An Insider's View of War

"I know war as few other men now living know it, and nothing to me is more revolting. I have long advocated its complete abolition, as its very destructiveness on both friend and foe has rendered it useless as a means of settling international disputes... But once war is forced upon us, there is no other alternative than to apply every available means to bring it to a swift end."

~ Douglas MacArthur

Civilization as an excuse for incivility

"If you drink much from a bottle marked 'poison' it is almost certain to disagree with you, sooner or later."

~ Lewis Carroll

"Civilized men are more discourteous than savages because they know they can be impolite without having their skulls split, as a general thing."

~ Robert E. Howard

Lie awake?

Sometimes I lie awake at night, and I ask, "Where have I gone wrong?" Then a voice says to me, "This is going to take more than one night."

~Charles M. Schulz, Charlie Brown in "Peanuts" US cartoonist (1922 - 2000)

writers vs. authors

"Sit down and put down everything that comes into your head and then you're a writer. But an author is one who can judge his own stuff's worth, without pity, and destroy most of it."

~ Colette

Risk vs Fear

If one took no chances, one would not fly at all. Safety lies in the judgment of the chances one takes. That judgment, in turn, must rest upon one's outlook on life. Any coward can sit in his home and criticize a pilot for flying into a mountain in fog. But I would rather, by far, die on a mountainside than in bed.
~ Charles Lindbergh

I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work.
~ Thomas Edison

The only thing we have to fear is fear itself — nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance.
~ Franklin D. Roosevelt

What leads us / what makes a dark age

"What counts now is not just what we are against, but what we are for. Who leads us is less important than what leads us—what convictions, what
courage, what faith—win or lose."

~ Adlai Stevenson

"An age is called Dark not because the light fails to shine, but because people refuse to see it."

-- James A. Michener

Freedom vs. Tyranny

He judged it not fit to determine anything rashly; and seemed to doubt whether those different forms of religion might not all come from God, who might inspire man in a different manner, and be pleased with this variety; he therefore thought it indecent and foolish for any man to threaten and terrify another to make him believe what did not appear to him to be true.

~ Thomas More

You and I are told increasingly that we have to choose between a left or right, but I would like to suggest that there is no such thing as a left or right. There is only an up or down — up to a man's age-old dream; the ultimate in individual freedom consistent with law and order — or down to the ant heap totalitarianism, and regardless of their sincerity, their humanitarian motives, those who would trade our freedom for security have embarked on this downward course.

~ Ronald Reagan

Types of discontent

There are, indeed, two forms of discontent: one laborious, the other indolent and complaining. We respect the man of laborious desire, but let us not suppose that his restlessness is peace, or his ambition meekness. It is because of the special connection of meekness with contentment that it is promised that the meek shall 'inherit the earth.' Neither covetous men, nor the grave, can inherit anything; they can but consume. Only contentment can possess.

~ John Ruskin

Man is not once-and-for-all

Man is always something more than what he knows of himself. He is not what he is simply once and for all, but is a process...

~ Karl Jaspers

Politics, as a practice, whatever its professions, has always been the systematic organization of hatreds.

~ Henry Adams

In search of Truth

I hold the maxim no less applicable to public than to private affairs, that honesty is always the best policy.

~ George Washington

When others asked the truth of me, I was convinced it was not the truth they wanted, but an illusion they could bear to live with.

~ Anaïs Nin

I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forego their use.

~ Galileo Galilei

What for centuries raised man above the beast is not the cudgel but the irresistible power of unarmed truth.

~ Boris Pasternak

Cowboy Wisdom

[Emailed to me by Gene, who also appreciates quote collections. Source unknown.]

A Cowboy's Guide to Life

* Don't name a pig you plan to eat.

* Your fences need to be horse high, pig tight, and bull strong.

* Life ain't about how fast you run, or how high you climb, but how well you bounce.

* Keep skunks and bankers and lawyers at a distance.

* Life is simpler when you plow around the stump.

* A bumble bee is considerably faster than a John Deere tractor.

* Words that soak into your ears are whispered ... not yelled.

* Meanness don't jest happen overnight.

* Forgive your enemies. It messes up their heads.

* Don't sell your mule to buy a plow.

* Do not corner something that you know is meaner than you.

* It don't take a very big person to carry a grudge.

* You cannot unsay a cruel word.

* Every path has a few puddles.

* When you wallow with pigs, expect to get dirty.

* The best sermons are lived, not preached.

* Most of the stuff people worry about ain't never gonna happen anyway.

* Don't judge folks by their relatives.

* Remember that silence is sometimes the best answer.

