Category: Thought

Reader, suppose you were an idiot. And suppose you were a member of Congress. But I repeat myself.

Mark Twain, quoted in Robert Bigelow Paine, Mark Twain, a Biography (1912), p. 724.

Mendel’s concept of the laws of genetics was lost to the world for a generation because his publication did not reach the few who were capable of grasping and extending it; and this sort of catastrophe is undoubtedly being repeated all about us, as truly significant attainments become lost in the mass of the inconsequential.

Wisdom denotes the pursuing of the best ends by the best means.

For human nature is strange: the less we are inclined to self-sacrifice, the more we insist on it in others.

Dictatorships foster oppression, dictatorships foster servitude, dictatorships foster cruelty; more abominable is the fact that they foster idiocy.

I am a contributing creator of American civilization; it does not create me. I control the stem of this civilization that is within my reach; it does not control me. It can not even make me read Spengler, if I’d rather read a pulp magazine.

Rose Wilder Lane, The Discovery of Freedom (1943), p. 18.

In the complete separation of government from the bank and credit system consists the chief hope of renovating our prosperity, and restoring to the people those equal rights, which have so long been exposed to the grossest violations. Leave credit to its own laws. It is an affair between man and man, which does not need special government protection and regulation. Leave banking to be conducted on the same footing with any other private business, and leave the banker to be trusted or not, precisely as he shall have means to satisfy those who deal with him of his responsibility and integrity. All this is a matter for men to manage with each other in the transaction of private affairs.

William Leggett (1801–1839), Plaindealer (July 22, 1837).

This same passage was published here a few days ago. But we repeat because the image snips out an even juicier two sentences from the passage than before!

Two things in America are astonishing: the changeableness of most human behavior and the strange stability of certain principles. Men are constantly on the move, but the spirit of humanity seems almost unmoved.

Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America, Book Three, Chapter XXI

In the complete separation of government from the bank and credit system consists the chief hope of renovating our prosperity, and restoring to the people those equal rights, which have so long been exposed to the grossest violations. Leave credit to its own laws. It is an affair between man and man, which does not need special government protection and regulation. Leave banking to be conducted on the same footing with any other private business, and leave the banker to be trusted or not, precisely as he shall have means to satisfy those who deal with him of his responsibility and integrity. All this is a matter for men to manage with each other in the transaction of private affairs.

William Leggett (1801–1839), Plaindealer (July 22, 1837).

Conversation means being able to disagree and still continue the discussion.