Vizzini: “He didn’t fall? Inconceivable!” Inigo Montoya: “You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.” – Wallace Shawn as Vizzini, and Mandy Patinkin as Inigo Montoya, in The Princess Bride (1987). Screenplay by William Goldman
“Gold – the ultimate money – Why? Because it is the only monetary asset that isn’t someone else’s liability. It doesn’t represent a promise to pay and it isn’t dependent up the survival of a particular power or group of powers. In a word, it is valuable because it is.” – C. M. Allen, 1974
"I have never been able to conceive how any rational being could propose happiness to himself from the exercise of power over others." – Thomas Jefferson
"Silence in the face of evil is itself evil: God will not hold us guiltless. Not to speak is to speak. Not to act is to act." – Dietrich Bonhoeffer
"The right to be let alone is indeed the beginning of all freedom." – U. S. Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas, in the Public Utilities Commission v. Pollack decision, 1952
"A danger foreseen is half avoided." – The words in a Chinese fortune cookie recently handed to SurvivalBlog reader David W. in Colorado
“I am the good shepherd, and know my [sheep], and am known of mine. As the Father knoweth me, even so know I the Father: and I lay down my life for the sheep. And other sheep I have, which are not of this fold: them also I must bring, and they shall hear my voice; and there shall be one fold, [and] one shepherd.” – John 10:14-18 (KJV)
“Look at the means which a man employs; consider his motives; observe his pleasures. A man simply cannot conceal himself.” – Confucius [Ware’s translation, The Sayings of Confucius, p .26]
“The clocks stopped at one seventeen one morning. There was a long shear of bright light, then a series of low concussions. Within a year there were fires on the ridges and deranged chanting. By day the dead impaled on spikes along the road. I think it’s October but I can’t be sure. I haven’t kept a calendar for five years. Each day is more gray than the one before. Each night is darker – beyond darkness. The world gets colder week by week as the world slowly dies. No animals have survived. All the crops are long gone. Someday …
“Now it becomes my duty to carry out the sentence which I have imposed on these men for killing and stealing within the territory under my jurisdiction. However, I want it strictly understood that there will be no undo shooting or cheering or drunken talk when I pull that lever on account it would offend the dignity of the occasion.” – John McIntire, as Skagway Sheriff Gannon in The Far Country (1954). Screenplay by Borden Chase.
“We’re on a journey – and we don’t know it – back to a nation of communities where your character really matters, and where character rests on whether your deeds comport with truthfulness. Many will be dragged kicking and screaming upon that journey, and many a dark night will be passed in the cold and damp on the way. But it will take us to a place where the hearths are burning brightly and the estranged spirits of our national character await a reunion with us: fortitude, patience, generosity, humor. That will be a Christmas to live for and remember” …
“Science has come full-circle, taking a page from the medieval Church by using fear and persecution to silence sceptics. The oppressed have become the oppressors. Given that most professional scientific bodies and peer-reviewed journals have been active accomplices in this scandal, one wonders how many other so called scientific consensuses have been similarly engineered and waiting for their own ClimateGates before truth is known.” – Joanne Nova
“The degree of equality in education that we can reasonably hope to attain, but that should be adequate, is that which excludes all dependence, either forced or voluntary. We shall show how this condition can be easily attained in the present state of human knowledge even by those who can study only for a small number of years in childhood, and then during the rest of their life in their few hours of leisure. We shall prove that, by a suitable choice of syllabus and methods of education, we can teach the citizen everything that he needs to know in …
"To confess you were wrong yesterday, is only to acknowledge that you are a little wiser today." – Charles Spurgeon
"A people may want a free government; but if, from insolence, or carelessness, or cowardice, or want of public spirit, they are unequal to the exertions necessary for preserving it; if they will not fight for it when it is directly attacked; if they can be deluded by the artifices used to cheat them out of it; if by momentary discouragement or temporary panic, or a fit of enthusiasm for an individual they can be induced to lay their liberties at the feet of even a great man, or trust him with powers which enable him to subvert their institutions; …