Quote of the Day: 30 September 2018

“Life comes from life. It is a gift from our Heavenly Father. It is eternal, as he is eternal. Innocent life is not sent by him to be destroyed! This doctrine is not of me, but is that of the living God and of his divine Son[.]” -Russell M. Nelson

Quote of the Day: 29 September 2018

“Over himself, over his own body and mind, the individual is sovereign.” -John Stuart Mill

Fiction Friday: Scene from a Dystopian Future

“Ketting consty,” Maddy muttered as she burst through the door into the back room.

Keltin tapped his reader’s power node and shuffled the stock tablet back on top of the stack. “What’s the matter this time, Sis?” he asked.

“Just some troublemaker coming in and wanting things his own way,” she responded. “Even made his dumb kid ask for it, too. Didn’t have the courage to say so himself.”

“How do you know he’s a throwback, Maddy? There’s no stars and stripes, or anything like that I can see on the viewer,” Keltin tossed back.

“I just do, ‘K?” she looked at him over her shoulder from the stack of bound paper readers she was looking through. “Besides, who names their kid ‘George’ these days? It’s not like we don’t know who he’s named after. Ol’ mister cherry tree himself. I mean, c’mon. Get some originality.” She raised her hand with a book in it. “And who comes in asking for anything by Twain? He’s so 20th century.”

Keltin could see Maddy was holding a tattered copy of A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court.

“I’ll grant you it’s an odd request. But George could be a family name, and maybe the kid’s just interested in science in fiction. You know Pops doesn’t keep anything truly seditious around,” Keltin said as he brushed a lock of muddy brown hair back from in front of his eyes.

“Oh please!” Maddy snorted. She dropped the other magazines and books back on the shelf and turned on her heel back toward the door. “You’re too soft on them, you know,” she said as she strode by Keltin’s station. “You really ought to get out more. See what’s actually going on out there. Not just believe what you read off those official news reports you get back here.” She pulled open the door and wafted back out to the front of the shop.

Keltin dragged the reader back out from under the stock tablet, and hit the power node with the third finger on his left hand. He continued to read where he had left off: “… it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, …”

Quote of the Day: 28 September 2018

“The family, rather than the individual, has always been and remains today the basic building block of our society, though its hold has clearly been weakening—one of the most unfortunate consequences of the growth of government paternalism.” -Milton Friedman

Throwback Thursday: Giant priests

Detail from illuminated Manuscript

These priests are huge. I guess you could say they were big in their time.

Quote of the Day: 27 September 2018

“You cannot make a man worth a given amount by making it illegal for anyone to offer him anything less.” -Henry Hazlitt

Quote of the Day: 26 September 2018

“Maintaining one’s vigilance against biases is a chore—but the chance to avoid a costly mistake is sometimes worth the effort.” -Daniel Kahneman

Quote of the Day: 25 September 2018

“Taxation is just a sophisticated way of demanding money with menaces” -Lord Vetinari (attributed), Night Watch

Quote of the Day: 24 September 2018

“Don’t act like you support victims of sexual harassment if the political party they’re coming from determines whether or not you believe them.” -Caleb Hull

Quote of the Day: 23 September 2018

“Our yearnings for happiness were implanted in our hearts by Deity. They represent a kind of homesickness, for we have a residual memory of our premortal existence. They are also a foretaste of the fulness of joy that is promised to the faithful.” -Jack H. Goaslind, Jr.

Quote of the Day: 22 September 2018

“You can’t make radical changes in the pattern of your life until you begin to see yourself exactly as you are now.” -Henepola Gunaratana

Quote of the Day: 21 September 2018

“[Stories], written by people we’ll never be, about experiences we’ve never had and never will have, are the only escape from being a prisoner behind your eyes. They’re the only way for you to truly experience being someone else. And they’re a great way to build both sympathy and empathy for others[.]” -Sarah Hoyt

Throw Back Thursday: Balding Baby Jesus

Detail from Adoration of the Magi

This is the first time I have seen Jesus depicted with a receding hairline. It also happens to be when he is a very young child.

Quote of the Day: 20 September 2018

“But Nature is so uncomfortable. Grass is hard and lumpy and damp, and full of dreadful black insects.” -Vivian, “The Decay of Lying” by Oscar Wilde

[Not necessarily how I feel, but at times that is what is at the forefront of my mind.]

