Wednesday, December 5, 2007

Quotes and Comments

If hard work were such a wonderful thing, surely the rich would have kept it all to themselves.
--Lane Kirkland


How hard someone has to work is usually inversely proportional to how much they get paid.

Always be smarter than the people who hire you.
--Lena Horne


This has always been true for me, as they don't apparently hire supervisors for their intelligence.

I always like a dog so long as he isn't spelled backward.
--G.K. Chesterton


Dogs are a lot more fun than the reverse.

Question with boldness even the existence of a God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason, than that of blind-folded fear.
--Thomas Jefferson


One would think that if God exists, then we were given the power of reasoning for a purpose.

If you have ten thousand regulations, you destroy all respect for the law.
--Winston Churchill


Better to have fewer, basic laws that are applied with discretion and common sense, than thousands of laws that micromanage every iota of our existence.

A room without books is like a body without a soul.
--Cicero


And those whose room it is tend to be boring and mundane as well.

No matter how much the cats fight, there always seem to be plenty of kittens.
--Abraham Lincoln


Nothing better than make up sex!

Some people claim that marriage interferes with romance. There's no doubt about it. Anytime you have a romance, your wife is bound to interfere.
--Groucho Marx


Isn't that the truth!

I was raised the old-fashioned way, with a stern set of moral principles: Never lie, cheat, steal or knowingly spread a venereal disease. Never speed up to hit a pedestrian or, or course, stop to kick a pedestrian who has already been hit. From which it followed, of course, that one would never ever -- on pain of deletion from dozens of Christmas card lists across the country -- vote Republican.
--Barbara Ehrenreich


Friends don't let friends vote Republican!

The only way to make sure people you agree with can speak is to support the rights of people you don't agree with.
--Eleanor Holmes Norton


Free speech is for everyone, even those who offend us.

Once a government is committed to the principle of silencing the voice of opposition, it has only one way to go, and that is down the path of increasingly repressive measures, until it becomes a source of terror to all its citizens and creates a country where everyone lives in fear.
--Harry S Truman


Truman said this in response to McCarthyism, but it's still just as true today.

Freedom is not worth having if it does not connote freedom to err.
--Mohandas K. Gandhi


This is why "nanny laws" are wrong and misguided. Freedom connotes the right to either learn or not learn from the consequences of our actions that don't affect the rights of others.


5 comments:

Melissa said...

I so agree this quote!

A room without books is like a body without a soul.
--Cicero

The people without books are indeed boring....

Great quotes Will...

Anonymous said...

I think it's incredibly naive to say that the rich don't work as hard as the poor. I have dozens of friends who are rich and poor -- the rich tend to work the hardest. Does this mean they are better? No, I'm not saying that.

But it is a bit silly to say that the poor work harder, per person, than someone who gets paid more. This is especially true in a country with super-high income mobility.

Income mobility is the idea that poor people can become rich. My father was born poor, never went to college, and owns a radio station now -- he had to bust his back.

That said, the quote tends to reflect what I think is a sad state of events, something that is creeping up in the US, as well as many other countries. That is, the rich are seen as someone who can be made fun of.

If I make fun of the poor and generalize, I'll be slammed. But not so for the rich.

We need to stop thinking in terms of "rich" and "poor" people, and focus on the individuals. Generalization of character is a reflection of bad character. :)

Libertine said...

I think the thing with rich people is that most people perceive that the rich can take care of themselves and can let such criticism roll down their backs much easier than can the poor, who must take a lot of guff in their everyday lives, as their jobs often depend on it.

And, of course, many rich people work hard and many poor people do become rich. Nor do all rich people wish for the poor to remain poor. That wasn't really my point.

My point was compare the labor intensiveness and disagreeableness of jobs that pay little to high paying careers. Mental labor, usually more prevalent in high paying jobs is usually a hell of a lot more agreeable than busting your back and ruining your health for little pay.

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