Quote of the Day: 31 May 2017

"I think Trump Derangement Syndrome is real. There are those who would never say a kind word about this administration even if it did everything they want. But there are also the deranged apologists who will gladly cheer on Russia because the President loves Russia." -Erick Erickson

[People who fall in both camps have spent all their political capital with me. It would take monumental circumstances to get me to consider what they are saying as at all rational.]

Quote of the Day: 30 May 2017

"Superstition and sham cannot stand before intelligence and reality." -Calvin Coolidge

[Willful ignorance is another matter altogether.]

Quote of the Day: 29 May 2017

"Happened today, and in the past;

Sacrifice made, for ours to last.

Wives to widows, families torn;

Gave their lives, for them we mourn.

Gone forever, souls are lost;

Freedom comes, with this cost.

Enjoy the life, they did preserve;

Fate they suffered, did not deserve.

On this day, lest we forget;

To them we owe, our life in debt." -Don Nielsen

Quote of the Day: 28 May 2017

"The truth is that today is always a better day to repent than any tomorrow." -Henry B. Eyring

Quote of the Day: 27 May 2017

"Don’t go with the loudest voice; don’t oppose progressives just because they’re progressives; don’t turn all the lies on their head and think that’s the truth; don’t cut slack to those on your side behaving badly[.]" -Sarah Hoyt

[Sound advice.

Which I wish more people would follow.]

Quote of the Day: 26 May 2017

"As an economist, I wish that raising people's wages were as simple and easy as waving a wand or passing a law but that's just not the way the world works." -Lawrence W. Reed

[The inability to reason beyond the immediate impact of a policy change causes many people difficulty in understanding basic economic principles. In this case, that price controls cause shortages of one kind or another.]

Quote of the Day: 25 May 2017

“A common mistake that people make when trying to design something completely foolproof is to underestimate the ingenuity of complete fools.” -Douglas Adams

Quote of the Day: 24 May 2017

"It was a puzzle why things were always dragged kicking and screaming. No one ever seemed to want to, for example, lead them gently by the hand." -Terry Pratchett

[I see this more today than I did at the time when this was written.]

Quote of the Day: 23 May 2017

"[I]t’s not even the students fault; it’s our fault. Because we’re no longer rewarding logic and reason; we’re rewarding temper tantrums." -Mike Rowe

[It's not even limited to the college students he is referring to here. This has pervaded society. It applies to our political class as well. Primarily on the part of one party, but the other is not exempt from its share of temper tantrum fit throwers either.]

Quote of the Day: 22 May 2017

"The public at large thinks that government is too big. People know they are not getting their money's worth for the taxes they pay." -Milton Friedman

Quote of the Day: 21 May 2017

"If we look for imperfections in our spouse or irritations in our marriage, we will certainly find them, because everyone has some. On the other hand, if we look for the good, we will surely find it, because everyone has many good qualities too." -Dieter Uchtdorf

Quote of the Day: 20 May 2017

"You think we get any satisfaction from using persuasion? We have to do what the Party demands of us. You are an old Party member. Tell me what would you do in my place?" -Unnamed Interrogator to M. Lurye

[Recorded in Solzhenitsin's The Gulag Archipelago.]

Quote of the Day: 19 May 2017

"There are places in the United States where if you do something rude and improper you will get disapproving looks and people will whisper about you. They might snub you in the coffee room or not invite you to go bowling. And there are places in the US where doing something that society considers rude will get you beaten without a second thought." -Rory Miller

Quote of the Day: 18 May 2017

"They have seen, too, that one legislative interference is but the first link of a long chain of repetitions; every subsequent interference being naturally produced by the effects of the preceding." -James Madison, The Federalist No. 44

[The nature of government to produce problems from its attempts to remedy other problems has been observed since at least the debate over the ratification of the constitution. Sadly, it appears we have not learned the lessons of history sufficiently well to be wary of governmental solutions to problems.]

Quote of the Day: 17 May 2017

"We see now that when the individual fails, whether it be from a despotism or the dead level of a socialistic state, all has failed." -Calvin Coolidge

[We must always look out for the individual. For he is the smallest minority within any society.]

Quote of the Day: 16 May 2017

"[N]o magical metamorphosis is more spectacular than the transformation of cucumber to pickle." -Alton Brown

[It's Pickle Day!]

Quote of the Day: 15 May 2017

"Remember – It is rarely necessary to apologize for your children acting like children, especially to someone who has several of his own." -daddybear71

[I have only one child, and that only briefly. However, I have not looked askance at people whose children are acting childish. Unless they are destructive, or overly disturbing and the parents are not making any effort to curb the behavior.]

