QOTD category archive

Anonymous:

Artificial intelligence is no match for natural stupidity.

Umberto Eco:

Today, political events are nullified unless they’re on TV.

Benjamin Cardozo:

Prophecy, however honest, is generally a poor substitute for experience.

Lady Gaga:

Social media, quite frankly, is the toilet of the internet.

Walter Gropius:

The mind is like an umbrella – it functions best when open.

H. G. Wells:

Moral indignation is jealousy with a halo.

Jose de San Martin:

More noise occurs from a single man shouting than a hundred thousand who are quiet.

R. H. Tawney:

Democracy is unstable as a political system as long as it remains a political system and nothing more, instead of being, as it should be, not only a form of government but a type of society, and a manner of life which is in harmony with that type. To make it a type of society requires an advance along two lines. It involves, in the first place, the resolute elimination of all forms of special privilege which favour some groups and depress other, whether their source be differences of environment, of education, or of pecuniary income. It involves, in the second place, the conversion of economic power, now often an irresponsible tyrant, into a servant of society, working within clearly defined limits and accountable for its actions to a public authority.

Robert Goldsborough, in the voice of Archie Goodwin:

Maybe it’s because I’ve been around Wolfe so long, but I’ve always preferred getting my news from papers rather than television. It’s like favoring meat and potatoes over crepes.

Goldborough, Robert, Death on Deadline (New York: Mysterious Press.com/Open Road, 1987), p. 99.

Robert Goldsborough, in the voice of Nero Wolfe:

We are all fools at one time or another. It is endemic to the human condition.

Goldsborugh, Robert, Battered Badge (New York: mMysterious Press/Open Road, 2018). p. 51

Livy:

Men are only too clever at shifting blame from their own shoulders to those of others.

James Randi:

Sir, there is a distinct difference between having an open mind and having a hole in your head from which your brain leaks out.

Robert Goldsborough, in the voice of Archie Goodwin (Robert Goldsborough continued the Nero Wolfe stories, with the permission of Rex Stout’s estate, quite by happy accident. He was not quite the writer that Stout was, but he did a yeoman-like job in the spirit of Stout. You can learn more here; I find this particular quotation quite prescient):

Given the way that men in this great country’s government have bollixed things up, more women holding office can only be seen as a good thing.

Goldsborough, Robert, Murder in the Ball Park (New York: MysteriousPress.com/Open Road, 2014), p. 176.

E. H. Carr:

Change is certain. Progress is not.

Galen:

The fact is that those who are enslaved to their sects are not merely devoid of all sound knowledge, but they will not even stop to learn!

Gordon Smith:

The American people are being victimized more than any free market would warrant.

Taylor Wilson:

If you look at the scientists who really make a difference, they think boldly. They’re not afraid to question what they see.

Dick Cavett:

It’s a rare person who wants to hear what he doesn’t want to hear.

Rex Stout, in the voice of Nero Wolfe:

I try to know what I need to know. I make sure to know what I want to know.

Stout, Rex, Please Pass the Guilt (New York: Viking, 1973), p. 3.

H. L. Mencken:

Conscience is the inner voice that warns us that someone might be looking.