QuoteLog

“At times one remains faithful to a cause only because its opponents do not cease to be insipid.”

“I try not to make the apocalypse look so dark and dreary. When we say ‘the end of the world,’ we don’t mean the earth will blow up; we mean the end of the way we live. It’s a lifestyle change.”

“Go blog yourself.”

“For Americans war is almost all of the time a nuisance, and military skill is a luxury like Mah-Jongg. But when the issue is brought home to them, war becomes as important, for the necessary period, as business or sport. And it is hard to decide which is likely to be the more ominous for the Axis - an American decision that this is sport, or that it is business.”

“War is upon us, none can deny it. It is not the choice of the Government of the United States, but of a faction; the Government was forced to accept the issue, or to submit to a degradation fatal and disgraceful to all the inhabitants. In accepting war, it should be ‘pure and simple’ as applied to belligerents. I would keep it so, till all traces of the war are effaced; til those who appealed to it are sick and tired of it, and come to the emblem of our nation, and sue for peace. I would not coax them, or even meet them half-way, but make them so sick of war that generations would pass away before they would again appeal to it.”

“The Americans made a very bad mistake in Uruzgan. But we do not want the Americans to leave until we are prepared. The whole world knows that they are here to crush the terrorists, who are the enemies of all people. They did not come like the Russians to conquer.”

“The best years are the forties; after fifty a man begins to deteriorate, but in the forties he is at the maximum of his villainy.”

“I want you to disregard all the opposing counsel has said. I think they’re delusionary. I think they’ve had something funny for lunch in their meal, I think they should be handcuffed, chained to a fence and flogged, and all of their hearsay evidence should be thrown the hell out. And if they lie again, I’m going to go over there and kick them in the crotch.”

“Doing creative work is like running a marathon, you’ve got to do it really regularly.”

“Most teenagers attending Ozzfest last week had cell phones to connect them quickly to their family and friends, whereas back in the 70’s Black Sabbath cultivated the sort of fan who was alienated far beyond a roam signal.”

“[Michael] Jackson is not so much a person of colour as an experiment in sequential hues.”

“Last night I went to a fight and Metafilter broke out.”

“A strict observance of the written laws is doubtless one of the high virtues of a good citizen, but it is not the highest. The laws of necessity, of self-preservation, of saving our country when in danger, are of higher obligation.”

“I don’t remember Americans being less bothered by outside criticism at any time since the Reagan Administration, which is not hard to understand, given how daft much of it has been. And getting bombed has a way of clarifying beliefs and relationships.”

“Today the United States is the last religious country in the western world, the last in which a majority of the population are practising believers. By contrast, in all the jurisdictions where one church was formally or informally tied to the state -- England, Ireland, France, Spain, Quebec, you name it -- religious observance has withered away to statistically insignificant numbers.”

“A military operation involves deception. Even though you are competent, appear to be incompetent. Though effective, appear to be ineffective.”

“The United States is in no sense founded upon the Christian doctrine.”

“I am not an advocate for frequent changes in laws and constitutions, but laws and institutions must go hand in hand with the progress of the human mind. As that becomes more developed, more enlightened, as new discoveries are made, new truths discovered and manners and opinions change, with the change of circumstances, institutions must advance also to keep pace with the times. We might as well require a man to wear still the coat which fitted him when a boy as civilized society to remain ever under the regimen of their barbarous ancestors.”

“Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable.”

“I pray that our Heavenly Father may assuage the anguish of your bereavement, and leave you only the cherished memory of the loved and lost, and the solemn pride that must be yours, to have laid so costly a sacrifice upon the altar of Freedom.”