mike's web log/quotes

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The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, and wiser people so full of doubts.
— Bertrand Russell general | politics | religion

Unthinking respect for authority is the greatest enemy of truth.
— Albert Einstein general | politics | religion

Wherever you have an efficient government you have a dictatorship.
— Harry S Truman politics

Now is the time for all good men to come to.
— Walt Kelly (Pogo) general | politics

There is nothing sadder than mass individualism.
— "Mike" general | politics

Deeply held beliefs of any kind prevent you from being open to experience, which is why I find all firmly held ideological positions questionable. [...] One of the signs of a damaged ego is absolute certainty.
— Milton Glaser general | advice | religion | politics

If they can get you asking the wrong questions, they don't have to worry about the answers.
— Thomas Pynchon general | politics

When I was a kid, I remember reading about how democracies ended. What surprised me was how often it was a peaceful takeover. Fascists took power in many places not through force, but through rigged elections, broken rules, and consolidation of power, all hidden behind flags and God and promises of glory.
— Bob Harris politics

Politicians who act from moral certainty, from the sense that any and all opponents are beyond the pale because they're morally reprobate, have no patience for and no commitment to democracy's limitations to power, its provisions for compromise by its inclusion of different viewpoints at the table, and its commitment to the legitimate right of all contending political factions to be in the majority in some instances.
— Michael Bérubé politics

The plural of anecdote is not data.
— Orac general | politics

The assumption that humanity at large shared the democratic Western idea of freedom was an American delusion.
— Barbara Tuchman, historian, on Vietnam politics

War is always about betrayal. It's about betrayal of soldiers by politicians. And it's about betrayal of the young by the old.
— Chris Hedges politics

Whoever builds upon patriotism as a sufficient basis for conducting a long and bloody war will find themselves deceived in the end ... for a time it may of itself push men to action, to bear much, to encounter difficulties, but it will not endure unassisted by interest.
— George Washington politics

Political freedom cannot exist in any land where religion controls the state, and religious freedom cannot exist in any land where the state controls religion.
— Samuel James Ervin Jr. politics | religion

When people are fanatically dedicated to political or religious faiths or any other kind of dogmas or goals, it's always because these dogmas or goals are in doubt.
— Robert T. Pirsig religion | politics

Naturally, the common people don't want war; neither in Russia nor in England nor in America, nor for that matter in Germany. That is understood. But, after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy or a fascist dictatorship or a Parliament or a Communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same way in any country.
— Herman Goering politics

Intolerance of ambiguity is the mark of an authoritarian personality.
— Theodor Adorno general | religion | politics

I believe that there are more instances of the abridgment of the freedom of the people by gradual and silent encroachment of those in power than by violent and sudden usurpations.
— James Madison politics

To be sure, Darwin's theory of evolution is imperfect. However, the fact that a scientific theory cannot yet render an explanation on every point should not be used as a pretext to thrust an untestable alternative hypothesis grounded in religion into the science classroom or to misrepresent well-established scientific propositions.
— John Jones, U.S. District Judge religion | politics

We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security.
— Dwight D. Eisenhower politics

It appears as if partisans twirl the cognitive kaleidoscope until they get the conclusions they want, and then they get massively reinforced for it, with the elimination of negative emotional states and activation of positive ones.
— Drew Westen, director of clinical psychology at Emory University, in a study of brain activity and political bias. politics

I wonder what laws have been broken to make me safer today?
— Get Your War On politics

It is a right, which all free men claim, that they are entitled to complain when they are hurt. They have a right publicly to remonstrate against the abuses of power in the strongest terms, to put their neighbors upon their guard against the craft or open violence of men in authority, and to assert with courage the sense they have of the blessings of liberty, the value they put upon it, and their resolution at all hazards to preserve it.
— Andrew Hamilton general | politics

Tuchman's Law: The fact of being reported multiplies the apparent extent of any deplorable development by five- to ten-fold (or any figure the reader would care to supply).
— Barbara Tuchman, historian general | politics | laws

When educated people disagree with you, it has nothing to do with political bias. They disagree with you because you're wrong.
— Greg Saunders politics

We cannot defend freedom abroad by deserting it at home.
— Edward R. Murrow politics