Quote of the Day: 19 September 2018

“An ordinary fool isn’t a faker; an honest fool is all right. But a dishonest fool is terrible!” -Richard Feynman

Quote of the Day: 18 September 2018

“It is not the origins of poverty which need to be explained, since the human species began in poverty. What requires explaining are the things that created and sustained higher standards of living.” -Thomas Sowell

Bonus Quote of the Day: 17 September 2018

“By forgetting the Tenth Amendment and expanding the commerce clause beyond all recognition, the theory’s advocates have subverted the most important of the Constitution’s foundational principles: The federal government’s powers are limited, not open-ended.” -Mike Lee

Quote of the Day: 17 September 2018

“The interpretation of the laws is the proper and peculiar province of the courts. A constitution is in fact, and must be, regarded by the judges as a fundamental law. It therefore belongs to them to ascertain its meaning as well as the meaning of any particular act proceeding from the legislative body.” -Alexander Hamilton, The Federalist No. 78

[Happy Constitution Day!]

Quote of the Day: 16 September 2018

“True peace must not be dependent upon conditions or happenings. Peace must stem from an inward contentment built upon trust, faith, and goodwill toward God, fellowmen, and self.” -Marvin J. Ashton

Quote of the Day: 15 September 2018

“Believers in aristocracy and socialism share a faith in centralized rule, in rule by command rather than by voluntary cooperation.” -Milton Friedman

Quote of the Day: 14 September 2018

“I carry a wallet in case I need to buy something. I carry a flashlight in case I need to see something. I carry a knife in case I need to open something. And I carry a gun in case I need to stop someone from trying to grievously harm me.” -Tamara Keel

Quote of the Day: 13 September 2018

“You’ll find that the only thing you can do easily is be wrong, and that’s hardly worth the effort.” -The Mathemagician, The Phantom Tollbooth

Quote of the Day: 12 September 2018

“Rights belong to individuals. Just because everyone else in a group abuses a right does not justify the infringement of that right for individuals who have not abused it.” -Joe Huffman

[I wish this was better understood. But far too many are willing to abridge the rights of those who have done no wrong in the face of those who have.]

Quote of the Day: 11 September 2018

“[R]emember the kind of people who died this day, [seventeen] years ago. The average, the exceptional. Black, white, yellow, red, and every shade and tint in between. Catholics, Jews, Protestants, atheists, Buddists, Sihks, and yes, Muslims. Americans and citizens of dozens of other countries.” -Kevin Baker

Quote of the Day: 10 September 2018

“Mankind are greater gainers by suffering each other to live as seems good to themselves, than by compelling each to live as seems good to the rest.” -John Stuart Mill

Quote of the Day: 9 September 2018

“When you choose to follow Christ, you choose the Way, the Truth, the Life—the right way, the saving truth, the abundant life.” -Ezra Taft Benson

Quote of the Day: 8 September 2018

“I can't turn water into wine, but I can turn ice cream into breakfast.” -Louis Peitzman

Quote of the Day: 7 September 2018

“It is hard to be brave when you’re only a Very Small Animal.” -Piglet

Quote of the Day: 6 September 2018

“Knowing things is magical, if other people don’t know them.” -Miss Level, A Hat Full of Sky

Quote of the Day: 5 September 2018

“It is very true that ‘correlation does not equal causation,’ but when correlations begin to mount, it is foolhardy to refuse to consider the possibility of a coupling mechanism.” -Stephanie Osborn

Quote of the Day: 4 September 2018

“If I took some of your earnings to give to a poor person, I'd go to jail. If a congressman did the same thing, he'd be praised.” -Walter E. Williams

Quote of the Day: 3 September 2018

“It cannot be overemphasized that compulsory unionism violates the first principle of the original labor union movement in America.” -Mark Mix

[Happy Labor Day.]

Quote of the Day: 2 September 2018

“Yes, life is precious! No one can cuddle a cherished newborn baby, look into those beautiful eyes, feel the little fingers, and caress that miraculous creation without deepening reverence for life and for our Creator.” -Russell M. Nelson

Quote of the Day: 1 September 2018

“The good ended happily, and the bad unhappily. That is what Fiction means.” -Miss Prism, The Importance of Being Earnest