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Quotations
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on this page: A thru CQuotation Links

D thru FG thru JK thru NO thru RS thru Z
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Authors A thru C

Edward 'Cactus Ed' Abbey [1927-89]
now has a quotations page of his own: click here

Lord Acton [1834-1902]
• • “And remember, where you have a concentration of power in a few hands, all too frequently men with the mentality of gangsters get control. History has proven that. Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men.”  – full text of the famous 'Dictum of Lord Acton'  {blog 10/2007}
• • “The most certain test by which we can judge whether a country is really free is
the amount of security enjoyed by minorities.”  {blog 3/2008}

Joey Adams [1911-99]
“A genius is one who can do anything except make a living.”  {blog 1/2008}

John Adams [1735-1826]
• • “The preservation of the means of knowledge among the lowest ranks is of more importance to the public than all the property of the rich men in the country.”  {Issue #36}
• • “This is a revolution, dammit, we're going to have to offend somebody.”
(during debates on the Declaration of Independence, 1776)  {Issues #48 & #58}
• • “Power always thinks [that] it has a great soul and vast views beyond the comprehension of the weak,
and that it is doing God’s will when it is violating all His laws.”  {Issue #69}

Samuel Adams [1722-1803]
• • “It does not require a majority to prevail, but rather an irate, tireless
minority keen to set brushfires in people's minds.”  {Issue #39}
• • “It does not take a majority to prevail ... but rather an irate, tireless minority,
who keep on setting brushfires of freedom in the minds of men.”  {Issue #71}

Aeschylus [c. 525-c. 456 B.C.E.]
“It is in the character of very few men to honor without envy a friend who has prospered.”  {blog 12/2008}

Aesop [600 B.C.E.]
“We hang the petty thieves, but appoint the great ones to public office.”  {Issue #36}

James Agee [1909-55]
“The elementary beginning of true reason ... resides in the ability to recognize oneself, and others, primarily
as human beings, and to recognize the ultimate absoluteness of responsibility of each human being.”  {Issue #62}

Fred Allen [1894-1956]
“A conference is a gathering of important people who singly can do nothing,
but together can decide that nothing can be done.”  {blog 10/2007}

Woody Allen
• • “If my films don't show a profit, I know I'm doing something right.”  {blog 5/2008}
• • “Life doesn't imitate art, it imitates bad television.”  {blog 9/2008}
• • “I don't want to achieve immortality through my work. I want to achieve it through not dying.”  {blog 6/2009}
• • “If my films make one more person miserable, I'll feel I have done my job.”  {blog 6/2009}

Eric Alterman
• • “With [George W.] Bush, we're left with the perennial unanswerable question:
dishonest, moronic, or both?”  {Issue #47}
• • “The real opposition to this administration is normative reality and the U.S. Constitution.”  {Issue #61}

Baba Amte of India
“Victory is his who even in defeat never surrenders, and so victory will be the people's.”  {Issue #62}

New Mexico author Rudolfo Anaya
• • “The battle of good and evil is always for the soul.”  {Issue #21}
• • “Man does not live on enchiladas alone.” (in "Zia Summer")  {blog 11/2007}

Glenn Anderson
“The actor first feels, then thinks, then responds.”  {Issue #70}

Maya Angelou
“A bird doesn't sing because it has an answer, it sings because
it has a song.”  {Issue #43}

Thomas Aquinas [circa 1225-1274]
“There can be no joy of life without joy of work.”  {Issue #19}

Hannah Arendt [1906-75]
“Few girls are as well-shaped as a good horse.”  {blog 11/2008}

Pietro Aretino [1492-1556]
“I am, indeed, a king, because I know how to rule myself.”  {blog 3/2008}

Aristedes [circa 140 A.D.]
“Temples are to be dedicated to the gods, and books to good men.”  {Issue #55}

Aristotle [384-322 B.C.E.]
• • “The poet should prefer probable impossibilities to
improbable possibilities.”  {Issue #42}
• • “All who have meditated on the art of governing mankind are convinced
that the fate of empires depends on the education of youth.”  {Issue #48}
• • “The energy of the mind is the essence of life.”  {blog 6/2008}
• • “All paid jobs absorb and degrade the mind.”  {blog 11/2008}

Raymond Aron
“[Politics] is never a struggle between good & evil, but between the preferable and the detestable.”  {Issue #56}

Robert G. Arthur of Kings Park, NY
“As a high school English teacher, I can testify that ,,, [television] is so poisonous and hypnotic
that the disease of illiteracy is rampant.” (circa 1984)  {blog 9/2008}

