Infamous

"The feelings, sentiments, values and responses of our children, or of any citizen, are none of the government's damned business. That we must support a government agency that gives itself to the emotional and ideological manipulation of citizens is infamous."
--Richard Mitchell
(1929-2002) Professor at Glassboro State College, NJ, author, founder and publisher of The Underground Grammarian

Dark II

"Life is one long struggle in the dark."
--Lucretius

Bats

"Bats have no bankers and they do not drink and cannot be arrested and pay no tax and, in general, bats have it made."
--John Berryman (1914-1972) American poet, critic

Accidents

"The most likely way for the world to be destroyed, most experts agree, is by accident. That's where we come in; we are computer professionals. We cause accidents."
--Nathaniel S. Borenstein (1958~)
American research scientist, programmer, writer

Sleeping

"So long as the people do not care to exercise their freedom, those who wish to tyrannize will do so; for tyrants are active and ardent, and will devote themselves in the name of any number of gods, religious and otherwise, to put shackles upon sleeping men."
--Voltaire

Grim

Picard: Come back! Make a difference!

Kirk: I take it the odds are against us and the situation’s grim.

Picard: You could say that.

Kirk: If Spock were here, he’d say that I was an irrational, illogical human being for going on a mission like this... Sounds like fun!

    --Star Trek: Generations

Ambition II

"The dearest ambition of a slave is not liberty,
but to have a slave of his own."
--Sir Richard Francis Burton
(1821-1890) English explorer, linguist, author, and soldier

Anecdotes

"Only the history of free peoples is worth our attention; the history of men under a despotism is merely a collection of anecdotes."
--Nicolas-Sebasstien Chamfort (1741-1824) 

Owns

"You have to ask yourself, 'Who owns me? Do I own myself or am I just another piece of government property?' "
--Neal Boortz
(1945- ) Radio talk show host, columnist

Tame

"The more boring a child is, the more the parents, when showing off the child, receive adulation for being good parents - because they have a tame child-creature in their house."
--Frank Zappa
"Ben Watson interviews Frank Zappa", in MOJO magazine (October 1993)

Degenerating

"The Earth is degenerating today.
Bribery and corruption abound.
Children no longer obey their parents,
every man wants to write a book, and
it is evident that the end of the world is fast approaching."
--Assyrian Tablet
Source: c. 2800 BC [also attributed to Socrates]

Decide III

"Are we like the God of the Old Testament, that we in Washington can decide which cities, towns, and hamlets in Vietnam will be destroyed? Do we have to accept that? I don't think we do. I think we can do something about it."
--Robert F. Kennedy
Last speech at the US Senate on the subject

Survives

"The truth that survives is simply the lie that is pleasant-est to believe."
--Henry Louis Mencken (1880-1956)
American editor, author, critic, humorist

Weirdness

Your weirdness
will make you stronger,
Your dark side
will keep you whole,
Your vulnerability
will connect you to
the rest of our suffering world,
Your creativity
will set you free.
There is nothing wrong
with you.

--Andrea Balt

Baggage

"The United Nation’s goal is to reduce population selectively by encouraging abortion, forced sterilization, and control of human reproduction, and regards two-thirds of the human population as excess baggage, with 350,000 people to be eliminated per day."
--Jacques Cousteau

False

"We’ll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false."
--William Casey, CIA Director (from first staff meeting, 1981)

Party

"A sect or party is an incognito devised to save man from the vexation of thinking."
--Ralph Waldo Emerson

Test III

"The test for whether one is living in a police state is that those who are charged with enforcing the law are allowed to break the laws with impunity."
--Jon Roland
(1944-) founder of the Constitution Society

Marches II

"In recent years we have witnessed numerous marches on Washington in which one group or another has demanded new "rights." Frequently, such rights have not meant freedom from state control, but rather entitlement to state action, protection, or subsidy. In the process of yielding to the "will of the people" and creating new rights, the state invariably enlarges itself and its bureaucracy. Each new right seems to demand a new agency to guarantee it, administer it, or deliver it."
--John W. Whitehead
President of the Rutherford Institute
Source: The Second American Revolution

Despair

"When I despair, I remember that all through history the ways of truth and love have always won. There have been tyrants, and murderers, and for a time they can seem invincible, but in the end they always fall. Think of it--always."
--Mahatma Gandhi

Jaws

"The jaws of power are always open to devour,
and her arm is always stretched out, if possible,
to destroy the freedom of thinking, speaking, and writing."
--John Adams (1735-1826)
Founding Father, 2nd US President
1765

Continuous

"A civilization in which there is not a continuous controversy about
important issues... is on the way to totalitarianism and death."
--Robert M. Hutchins (1899-1977)

Cognitive

"Sometimes people hold a core belief that is very strong. When they are presented with evidence that works against that belief, the new evidence cannot be accepted.  It would create a feeling that is extremely uncomfortable, called cognitive dissonance. And because it is so important to protect the core belief, they will rationalize, ignore and even deny anything that doesn't fit in with the core belief."
--Frantz Fanon (1925-1961)
Martinique-born Afro-French psychiatrist, philosopher, revolutionary, and writer

Everything II

"Everything is connected to everything else - is an expression of everything else - and you can't understand  a car by only studying the hub cap."
--David Icke

Weed II

"A weed is a plant that has mastered every survival skill except for learning how to grow in rows."
--Doug Larson

Free III

"The free man owns himself. He can damage himself with either eating or drinking; he can ruin himself with gambling. If he does he is certainly a damn fool, and he might possibly be a damned soul; but if he may not, he is not a free man any more than a dog."
--Gilbert Keith Chesterton
(1874-1936) British essayist, critic, poet, and novelist
Source: Broadcast talk, June 11, 1935

Barbarism

"Using the power of the law to ensure that the law abiding are at the mercy of the lawless is an act of barbarism beyond the realms of logic. The dreamers and fools who force us to endure the carnage should be on trial along with the criminals they are creating. The world is not made more civil by forcing the civilized to be the victims of the predators. How dare you, any of you, refuse good law abiding citizens the right to defend themselves in a country where there were 25,000 murders, 105,000 reported rapes, and 975,000 armed robberies LAST YEAR?"
--Lon VanOstran
Source:  letter to The Unreported News, January 19, 1996

Water

"Many politicians... are in the habit of laying it down as a self-evident proposition that no people ought to be free till they are fit to use their freedom. The maxim is worthy of the fool... who resolved not to go into the water till he had learned to swim."
--Thomas Babington Macaulay (1800-1859)
[Lord Macaulay] 1st Baron Macaulay, British historian

Edge II

"The Edge... there is no honest way to explain it because the only people who really know where it is are the ones who have gone over."
--Hunter S. Thompson

Enemies

"If you want to make enemies, try to change something."
--Woodrow Wilson
(1856-1924) 28th US President

Normality

"Normality is a paved road: It's comfortable to walk, but no flowers grow on it."
--Vincent van Gogh