QOTD category archive

George Bernard Shaw, via the Quotemaster:

I can forgive Alfred Nobel for having invented dynamite, but only a fiend in human form could have invented the Nobel Prize.

Aldous Huxley, from the Quotemaster:

Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored.

Jonathan Swift, via the Quotemaster:

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

Shaun Mullen:

Just do me a favor: If someone tells you how proud they are to be an American this Thanksgiving, ask them if they support health-care reform. If they don’t, have the cranberry sauce passed to you and throw it at them.

Brendan:

I don’t support the death penalty: it ends the torment of incarceration for those who deserve punishment, without providing a way to freedom for those who have been unjustly imprisoned.

Charles Eliot Norton, from the Quotemaster:

The voice of protest, of warning, of appeal is never more needed than when the clamor of fife and drum, echoed by the press and too often by the pulpit, is bidding all men fall in step and obey in silence the tyrannous word of command. Then, more than ever, it is the duty of the good citizen not to be silent.

Afterthought: The Booman, quite coincidently, brings this quotation to life in describing what happens when war for a lie becomes a policy, rather than a crime.

(And yes, I know that Iraq is the Great and Glorious Patriotic War for a Lie. It is because of Iraq that Afghanistan went from a war of purpose to the “War of Because of We Are Already There–Oh, Well.” Both courtesy of the Previous Federal Administration.

H. L. Mencken:

The men the American people admire most extravagantly are the most daring liars; the men they detest most violently are those who try to tell them the truth.

Macauley, via the Quotemaster:

The Puritan hated bear-baiting, not because it gave pain to
the bear, but because it gave pleasure to the spectators.

The precursor to Mencken’s definition:

“Puritanism – the haunting fear that someone, somewhere, may be happy.”

which is often rendered as “the haunting fear that someone, somewhere, may be having fun.”

Macauley was quite the child prodigy. Bennett Cerf told the story that, when Macauley was three and in his pram, he was bawling about having bitten his finger while eating a snack. A woman came up to him and said, “Did Ooo hurt Ooo’s ittle bitty finger?”

He stopped crying, looked at her, and said, “Madam, the agony has somewhat abated.”

Then he resumed crying.

This pretty much sums up the whole teabagger thingee.

The world is full of people whose notion of a satisfactory future is, in fact, a return to the idealised past.

–Robertson Davies, from the QuoteMaster.

Logan Pearsall Smith, via the Quotemaster:

Most people sell their souls, and live with a good conscience on the proceeds.

DougJ at Balloon Juice on Christians:

You would like to think that if you spent your life preaching a message of peace and tolerance and were eventually executed for doing so, that people wouldn’t spend the next 2000 years waging wars and torturing people in your name.

From the Quotemaster:

The morning cup of coffee has an exhilaration about it which the cheering influence of the afternoon or evening cup of tea cannot be expected to reproduce.
– Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr, 1809 – 1894

Paula Poundstone on the hoopla surrounding Michael Jackson’s death:

Isn’t the time to love someone while he’s still alive?

Grumpy Realist on theological coincidences as regards Mark “I’m David, she’s Bathsheba” Sanford:

Oddly, whenever I hear someone who claims to know God’s will it exactly matches what that person wants. It’s the strangest coincidence.

“Ignorance is always afraid of change.”

Winston Churchill:

A fanatic is one who can’t change his mind and won’t change the subject.

Sound like anyone on AM radio?

For years, I’ve subscribed to Van’s Quotes of the Day.

Today’s mailing included this gem from C. S. Lewis:

Of all tyrannies, a tyranny 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
our own good will torment us without end, for they do so with
the approval of their consciences.

Sound like any political parties persons you know?

Fair use: I emailed Van about posting his quotes a long time ago. The gist of his response was, “The quotes are public domain, and please mention my mailing list.” Follow the link to join his list.