Mary Kay Ash, founder of Mary Kay Cosmetics
“Stop spending dollar time on penny jobs.”  {Issue #51}

Isaac Asimov [1920-92]
• • “Ignorance must be battled.”  {Issue #33}
• • “The creationists' ... case is so weak that the only way [that] they can feel sure of maintaining it
is to make sure their victims never hear of anything else.”  {Issue #53}
• • “Part of the inhumanity of the computer is that, once it is competently programmed
and working smoothly, it is completely honest.”  {Issue #62}
• • “The most exciting phrase to hear in science, the one that heralds new discoveries, is not 'Eureka!' (I found it) - but 'That's funny...'.”  {Issue #66}
• • “Properly read, the Bible is the most potent force for atheism ever conceived.”  {blog 7/2008}
• • “Every stick points in two directions, one opposed to the other.” {attributed}  {blog 9/2008}

W.H. Auden [1907-1973]
“Thousands have lived without love, not one without water.”  {blog 12/2007}

Norman R. Augustine
“Ninety percent of the time things turn out worse than you thought they would. The
other ten percent of the time you had no right to expect that much.”  {Issue #46}

Marcus Aurelius [121-180 C.E.]
• • “The object of life is not to be on the side of the majority, but to escape finding oneself
in the ranks of the insane.”  {Issue #65}
• • “The opinion of 10,000 men is of no value if none of them know anything about the subject.”  {blog 11/2007}

Jane Austen [1775-1817]
“A large income is the best recipe for happiness.”  {blog 11/2008}

A.J. Ayer
“All utterances about the nature of God are nonsensical.”  {blog 9/2008}

Lauren Bacall
“Time flies even when you're not having fun.”  {Issue #59}

Walter Bagehot [1826-77]
“The great pleasure in life is doing what people say you cannot do.” (in 1853)  {blog 2/2008}

Peter C. Baker
“Corrupt political thought creates and is furthered by sloppy language.”  {blog 12/2007}

David Baldacci
• • “Without risk there is no possibility for glory.”  {blog 9/2008}
• • “Every soldier who ever died was innocent.”  {blog 9/2008}

James Baldwin [1924-87]
“Not everything that is faced can be changed; but nothing can be changed until it is faced.”  {Issue #62}

Natylie Baldwin
• • “The word 'capitalism' does not appear at all in Adam Smith's 1776 ground-breaking
900-page Wealth of Nations.”  {Issue #62}
• • “Marketing – the process by which capitalists constantly work to convince people of the need or desire for [the glut of pointless items made available and sold to the public every day] – accounts for the majority of waste in terms of labor, materials and money.”  {Issue #62}

Lucille Ball [1911-89]
“The secret of staying young is to live honestly, eat slowly, and lie about your age.”   {blog 4/2009}

Bill Balsamico
“At the current rate of legal & illegal aliens entering this country, August 2013 will be
designated White History Month.”  {Issue #60}

David Baltimore, Nobel Prize winner & president of Cal Tech
“We need a revolution in this country when it comes to parenting around education.”  {Issue #53}

Tallulah Bankhead [1902-68]
• • “Nobody can be exactly like me. Sometimes even I have trouble doing it.”  {Issue #59}
• • “It is the good girls who keep the diaries; the bad girls never have the time.”  {blog 9/2008}

Deanne Barkley
“Writing is the only job [that] you don't have to be hired to do.”  {Issue #70}

comedian Roseanne Barr
“It's okay to be fat. So you're fat. Just be fat and shut up about it.”  {blog 4/2009}

Dave Barry
• • “Congress, after years of stalling, finally got around to clearing the way for informal discussions
that might lead to possible formal talks that could potentially produce some kind of
tentative agreements . . .”  {blog 12/2007}
• • “People who want to share their religious views with you almost never want you to share yours with them.”
{blog 3/2008}

John Barrymore [1882-1942]
“A man is not old until regrets take the place of dreams.”  {Issue #45}

C. Barsotti
“I have everything tied up in making ends meet.”
(cartoon in The New Yorker Magazine)  {Issue #37}

Matsuo Basho
“Do not seek to follow in the footsteps of the men of old;
seek what they sought.”  {Issue #42}