* Live a good, honorable life. Then when you get older and think back, you'll enjoy it a second time.

* Don't interfere with somethin' that ain't botherin' you none.

* Timing has a lot to do with the outcome of a rain dance.

* It's better to be a has-been than a never-was.

* The easiest way to eat crow is while it's still warm. The colder it gets, the harder it is to swaller.

* If you find yourself in a hole, the first thing to do is stop diggin'.

* If it don't seem like it's worth the effort, it probably ain't.

* It don't take a genius to spot a goat in a flock of sheep.

* Sometimes you get and sometimes you get got.

* The biggest troublemaker you'll probably ever have to deal with watches you shave his face in the mirror every mornin'.

* If you get to thinkin' you're a person of some influence, try orderin' somebody else's dog around.

* Don't worry about bitin' off more 'n you can chew; your mouth is probably a whole lot bigger'n you think.

* Only cows know why they stampede.

* Always drink upstream from the herd.

* If you're ridin' ahead of the herd, take a look back every now and then to make sure it's still there with ya.

* Lettin' the cat outta the bag is a whole lot easier than puttin' it back in.

Success: After and Before

External success has to do with people who may see me as a model, or an example, or a representative. As much as I may dislike or want to reject that responsibility, this is something that comes with public success. It's important to give others a sense of hope that it is possible and you can come from really different places in the world and find your own place in the world that's unique for yourself.

~ Amy Tan

Some people want it to happen, some wish it would happen, others make it happen.

~ Michael Jordan

Need a good idea?

If you want to have good ideas you must have many ideas. Most of them will be wrong, and what you have to learn is which ones to throw away.

~ Linus Pauling

True Patriotism

Our dignity, our free institutions and the peace and welfare of this and coming generations of Americans will be secure only as we cling to the watchword of true patriotism: 'Our country — when right to be kept right; when wrong to be put right.'

~ Carl Schurz

Freedom, limerick, business decisions

Freedom only for the members of the government, only for the members of the Party — though they are quite numerous — is no freedom at all. Freedom is always the freedom of dissenters.

~ Rosa Luxemburg

There was a young fellow from Trinity,
Who took the square root of infinity.
But the number of digits,
Gave him the fidgets;
He dropped Math and took up Divinity.

~ George Gamow

Wherever you see a successful business, someone once made a courageous decision.

~ Peter Drucker

Quotes that set a compass

Don't play for safety. It's the most dangerous thing in the world.

~ Hugh Walpole

All that separates, whether of race, class, creed, or sex, is inhuman, and must be overcome.

~ Kate Sheppard

Some choices will choose you. How you face these choices, these turns in the road, with what kind of attitude, more than the choices themselves, is what will define the context of your life.

~ Dana Reeve

The character of every act depends upon the circumstances in which it is done.

~ Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.

And when you're all grown up to become your self, won't that turn out to be a wonderful thing, after all?

Down these mean streets a man must go who is not himself mean, who is neither tarnished nor afraid. The detective must be a complete man and a common man and yet an unusual man. He must be, to use a rather weathered phrase, a man of honor. He talks as the man of his age talks, that is, with rude wit, a lively sense of the grotesque, a disgust for sham, and a contempt for pettiness.

~ Raymond Chandler

Imagination is more important than knowledge. For knowledge is limited, whereas imagination embraces the entire world, stimulating progress, giving birth to evolution.

~ Albert Einstein

Let us think the unthinkable, let us do the undoable, let us prepare to grapple with the ineffable itself, and see if we may not eff it after all.

~ Douglas Adams

Fundamentals of Government

Is life so dear or peace so sweet as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!

~ Patrick Henry

As I understand it, laws, commands, rules and edicts are for those who have not the light which makes plain the pathway.

~ Anne Hutchinson

The spirit of truth and the spirit of freedom — these are the pillars of society.

~ Henrik Ibsen

The very essence of a free government consists in considering offices as public trusts, bestowed for the good of the country, and not for the benefit of an individual or a party.

~ John C. Calhoun

Quotes, for a day when my perseverance is weak

There must be a beginning of any great matter, but the continuing unto the end until it be thoroughly finished yields the true glory.

~ Sir Francis Drake

There is a certain relief in change, even though it be from bad to worse; as I have found in travelling in a stage-coach, that it is often a comfort to shift one's position and be bruised in a new place.

~ Washington Irving

Attitude towards Others

I'm sure w all agree that we ought to love one another, and I know there are people in the world who do not love their fellow human beings — and I hate people like that!

~ Tom Lehrer

Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent.

~ Isaac Asimov

Do not that to another, which thou wouldest not have done to thy selfe.

~ Thomas Hobbes