“The trouble with the world is that the stupid are cocksure and the intelligent are full of doubt.”

“Folks, once again America is falling behind. It’s not fair, though—we’re all obese, we can’t walk that fast.”

“Please use the comments to demonstrate your own ignorance, lack of scientific knowledge, ability to repeat discredited memes, and lack of respect for empirical data. Also, be sure to create straw men and argue against things I have neither said nor even implied. Any irrelevancies you can mention will also be appreciated. Lastly, kindly forgo all civility in your discourse…you are anonymous after... [More]”

“Socializing on the Internet is to socializing as reality TV is to reality.”

“Soccer is just one more thing the rest of the world is trying to cram down our throats, like the Metric System and the Geneva Convention.”

“The United States invariably does the right thing, after having exhausted every other alternative.”

“The essence of the Liberal outlook lies not in what opinions are held, but in how they are held: instead of being held dogmatically, they are held tentatively, and with a consciousness that new evidence may at any moment lead to their abandonment.”

“What difference does it make to the dead, the orphans and the homeless whether the mad destruction is wrought under the name of totalitarianism or the holy name of liberty or democracy?”

“Money is like gasoline during a road trip. You don’t want to run out of gas on your trip, but you’re not doing a tour of gas stations. You have to pay attention to money, but it shouldn’t be about the money.”

“This is Americanism, the only predatory ideology to deny that it is an ideology. The rise of tentacular corporations that are dictatorships in their own right and of a military that is now a state with the state, set behind the façade of the best democracy 35,000 Washington lobbyists can buy, and a popular culture programmed to divert and stultify, is without precedent.”

“Our Republican leaders tell us economic laws–sacred, inviolable, unchangeable–cause panics which no one could prevent. But while they prate of economic laws, men and women are starving. We must lay hold of the fact that economic laws are not made by nature. They are made by human beings.”

“Oh no, now I’ve done it. Now the libertarians are starting to cry. Thirty years of anti-government sabotage of consumer, worker and environmental protections weren’t enough. Not enough people are out of work for the Cato Institute. Not enough kids are going hungry for the libertarians. Not enough families are homeless. Not enough water is undrinkable yet. There are still some working class people who can afford to go the doctor now and then. There are still times when courts award decent... [More]”

“To do evil a human being must first of all believe that what he’s doing is good . . . Ideology—that is what gives evildoing its long-sought justification and gives the evildoer the necessary steadfastness and determination. That is the social theory which helps to make his acts seem good instead of bad in his own and others’ eyes, so that he won’t hear reproaches and curses but will receive praise and honors.”

“What happened about twenty years ago is that bankers said they made an anthropological discovery, a breakthrough. They found out that the poor are honest. Almost the only people who believed that they should repay their debts are the poor people. And in fact, the less money you have, the more you believe that the debts should be paid. …Even though the poorer you are the higher the interest rate you pay, the poorer you are the greater the likelihood the bank has that you’re going to repay... [More]”

“Today, words like ‘Progress’ and ‘Development’ have become interchangeable with economic ‘Reforms’, Deregulation and Privatisation. ‘Freedom’ has come to mean ‘choice’. It has less to do with the human spirit than with different brands of deodorant. ‘Market’ no longer means a place where you go to buy provisions. The ‘Market’ is a de-territorialised space where faceless corporations do business, including buying and selling ‘futures’. […] This theft of... [More]”

“Why is the systematic brutality, the widespread atrocities, the ruthless suppression of independent thought of Stalinist Russia well known in the West while American criminal actions never happened. Nothing ever happened. Even while it was happening it never happened. It didn’t matter. It was of no interest.”

“’Cynicism’ is invading a country for the sorts of reasons that have guided the United States in most of their interventionist actions since World War II. There is a American kid in Afghanistan who is going to die tomorrow because Rahm Emmanuel doesn’t want his boss to have to answer toughness questions from somebody like Brian Williams in a 2012 electoral debate. And I’m the cynic here?”

“But what this scene, and much else that I saw in Germany, brought home to me was that the whole idea of revenge and punishment is a childish daydream. Properly speaking, there is no such thing as revenge. Revenge is an act which you want to commit when you are powerless and because you are powerless: as soon as the sense of impotence is removed, the desire evaporates also.”

“Now in a different world, at a different time, and with a different president, we face the prospect of enlarging a different war. But once again we’re fighting in remote provinces against an enemy who can bleed us slowly and wait us out, because he will still be there when we are gone.

“Once again, we are caught between warring factions in a country where other foreign powers fail before us. Once again, every setback brings a call for more troops, although no one can say how long they will be... [More]”

“Son, no one gives a shit about all the things your cell phone does. You didn’t invent it, you just bought it. Anybody can do that.”

“And that’s the terrible myth of organized society, that everything that’s done through the established system is legal, and that word has a powerful psychological impact. It makes people believe that there is an order to life and an order to a system and that a person that goes through this order and is convicted has gotten all that is due him, and therefore society can turn its conscience off and look to other things and other times. And that’s the terrible thing about these past trials,... [More]”

“There are only two hard problems in computer science: cache invalidation and naming things.”

“When I was a kid I used to pray every night for a new bicycle. Then I realized God doesn’t work that way, so I stole one and prayed for forgiveness.”

“It would be a dangerous delusion were a confidence in the men of our choice to silence our fears for the safety of our rights; that confidence is every where [sic] the parent of despotism; […] our Constitution has accordingly fixed the limits to which, and no farther, our confidence may go; […] In questions of power, then, let no more be said of confidence in man, but bind him down from mischief by the chains of the Constitution.”

“Men are apt to mistake the strength of their feeling for the strength of their argument.”

“There’s nothing I like less than bad arguments for a view that I hold dear.”

“Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man’s character, give him power.”

“Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn’t go away.”

“Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable.”

“’Tis better to be silent and be thought a fool, than to speak and remove all doubt.”