"If you cannot convince them, confuse them.” Harry S. Truman Walking is man's best medicine. Hippocrates, the Father of Medicine (460-377 BCE) One who condones evils is just as guilty as the one who perpetrates it. Martin Luther King Jr., civil-rights leader (1929-1968)   Truth never damages a cause that is just. Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi (1869-1948)   If we got one-tenth of what was promised to us in these State of the Union speeches, there wouldn't be any inducement to go to heaven. Will Rogers  If God wanted us to vote, he would have given us candidates. Jay Leno  When I was a boy I was told that anybody could become President; I'm beginning to believe it. Clarence Darrow  Instead of giving a politician the keys to the city, it might be better to change the locks. Doug Larson I offer my opponents a bargain: if they will stop telling lies about us, I will stop telling the truth about them. Adlai Stevenson, campaign speech, 1952  The problem with political jokes is they get elected. Henry Cate, VII  We hang the petty thieves and appoint the great ones to public office. Aesop  Politicians are the same all over. They promise to build a bridge even where there is no river. Nikita Khrushchev  Why pay money to have your family tree traced; go into politics and your opponents will do it for you. Author Unknown Politicians are people who, when they see light at the end of the tunnel, go out and buy some more tunnel. John Quinton Politics is the gentle art of getting votes from the poor and campaign funds from the rich, by promising to protect each from the other. Oscar Ameringer  A politician is a fellow who will lay down your life for his country. Tex Guinan  I have come to the conclusion that politics is too serious a matter to be left to the politicians. Charles de Gaulle     There is no shame West of El Paso.   Sigmund Silber Philosopher, Economist, Management Consultant   There is money to be made from misery.   Sigmund Silber Philosopher, Economist, Management Consultant It is not time for action as action is considered impolite in New Mexico. It is ok to talk about water being a human right but not okay to talk about what to do to have more water. That is a shocking concept. Doing something about a problem? How dare anyone even suggest something like that.  Sigmund Silber Write another poem, sing another song, issue another book with wonderful photos. That is how we handle problems in New Mexico. Sigmund Silber A clay pot sitting in the sun will always be a clay pot. It has to go through the white heat of the furnace to become porcelain. Mildred Witte Stouven "We are double-edged blades, and every time we whet our virtue the return stroke straps our vice." Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862).   The big thieves hang the little ones. Czech proverb   Do unto those downstream as you would have those upstream do unto you.      Wendell Berry Show me a sane man and I will cure him for you. Carl Jung, psychiatrist (1875-1961) Facts do not cease to exist just because they are ignored.  Aldous Huxley   Ambition is like hunger; it obeys no law but its appetite. Josh Billings, columnist and humorist (1818-1885)   The only fence against the world is a thorough knowledge of it. John Locke, philosopher (1632-1704)   It is a truism that almost any sect, cult, or religion will legislate its creed into law if it acquires the political power to do so. Robert A. Heinlein, science-fiction author (1907-1988)   “The price good people pay for indifference to public affairs is to be ruled by evil men.” Plato   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   The exchange between Churchill & Lady Astor:   She said, "If you were my husband I'd give you poison." He said, "If you were my wife, I'd drink it." A member of Parliament to Disraeli:   "Sir, you will either die on the gallows or of some unspeakable disease." "That depends, Sir," said Disraeli, "whether I embrace your policies or your mistress." "He had delusions of adequacy." Walter Kerr "He has all the virtues I dislike and none of the vices I admire." Winston Churchill "I have never killed a man, but I have read many obituaries with great pleasure." - Clarence Darrow "Thank you for sending me a copy of your book; I'll waste no time reading it." - Moses Hadas "I didn't attend the funeral, but I sent a nice letter saying I approved of it." Mark Twain "He has no enemies, but is intensely disliked by his friends.." Oscar Wilde "I am enclosing two tickets to the first night of my new play; bring a friend ... if you have one." - George Bernard Shaw to Winston Churchill "Cannot possibly attend first night, will attend second ... if there is one." Winston Churchill "I feel so miserable without you; it's almost like having you here." Stephen Bishop "I've just learned about his illness. Let's hope it's nothing trivial." Irvin S. Cobb "He is not only dull himself; he is the cause of dullness in others." Samuel Johnson "He is simply a shiver looking for a spine to run up." Paul Keating "In order to avoid being called a flirt, she always yielded easily." Charles, Count Talleyrand "He loves nature in spite of what it did to him." Forrest Tucker "Why do you sit there looking like an envelope without any address on it?" Mark Twain "His mother should have thrown him away and kept the stork." Mae West "Some cause happiness wherever they go; others, whenever they go." Oscar Wilde "He uses statistics as a drunken man uses lamp-posts... for support rather than illumination." Andrew Lang (1844-1912) "He has Van Gogh's ear for music.." Billy Wilder "I've had a perfectly wonderful evening.  But, this wasn't it." Groucho Marx

Fear is the tax that conscience pays to guilt.

