quoth/tag/politics

Quote #3165

Sun, 25 Apr 2010 12:06:11 -0700

The best argument against democracy is a five minute conversation with the average voter.
- Winston Churchill

Quote #3159

Sun, 25 Apr 2010 11:58:21 -0700

I predict future happiness for Americans if they can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them.
- Thomas Jefferson

Quote #3158

Sun, 25 Apr 2010 11:57:51 -0700

A wise and frugal government, which shall leave men free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned - this is the sum of good government.
- Thomas Jefferson

Quote #3157

Sun, 25 Apr 2010 11:56:22 -0700

Their goal of organizing society never changes, the excuse does.
- Chris Horner
Dennis Miller Show 04-20-2010

Quote #3156

Sun, 25 Apr 2010 11:54:31 -0700

Knowledge of human nature is the beginning and end of political education.
- Henry Adams

Quote #3030

Sat, 04 Apr 2009 17:32:29 -0700

Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man's character, give him power.
- Abraham Lincoln

Quote #2999

Thu, 29 Jan 2009 01:16:46 -0800

That's what's wrong with liberalism. While it pretends not to preach, it quietly decides who lives and dies.
Blog post »

Quote #2989

Sun, 07 Dec 2008 04:31:17 -0800

Political correctness employs the means of traditional morality, especially shame, less to silence certain opinions than to make them unthinkable.
- Steven Lenzner
Article »

Quote #2987

Fri, 28 Nov 2008 09:40:48 -0800

The whole modern world has divided itself into Conservatives and Progressives. The business of Progressives is to go on making mistakes. The business of the Conservatives is to prevent the mistakes from being corrected.
- G. K. Chesterton

Quote #2974

Wed, 19 Nov 2008 02:08:19 -0800

To everyone who said, "I am pro-life, but I will vote for a pro-abortion candidate this time," I say now is the time to prove your commitment to the unborn. March for truth and justice. Flood the White House and Congress with messages that you do not agree with the slaughter of innocent children. Stand up for "the least of these".

- Alveda King (niece of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.)

Quote #2973

Sat, 15 Nov 2008 15:44:14 -0800

How does one determine when a law is just or unjust? A just law is a man-made code that squares with the moral law or the law of God. An unjust law is a code that is out of harmony with the moral law. To put it in the terms of Saint Thomas Aquinas, an unjust law is a human law that is not rooted in eternal and natural law.
- Martin Luther King, Jr.
Essay: Letter from a Birmingham Jail

Quote #2966

Sat, 08 Nov 2008 20:41:01 -0800

A culture is perennially in need of renewal. A culture does not survive and prosper merely by being taken for granted; active defense is always required, and imaginative growth, too.
- Russell Kirk

Quote #2965

Fri, 07 Nov 2008 11:16:52 -0800

Conservatism always has been and always will be a force to reckon with because it most closely approximates the reality of the human condition, based, as it is, on the cumulative judgment and experience of a people. It is the heir, not the apostate, to the accumulated wisdom, morality and faith of the people.
- Tony Blankley
Essay: To Conservatives Who Are Thinking About Tomorrow

Quote #2964

Fri, 07 Nov 2008 10:46:54 -0800

Most Eugenists are Euphemists. I mean merely that short words startle them, while long words soothe them. And they are utterly incapable of translating the one into the other, however obviously they mean the same thing. Say to them "The persuasive and even coercive powers of the citizen should enable him to make sure that the burden of longevity in the previous generation does not become disproportionate and intolerable, especially to the females"; say this to them and they will sway slightly to and fro like babies sent to sleep in cradles. Say to them "Murder your mother," and they sit up quite suddenly. Yet the two sentences, in cold logic, are exactly the same.
- G.K. Chesterton

Quote #2963

Sat, 01 Nov 2008 11:17:43 -0700

The reformer is always right about what is wrong. He is generally wrong about what is right.