Bonus Quote of the Day: 14 May 2017

"Nothing says 'I love you, mom' like a child you didn't abort." -Ben Shapiro

[In response to a PP tweet about standing up for women's rights to have access to abortions.]

Quote of the Day: 14 May 2017

"How vital are mother’s influence and teaching in the home—and how apparent when neglected!" -Ezra Taft Benson

[Happy Mother's Day!]

Quote of the Day: 13 May 2017

"'Well, I just . . . I thought . . . well, I just thought you'd be teaching me more, that's all.'

'I'm teaching you things all the time,' said Lu-Tze. 'You might not be learning them of course.'" -Terry Pratchett

[The conflict between teaching and learning. You can teach all you want, but if the student isn't learning, does it matter?]

Quote of the Day: 12 May 2017

"You can rigidly enforce only those laws that most people believe to be good laws, that is, laws that proscribe actions that they would avoid even in the absence of laws. When laws render illegal actions that many or most people regard as moral and proper, they can be enforced only by brute force." -Milton Friedman

[A preponderance of laws also inures a population to the benefits of sound law. Respect for the law declines, and the state becomes full of profligate law breakers.]

Quote of the Day: 11 May 2017

"If we would have a stable society, we must have dangerous old men. This means that, if you are yourself on your way to becoming an old man, you have a duty to society to begin your preparations. The martial arts are not the only road--my own grandfather did it through a simple combination of physical strength, personal discipline, and an accustomed habit of going armed about his business. There was never a more impressive figure--or, at least, there was never a boy more impressed than was I." -Grim

[This is evident in the inner city culture that has developed where fathers are largely absent. These same locales are places I choose n to to spend any time.]

Quote of the Day: 10 May 2017

"How difficult it is for error to escape its own condemnation." -James Madison, The Federalist No. 41

Quote of the Day: 9 May 2017

"Artillery bombardment or fistfight, you rarely destroy 100% of the Threat's capability to fight. Instead, you destroy his will." -Rory Miller

[Our goal in any violent encounter is to end the encounter with as little damage to ourselves as possible; preferably quickly. What would be necessary to break the will of your attacker?]

Quote of the Day: 8 May 2017

"Throughout history the rise in outsourcing has paralleled a rise in prodcutivity, a rise in human opportunities and accomplishments, and a rise in global living standards. This is not a coincidence; economics indicates that outsourcing is not a bane to our economic health, but a core component of economic progress." -Tyler Watts

[This is an economic truth that populists of many stripes do not understand. They cannot see how outsourcing frees up labor to be directed toward more productive ends. They are also under the false impression that those jobs rightly belong to themselves or someone they know.]

Quote of the Day: 7 May 2017

"The Lord has blessed each of you with greater capacity than you realize. Your I.Q. may not be the highest in the world. So what? Our jails are filled with clever men who were anything but smart. I have concluded that the work of the world is not done by intellectual geniuses. It is done by men of ordinary capacity who use their abilities in an extraordinary manner." -Gordon Hinckley

Quote of the Day: 6 May 2017

"Even the tiger runs and hides when little Tabaqui goes mad, for madness is the most disgraceful thing that can overtake a wild creature." -Rudyard Kipling

[Or in other words discretion is the better part of valor.]

Quote of the Day: 5 May 2017

"It takes service and sacrifice to maintain ideals." -Calvin Coolidge

[Among those sacrifices may be the need to accept personal responsibility for problems rather than taking the tempting path of demanding from government a remedy to our ills.]

Quote of the Day: 4 May 2017

"[W]e should ask ourselves, 'Is it really "sharing" if I have to do it at gunpoint?' I was always taught that sharing was an act of free will. When you give half your sandwich to a friend who forgot to pack his lunch, you've shared it. If he threatens to beat you up if you don't give it to him, 'sharing' is no longer the operative term." -Lawrence W. Reed

[Keeping in mind that the government is essentially a big pointing guns a people machine.]

Quote of the Day: 3 May 2017

"[I]f we do not grab events by the collar they will have us by the throat." -Lord Vetinari, The Truth

[There is a need to be proactive in your life. If you do not attempt to take some measure of control, you will be controlled by events instead.]

Quote of the Day: 2 May 2017

"Such it is with dogs: whether you are gone five minutes or five hours, they believe it was forever as you hope beyond reason that it will never be." -L.B. Johnson

Quote of the Day: 1 May 2017

"The worst crime against working people is a company which fails to operate at a profit." -Samuel Gompers

[A company that does not generate a profit will soon be gone, and with it the jobs that it formerly provided. Too many fail to see where their salary comes from, and take it as an article of faith that corporations and companies earning a profit is somehow evil.]