Category: Thought

Even paranoids have real enemies.

Delmore Schwartz, as quoted in Jon Winokur’s collection of aphorisms, The Portable Curmudgeon (1987).

Of all the noises, I think music is the least disagreeable.

Samuel Johnson, as quoted in Jon Winokur’s compilation of aphorisms, The Quotable Curmudgeon (1987).

Life is not a spectacle or a feast; it is a predicament.

George Santayana, as quoted in Jon Winokur’s compilation, The Portable Curmudgeon (1987).

Those who welcome death have only tried it from the ears up.

Wilson Mizner, as quoted by Jon Winokur, ed., The Portable Curmudgeon (1987).

On September 22, 1862, President Abraham Lincoln signed a preliminary Emancipation Proclamation. One curious thing about the document is its promise of compensation:

And the executive will in due time recommend that all citizens of the United States who shall have remained loyal thereto throughout the rebellion, shall (upon the restoration of the constitutional relation between the United States, and their respective States, and people, if that relation shall have been suspended or disturbed) be compensated for all losses by acts of the United States, including the loss of slaves.

The proclamation was signed by Lincoln and Secretary of State William H. Seward:

Done at the City of Washington this twenty-second day of September, in the year of our Lord, one thousand, eight hundred and sixty-two, and of the Independence of the United States the eighty seventh.

The final version of the proclamation was delivered on January 1, 1863.

They don’t kill you because you’re a Nazi, they call you a Nazi so they can kill you.

Blaire White (@MsBlaireWhite) on X (September 12, 2025).

The surest way to corrupt a youth is to instruct him to hold in higher esteem those who think alike than those who think differently.

Friedrich W. Nietzsche, The Dawn (1881).

On September 20, in 1881, Vice President Chester Alan Arthur was sworn in as the 21st President of the United States, after the death of James A. Garfield the previous day.

Garfield had cut an impressive figure in mid-century politics and was surely one of the smartest men to inhabit the office — if so briefly, having been sworn on March 4th. He was also a reformer. His successor, Arthur, was the very opposite . . . as was his assassin, Charles Julius Guiteau, who shot him on July 2nd. Indeed, Guiteau’s words upon shooting the president troubled more than one faction in American politics: “I did it. I will go to jail for it. I am a Stalwart and Arthur will be President.”

Guiteau was executed, rather than jailed for life. Chester Arthur went on to end the spoil system, but did appoint his old Stalwart patron, Roscoe Conkling, to the Supreme Court: the Senate confirmed the appointment, but Conkling declined the nomination.

When I look at this poor, bleeding, wounded World, this world that has suffered so long, struggled so much, been scourged so fiercely, thorn-pierced so deeply, crucified so cruelly, I can only shake my head and remember: The giant is blind, but he’s thinking: and his locks are growing, fast.

Voltairine de Cleyre, conclusion to her essay, “The Economic Tendency of Freethought,” Liberty Vol. XI, #25 (February 15, 1890), alluding to the Biblical Samson (Judges) as the giant.

People are usually surprised to discover that I hate the phrase “constitutional rights.” I hate the phrase because it is terribly misleading. Most of the people who say it or hear it have the impression that the Constitution “grants” them their rights. Nothing could be further from the truth. Strictly speaking it is the Bill of Rights that enumerates our rights, but none of our founding documents bestow anything on you at all. . . . The government can burn the Constitution and shred the Bill of Rights, but those actions wouldn’t have the slightest effect on the rights you’ve always had.

Michael Badnarik, Good to be King (2004).