We can no longer be content with refuting our opponents; we are also bound to explain them. The vitality of any doctrine supposed to be erroneous proves that it cannot be entirely erroneous.
Leslie Stephen, The Science of Ethics (1882), page 2.
You can’t shame or humiliate modern celebrities. What used to be called shame and humiliation is now called publicity. And forget traditional character assassination; if you say a modern celebrity is an adulterer, a pervert and a drug addict, all it means is that you’ve read his autobiography.
Think what evil creeps liberals would be if their plans to enfeeble the individual, exhaust the economy, impede the rule of law, and cripple national defense were guided by a coherent ideology instead of smug ignorance.
There is only one basic human right, the right to do as you damn well please. And with it comes the only basic human duty, the duty to take the consequences.
Giving money and power to government is like giving whiskey and car keys to teenage boys.
P.J. O’Rourke, Parliament of Whores (1991).
Hubris is one of the great renewable resources.
P.J. O’Rourke (November 14, 1947 – February 15, 2022).
The liberty of the individual must be thus far limited; he must not make himself a nuisance to other people.
John Stuart Mill, On Liberty (1859) ch. 3.
The young man who has not wept is a savage, and the old man who will not laugh is a fool.
George Santayana, Dialogues in Limbo (1925).
They would be the shepherds over us, their sheep. Certainly such an arrangement presupposes that they are naturally superior to the rest of us. And certainly we are fully justified in demanding from the legislators and organizers proof of this natural superiority.
Frédéric Bastiat, The Law (June 1850; Dean Russell, trans., 1950).
In the best schools, almost all school time is wasted. Now and then something is learned that sticks fast; for the rest the boys are merely given time to grow and are kept from too much mischief.
George Santayana, Persons and Places (1944).