“Progress is Providence without God. That is, it is a theory that everything has always perpetually gone right by accident. It is a sort of atheistic optimism, based on an everlasting coincidence far more miraculous than a miracle.”
“I am, at the Fed level, libertarian; at the state level, Republican; at the local level, Democrat; and at the family and friends level, a socialist. If that saying doesn’t convince you of the fatuousness of left vs. right labels, nothing will.”
“We can t change the world, but we can change the subject”
“The ages of individual Supreme Court Justices were of significant concern to Zack, as were the nominations President John would make if these elderly Supreme Court Justices retired or passed away. Zack smiled to himself and wished the justices good health and long life.”
“[Two respondents] minimized the assimilationist implications of the dominant account; Russ Silver rejects the idea entirely. I have no interest in being accepted. I consider this system corrupt, and I don t want to be accepted by it. We re in this together. Faggots, junkies, women, blacks, Hispanics, Native Americans, Asians, don t you see it? Don t you see that our white male government doesn t care about us? When I say this it shocks coat-and-tie lesbians and gay men everywhere. Well, I m sorry, folks; if you had AIDS you would know what I know: The government doesn t give a goddamn cent for a faggot s life.”
“All modern philosophizing is political, policed by governments, churches, academics, custom, fashion, and human cowardice, all of which limit it to a fake learnedness.”
“If guns don t kill people, why do mass killers arm themselves with guns?”
“There will never be a really free and enlightened State until the State comes to recognize the individual as a higher and independent power, from which all its own power and authority are derived, and treats him accordingly.”
“النصر على وجه الأمة كالطلاء، والهزيمة في وجهها كالوشم. الأيام تزيل الطلاء، والنار وحدها هي التي تمحو الوشم”
“It is scary how easily so many people can be brainwashed by sheer repetition of a word.”
“For having been educated in a convent, she knew nothing of the customs or manners of the world; and found it difficult to understand that among a people piquing themselves on their liberty, it was the custom to shut a man up in perpetual confinement, to enable him to pay his debts.”
“For some of us, politics means fighting for our right to exist”
“A political system that is all checks and balances is potentially no more successful than one with no checks, because governments periodically need strong and decisive action.”
“We are in a state of transition here. In fact, everyone in Hong Kong is obsessed with one single date: 1 July 1997. The whole city is in a state of violent change, moving from one regime we are used to loathing, to another one we are loath to get used to.”
“I wondered how there could be a custody battle when Hong Kong was already a fully grown adult and all she wanted was exactly what her parents did, the wealth of the entire globe.”
“The historical lesson is that a revolutionary party can carry out tactical movements, but it mustn t commit strategic errors.”
“The idea that religion and politics don t mix was invented by the Devil to keep Christians from running their own country.”