Saturday, February 28, 2009

Advertising

"Advertising is the rattling of a stick inside a swill bucket." --George Orwell (1903-1950) English writer

Friday, February 27, 2009

Smiling

"If Big Brother (of Orwell's 1984) comes to America, he will not be a fearsome, foreboding figure with a heart-chilling, omnipresent glare as in 1984. He will come with a smile on his face, a quip on his lips, a wave to the crowd, and a press that (a) dutifully reports the suppressive measures he is taking to save the nation from internal chaos and foreign threat; and (b) gingerly questions whether he will be able to succeed."
--Michael Parenti (1933- ) Source: "Inventing Reality" (1986)

Thursday, February 26, 2009

Fit II

"If a man hasn’t discovered something that he will die for, he isn’t fit to live."
--Martin Luther King Jr., civil-rights leader, clergyman

Tuesday, February 24, 2009

If 1.5

"If you do not specify and confront real issues, what you will do will surely obscure them. If you do not alarm anyone morally, you will yourself remain morally asleep. If you do not embody controversy, what you say will be an acceptance of the drift to the coming human hell." 
-- C. Wright Mills (1916-1962)

Leap

"Leap, and the net will appear."
--John Burroughs (1837-1921) American Naturalist, Writer

Sunday, February 22, 2009

Plans

"If you don't design your own life plan, chances are you'll fall into someone else's plan. And guess what they have planned for you? Not much."
--Jim Rohn, Author and motivational speaker

Numb

"I know what it feels like to be hurt,and I don't want to cause that pain to any other person or creature. But somehow, in society, we numb ourselves in order to make money or to feel better about ourselves, such as with cosmetics or food. We say to ourselves, I'm going to use this animal. I'm going to say it doesn't have much worth so that I can allow myself to do these cruel things. And that just isn't fair."
--Alicia Silverstone

Saturday, February 21, 2009

Salvation

"Human salvation lies in the hands of the creatively maladjusted." --Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929-1968) American Clergyman, Reformer

Friday, February 20, 2009

Democracy

'Democracy... while it lasts is more bloody than either aristocracy or monarchy. Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There is never a democracy that did not commit suicide".
--John Adams (1735 - 1826)

Thursday, February 19, 2009

Effective

"The most effective way to do it, is to do it."
--Amelia Earhart (1898-1937) US pilot

Wednesday, February 18, 2009

Causes

"The worst thing that can happen to a good cause is not to be skillfully attacked, but to be ineptly defended." --Frederic Bastiat(1801-1850) French economist, statesman, and author. He did most of his writing during the years just before -- and immediately following -- the French Revolution of February 1848. Source: The Law, by Frederic Bastiat, 1850

Tuesday, February 17, 2009

Schooling II

"I have never let my schooling interfere with my education."
--Mark Twain

Monday, February 16, 2009

Act

"Never mistake motion for action."
--Ernest Hemmingway

Sunday, February 15, 2009

If

"If a group of beings from another planet were to land on Earth -- beings who considered themselves as superior to you as you feel yourself to be to other animals -- would you concede them the rights over you that you assume over other animals?"
--George Bernard Shaw

Friday, February 13, 2009

Brigades

"Rational free spirits are the light brigade who go on ahead and reconnoiter the ground which the heavy brigade of the orthodox will eventually occupy."
--G. C. (Georg Christoph) Lichtenberg

Thursday, February 12, 2009

Hope II

"The place where optimism most flourishes is the lunatic asylum."
--Havelock Ellis

Wednesday, February 11, 2009

Alone III

"We are alone, absolutely alone on this chance planet: and, amid all the forms of life that surround us, not one, excepting the dog, has made an alliance with us."
--Maurice Maeterlinck

Tuesday, February 10, 2009

Deja Vu IV

"We are in danger of being overwhelmed with irredeemable paper, mere paper, representing not gold nor silver; no sir, representing nothing but broken promises, bad faith, bankrupt corporations, cheated creditors and a ruined people." --Daniel Webster (1782-1852), US Senator Source: speech in the Senate, 1833

Monday, February 09, 2009

Steps

"Waiting periods are only a step.
Registration is only a step.
The prohibition of private firearms is the goal."
--Janet Reno (Former) US Attorney General

Sunday, February 08, 2009

Fear II

"Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that frightens us...And as we let our light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others."
--Nelson Mandella

Saturday, February 07, 2009

Thinking

UPDATE, 12-11-22:
Apparently, Patton didn't originate the quote below, if he ever uttered any such thing at all.  Quote Investigator does his usual great job in an extensive article on where that quote--and similar quotes--first came from.

For the Patton quote, search the article (CRRL-F) for 

Patton 





"If everyone is thinking alike then somebody isn't thinking. " --George S. Patton

Friday, February 06, 2009

Performance

We are born at the rise of the curtain and we die with its fall, and every night in the presence of our patrons we write our new creation, and every night it is blotted out forever; and of what use is it to say to audience or to critic, 'Ah, but you should have seen me last Tuesday?
--Jules Renard (1864-1910) French Dramatist, Author

Thursday, February 05, 2009

Obligation

A man said to the universe: "Sir, I exist!"
"However," replied the universe, "The fact has not created in me a sense of obligation."
--Stephen Crane (1871-1900) US writer

Wednesday, February 04, 2009

Nations

"A nation is a society united by delusions about its ancestry and by common hatred of its neighbors." --William Ralph Inge

Tuesday, February 03, 2009

Acquire

"Acquire the courage to believe in yourself. Many of the things that you have been taught were at one time the radical ideas of individuals who had the courage to believe what their own hearts and minds told them was true, rather than accept the common beliefs of their day." --Ching Ning Chu (Chinese-American Businesswoman, Author)

Monday, February 02, 2009

Timid

"Don't be too timid and squeamish about your actions. All life is an experiment."
--Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882, American Poet, Essayist)

Sunday, February 01, 2009

Deeds III

"A good deed done to an animal is as meritorious as a good deed done to a human being, while an act of cruelty to an animal is a bad as an act of cruelty to a human being." --Prophet Mohammed