Frédéric Bastiat [1801-50]
• • “Government is the great fiction, through which everybody endeavors
to live at the expense of everybody else.”  {Issue #43}
• • “The worst thing that can happen to a good cause is, not to be skillfully attacked,
but to be ineptly defended.”  {blog 12/2007}
• • “The solution to the problems of human relationships is to be found in liberty.”  {blog 9/2008}

economist Ravi Batra
• • “Supply-side economics is a bogus system.”  {blog 5/2008}
• • “Courage is the main quality of the Warrior Mind.”  {blog 5/2008}

Charles-Pierre Baudelaire [1821-67]
• • “Always be a poet, even in prose.”  {Issue #52}
• • “Genius is no more than childhood recaptured at will.”  {Issue #66}

Ron Bauer of Northridge, CA
“Whether it's the war in Iraq, the environment, or the economy, the Bush
administration never lets truth get in its way.” (2004)  {Issue #47}

L. Frank Baum [1856-1919]
“It's no fun being a century ahead of the times.”  {blog 6/2009}

Emily Bazelon
“The world is too big for effective governance.”  {Issue #50}

historian Charles Austin Beard
“One of the best ways to get yourself a reputation as a dangerous citizen these days is to go about repeating
the very phrases which our founding fathers used in the struggle for independence.”  {Issue #67}

Henry Ward Beecher
“Hold yourself responsible for a higher standard than anyone
expects of you. Never excuse yourself.”  {Issue #37}

Max Beerbohm [1872-1956]
“Most women are not so young as they are painted.”  {blog 9/2008}

David Ben-Gurion [1886-1973]
“In Israel, in order to be a realist you must believe in miracles.”  {blog 2/2008}

Robert Benchley [1889-1945]
“It took me fifteen years to discover that I had no talent for writing.
But I couldn’t give it up because by then I was too famous.”  {blog 9/2008}

Walter Benjamin [1892-1940]
“The tradition of the oppressed teaches us that the ‘state of emergency’ in which we live is not the exception
but the rule. We must attain to a conception of history that is in keeping with this insight. Then we shall clearly
realize that it is our task to bring about a real state of emergency, and this will improve our position in the
struggle against Fascism. One reason why Fascism has a chance is that in the name of progress its opponents
treat it as a historical norm.”  (in 'On The Context of History' 1939)  {blog 10/2007}

William J. Bennett
“America's support for human rights and democracy
is our noblest export to the world.”  {Issue #27}

Sally Berger, Museum of Modern Art, New York City
“The secret of getting ahead is getting started.”  {Issue #61}

South African activist Hilda Bernstein [1915-2006]
“The meaning of life is a choice you make about the way [that] you live.”  {Issue #63}

Yogi Berra [b. 1925]
“If you don't go to somebody's funeral, they won't come to yours.”  {Issue #55}

Yogi Bhajan [1929-2004]
“If you can't see God in all, you can't see God at all.”  {Issue #48}

Ambrose Bierce [1842-1914]
“War is God’s way of teaching Americans geography.”  {blog 4/2008}

Earl Derr Biggers [1884-1933], creator of detective Charlie Chan
• • “In California, the subdivider, like the poor, is always with us.”  {blog 12/2007}
• • “Persistence. That's the secret of a good detective.”  {blog 7/2008}

Josh Billings [1818-85]
“Do not put off until tomorrow what can be enjoyed today.”  {Issue #51}

Norman Birnbaum
“[Sociologist C. Wright] Mills is half forgotten – perhaps because much of what he said
is now taken for granted.”  {blog 5/2009}

Chris Bittler
“It's not enough to be right.”  {Issue #39}

cowboy poet & columnist Baxter Black
“When the chips are down and life hangs in the balance, someone has to be responsible.”  {Issue #52}

Hugo Black [1886-1971]
U.S. Supreme Court Justice, 1937-71
• • “Paramount among the responsibilities of a free press is the duty to prevent any part
of the government from deceiving the people.”  {Issue #69}
• • “Only a free and unrestrained press can effectively expose deception in government.”  {blog 11/2007}

Terry Black
“Idiots are everywhere. Many have degrees.”  {blog 12/2008}

jazz musician Eubie Blake [1883-1983]
“If I'd known I was going to live this long,
I'd have taken better care of myself.”  {Issue #37}

Wm. Blake [1757–1827]
• • “What is now proved was once only imagined.”  {Issue #37}
• • “Execution is the chariot of genius.”  {Issue #46}
• • “Improvement makes straight roads; but the crooked roads without improvement
are roads of genius.”  {blog 1/2008}

Adele Block-Bauer [1881-1925]
“You have to learn to see. If you can appreciate what has quality
and what is worthless in art, you will appreciate it in people.”  {Issue #19}

