Great Quotes To Start The New Year

1. Suppose you were an idiot, and suppose you were a member of of Congress -- but I repeat myself. -- Mark Twain

2. *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

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

4. *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

5. *Democracy must be something more than two wolves and a sheep voting on what to have for dinner. --James Bovard, Civil Libertarian (1994)

6. Foreign aid might be defined as a transfer from poor people in rich countries to rich people in poor countries. --Douglas Casey, Classmate of W.J.Clinton at Georgetown U. (1992)

7. *Giving money and power to government is like giving whiskey and car keys to teenage boys. --P.J. O'Rourke, Civil Libertarian

8. Government is the great fiction, through which everybody endeavors to live at the expense of everybody else. --Frederic Bastiat, French Economist (1801-1850)

9. *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)

10. *I don't make jokes. I just watch the government and report the facts. --Will Rogers

11. *If you think health care is expensive now, wait until you see what it costs when it's free. --P.J. O'Rourke

12. *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, Editor of the National Review at one time (1995)

13. *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)

14. *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.)

15. *No man's life, liberty, or property are safe while the legislature is in session. --Mark Twain (1866)

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

18. *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

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

20. *The ultimate result of shielding men from the effects of folly is to fill the world with fools. --Herbert Spencer, English Philosopher (1820-1903)

21. *There is no distinctly native American criminal class save Congress. --Mark Twain

22. *What this country needs are more unemployed politicians. -- Edward Langley, Artist 1928-1995

A few of my favorites...

The worst thing I've heard about the Kennedy's is that they're very smart, but when they get horny, their penis takes over and their brain closes.
- Florence Orbach, 79, shortly before being excused from a panel of prospective jurors in the Palm Beach rape trial of William Kennedy Smith. (I've tried to validate this, it may be an urban legend).

They are just jealous because they don't have three wise men and a virgin in the whole organization.
- Mayor Vincent J. Ciarci, on the ACLU's suit to have a city nativity scene removed.

Good. Tell him he's Wayne Gretzky.
- Ted Green, Edmonton Oilers coach, when told that center Shaun Van Allen had suffered a concussion and didn't know who he was.

The road to truth is long, and lined the entire way with annoying bastards.
- Alexander Jablokov, 'The Place of no Shadows'

Every election is a sort of advance auction sale of stolen goods.
- H.L.Mencken, 1936

Don't let it end like this. Tell them I said something.
- Last words of Pancho Villa

"A fanatic is one who can't change his mind and won't change the subject." -- Winston Churchill

"A fool's brain digests philosophy into folly, science into superstition, and art into pedantry. Hence University education." -- George Bernard Shaw

"A jury consists of twelve persons chosen to decide who has the better lawyer." -- Robert Frost

"A lady is always grateful for a sincere compliment, so long as you don't try to knock her down with it." -- Mark Twain

"A man must properly pay the fiddler. In my case it so happened that a whole symphony orchestra had to be subsidized." -- John Barrymore

"A paranoid is a man who knows a little of what's going on." --William Burroughs

"A promiscuous person is someone who is getting more sex than you are." -- Victor Lownes

"A witty saying proves nothing." -- Voltaire

"A woman who thinks she is intelligent demands the same rights as man. An intelligent woman gives up." -- Sidonie Gabrielle Colette

"Age is a high price to pay for maturity." -- Tom Stoppard

"Ah! How sweet coffee tastes! Lovelier than a thousand kisses, sweeter far than muscatel wine! I must have coffee..." -- J. S. Bach

"America wasn't founded so that we could all be better. America was founded so we could all be anything we damn well please." -- P.J. O'Rourke

"Americans are benevolently ignorant about Canada, while Canadians are malevolently well informed about the United States." -- J. Bartlett Brebner

"And if you give us any more trouble, I shall visit you in the small hours and put a bat up your nightdress." -- Basil Fawlty

"As empty vessels make the loudest sound, so they that have the least wit are the greatest blabbers." -- Plato

"Capital letters were always the best way of dealing with things you didn't have a good answer to." -- Douglas Adams

"Clothes make the man. Naked people have little or no influence on society." -- Mark Twain

"Come to think of it, there are already a million monkeys on a million typewriters, and Usenet is NOTHING like Shakespeare." -- Blair Houghton

"Don't be so humble, you're not that great." -- Golda Meir

"Either this man is dead or my watch has stopped." --Groucho Marx

Every normal man must be tempted at times to spit upon his hands, hoist the black flag and begin slitting throats." --H. L. Mencken

I asked one of the members of Parliament whether a majority of the House could legitimize murder. He said, No. I asked him if it could sanctify robbery. He thought not. But I could not make him see that, if these things be always wrong, and not to be made right by the decisions of statesmen, then similarly all things must be always right or always wrong, apart from the authority of the law; and if the right and wrong of the law is not in harmony with this intrinsic right and wrong, the law itself is criminal. (Herbert Spencer: From The Proper Sphere Of Government

It is the invariable habit of bureaucracies, at all times and everywhere, to assume...that every citizen is a criminal. Their one apparent purpose, pursued with a relentless and furious diligence, is to convert the assumption into a fact. They hunt endlessly for proofs, and, when proofs are lacking, for mere suspicions. The moment they become aware of a definite citizen, John Doe, seeking what is his right under the law, they begin searching feverishly for an excuse for withholding it from him. - H L Mencken

"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 health care, 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." -- P.J. O'Rourke

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.