- G.K. Chesterton

Quote #2962

Sat, 01 Nov 2008 11:10:36 -0700

When the essential connection between freedom and truth is severed, then democracy itself is in jeopardy. Freedom no longer anchored to the truth quickly becomes the freedom of the strong against the weak.
- Archbishop Joseph Naumann
Speech:

Quote #2954

Sat, 04 Oct 2008 22:13:31 -0700

All direct attacks on innocent human life, such as abortion and euthanasia, strike at the house's foundation. These directly and immediately violate the human person's most fundamental right -- the right to life. Neglect of these issues is the equivalent of building our house on sand.
- U.S. Catholic Bishops
Essay: Living the Gospel of Life: A Challenge to American Catholics, 23

Quote #2953

Sat, 04 Oct 2008 21:42:44 -0700

Consider this: The finest health and education systems, the fairest immigration laws, and the soundest economy do nothing for the child who never sees the light of day. It is a tragic irony that "pro-choice" candidates have come to support homicide -- the gravest injustice a society can tolerate -- in the name of "social justice."
- Bishop Joseph Martino
Link »

Quote #2952

Sun, 28 Sep 2008 04:24:20 -0700

Even if, theoretically, a pro-choice candidate's agenda were to reduce the incidence of abortion, it would be gains built on sand as long as the law continues to call evil good and good evil. It is the first and most fundamental responsibility of civil society to safeguard the right to life of every member of the community. The law must recognize this first and most fundamental duty before it can begin to fulfill it. In our society today, the juridical fiat, functioning as law, that the right to end innocent human life is guaranteed in our nation's foundational legal document subverts the whole basis of civil law and jurisprudence more critically than any other injustice we face... In American rule of law as we know it today, the fiction of the "right to choose" is the knife in the heart of justice. Or the scissors in the back of the skull.
- Steven Greydanus
Blog post »

Quote #2950

Sun, 28 Sep 2008 04:18:56 -0700

Above all, the common outcry, which is justly made on behalf of human rights -- for example, the right to health, to home, to work, to family, to culture -- is false and illusory if the right to life, the most basic and fundamental right and the condition for all other personal rights, is not defended with maximum determination.
- Pope John Paul II
Essay: Christifideles Laici, 38

Quote #2949

Sun, 28 Sep 2008 04:15:42 -0700

It is impossible to further the common good without acknowledging and defending the right to life, upon which all the other inalienable rights of individuals are founded and from which they develop. A society lacks solid foundations when, on the one hand, it asserts values such as the dignity of the person, justice and peace, but then, on the other hand, radically acts to the contrary by allowing or tolerating a variety of ways in which human life is devalued and violated, especially where it is weak or marginalized. Only respect for life can be the foundation and guarantee of the most precious and essential goods of society, such as democracy and peace.
- Pope John Paul II
Essay: Evangelium Vitae, 101

Quote #2946

Sat, 20 Sep 2008 19:46:52 -0700

Being a truly advanced white person means being able to speak with authority about pretty much any field of conversation--especially politics. In order for white people to streamline the process of knowing everything, all human beings can be neatly filed into one of two categories: People I Agree With, and People Who are Just Like Adolf Hitler.
- Isaac Amirian
Blog post »

Quote #2945

Mon, 15 Sep 2008 00:24:41 -0700

The greatest destroyer of love and peace is abortion, which is war against the child. The mother doesn't learn to love, but kills to solve her own problems. Any country that accepts abortion is not teaching its people to love, but to use any violence to get what they want.
- Bl. Mother Teresa

Quote #2944

Thu, 11 Sep 2008 14:37:10 -0700

If abortion isn't wrong, then nothing is wrong.
- Bl. Mother Teresa

Quote #2943

Thu, 11 Sep 2008 14:36:18 -0700

Finally, true freedom is not advanced in the permissive society, which confuses freedom with license to do anything whatever and which in the name of freedom proclaims a kind of general amorality. It is a caricature of freedom to claim that people are free to organize their lives with no reference to moral values, and to say that society does not have to ensure the protection and advancement of ethical values. Such an attitude is destructive of freedom and peace. There are many examples of this mistaken idea of freedom, such as the elimination of human life by legalized or generally accepted abortion.
- Pope John Paul II