Allan Bloom
• • “True liberal education requires that the student's whole life is
radically changed by it.”  {Issue #48}
• • “Indignation is the soul's defense against the wound of doubt."

physicist Niels Bohr [1885-1962]
• • “Nothing exists until it is measured.”  {blog 10/2007}
• • “Prediction is very difficult, especially about the future.”  {blog 9/2008}

Derek Bok, former president of Harvard University
“If you think education is costly, try ignorance.”  {Issue #65}

Roberto Bolaño [1953-2003]
“We ... tell ourselves that art runs on one track and life, our lives, on another,
and we don't realize [that] that's a lie.”  {Issue #60}

Simón Bolívar [1783-1830]
“The United States seems destined to plague us with all manner of evil in the name of liberty.”  {blog 12/2007}

Erma Bombeck [1927-96]
“Laughter rises out of tragedy, when you need it the most, and rewards you
for your courage.”  {Issue #42}

Napoleon Bonaparte [1769-1821]
• • “He who fears being conquered is sure of defeat.”  {Issue #46}
• • “Reality has limits, stupidity has not.”  {Issue #47}
• • “Men are moved by two levers only: fear and self-interest.”  {Issue #68}

Dietrich Bonhoeffer [1906-45]
“We have at times to be willing to be guilty.”  {blog 9/2008}

Daniel Boone [1734-1820]
• • “I can't say I was ever lost, but I was bewildered once for three days.”  {Issue #36}
• • “It is never too late to do good.”  {Issue #36}

comedian Elayne Boosler
“When women are depressed they either eat or go shopping. Men invade another country.”   {Issue #64}

Jorge Luis Borges [1899-1986]
“My father showed me his library, which was very large, and told me to read whatever I wanted,
but that if something bored me, I should immediately put it down.”  {blog 11/2008}

Paul Bowles [1910-99]
• • “Life, of course, is without meaning, and if you find something that gives it meaning,
you're very fortunate.”  {blog 4/2009}
• • “Not all the ravages caused by our merciless age are tangible ones. The subtler forms of destruction,
those involving only the human spirit, are the most to be dreaded.”  {blog 4/2009}

U.S.A.F. LtCol. Robert Bowman
“If the government has nothing to hide, why is it hiding everything?”  {blog 10/2007}

columnist L.M. Boyd [1927-2007]
• • “The old Greeks coined a noun for the man who took no part in
public matters, and from it we got our word 'idiot'.”  {Issue #35}
• • “Less money is spent annually on medical research than on hairdos.”  {Issue #36}
Reader & cartoonist Carol Lay made use of this quotation in her syndicated cartoon panel #504,
published in early November 2003; to view the cartoon click here.

• • “Sea species are disappearing even faster than land dwellers.”  {Issue #41}

sci-fi author Ray Bradbury
• • “Go to the edge of the cliff and jump off and build your wings on the way down.”  {Issue #35}
• • “If you're not in love with what you're doing, don't do it; find what you love.”  {Issue #51}
• • “I can't name a writer who's had a more perfect life. My books are all in print, I'm in all the school
libraries, and when I go places I get the applause at the start of my speech.”  {blog 11/2007}
• • “The thing is to be madly, madly in love all the time.”  {blog 12/2007}
• • “People on a jet have only been on a trip; people on a train have been on a journey.”  {blog 1/2008}
• • “We are cups, constantly and quietly being filled. The trick is knowing how to tip
ourselves over and let the beautiful stuff out.”  {blog 2/2009}
• • “Those who don't build must burn.” (in "Fahrenheit 451", 1953)   {blog 2/2009}

David Brancaccio of P.B.S. News
“The country has moved so far to the right [that] you can invoke
Barry Goldwater as sort of a centrist figure.”  {Issue #48}

Western author Max Brand [1892-1944]
• • “All the crookedness ain't outside the law ... the real fine work
begins on the inside and stays there.”  {Issue #34}
• • “Cowboys are all right, but they need a good laundering, most of the time.”  {Issue #65}

Louis Brandeis [1856-1941]
U.S. Supreme Court Justice, 1916-39
• • “We can have a democratic society or we can have a concentration of great wealth
in the hands of a few. We cannot have both.” (as quoted by Ralph Nader)  {Issue #26}
• • “The only title in our democracy that is superior to that of President is that of citizen.”  {blog 11/2007}

