Prompted

All human activity is prompted by desire.
--Bertrand Russell

Yet Not Disenchanted

This is one of the miracles of love: It gives a power of seeing through its own enchantments and yet not being disenchanted.
--C. S. Lewis

Sense of Fairness

Debt is a subject much larger than money. It has to do with our basic sense of fairness, a sense that is embedded in all of our exchanges with our fellow human beings.
--Margaret Atwood

The Suspicion

According to my interpretation of Buddhism, our dissatisfaction with life derives from a depression even more immediate than death-terror: the suspicion that "I" am not real.
--David Loy

Same Success

My resolution is the same one every year--Get your shit together--and I suspect I'll have the same success I had last year.
--Nancy Nall

Make This Stuff Up

A Jewish financier rips off millions of dollars devoted to memorializing the Holocaust--who could make this stuff up? Dickens, Balzac, Trollope and, for that matter, even Mel Brooks might be appalled.
--Frank Rich

Someone Is Watching

A deregulated environment encourages gambling and, eventually, criminality. Regulations inhibit the impulse to see what can be gotten away with. They remind the players that someone is watching.
--Jane Smiley

Always

Always be sincere, even when you don't mean it.
--Irene Peter

Before I Was Born

I did not find the world desolate when I entered, and as my fathers planted before I was born, so do I plant for those who will come after me.
--Talmud

Tell the Stories

Some say that children learn to speak in order to tell the stories already in them.
--Roger Rosenblatt

Unused

Many of our troubles arise from faculties unused.
--A.C. Benson

Forced Pleasantries

There's something in the alone-in-the-crowdness of the holiday party circuit, the forced pleasantries and laughter, the charge to be friendly and engaging--but only in a trivial and superficial way--that is very much like the existential condition of the alcoholic psyche.
--Jim Atkinson

Hope Alone

The important thing is not that we can live on hope alone, but that life is not worth living without it.
--Harvey Milk

As If

I think we should act as if. I think we should read books, and tell children stories, and take them to the theatre, and learn poems, and play music, as if it would make a difference.
--Philip Pullman

Is To

Religion is to mysticism what popularization is to science.
--Henri Louis Bergson

Get Over It

America is having a period where we are redefining our mental picture of what an "American" is. In the mid 19th century, we had to mentally adjust to including Germans and Irish. In the late 19th and early 20th century, we struggled with mentally including Eastern and Southern Europeans, mostly Catholics and Jews, in the mix. Now it's Muslims and Asians. We'll get over it.
--Ciocia

Saves a Ton

A little inaccuracy sometimes saves a ton of explanation.
--H. H. Munro (Saki)

Desire to Know It

Education would be so much more effective if its purpose were to ensure that by the time they leave school every boy and girl should know how much they don't know, and be imbued with a lifelong desire to know it.
--Sir William Haley

Such a Wonderful Thing

If hard work were such a wonderful thing, surely the rich would have kept it all to themselves.
--Lane Kirkland

Mother

Mother Nature is just chemistry, biology and physics. That's all she is.
--Rob Watson

Only Abnormality

The only abnormality is the incapacity to love.

--Anais Nin

Maybe We Could

If there were a little more silence, if we all kept quiet...maybe we could understand something.

--Federico Fellini

Ask Yourself

Ask yourself whether you are happy and you cease to be so.

--John Stuart Mill

Work Ethic

Personally, I have nothing against work, particularly when performed, quietly and unobtrusively, by someone else. I just don't happen to think it's an appropriate subject for an "ethic."

--Barbara Ehrenreich

Requirements

Freedom requires capitalism.
Capitalism requires consequences.

--willrob456r

A Good Document

The idea that he doesn't have experience is nuts to me. He's a constitutional law professor. I happen to miss the Constitution; I thought it was a good document.

--Samantha Power

Reached An Age

I don't even have an e-mail address. I have reached an age where my main purpose is not to receive messages.

--Umberto Eco

A Little Wild

Words ought to be a little wild, for they are the assaults of thoughts on the unthinking.

--John Maynard Keynes

Dark Science

If money is a science, then it is a dark science, darker than alchemy.

--Neal Stephenson

The Books

The books we love, love us back.

--John Leonard

The Difference

It is the accumulation of the hundreds of minute decisions that is the difference between mediocrity and true excellence.

--Eva S. Moskowitz

A Good Shingle

A good shingle for the new administration to hang out, rather than The New Covenant or A Fair Exchange or English Spoken Here, would be Keep Seat Belt Buckled. Happy days are not here and the sky above is not clear.

--Garrison Keillor

Silly Me

I always thought "In God we trust" on U.S. money is unconstitutional. Silly me, it's sarcasm.

--PuWeiTa

Creation

The opposite of war isn't peace, it's creation.

--Jonathan Larson

You Are

You don't have a soul. You are a Soul. You have a body.

--C. S. Lewis

Best Hope

Whatever else history may say about me when I'm gone, I hope it will record that I appealed to your best hopes, not your worst fears.

--Ronald Reagan

Gifted

He's a gifted man, but in the end, he's just a man.