Quote #2942

Thu, 11 Sep 2008 14:33:49 -0700

Abortion concerns not just the unborn child, it concerns every one of us.
The English poet, John Donne, wrote: ". . . any man's death diminishes me,
because I am involved in mankind; and therefore never send to know for
whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee."
- Ronald Reagan

Quote #2941

Thu, 11 Sep 2008 14:27:35 -0700

The more serious problem for Joe Biden at this point is not the loss of his credibility as a Catholic, but as a person of conscience. When you say on national television that you agree with your Church that abortion is murder, but that you intend to support legislation that keeps abortion fully available, you leave voters wondering why you would support a right to what you consider to be murder.
- Father Thomas D. Williams, LC.
Article: “The Gospel According to Joe Biden,” National Review

Quote #2908

Sun, 03 Aug 2008 21:09:21 -0700

I hope we shall crush in its birth the aristocracy of our monied corporations which dare already to challenge our government to a trial by strength, and bid defiance to the laws of our country.
- Thomas Jefferson

Quote #2786

Sun, 06 Jan 2008 20:52:58 -0800

In the past pagans sacrificed animals and even humans in vain attempts to placate capricious and cruel gods. Today they demand a reduction in carbon dioxide emissions.
- Cardinal George Pell
Link »

Quote #2733

Sun, 09 Sep 2007 13:51:25 -0700

The fundamental human right, the presupposition of every other right, is the right to life itself. This is true of life from the moment of conception until its natural end. Abortion, consequently, cannot be a human right--it is the very opposite.
- Pope Benedict XVI
Speech: Austria, 7 Sept. 2007

Quote #2649

Sun, 08 Apr 2007 22:16:24 -0700

Reader, suppose you were an idiot. And suppose you were a member of Congress. But, I repeat myself.
- Mark Twain
Manuscript Note, c.1882

Quote #2642

Thu, 22 Mar 2007 06:36:51 -0700

It's possible to be a conservative without appearing to be an idiot.
- Roscoe Bartlett - Republican from Maryland
Article »

Quote #2609

Sat, 03 Mar 2007 10:48:25 -0800

Highly intelligent people are mostly atheists. Not a single member of either house of Congress admits to being an atheist. It just doesn't add up. Either they're stupid, or they're lying. And have they got a motive for lying? Of course they've got a motive! Everybody knows that an atheist can't get elected.
- Richard Dawkins
Article »

Quote #2558

Mon, 12 Feb 2007 05:09:49 -0800

Arnold Schwarzenegger is the governor of California. ...there's a perfectly ordinary English sentence. How did that happen! You know how that happened? 'Cause I'll tell you. You know how we got into that position? He got there - by lifting things. Now you and me, we avoid lifting things. It's unpleasant. Especially heavy things. Even a five-year-old child knows this. [...] You know, you lift something when you have to. Piano falls on Granny, you lift the piano. 'Cause Granny has mixed feelings about the whole situation. Sunday lunch continues. He didn't do any of that! He went right over to the heavy thing and lifted it and put it back down and didn't move it anywhere. And then he lifted it again, hundreds of times. And said, to the people who had stopped to observe this abhorrent behaviour: "Look how good I am, at lifting the heavy thing. In my underpants." Now *that* sounds a little dim. But it was *they* who said: "You are the man. You're the one we want to deal with immigration and water rates and taxes and all that kind of shit."
- Dylan Moran
Like, Totally… Dylan Moran Live

Quote #2554

Tue, 30 Jan 2007 17:06:07 -0800

Society dissolves as people discover their individuality. The trick is to create a society that honors both the community and the individual without placing one at a disadvantage to the other. America comes close, doing it through mere anarchy, which is how it should be done, to ride as close to the cusp of totally flying to pieces as you can. I love America. The fact that it tolerates me, doesn't bug me, indicates that it's a great, great system.
- Terrence McKenna
Book: Tripping by Charles Hayes, page 446

