"The Nation that makes a great distinction between its scholars and its warriors will have its thinking done by cowards and its fighting done by fools."
— Spartan king quoted by Thucydides

"The object of life is not to be on the side of the majority, but to escape finding oneself in the ranks of the insane."
— Marcus Aurelius

"A government that is big enough to give you all you want is big enough to take it all away."
— Barry Goldwater

"Liberals claim to want to give a hearing to other views, but then are shocked and offended to discover that there are other views."
— William F. Buckley Jr.

"It is the soldier, not the reporter, who has given us freedom of the press. It is the soldier, not the poet, who has given us freedom of speech. It is the soldier, not the campus organizer, who has given us the freedom to demonstrate. It is the soldier, who salutes the flag, who serves beneath the flag and whose coffin is draped by the flag, who allows the protester to burn the flag."
— Jeremiah A. Denton Jr.

"War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things; the decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks nothing worth a war, is worse. A man who has nothing which he cares more about than he does about his personal safety is a miserable creature who has no chance at being free, unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself."
— John Stuart Mill

"A man should never be ashamed to own that he has been in the wrong, which is but saying in other words that he is wiser today than he was yesterday."
— Alexander Pope

"The future has already arrived. It's just not evenly distributed yet."
— William Gibson

"The street finds its own uses for things."
— William Gibson

"Technology is a word that describes something that doesn't work yet."
— Douglas Adams

"The man who does not read good books has no advantage over the man who can't read them."
— Mark Twain

"Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of them pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing ever happened."
— Winston S. Churchill

"The hallmark of intelligence is not whether one believes in God or not, but the quality of the processes that underlie one’s beliefs."
— Alister E. McGrath

"Above all, we must realize that no arsenal, or no weapon in the arsenals of the world, is so formidable as the will and moral courage of free men and women."
— Ronald Reagan

"Always read stuff that will make you look good if you die in the middle of it."
— P.J. O'Rourke

"Citizens by birth or choice of a common country, that country has a right to concentrate your affections. The name of American, which belongs to you, in your national capacity, must always exalt the just pride of Patriotism, more than any appellation derived from local discriminations."
— George Washington

"Entertainers wrongly assume that their fame, money, and influence arise from broad knowledge rather than natural talent, looks, or mastery of a narrow skill."
— Victor Davis Hanson

"When I was a kid I used to pray every night for a new bike. Then I realised that The Lord doesn't work that way, so I stole one and asked Him to forgive me."
— Peter Kay

"When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things.

For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known.

And now abideth faith, hope, charity, these three; but the greatest of these is charity."
— Various (The Bible - King James Version)

"Let the word go forth from this time and place, to friend and foe alike, that the torch has been passed to a new generation of Americans, born in this century, tempered by war, disciplined by a hard and bitter peace, proud of our ancient heritage, and unwilling to witness or permit the slow undoing of those human rights to which this nation has always been committed, and to which we are committed today at home and around the world. Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe to assure the survival and the success of liberty."
— John F. Kennedy

"War is an ill thing, as I surely know. But 'twould be an ill world for weaponless dreamers if evil men were not now and then slain."
— Rudyard Kipling

"America is the greatest engine of innovation that has ever existed, and it can't be duplicated anytime soon, because it is the product of a multitude of factors: extreme freedom of thought, an emphasis on independent thinking, a steady immigration of new minds, a risk-taking culture with no stigma attached to trying and failing, a noncorrupt bureaucracy, and financial markets and a venture capital system that are unrivaled at taking new ideas and turning them into global products."
— Thomas L. Friedman

"We are not afraid to entrust the American people with unpleasant facts, foreign ideas, alien philosophies, and competitive values. For a nation that is afraid to let its people judge the truth and falsehood in an open market is a nation that is afraid of its people."
— John F. Kennedy

"It is better to keep your mouth closed and let people think you are a fool than to open it and remove all doubt."
— Mark Twain

"Whenever I feel the need to exercise, I lie down until it goes away."
— Robert Maynard Hutchins

"I believe that a scientist looking at nonscientific problems is just as dumb as the next guy."
— Richard P. Feynman

"No government has the right to decide on the truth of scientific principles, nor to prescribe in any way the character of the questions investigated. Neither may a government determine the aesthetic value of artistic creations, nor limit the forms of literacy or artistic expression. Nor should it pronounce on the validity of economic, historic, religious, or philosophical doctrines. Instead it has a duty to its citizens to maintain the freedom, to let those citizens contribute to the further adventure and the development of the human race."
— Richard P. Feynman