George Sewell, physician and writer (1690-1736)
 

We are usually convinced more easily by reasons we have found ourselves than by those which have occurred to others.

Blaise Pascal, philosopher and mathematician (1623-1662)

 

Courts determine questions of law and not justice and even that is questionable.

William M. Turner, (1939- ) 

The world is a looking glass, and gives back to every man the reflection of his own face.

William Makepeace Thackeray, novelist (1811-1863)
 

The most dangerous of all falsehoods is a slightly distorted truth.

Georg Christoph Lichtenberg, scientist and philosopher (1742-1799)
 

Loyalty to a petrified opinion never yet broke a chain or freed a human soul.

Mark Twain, author and humorist (1835-1910)
 

There comes a point when a man must refuse to answer to his leader if he is also to answer to his own conscience.

Hartley Shawcross, barrister, politician, and prosecutor at the Nuremberg War Crimes tribunal (1902-2003)
 

"There is no higher religion than human service. To work for the common good is the greatest creed."

Albert Schweitzer

Every age is fed on illusions, lest men should renounce life early and the human race come to an end.

Joseph Conrad, novelist (1857-1924)
 

"A goal without a plan is just a wish."

Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

To know how to say what other people only think is what makes men poets and sages; and to dare to say what others only dare to think, makes men martyrs or reformers, or both.

Elizabeth Rundle Charles, writer (1828-1896)
 

Happiness is an attitude.  We either make ourselves miserable, or happy and strong.  The amount of work is the same.

Anonymous

Trying to determine what is going on in the world by reading newspapers is like trying to tell the time by watching the second hand of a clock.

Ben Hecht, screenwriter, playwright, novelist, director, and producer (1894-1964)
 

What we think, or what we know, or what we believe is, in the end, of little consequence. The only thing of consequence is what we do.

John Ruskin, author, art critic, and social reformer (1819-1900)

Inquiry is fatal to certainty

Will Durant, Historian (1885-1981)

Power always has to be kept in check; power exercised in secret, especially under the cloak of national security, is doubly dangerous.

William Proxmire, U.S. Senator, reformer (1915-2005)
 

We judge ourselves by what we feel capable of doing, while others judge us by what we have already done.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, poet (1807-1882)
 

You shall judge a man by his foes as well as by his friends.

Joseph Conrad, novelist (1857-1924)
 

You can preach a better sermon with your life than with your lips.

Oliver Goldsmith, writer and physician (1730-1774)
 

There is no shame west of the Pecos especially east of St. Francis Drive in Santa Fe.

Anonymous

He hasn't the sense that God gave a donut.

Anonymous

Extreme justice is extreme injustice.

Marcus Tullius Cicero, statesman, orator, writer (106-43 BCE

When I was young, I admired clever people. Now that I am old, I admire kind people. -Abraham Joshua Heschel, theology professor (1907-1972)

The game of life is the game of boomerangs. Our thoughts, deeds and words return to us sooner or later with astounding accuracy.

Florence Scovel Shinn, writer, artist and teacher (1871-1940)
 

After the game, the king and pawn go into the same box.

Italian Proverb
 

Be good and you will be lonesome.

Mark Twain
 

Walking is man's best medicine.

Hippocrates

Economists are people who wonder if what works in reality can also work in theory. Ronald Regan

Oh, it is excellent to have a giant's strength, but it tyrannous to use it like a giant

William Shakespeare

A man is not idle because he is absorbed in thought.  There is a visible labor and there is an invisible labor.

Victor Hugo

Truth, in matters of religion, is simply the opinion that has survived

Oscar Wilde

Corruption is as old as prostitution. Just one of the subtle strategies that the human species employs for survival.  Others just kill. 

Anonymous

I once met a man who had forgiven an injury. I hope some day to meet the man who has forgiven an insult.

Charles Buxton, brewer, philanthropist, writer, and politician (1823-1871)
 

Literature is the language of society, as speech is the language of man.

Louis de Bonald, philosopher and politician (1754-1840)
 

"When plunder becomes a way of life for a group of men living together in society, they create for themselves in the course of time a legal system that authorizes it and a moral code that glorifies it."
 
- Frederic Bastiat (1801-1850)  
 

"A lawn is nature under totalitarian rule."

Michael Pollan, author, journalism professor (b. 1955


The death of dogma is the birth of morality.

Immanuel Kant, philosopher (1724-1804)
 

"Only those who risk going too far can really know how far they can go"

TS Elliot

If the world ever advances beyond what it is today, it must be led by men who express their real opinions.

Robert G. Ingersoll, lawyer and orator (1833-1899)

Those who matter, don't judge. Those who judge, don't matter!!