Quote #2535

Mon, 04 Dec 2006 14:36:58 -0800

The most important political office is that of the private citizen.
- Louis D. Brandeis

Quote #2532

Sat, 25 Nov 2006 18:18:28 -0800

You begin saving the world by saving one man at a time; all else is grandiose romanticism or politics.
- Charles Bukowski

Quote #2520

Sat, 25 Nov 2006 13:09:38 -0800

You philosophers are lucky men. You write on paper and paper is patient. Unfortunate Empress that I am, I write on the susceptible skins of living beings.
- Catherine the Great

Quote #2514

Sat, 25 Nov 2006 11:47:27 -0800

You shouldn't speak until you know what you're talking about. That's why I get uncomfortable with interviews. Reporters ask me what I feel China should do about Tibet. Who cares what I think China should do? I'm a f***ing actor! They hand me a script. I act. I'm here for entertainment, basically, when you whittle everything away. I'm a grown man who puts on makeup.
- Brad Pitt

Quote #2467

Tue, 17 Oct 2006 09:34:00 -0700

It does once again prove the old adage--for the Democrats--that 'obsolete power corrupts obsoletely'.
- Jon Stewart
TV: The Daily Show: 16 October 2006

Quote #2456

Thu, 05 Oct 2006 14:28:19 -0700

What would you do if you were stuck in the elevator with the president, just you and him?
Would you scream? Would you laugh? Would you offer him gum? Would you say things to make him your friend?
What would you do if you were stuck for ten hours? Would you listen? Ask questions? And how?
What would it be that you'd say to the president? And why aren't you saying it now?
- Ze Frank
Blog post »

Quote #2411

Sun, 30 Jul 2006 12:17:36 -0700

People who want to share their religious or political views with you almost never want you to share your's with them.
- Dave Barry

Quote #2370

Wed, 28 Jun 2006 19:20:49 -0700

I have no wealth or popular relations to recommend me. My case is thrown exclusively upon the independent voters of this country, and if elected they will have conferred a favor upon me, for which I shall be unremitting in my labors to compensate. But if the good people in their wisdom shall see fit to keep me in the background, I have been too familiar with disappointments to be very much chagrined.
- Abraham Lincoln - on his candidacy in 1832

Quote #2365

Mon, 26 Jun 2006 10:26:11 -0700

CNN is one of the participants in the war. I have a fantasy where Ted Turner is elected president but refuses because he doesn't want to give up power.
- Arthur C. Clarke

Quote #2354

Sat, 24 Jun 2006 20:09:11 -0700

The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace in a continual state of alarm (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing them with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.
- H.L. Mencken

Quote #2338

Mon, 19 Jun 2006 19:42:26 -0700

Those who are too smart to engage in politics are punished be being governed by those who are dumber.
- Plato

Quote #2324

Wed, 07 Jun 2006 01:30:48 -0700

Belonging to a party like Democratic or Republican is awesome. Usually when you give yourself a label you actually have to *do* something. If you only took a one-hour jog every four years you couldn't call yourself a runner.
- Ze Frank
Blog post »

Quote #2263

Tue, 02 May 2006 10:09:39 -0700

Sir, pay no attention to the people who say the glass is half empty, because 32% means it's 2/3 empty. There's still some liquid in that glass is my point, but I wouldn't drink it. The last third is usually backwash.
- Stephen Colbert
Link »

Quote #2262

Tue, 02 May 2006 05:51:44 -0700

In religion and politics, people's beliefs and convictions are in almost every case gotten at second hand, and without examination.
- Mark Twain

Quote #2250

Wed, 26 Apr 2006 16:37:25 -0700

Did the Bells create the Internet? Did the cable companies create the Internet? The answer is no. The Internet was built on a different model, a public interest model, funded by American taxpayers.
- Edward Markey, Democratic member of the United States House of Representatives
Article »