragedy in America is not the great waste of natural resources - though this is tragic; the biggest tragedy is the waste of human resources because the average person goes to his grave with his music still in him. +
Coco Chanel Don't spend time beating on a wall, hoping to transform it into a door. +
Arthur Conan Doyle Mediocrity knows nothing higher than itself; but talent instantly recognizes genius. +
Carl Sagan Every one of us is, in the cosmic perspective, precious. If a human disagrees with you, let him live. In a hundred billion galaxies, you will not find another. +
John Dewey Truth, in final analysis, is the statement of things “as they are,” not as they are in the inane and desolate void of isolation from human concern, but as they are in a shared and progressive experience….Truth, truthfulness, transparent and brave publicity of intercourse, are the source and the reward of friendship. Truth is having things in common. +
Hannah Arendt The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the convinced Communist, but people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction (i.e., the reality of experience) and the distinction between true and false (i.e., the standards of thought) no longer exist. +
Bias of Priene All men are wicked +
Edmund Burke I wished to warn the people against the greatest of all evils,—a blind and furious spirit of innovation, under the name of reform. +
George Washington It is better to offer no excuse than a bad one. +
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Nothing is more disgusting than the majority: because it consists of a few powerful predecessors, of rogues who adapt themselves, of weak who assimilate themselves, and the masses who imitate without knowing at all what they want. +
John F. Kennedy To be courageous, these stories make clear, requires no exceptional qualifications, no magic formula, no special combination of time, place and circumstance. It is an opportunity that sooner or later is presented to us all. Politics merely furnishes one arena which imposes special tests of courage. In whatever arena of life one may meet the challenge of courage, whatever may be the sacrifices he faces if he follow his conscience - the loss of his friends, his fortune, his contentment, even the esteem of his fellow men - each man must decide for himself the course he will follow. The stories of past courage can define that ingredient - they can teach, they can offer hope, they provide inspiration. But they cannot supply courage itself. For this each man must look into his own soul. +
Friedrich A. Hayek It should be noted, moreover, that monopoly is frequently the product of factors other than the lower costs of greater size. It is attained through collusive agreement and promoted by public policies. When these agreements are invalidated and when these policies are reversed, competitive conditions can be restored. +
John Locke men’s actions are the best guides to their thoughts +
Friedrich A. Hayek The chief difference [between totalitarian and free countries] is that only the totalitarians appear clearly to know how they want to achieve that result, while the free world has only its past achievements to show, being by its very nature unable to offer any detailed "plan" for further growth. +
Virgil Evil is nourished and grows by concealment. +
George Orwell War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength. +
Arthur Schopenhauer Spanish proverb: honor and money are not to be found in the same purse. +
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Where is the man who has the strength to be true, and to show himself as he is? +
John Maynard Keynes When the facts change, I change my mind - what do you do, sir? +
Euripides Talk sense to a fool and he calls you foolish. +
Seneca There will come a time when our descendants will be amazed that we did not know things that are so plain to them... Many discoveries are reserved for ages still to come, when memory of us will have been effaced. +
Abraham Lincoln Whatever you are, be a good one. +
Abraham Lincoln Discourage litigation. Persuade your neighbors to compromise whenever you can. Point out to them how the nominal winner is often a real loser - in fees, expenses, and waste of time. As a peacemaker the lawyer has a superior opportunity of being a good man. There will still be business enough. +
Lao Tzu The wise man is one who, knows, what he does not know. +
Thomas Paine Let it then be heard, and let man learn to feel that the true greatness of a nation is founded on principles of humanity, and not on conquest. +
Napoleon Bonaparte The extent of your consciousness is limited only by your ability to love and to embrace with your love the space around you, and all it contains. +
Montesquieu Democratic and aristocratic states are not in their own nature free. Political liberty is to be found only in moderate governments; and even in these it is not always found. It is there only when there is no abuse of power. But constant experience shows us that every man invested with power is apt to abuse it, and to carry his authority as far as it will go. +
Seneca All cruelty springs from weakness. +
Mark Twain If Christ were here there is one thing he would not be—a Christian. +