Unknown

A good mother knows how to give her child peace of mind rather than "a piece of her mind"

Anonymous

"One ought, every day at least, to hear a little song, read a good poem, see a fine picture, and if it were possible, to speak a few reasonable words"

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

"We think in generalities, but we live in detail."

Alfred North Whitehead

"You can't be old and wise without being young and stupid"

To the World You May be One Person, but to One Person you Could be The World.

"Always forgive your enemies; nothing annoys them so much"

Oscar Wilde

"Whenever people agree with me I always feel I must be wrong"

Oscar Wilde

"I can resist anything but temptation"

Oscar Wilde

Everyone is kneaded out of the same dough but not baked in the same oven.

Yiddish proverb

When others asked the truth of me, I was convinced it was not the truth they wanted, but an illusion they could bear to live with.

Anais Nin, writer (1903-1977)

Cautious, careful people, always casting about to preserve their reputation and social standing, never can bring about a reform. Those who are really in earnest must be willing to be anything or nothing in the world's estimation.

Susan B. Anthony, reformer and suffragist (1820-1906)

The nuclear arms race is like two sworn enemies standing waist deep in gasoline, one with three matches, the other with five.

Carl Sagan, astronomer and writer (1934-1996)

An age is called Dark not because the light fails to shine, but because people refuse to see it.

James Albert Michener, novelist (1907-1997)
 

Until you dig a hole, you plant a tree, you water it and make it survive, you haven't done a thing. You are just talking.

Wangari Muta Maathai, activist and Nobel laureate (b. 1940)
 

The most difficult subjects can be explained to the most slow-witted man if he has not formed any idea of them already; but the simplest thing cannot be made clear to the most intelligent man if he is firmly persuaded that he knows already . . .

Leo Tolstoy, 1897
 

To Grow a garden is to believe in tomorrow.

Eleanor Roosevelt

"One cannot do right in one department of life whilst he is occupied in doing wrong in any other department. Life is one indivisible whole."

Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi (1869-1948)  

"We all wear masks, and the time comes when we cannot remove them without removing some of our own skin."
Andre Berthiaume, novelist (b. 1938)

"The best mind-altering drug is the truth."

Lily Tomlin

"Every great advance in natural knowledge has involved the absolute rejection of authority."

Thomas Henry Huxley, biologist (1825-1895

"In questions of science, the authority of a thousand is not worth the humble reasoning of a single individual."

Galileo Galilei, physicist and astronomer (1564-1642)

"If we can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them, they must become happy."
Thomas Jefferson to Thomas Cooper, 1802. ME 10:342

"Those who hammer their guns into plows will plow for those who do not."  - Thomas Jefferson

What can be asserted without proof can be dismissed without proof.
Christopher Hitchens, author and journalist (b. 1949)
 

"Thoughts are the shadows of our feelings -- always darker, emptier, and simpler." Friedrich Nietzsche, philosopher (1844-1900)

"Good men must not obey the laws too well."
Ralph Waldo Emerson, writer and philosopher

"Anyone who believes in infinite growth in a finite world is either mad or an economist"
Kenneth Boulding

"If we can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them, they must become happy." --Thomas Jefferson to Thomas Cooper, 1802. ME 10:342
 

A civilized society is one which tolerates eccentricity to the point of doubtful sanity. -Robert Frost, poet (1874-1963)

Not far from the invention of fire must rank the invention of doubt.
Thomas Henry Huxley, biologist (1825-1895)
 

I am always sorry when any language is lost, because languages are the pedigrees of nations. -
Samuel Johnson, lexicographer (1709-1784)
 

Forgive him, for he believes that the customs of his tribe are the laws of nature.

George Bernard Shaw, writer, Nobel laureate (1856-1950)
 

"L'honnetete n'est pas la meilleure politique, il est la seule."

Unknown

"I sincerely believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies."
Thomas Jefferson

Hypocrisy is the homage which vice pays to virtue.
Francois, duc de La Rochefoucauld, moralist (1613-1680)

 

The saddest aspect of life right now is that science gathers knowledge faster than society gathers wisdom.
Isaac Asimov, scientist and writer (1920-1992)
 

You talk when you cease to be at peace with your thoughts.
Khalil Gibran, mystic, poet, and artist (1883-1931)
 

It is impossible to defeat an ignorant man in argument.
William G. McAdoo, lawyer and politician (1863-1941)
 

Economics of declarant will limit irrational exuberance
John D'Antonio paraphrasing Alan Greenspan
October 16, 2009
 

The greatest question in all science is where is the next grant coming from.
Karl Wood

Smooth seas do not make skillful sailors.
Old African Proverb
 

Illegal aliens have always been a problem in the United States. Ask any Indian.

Robert Orben, Magician and Author

I have always said , you should learn something new every day.

Unfortunately, many of us are at that age where what we learn today, we forget tomorrow. This was certainly true in my aged father's case, an avid reader, where the first chapter of every book was always page worn.

Anonymous