A tyrant must put on the appearance of uncommon devotion to religion. Subjects are less apprehensive of illegal treatment from a ruler whom they consider god-fearing and pious. On the other hand, they do less easily move against him, believing that he has the gods on his side.
— Aristotle politics | religion

European public opinion will apparently tolerate people being fired in industries where they really care about performance. Unfortunately the only industry they care enough about so far is soccer.
— Paul Graham politics

For civilization to survive, man must remain civilized.
— Rod Serling politics | general

We have accepted that the only way to stop the terrorists is to let the government become just a little bit like the terrorists.
— Keith Olbermann politics

There is nothing which can better deserve your patronage than the promotion of science and literature. Knowledge is in every country the surest basis of public happiness.
— George Washington general | advice | politics | education

The best friend of a nation is he who faithfully rebukes her for her sins—and her worst enemy, who, under the specious and popular garb of patriotism, seeks to excuse, palliate, and defend them.
— Frederick Douglass politics

Any sentence containing the phrase the media will be an overbroad generalization, probably to score political points. On the left, the media are faceless tools of corporate interests, narcotizing the public into acceptance of mindless bourgeois-consumerist oppression. On the right the media are Marxist subversives undermining religion and morality by narcotizing the public into a porno-atheistical torpor.
— John McIntyre politics | writing

War brings out the patriotic bullies. In World War I, they went around kicking dachshunds on the grounds that dachshunds were "German dogs." They did not, however, go around kicking German shepherds.
— Molly Ivins politics

Such as hold absurd tenets are seldom dangerous. Perhaps they are never dangerous, but when they are oppressed.
— John Witherspoon general | politics | religion

Winning a Presidential election doesn't require being all things to all of the people all of the time, but it does require being some things to most of the people some of the time. It doesn't require saying one thing and also saying its opposite, but it does require saying more or less the same thing in ways that are understood in different ways.
— Hendrik Hertzberg politics | funny

One obvious problem with the whole “liberal academy” argument is that free inquiry and open consideration of diverse viewpoints is itself a liberal value - and not a conservative one, since what's conserved is a predetermined truth. So the university itself would be impossible on conservative grounds.
— Carl Dyke politics | education

Ruling, of course, must be distinguished from governing, which is a more nuanced process that entails give-and-take and the kind of compromises that are often necessary to find a consensus and solutions that will best serve the interests of all Americans.
— John Dean politics

All silencing of discussion is an assumption of infallibility.
— John Stuart Mill general | politics

I protect my right to be a Catholic by preserving your right to believe as a Jew, a Protestant, or non-believer, or as anything else you choose. We know that the price of seeking to force our beliefs on others is that they might some day force theirs on us.
— Mario Cuomo religion | politics

So this is how liberty dies. With thunderous applause.
— George Lucas politics

It seems like the less a statesman amounts to the more he adores the flag.
— Kin Hubbard funny | politics

Much was said this night against the parliament. I said that, as it seemed to be agreed that all Members of Parliament became corrupted, it was better to chuse men already bad, and so save good men.
— James Boswell politics

Patriotism is proud of a country's virtues and eager to correct its deficiencies; it also acknowledges the legitimate patriotism of other countries, with their own specific virtues. The pride of nationalism, however, trumpets its country's virtues and denies its deficiencies, while it is contemptuous toward the virtues of other countries. It wants to be, and proclaims itself to be, "the greatest", but greatness is not required of a country; only goodness is.
— Sidney J. Harris politics

We need a state, and we need to exercise democracy so firmly that companies scream and whimper about all the money they didn't make because we didn't grant them dominion over our society.
— Richard Stallman politics

If there is a bedrock principle underlying the First Amendment, it is that the government may not prohibit the expression of an idea simply because society finds the idea itself offensive or disagreeable.
— Supreme Court Justice William J. Brennan, Jr. politics

If we don’t believe in freedom of expression for people we despise, we don’t believe in it at all.
— Noam Chomsky politics

When enough people make false promises, words stop meaning anything. Then there are no more answers, only better and better lies. And lies won’t help us in this fight.
— George RR Martin (as Jon Snow) general | politics

Convince me that homeschooling is a good thing for society, and not just about information control, distrust of authority and reinforcement of insularity.
— "Occam's Battleaxe" education | religion | politics