Category: Thought

A legislature is always badly set to work in manufacturing crime. To risk money in a wager is not a crime per se, whether the wager be on the result of a race, on the fate of a lottery ticket, on the turn of a dicebox, or on any other like contingency. It is folly, perhaps, in all cases, and it becomes crime and madness in some; but to draw the line between allowable folly and criminality, in a matter of this kind, is rather the office of publick opinion, than of the law.

William Leggett, in an editorial in the Plaindealer, January 28, 1837, republished in A Collection of the Political Writings of William Leggett (1840), and titled “Gambling Laws.”

Nothing like I’d ever seen. . . . I knew that we didn’t have any vehicles of that kind, and I was 99 and nine tenths percent sure that the Russians didn’t have any of that type either. . . . At that point in time there was no doubt in my mind that this vehicle was made at some other place than here on Earth.

NASA astronaut Gordon Cooper, on one of his several encounters with UFOs in the 1950s.

The illiterate of the 21st century will not be those who cannot read and write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn and relearn.

Herbert Gerjuoy, as quoted by Alvin Toffler in Future Shock (1970), Ch. 18, p. 414. Quotation from this psychologist is often misattributed to Toffler.

Short of changing human nature, therefore, the only way to achieve a practical, livable peace in a world of competing nations is to take the profit out of war.

Richard Milhous Nixon, 37th President of the United States, in his book Real Peace (1983).

You can’t build a house without nails and wood. If you don’t want a house built, hide the nails and wood. If you don’t want a man unhappy politically, don’t give him two sides to a question to worry him; give him one. Better yet, give him none. Let him forget there is such a thing as war.

Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451 (1953).

‘DO NOT GOVERN TOO MUCH,’ is a maxim which should be placed in large letters over the speaker’s chair in all legislative bodies. The old proverb, ‘too much of a good thing is good for nothing,’ is most especially applicable to the present time, when it would appear, from the course of our legislation, that common sense, common experience, and the instinct of self-preservation, are utterly insufficient for the ordinary purposes of life; that the people of the United States are not only incapable of self-government, but of taking cognizance of their individual affairs; that industry requires protection, enterprize bounties, and that no man can possibly find his way in broad day light without being tied to the apron-string of a legislative dry-nurse. The present system of our legislation seems founded on the total incapacity of mankind to take care of themselves or to exist without legislative enactment.

William Leggett, in an editorial in the Evening Post, March 11, 1835 — republished in A Collection of the Political Writings of William Leggett (1840) and titled “The Legislation of Congress”).

In the case of good books, the point is not to see how many of them you can get through, but how many can get through to you.

Mortimer Adler, The Wordsworth Book of Humorous Quotations (1998), p.2.

Whenever a Government assumes the power of discriminating between the different classes of the community, it becomes, in effect, the arbiter of their prosperity, and exercises a power not contemplated by any intelligent people in delegating their sovereignty to their rulers. It then becomes the great regulator of the profits of every species of industry, and reduces men from a dependence on their own exertions, to a dependence on the caprices of their Government. Governments possess no delegated right to tamper with individual industry a single hair’s-breadth beyond what is essential to protect the rights of person and property.

William Leggett, “True Functions of Government,” New York Evening Post, November 21, 1834.

He’s either “literally Hitler” or you wish him a speedy recovery. Ya gotta pick one of those two. You don’t wish Hitler a speedy recovery. . . . If “democracy’s on the ballot” and this is “the end of America” (as Hillary Clinton has said) . . . well then, OK: but then political violence is justified.

Comedian Dave Smith, on his “Part of the Problem” podcast, July 16, 2024, discussing illustrious Democrats’ pieties about non-violence immediately following the assassination attempt of their most hated opponent, and after years of calling Donald Trump the very worst things imaginable.

In America, we resolve our differences at the battle box.

President Joe Biden, reassuring Americans after the failed assassination attempt upon his rival, former President Donald John Trump, on the previous day. Moments later he almost said “Make America Great Again.” July 14, 2024.