--Michelle Obama

What We Share

Our opponent says that there is a real America. But I am sorry--there aren't a real America and an unreal America. Soldiers in the trenches don't ask each other if they are red or blue. You can support the war and be a patriot, and not support the war and still be a patriot. We are tired of these old divisions and ways of separating Americans from each other. We are all Americans and what we share is greater than what divides us.

--Barack Obama

The Right Ending

The right ending is an open door you can't see too far out of.

--Michael Ondaatje

Live Like

If you want to live like a Republican, vote for a Democrat.

--Harry S Truman

Fight Hard Enough

If we don't fight hard enough for the things we stand for, at some point we have to recognize that we don't really stand for them.

--Paul Wellstone

Every Age

There are, in every age, new errors to be rectified and new prejudices to be opposed.

--Samuel Johnson

Imperfect Creatures

As a politician myself I am deeply mindful that we are imperfect creatures and don't always act with justice uppermost on our minds.

--Barack Obama

Round Peg, Square Hole

Almost every wrong prediction about this election cycle has come from those trying to force the round peg of this year's campaign into the square holes of past political wars.

--Frank Rich

What's the Use

What's the use of being a politician if you can't make a living at being a hypocrite?

--Norman Mailer

Not Very Unreasonable

It is not very unreasonable that the rich should contribute to the public expense, not only in proportion to their revenue, but something more than in that proportion.

--Adam Smith (The Wealth of Nations)

Slower to Trust

Voters are slower to trust you with big things if they see a lack of skill in small things.

--Peggy Noonan

Owes a Return

Everyone who receives the protection of society owes a return for the benefit.

--John Stuart Mill

Everyone Is Watching

My attitude is, the more I'm in public, I don't even want to pick my nose. I'm assuming everyone is watching.

--Barack Obama (interview with Katie Couric, October 16, 2008)

No Meaning

If the whole universe has no meaning, we should never have found out that it has no meaning: just as, if there were no light in the universe and therefore no creatures with eyes, we should never know it was dark. Dark would be without meaning.

--C. S. Lewis

Existing Model

In order to change something, don't struggle to change the existing model. Create a new model and make the old one obsolete.

--Buckminster Fuller

That's What Happens

I don't take any of it personally, and I don't take most of it seriously. That's what happens in politics.

--Hillary Clinton

Hope

Hope is a tattered flag and a dream of time.

--Carl Sandburg

Lies

What's the major cause of the nation's financial crisis? Lies; a river of lies emptied into a sea of mendacity, sucked up into the sky again by a great hurricane of deceit, and rained back down upon us in a deluge of prevarication.

--Glenn W. Smith

In Its Essence

The liberty of a democracy is not safe if the people tolerate the growth of private power to the point where it becomes stronger than the democratic state itself. That in its essence is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group or any controlling private power.

--Franklin D. Roosevelt

Scare You

Some things will scare you so bad that you hurt yourself.

--Molly Ivins

Rules

Rules cannot take the place of character.

--Alan Greenspan

Money Destroys

If the whole country is going to pot, and it certainly is, I think you could graph the decline not only in morals, but in a sense of social éclat and social standards--I think you could plot the decline right next to the rise of the Dow Jones--the higher the Dow, the lower the standards. Money destroys all other values.

--Norman Mailer (March 1999)

Secular Miracle

That a piece of paper of no intrinsic value should pass for good money the world over is nothing less than a secular miracle.

--James Grant

Men Who Bite Dogs

The press likes the unusual. The man bite dog story. The maverick senators who do weird stuff. But just because men who bite dogs make for good copy doesn't make biting a dog a good idea.

--Matthew Yglesias

Toothache

When we have a toothache, we know that not having a toothache is happiness. But later, when we don't have a toothache, we don't treasure our non-toothache.

--Thich Nhat Hanh

Not There

We learned a painful lesson in the 1930s and today: The invisible hand often seems invisible because it's not there.

--Joseph Stiglitz (2001 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics)

Acknowledge Luck

I wanted, I think, to acknowledge Luck: the chance of it, the benevolence of it in my life, and the brutality of it in the lives of others; made especially savage for children because they may not be allowed the good fortune of a lifetime to correct it.

--Paul Newman

Special Skills

Sarah knows how to field-dress a moose. I know how to castrate a calf. Neither of those things has anything at all to do with this election. But since we know so much about Sarah's special skills, I wanted to make sure you knew about mine too.

--Lieutenant Governor Patty Judge (D-Iowa)

If You Must

If you must break the law, do it to seize power. In all other cases observe it.

--Julius Caesar

Private Banks

If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issuance of their currency, first by inflation and then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around them will deprive the people of all their property until their children will wake up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered.

--Thomas Jefferson

Progress

We all want progress, but if you're on the wrong road, progress means doing an about-turn and walking back to the right road; in that case, the man who turns back soonest is the most progressive.

--C. S. Lewis

The Sequel

Beneath the sniping, so many real things lie in ruins: a corporate paradigm displaying no shred of responsibility, but eager for rescue by taxpayers; a military leadership's implicit promise to its recruits and their families; a public discourse commodified into channels that feed any given preacher's resentments to a self-selecting chorus. In these déjà vu battles, the combatants forever escape one another's final judgment, whirl off into the void, leaving us standing awed in the rubble, uncertain of what we've seen, only sure we're primed for the sequel.

