Random Sightings on a Walk through My Notebook

“That government is best which governs not at all,”

Said Henry David Thoreau,

But what did he know?
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“Liberty:  not the daughter but the mother of order,”

Declared Pierre-Joseph Proudhon,

And then he passed on.
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“When the government is too intrusive, people lose their spirit,”

Noted Lao-tzu,

As I would, too.
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“Great men are almost always bad men,”

Declared Lord Acton

―some wisdom to act on.
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“Let us strangle the last king with the entrails of the last priest,”

Urged Denis Diderot.

―an extreme to which I will not go.
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“Nothing is so prone to contaminate―under certain circumstances, even to exhaust―the source of all noble and ideal sentiments, which arise of themselves from normally developing sexual instinct, as the practice of masturbation in early years,”

Wrote Richard von Krafft-Ebing,

As he felt his sexual powers ebbing.
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“Loyalty, decency, compassion, love―these are . . . irremediable, crippling flaws in a professional politician,”

Declared Erik Tarloff,

And then he ran off.
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If, all things considered, there is a national profit in increasing the size of the army, why not call the whole male population of the country to the colors?”

Asked Frédéric Bastiat.

So, in World War II, the Keynesians tried that.
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“Our government makes no sense unless it is founded on a deeply felt religious faith―and I don’t care what it is,”

Declared Dwight D. Eisenhower,

A man of scant theological power.
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“The Powers That Be literally stand on their dignity. Nothing deflates them more effectively than deft lampooning,”

Wrote Walter Wink.

An apt observation, I think.
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“I beseech you, in the bowels of Christ, think it possible you may be mistaken,”

Cried Oliver Cromwell,

Several years before his dead head fell.
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“Man, therefore, is a curious, dreamy, humourous and wayward creature,”

According to Lin Yutang,

Who wrote but never sang.
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“There are two kinds of men and only two. / There’s the one staying put /In his proper place / And the one with his foot / In the other one’s face.”

Sweeney Todd knew

A thing or two.
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“You can’t kill ideas. But you can sure shoot the people who hold them,”

Noted G. Gordon Liddy

―a statement both true and witty.
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“Whatever the State saith is a lie; whatever it hath is a theft: all is counterfeit in it, the gnawing, sanguinary, insatiate monster,”

Wrote Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche;

To which a wise Norwegian replied, “You betcha.”
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“In the absence of justice, what is sovereignty but organized brigandage?”

Asked St. Augustine rhetorically.

And I affirm categorically.
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“A politician who is poor is a poor politician,”

According to PRI wheeler-dealer Carlos Hank González,

Who put other people’s money where his mouth was.
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“If the U.S. government were a private security agency, it would be fired and sued,”

Declared Llewellyn H. Rockwell.

Lew, said a government spokesman, can go straight to hell.
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“Organized crime, or even outright terrorism, can do far less harm than the most well-meaning government. It’s a matter of power, not intentions,”

Wrote Joseph Sobran,

Obviously a wise man.
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“[O]f course, the people don’t want war,”

Said Hermann Goering,

Who was known as overbearing.
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“Men commit evil within the scope available to them.  . . .  They do what they can get away with,”

Wrote Theodore Dalrymple.

It’s just that simple.
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“[I]t is a false deduction that one thousand human beings are worth more than one; that would be tantamount to regarding men as animals. The central point about being human is that the unit ‘1’ is the highest; ‘1000’ counts for less,”

Declared Søren Kierkegaard,

A man for whom I’d name a boulevard.
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“The formula is simple: Keep’em scared and you can do anything. It works,”

Said Fred Reed

―true words, indeed.
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“I’m not afraid
they’ll stamp me flat.
Grass stamped flat
soon becomes a path.”

Wrote the poet Blaga Dimitrova.

Don’t say I never told ya.
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“The great are great only because we are on our knees.”

Observed Max Stirner,

A fast learner.