Yearly Archives: 2002

“Macs for productivity, Linux for stability, Windows for solitaire”
— Unknown

“If we wait for the moment when everything, absolutely everything is ready, we shall never begin.”
— Ivan Turgenev

“Whenever a programmer thinks, ‘Hey, skins, what a cool idea’, their computer’s speakers should create some sort of cock-shaped soundwave and plunge it repeatedly through their skulls.”
— Matt Robinson, in Jamie Zawinski’s LiveJournal blog

“I fully support your proposed audio-cock technology.”
— Jamie Zawinski, in reply to Matt Robinson’s post

“It’s odd. People understand instinctively that the best way for computer programs to communicate with each other is for each of the them to be strict in what they emit, and liberal in what they accept. The odd thing is that people themselves are not willing to be strict in how they speak, and liberal in how they listen. You’d think that would also be obvious.”
— Larry Wall, “2nd State of the Onion”

“My religion consists of a humble admiration of the illimitable superior spirit who reveals himself in the slight details we are able to perceive with our frail and feeble minds. That deeply emotional conviction of the presence of a superior reasoning power, which is revealed in the incomprehensible universe, forms my idea of God.”
— Albert Einstein

Many thanks to James Besemer for this list.

A government which robs Peter to pay Paul can always depend on the
support of Paul. –George Bernard Shaw

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

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 (1993)

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)

Foreign aid might be defined as a transfer from poor people in rich
countries to rich people in poor countries. –Douglas Casey (1992)

If you want government to intervene domestically, you’re a liberal.
If you want government to intervene overseas, you’re a conservative.
If you want government to intervene everywhere, you’re a moderate. If
you don’t want government to intervene anywhere, you’re an extremist.
–Joseph Sobran (1995)

In general, the art of government consists in taking as much money as
possible from one party of the citizens to give to the other. –Voltaire
(1764)

I don’t make jokes. I just watch the government and report the facts.
–Will Rogers

Giving money and power to government is like giving whiskey and car
keys to teenage boys. –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

Just because you do not take an interest in politics doesn’t mean
politics won’t take an interest in you. –Pericles (430 B.C.)

The ultimate result of shielding men from the effects of folly is to
fill the world with fools. –Herbert Spencer (1891)

No man’s life, liberty, or property are safe while the legislature
is in session. –Mark Twain (1866)

Government is the great fiction, through which everybody endeavors
to live at the expense of everybody else. –Frederic Bastiat

We 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

Democracy must be something more than two wolves and a sheep voting
on what to have for dinner. –James Bovard (1994)

A liberal is someone who feels a great debt to his fellow man, which
debt he proposes to pay off with your money. –G. Gordon Liddy

The only difference between a tax man and a taxidermist is that the
taxidermist leaves the skin. –Mark Twain

If you think health care is expensive now, wait until you see what
it costs when it’s free. –P.J. O’Rourke

What this country needs are more unemployed politicians. –Edward
Langley

The government is like a baby’s alimentary canal, with a happy
appetite at one end and no responsibility at the other. –Ronald Reagan

Suppose you were an idiot. And suppose you were a member of
Congress. But I repeat myself. –Mark Twain

There is no distinctly native American criminal class save Congress.
–Mark Twain

Talk is cheap-except when Congress does it. –Cullen Hightower

Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere,
diagnosing it incorrectly and applying the wrong remedies.– Groucho Marx