Joseph M. Branom of Oro Valley, AZ
“George W. Bush is not a Texan. [He] was born in Connecticut, so I suppose
that makes him a Conn man. Second, Bush does not wear 'cowboy boots'.
Cowboy boots have the manure on the outside.”  {Issue #38}

Georges Braque [1882-1963]
“Truth exists, only falsehood has to be invented.”  {Issue #43}

Robert Brault
“There is a purpose to our lives that each day tugs at our sleeve as an annoying distraction.”   {blog 5/2009}

poet Richard Brautigan [1935-84]
“A long time ago this was our future.”  {Issue #31}

Bertolt Brecht [1898-1956]
• • “Art is not a mirror to reflect reality [but] a hammer with which to shape it.”   {Issue #64}
• • “Unhappy the land that is in need of heroes.”  {blog 4/2008}

Ashleigh Brilliant
• • “I want either less corruption or more opportunity to participate in it.”  {Issue #46}
• • “Life is the only game in which the object of the game is to learn the rules.” {Issue #48}

David Brooks, New York Times columnist
“When conservatism was a movement of ideas, it attracted oddballs; now that it is a movement
with power, it attracts sleazeballs.”  {Issue #56}

Edmund G. 'Pat' Brown [1905-96]
California Governor, 1959-67
“I have nothing but contempt for those who say that no new taxes are necessary.”  {Issue #50}

Eryn Brown
“Today, more than 80% of married households have two wages coming in.”
(Los Angeles Times Magazine)  {Issue #37}

English poet Robert Browning [1812-89]
“What comes to perfection perishes.”  {blog 9/2008}

William Jennings Bryan [1860-1925]
“Destiny is not a matter of chance, it is a matter of choice; it is
not a thing to be waited for, it is a thing to be achieved.”  {Issue #10}

John Bryant
“If you are afraid to speak against tyranny, then you are already a slave.”  {Issue #36}

Martin Buber [1878-1965]
“The world is not comprehensible, but it is embraceable.”  {blog 2/2009}

Jerry Buck of Sherman Oaks, CA
“Politics seems to be the only place where a draft dodger from Wyoming and an AWOL guardsman from Texas can question the loyalty of an authentic war hero from Massachusetts.” [L.A. Times Letter 3/2004]  {Issue #42}

capitalist Warren E. Buffett
• • “Someone is sitting in the shade today because someone planted a tree a long time ago.”  {Issue #67}
• • “He who knows [that] he has enough is rich.”  {Issue #67}
• • “By any common-sense definition, we are in a recession.” (in March 2008)  {blog 4/2008}

Vincent Bugliosi
“Plain incompetence ... from the highest levels on down, is endemic in our society.” (2007)  {Issue #71}

writer Charles Bukowski [1920-94]
• • “The only thing that matters is how you walk thru the fire.”  {Issue #49}
• • “My advice to young writers is to stop looking for advice from old writers.”  {Issue #52}
• • “Some people never go crazy. What truly horrible lives they must lead.”  {Issue #60}
• • “If you're going to try, go all the way. There is no other feeling like that. You will be
alone with the gods. And the nights will flame with fire. You will ride life straight to
perfect laughter. It's the only good fight there is.”  {Issue #63}

Edward Bulwer-Lytton [1803-73]
“The pen is mightier than the sword.” (stageplay "Richelieu", 1839)  {blog 12/2008}

Anthony Burgess [1917-93]
“Art and morality have little to say to each other.”  {blog 9/2008}

actress Billie Burke [1884-1970]
“To survive [in Hollywood] you need the ambition of a Latin American revolutionary,
the ego of a grand opera tenor, and the physical stamina of a cow pony.”  {blog 4/2009}

Edmund Burke [1729-97]
• • “[Nobody made a greater mistake than he who did nothing because he could only do a little.”  {blog 4/2008}
• • “[Mankind is] a herd of beings that must be governed by fraud, effigy, and show.”  {blog 11/2008}

mystery author James Lee Burke
• • “Man is more a clown than a satan.”  {Issue #36}
• • “No matter what the war advocates of our time tell us, no violent excursion ends well.”  {Issue #64}
• • “If everybody agrees on it, it's wrong.”  {Issue #64}
• • “Capitalists are hanged by the rope [that] they sell their enemies.” (after V. Lenin)  {Issue #68}
• • “No vice flourishes without sanction.”  {Issue #68}

Frances Hodgson Burnett [1829-1924]
“At first people refuse to believe that a strange new thing can be done.
Then they begin to hope [that] it can be done.
Then they see [that] it can be done.
Then it is done and all the world wonders why it was not done centuries ago.”
{blog 10/2007}

