Thursday, February 09, 2012

Great Words



Great stuff to memorize and recite at dinner parties and get gravitas


 

  1. In my many years I have come to a conclusion that one useless man is a shame, two is a law firm and three or more is a congress. -- John Adams
  2.  If you don't read the newspaper you are uninformed, if you do read the newspaper you are misinformed.-- Mark Twain
  3.  Suppose you were an idiot. And suppose you were a member of Congress. But then I repeat myself. -- Mark Twain
  4.  I contend that for a nation to try to tax itself into prosperity is like a man standing in a bucket and trying to lift himself up by the handle. -- Winston Churchill
  5. A government which robs Peter to pay Paul can always depend on the support of Paul. -- George Bernard Shaw
  6. A liberal is someone who feels a great debt to his fellow man, which debt he proposes to payoff with your money.-- G. Gordon Liddy
  7. Democracy must be something more than two wolves and a sheep voting on what to have for dinner.-- James Bovard, Civil Libertarian (1994)
  8. Foreign aid might be defined as a transfer of money from poor people in rich countries to rich people in poor countries. -- Douglas Casey, Classmate of Bill Clinton at Georgetown University
  9. Giving money and power to government is like giving whiskey and car keys to teenage boys. -- P.J. O'Rourke, Civil Libertarian
  10. Government is the great fiction, through which everybody endeavors to live at the expense of everybody else. -- Frederic Bastiat, French economist(1801-1850)
  11. Government's view of the economy could be summed up in a few short phrases: If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. And if it stops moving, subsidize it.-- Ronald Reagan(1986)
  12.  I don't make jokes. I just watch the government and report the facts. -- Will Rogers
  13. If you think health care is expensive now, wait until you see what it costs when it's free! -- P.J. O'Rourke
  14. In general, the art of government consists of taking as much money as possible from one party of the citizens to give to the other. -- Voltaire(1764)
  15. Just because you do not take an interest in politics doesn't mean politics won't take an interest in you!-- Pericles (430B.C.)
  16. No man's life, liberty, or property is safe while the legislature is in session. -- Mark Twain(1866)
  17. Talk is cheap...except when Congress does it. -Anonymous
  18. The government is like a baby's alimentary canal, with a happy appetite at one end and no responsibility at the other. -- Ronald Reagan
  19. The inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of the blessings. The inherent blessing of socialism is the equal sharing of misery. -- Winston Churchill
  20. The only difference between a tax man and a taxidermist is that the taxidermist leaves the skin. -- Mark Twain
  21. The ultimate result of shielding men from the effects of folly is to fill the world with fools. -- Herbert Spencer, English Philosopher (1820-1903)
  22. There is no distinctly native American criminal class...save Congress. -- Mark Twain
  23. What this country needs are more unemployed politicians. -- Edward Langley, Artist (1928-1995)
  24. A government big enough to give you everything you want, is strong enough to take everything you have.-- Thomas Jefferson
  25. We hang the petty thieves and appoint the great ones to public office. --Aesop

FIVE BEST SENTENCES

  1. You cannot legislate the poor into prosperity, by legislating the wealth out of prosperity.
  2. What one person receives without working for...another person must work for without receiving.
  3. The government cannot give to anybody anything that the government does not first take from somebody else.
  4. You cannot multiply wealth by dividing it..
  5. When half of the people get the idea that they do not have to work, because the other half is going to take care of them, and when the other half gets the ideathat it does no good to work, because somebody else is going to get what they work for, that is the beginning of the end of any nation!

    cuzzin ricky
     



9 comments:

Anonymous said...

Truths so simple, elegant and eternal. Any yet I still must stand in line at the liquor store with those that defy their each and every notion. Phewy, I say.

j_c_

Anonymous said...

And she's looking for a taco joint, which reminds me of this story: http://tinyurl.com/8838xxh

Skoonj said...

In #22, the capitalization makes it look like Twain's talking about Indians. He's not.

BobG said...

I've always believed that the federal government should have the motto:

"If it ain't broke, we'll fix it until it is."

Rodger the Real King of France said...

good catch skoonj, and duly fixed.

Anonymous said...

A quote from the late Dr. Adrian Rogers, 1931–2005: "You cannot legislate the poor into freedom by legislating the wealthy out of freedom. What one person receives without working for, another person must work for without receiving. The government cannot give to anybody anything that the government does not first take from somebody else. When half of the people get the idea that they do not have to work because the other half is going to take care of them, and when the other half gets the idea that it does no good to work because somebody else is going to get what they work for, that my dear friend, is about the end of any nation. You cannot multiply wealth by dividing it."

Kim said...

1. No wonder the Democrat Party loves trial lawyers: both groups survive by creating a class of victims, then enriching them -- at the expense of the productive.

2. The New York Times is to the truth what child molestation is to parenting.

3. Socialism attempts to suppress human nature, capitalism simply tends to exacerbates it, and libertarianism tries to ignore it.

You're welcome.

TechnoYid said...

There is this, that I heard from Dennis Prager on a radio show a few years ago:

"The foolishness of that comment is so deep, I can only ascribe it to higher education."

Anonymous said...

I could add to that list extensively:

"A new public opinion must be created privately and unobtrusively. The existing one is maintained by the press, by propaganda, by organization, and by financial and other influences which are at its disposal. The unnatural way of spreading ideas must be opposed by the natural one, which goes from man to man and relies solely on the truth of the thoughts and the hearer's receptiveness for new truth." - Albert Schweitzer

"I am for doing good to the poor, but I differ in opinion of the means. I think the best way of doing good to the poor, is not making them easy in poverty, but leading or driving them out of it." - Benjamin Franklin

"Nobody spends somebody else's money as carefully as he spends his own. Nobody uses somebody else's resources as carefully as he uses his own. So if you want efficiency and effectiveness, if you want knowledge to be properly utilized, you have to do it through the means of private property." - Milton Friedman

"If you can't afford it, you don't deserve it." - Anonymous

"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

“Our people look for a cause to believe in. Is it a third party we need, or is it a new and revitalized second party, raising a banner of no pale pastels, but bold colors which make it unmistakably clear where we stand on all of the issues troubling the people?” - Ronald Reagan

"Now, so there will be no misunderstanding, it is not my intention to do away with government. It is, rather, to make it work - work with us, not over us; to stand by our side, not ride on our back. Government can and must provide opportunity, not smother it; foster productivity, not stifle it." - Ronald Reagan

“The budget should be balanced, the Treasury should be refilled, public debt should be reduced, the arrogance of officialdom should be tempered and controlled, and the assistance to foreign lands should be curtailed lest Rome become bankrupt. People must again learn to work, instead of living on public assistance.” - Cicero 106 - 43 BC

"If you put the federal government in charge of the Sahara Desert, in 5 years there'd be a shortage of sand." - Milton Friedman

"He don't know Diddley." - Bo Diddley

I could go on and on. Been collecting them for years, like Rodger collects pictures.
GrinfilledCelt

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