Doug > Doug's Quotes

“The people cannot be all, and always, well informed. The part which is wrong will be discontented, in proportion to the importance of the facts they misconceive. If they remain quiet under such misconceptions, it is lethargy, the forerunner of death to the public liberty. ... What country before ever existed a century and half without a rebellion? And what country can preserve its liberties if their rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms. The remedy is to set them right as to facts, pardon and pacify them. What signify a few lives lost in a century or two? The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure.”
― Thomas Jefferson, Letters of Thomas Jefferson

“Congressmen who willfully take action during wartime that damages morale and undermine the military are saboteurs and should be arrested, exiled, or hung”
― Abraham Lincoln

“What we do for ourselves dies with us. What we do for others and the world remains and is immortal.”
― Albert Pike

“No dumb bastard ever won a war by going out and dying for his country. He won it by making some other dumb bastard die for his country.”
― George S. Patton Jr.

“When Hitler declared war on the United States, he was betting that German soldiers, raised up in the Hitler Youth, would always out fight American soldiers, brought up in the Boy Scouts. He lost that bet. The Boy Scouts had been taught how to figure their way out of their own problems.”
― Stephen Ambrose

“Let us tenderly and kindly cherish therefore, the means of knowledge. Let us dare to read, think, speak, and write .”
― John Adams, The works of John Adams,: Second President of the United States

“Never question another man's motive. His wisdom, yes, but not his motives.”
― Dwight D. Eisenhower

“Never send a battalion to take a hill if a regiment is available.”
― Dwight D. Eisenhower

“Extremes to the right and to the left of any political dispute are always wrong.”
― Dwight D. Eisenhower

“Why should we take advice on sex from the pope? If he knows anything about it, he shouldn't!”
― George Bernard Shaw

“Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind.”
― Albert Einstein

“Yes, reason has been a part of organized religion, ever since two nudists took dietary advice from a talking snake.”
― Jon Stewart

“One would go mad if one took the Bible seriously; but to take it seriously one must be already mad.”
― Aleister Crowley, Magick: Liber ABA: Book 4

“The legitimate powers of government extend to such acts only as are injurious to others. It does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods or no god. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg.”
― Thomas Jefferson

“From this day to the ending of the world,
But we in it shall be remembered-
We few, we happy few, we band of brothers;
For he to-day that sheds his blood with me
Shall be my brother; be he ne’er so vile,
This day shall gentle his condition;
And gentlemen in England now-a-bed
Shall think themselves accurs’d they were not here,
And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks
That fought with us upon Saint Crispin’s day.”
― William Shakespeare, Henry V

“I'd take the awe of understanding over the awe of ignorance any day.”
― Douglas Adams, The Salmon of Doubt: Hitchhiking the Galaxy One Last Time

“Religion is excellent stuff for keeping common people quiet. Religion is what keeps the poor from murdering the rich.”
― Napoleon Bonaparte

“Epicurus's old questions are still unanswered: Is he (God) willing to prevent evil, but not able? then he is impotent. Is he able, but not willing? then he is malevolent. Is he both able and willing? then whence evil?”
― David Hume

“Who knew that the devil had a factory where he made millions of fossils, which his minions distributed throughout the earth, in order to confuse my tiny brain?”
― Lewis Black, Me of Little Faith

“I find the whole business of religion profoundly interesting. But it does mystify me that otherwise intelligent people take it seriously.”
― Douglas Adams

“People think it must be fun to be a super genius, but they don't realize how hard it is to put up with all the idiots in the world.”
― Bill Watterson, The Calvin and Hobbes Tenth Anniversary Book

“It’s just as easy to be exclusive as it is to be inclusive, just as easy to create an Us as a Them. Benji has never been worried about being beaten up or hated if anyone finds out the truth about him; he’s been hated by every opposing team since he was a child. The only thing he’s scared of is that one day there will be jokes that his teammates and coach won’t tell when he’s in the room. The exclusivity of laughter.”
― Fredrik Backman, Beartown