--Jonathan Lethem

Fundamental

The fundamental business of the country, that is, production and distribution of commodities, is on a sound and prosperous basis.

--President Herbert Hoover (October 24, 1929)

Socialism

The GOP does believe in socialism: Privatize the profits. Socialize the losses.

--Anonymous

Mediocre

Only the mediocre are always at their best.

--Jean Giraudoux

Oblivious

As we've been writing for several years, the greatest threat to economic growth has been reckless monetary policy. Yet both the Bush Treasury and John McCain's campaign seem oblivious to the monetary roots of our current economic troubles.

--The Wall Street Journal editoral page

Terms With Stupidity

It's not getting any smarter out there. You have to come to terms with stupidity, and make it work for you.

--Frank Zappa

Knows More

She [Sarah Palin] knows more about energy that probably anyone else in the United States of America.

--John McCain

A Hard Job

If you see a whole thing--it seems that it's always beautiful. Planets, lives.... But close up a world's all dirt and rocks. And day to day, life's a hard job, you get tired, you lose the pattern.

--Ursula K. LeGuin

Wreckage

What most people don't seem to realize is that there is just as much money to be made out of the wreckage of a civilization as from the upbuilding of one.

--Margaret Mitchell

Not Seasons Enough

A man doesn't have time in his life
to have time for everything.
He doesn't have seasons enough to have
a season for every purpose. Ecclesiastes
Was wrong about that.

--Yehuda Amichai

Bicycle Prayers

When I was a kid I used to pray every night for a new bicycle. Then I realised that the Lord doesn't work that way so I stole one and asked Him to forgive me.

--Emo Philips

A Blessing

As far as I'm concerned Barack Obama is a "Baruch," which means a blessing. He is a blessing to the United States Senate, to America, and to our shared hopes for better, safer tomorrows for all our families.

--Joe Lieberman (March 2006)

Blows My Mind

They've been a pastor for two years at a church with 150 people but he shares our values, so we hired him to be pastor of our 5,000 person church? It wouldn't happen! We don't say, "He shares our values, so let's hire him." That's absurd. Yet we apply that to choosing presidents. It blows my mind.

--Mark DeMoss (former chief of staff to Jerry Falwell)

Key Criteria

I think about whether that person who I select would be most prepared to take my place. And that would be the key criteria.

--John McCain (April 2008)

Reality TV

Politics as reality TV. Watch as we put this hockey mom and beauty contest runner-up into the second most powerful political position in civilization! Will she make it? Tune in and find out!

--Flown Muse (comment on Huffington Post, August 30, 2008)

Choice

Behavior is a choice, even if fantasy and imagination are uncontrollable.

--Camille Paglia

The Impossible

We can
Each of us
Do the impossible
As long as we can convince ourselves
That it has been done before.

--Octavia E. Butler (Parable of the Sower)

Nuance

We don't do nuance well in politics.

--Barack Obama

Adventure

An adventure is only an inconvenience rightly considered. An inconvenience is an adventure wrongly considered.

--G. K. Chesterton

The Last Time

When you remember something, you don't remember the thing itself--you just remember the last time you remembered it.

--John Barlow

Appear Bright

Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.

--Anonymous

Good and Happy

The good life, as I conceive it, is a happy life. I do not mean that if you are good you will be happy--I mean that if you are happy you will be good.

--Bertrand Russell

Roswell, N.M.

The Republicans will hit him hard and low in September and portray him as a Muslim opium dealer who infiltrated this country via Roswell, N.M.

--Garrison Keilor

Have Forever

Everyone loves strength, but do you love me for my weakness? That is the real test. Do you love me stripped of everything that might be lost, for only the things I will have forever?

--Alain de Botton

The Truth

The world desperately needs moral leadership from America, and the foundation for moral leadership is telling the truth.

--John Edwards

Technology 1-2-3

1) Everything that's already in the world when you're born is just normal.

2) Anything that gets invented between then and before you turn thirty is incredibly exciting and creative and with any luck you can make a career out of it.

3) Anything that gets invented after you're thirty is against the natural order of things and the beginning of the end of civilization as we know it until it's been around for about ten years when it gradually turns out to be alright really.

--Douglas Adams

One By One

Men, it has been well said, think in herds; it will be seen that they go mad in herds, while they only recover their senses slowly, and one by one.

--Charles Mackay

Pointless

The more the universe is comprehensible, the more it seems pointless.

--Steven Weinberg (Nobel laureate physicist at the University of Texas)

Smart Kids

Children are smarter than any of us. Know how I know that? I don't know one child with a full time job and children.

--Bill Hicks

Boundless

I am the least difficult of men. All I want is boundless love.

--Frank O'Hara

All Creation

All creation is a mine, and every man a miner.

--Abraham Lincoln

Slant

Tell all the Truth but tell it slant.

--Emily Dickinson

Go Buy

If we all join hands and go buy a new SUV, everything will be all right.

--Robert McTeer (then-president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas, April 2001)