"Most of the energy of political work is devoted to correcting the effects of mismanagement of government."
— Milton Friedman

"I think that nothing is so important for freedom as recognizing in the law each individual’s natural right to property, and giving individuals a sense that they own something that they’re responsible for, that they have control over, and that they can dispose of."
— Milton Friedman

"Underlying most arguments against the free market is a lack of belief in freedom itself."
— Milton Friedman

"A society that puts equality before freedom will get neither. A society that puts freedom before equality will get a high degree of both."
— Milton Friedman

"One of the great mistakes is to judge policies and programs by their intentions rather than their results."
— Milton Friedman

"With some notable exceptions, businessmen favor free enterprise in general but are opposed to it when it comes to themselves."
— Milton Friedman

"Freedom is not empowerment. Empowerment is what the Serbs have in Bosnia. Anybody can grab a gun and be empowered. It's not entitlement. An entitlement is what people on welfare get, and how free are they? It's not an endlessly expanding list of rights -- the "right" to education, the "right" to food and housing. That's not freedom, that's dependency. Those aren't rights, those are the rations of slavery -- hay and a barn for human cattle. There is only one basic human right, the right to do as you damn well please. And with it comes the only basic human duty, the duty to take the consequences."
— P.J. O'Rourke

"There is no virtue in compulsory government charity, and there is no virtue in advocating it. A politician who portrays himself as "caring" and "sensitive" because he wants to expand the government's charitable programs is merely saying that he's willing to try to do good with other people's money. Well, who isn't? And a voter who takes pride in supporting such programs is telling us that he'll do good with his own money -- if a gun is held to his head."
— P.J. O'Rourke

"Of course, to a true geek, the glass is neither half-full nor half-empty. It's twice as big as it currently needs to be, though a reasonable reserve margin is not a bad thing to have ready, just in case."
— David S. Platt (Why Software Sucks...and What You Can Do About It)

"The race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, neither yet bread to the wise, nor yet riches to men of understanding, nor yet favour to men of skill; but time and chance happeneth to them all. "
— Ecclesiastes 9:11

"Arguing with anonymous strangers on the Internet is a sucker's game because they almost always turn out to be—or to be indistinguishable from—self-righteous sixteen-year-olds possessing infinite amounts of free time."
— Neal Stephenson (Cryptonomicon)

"Socialism is a philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance, and the gospel of envy, its inherent virtue is the equal sharing of misery. "
— Winston S. Churchill

"Every election is a sort of advance auction sale of stolen goods."
— H.L. Mencken

"The college idealists who fill the ranks of the environmental movement seem willing to do absolutely anything to save the biosphere, except take science courses and learn something about it."
— P.J. O'Rourke

"When buying and selling are controlled by legislation, the first things to be bought and sold are legislators."
— P.J. O'Rourke

"The Clinton administration launched an attack on people in Texas because those people were religious nuts with guns. Hell, this country was founded by religious nuts with guns. Who does Bill Clinton think stepped ashore on Plymouth Rock?"
— P.J. O'Rourke

"The second item in the liberal creed, after self-righteousness, is unaccountability. Liberals have invented whole college majors--psychology, sociology, women's studies--to prove that nothing is anybody's fault. No one is fond of taking responsibility for his actions, but consider how much you'd have to hate free will to come up with a political platform that advocates killing unborn babies but not convicted murderers. A callous pragmatist might favor abortion and capital punishment. A devout Christian would sanction neither. But it takes years of therapy to arrive at the liberal view.
"
— P.J. O'Rourke

"The free market is ugly and stupid, like going to the mall; the unfree market is just as ugly and just as stupid, except there is nothing in the mall and if you don't go there they shoot you.
"
— P.J. O'Rourke

"To grasp the true meaning of socialism, imagine a world where everything is designed by the post office, even the sleaze.
"
— P.J. O'Rourke

"Giving money and power to government is like giving whiskey and car keys to teenage boys."
— P.J. O'Rourke

"Ordinary fools are all right; you can talk to them, and try to help them out. But pompous fools-guys who are fools and are covering it all over and impressing people as to how wonderful they are with all this hocus pocus-THAT, I CANNOT STAND! An ordinary fool isn't a faker; an honest fool is all right. But a dishonest fool is terrible!"
— Richard P. Feynman

"If no set of moral ideas were truer or better than any other, there would be no sense in preferring civilized morality to savage morality.
"
— C. S. Lewis

"Animals might put up with that smiley shit, but people will eventually kill you for it."
— Christopher Moore (Fluke: Or, I Know Why the Winged Whale Sings)