Favorite Quotations

“[T]he common conservative view that we don't want judges citing penumbral emanations and other constitutional vapors to justify inventing new rights they fancy the country needs.”– Charles Krauthammer, RealClearPolitics.com

“Calling an illegal alien an 'undocumented worker' is like calling a drug dealer an 'unlicensed pharmacist.'”– Unknown (quoted by Thomas Sowell)

“This case has already sent a message about the kinds of gutless lemmings on our academic campuses, including our most prestigious institutions.”– Thomas Sowell, (commenting on the 88 Duke professors who took out the ad during the Duke rape case)

“Brave John Edwards ran away,
Bravely ran away, away.
When Fox News reared its ugly head,
He bravely turned his tail and fled.
Yes, brave John Edwards turned about
And gallantly he chickened out.
Bravely taking to his feet,
He beat a very brave retreat.
Bravest of the braaaave, John Edwards!”– Jon Sanders, Townhall.com

“I’d love to be a liberal because, you know, chicks dig the progressives. But also because I’d love to resolve debates with clever rejoinders like “Halliburton!” or “Fox News!” or “Karl Rove!,” and because I’d love to engage in intellectual group hugs rather than confront awkward truths, and because I’d love to show how my heart is in the right place by supporting benevolent-sounding but historically discredited social policies which end up devastating the very communities they’re intended to benefit. So, yes, I’d love to be a liberal . . . except these pesky I.Q. points keep getting in the way.” – Mark Goldblatt, NRO

“Half the harm that is done in this world is due to people who want to feel important.  They don't mean to do harm–but the harm does not interest them.  Or they do not see it, or they justify it because they are absorbed in the endless struggle to think well of themselves.” – T. S. Eliot

“Intellectuals look at the world through literary prisms of theory. They come up with a vision of the world — one that usually magnifies their importance — and then select facts accordingly.”– Jonah Goldberg, NRO

“Economic policies need to be analyzed in terms of the incentives they create, rather than the hopes that inspired them.” – Thomas Sowell, Basic Economics

“But the truth is hindsight isn't 20-20, and you can't always understand things better after the fact. If we could all see the past clearly and objectively there would be very few disagreements about politics, religion, history and whose turn it is to take out the garbage.” – Jonah Goldberg, NRO

“Much of the social history of the Western world, over the past three decades, has been a history of replacing what worked with what sounded good.” – Thomas Sowell (2006)

“A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government.  It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largesse from the public treasury.” – Alexander Tytler

“It's not an endlessly expanding list of rights – the “right” to education, the “right” to health care, the “right” to food and housing. That's not freedom, that's dependency. Those aren't rights, those are the rations of slavery – hay and a barn for human cattle.” – Alexis De Tocquiville

“The best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter.” – Winston Churchill

“The first thing someone will do for his ideals is lie.” – Joseph Schumpeter

“Imagine how happy we'll be in a thousand years when we have a hundred times as many laws to improve our lives.” – Brian D. McLaren, A Generous Orthodoxy

“You can't stop insane people from doing insane things by passing insane laws. That's insane!”– Penn Jillette

“The aim of untold millions is to be free to do exactly as they choose and for someone else to pay when things go wrong.” – Theodore Dalrymple, Life at the Bottom

“These guys dance like a 12-year-old kicking around a dead squirrel.” – John Dvorak, Silicon Spin (commenting on Bill Gates and his entourage partying at Studio 54)

“The president of Mexico has arrived in the U.S., thanks to some nifty fence climbing. ... I thought this was encouraging. He offered to take President Bush's job for $3 an hour cash.”– David Letterman

“One morning she and Katie Couric had an especially long, adoring chat-fest, looking ever so much like two chipmunks grooming each other.” – Myrna Blyth (describing an interview between Hillary Clinton and Katie Couric.)

“Our hopeful joy upon the 1994 takeover of Congress was like finding a new pony by the Christmas tree. Now it’s more like finding it slumped over dead on top of the presents.”– Jonah Goldberg, NRO (expressing his disappointment with the Republican control of congress.)

“Data is the plural of anecdote.”– Ronald Coase

“When bad men combine, the good must associate; else they will fall one by one, an unpitied sacrifice in a contemptible struggle.”– Edmund Burke

“Envy is the single most impoverishing attitude of thought.” – Warren Brookes