Chicago architect Daniel H. Burnham [1846-1912]
“Make no little plans, they have no magic to stir men’s blood; think big.”  {Issue #17 & blog 11/2007}

George Burns [1896-1996]
“The most important thing in acting is sincerity. If you can fake that, you’ve got it made.”  {blog 12/2008}

William S. Burroughs [1914-97]
• • “A paranoid is someone who knows a little of what is going on.”  {Issue #32}
• • “The only real thing about a writer is what he's written, and not his life.”  {Issue #46}
• • “In the U.S., you have to be a deviant or exist in extreme boredom. Make no mistake,
all intellectuals are deviants in the U.S.”  {blog 2/2008}

George H.W. Bush
“Trying to eliminate Saddam would have incurred incalculable human and political costs.
We would have been forced to occupy Baghdad and, in effect, rule Iraq. There was no viable
'exit strategy' we could see, violating another of our principles.
¶ “Furthermore, we had been consciously trying to set a pattern for handling aggression in the post-Cold War world. Going in and occupying Iraq, thus unilaterally exceeding the United Nations' mandate, would have destroyed the precedent of international response to aggression that we hoped to establish. Had we gone the invasion route, the United States could conceivably still be an occupying power in a bitterly hostile land.”  {explaining why he didn't go after Saddam Hussein at the end of the Gulf War, in his memoirs "A World Transformed" 1999)  {Issue #47}


• • “I have strong opinions of my own, but I don't always agree with them.”  {Issue #55}

George Dubya Bush
• • “You can fool some of the people all the time, and those are the ones
you want to concentrate on.” (2001)  {Issues #45 & #47}
• • “Our enemies are innovative and resourceful, and so are we. They never stop
thinking about new ways to harm our country and our people, and neither do we.”
(at White House bill-signing ceremony 6 August 2004)  {Issue #47}
• • “I just want you to know that when we talk about war, we're really talking about peace.”
(18 June 2002)  {Issue #52}
• • “Money trumps peace.”  (press conference 14 February 2007)  {Issue #68}
• • “If this were a dictatorship, it'd be a heck of a lot easier, just as long as
I'm the dictator. Heh, heh, heh.(speech on 18 December 2000)  {blog 11/2007}
• • “Iran aggressively pursues these weapons and exports terror ... States like these and
their terrorist allies constitute an axis of evil, arming to threaten the peace of the world.”
("State of The Union", 29 January 2002)  {blog 12/2007}
• • “I've abandoned free-market principles to save the free-market system.”
(C.N.N. interview 16 December 2008, after the meltdown-recession-depression)  {blog 12/2008}

Samuel Butler [1835-1902]
• • “All animals, except man, know that the principal business of life is to enjoy it.”  {Issue #41}
• • “Life is one long process of getting tired.”  {blog 12/2008}

Gen. Smedley D. Butler [1881-1940]
“War is a racket. It always has been. It is possibly the oldest,
easily the most profitable, surely the most vicious.”  {Issue #65}

chess champion Robert Byrne
“The purpose of life is a life of purpose.”  {Issue #58}

George Gordon, Lord Byron [1788-1824]
• • “Those who will not reason, are bigots, those who cannot, are fools,
and those who dare not, are slaves.”  {Issue #36}
• • “But words are things, and a small drop of ink, / Falling, like dew, upon a thought, produces /
That which makes thousands, perhaps millions, think.”  {Issue #62}
• • 'Tis pleasant, sure, to see one's name in print;
A book's a book, although there's nothing in't.  {blog 11/2008}

James Branch Cabell [1879-1958]
“The optimist proclaims that this is the best of all possible worlds,
and the pessimist fears that this is true.”  {Issue #51}

John C. Calhoun [1782-1850]
“It is harder to preserve than to obtain liberty.” (in Senate speech, 1848)  {blog 10/2007}

movie producer John Calley
“Watergate was nothing to what we have now.”  {Issue #47}

Joseph Campbell [1904-87]
• • “Life is like arriving late for a movie, having to figure out what is going on without bothering anybody with
a lot of questions, and then being unexpectedly called away before you find out how it ends.”  {Issue #50}
• • “The god [that] you worship is the god [that] you deserve.”  {Issue #52}
• • “The cave you fear to enter holds the treasure you seek.”  {Issue #62}
• • “I don't believe people are looking for the meaning of life as much as they are looking for
the experience of being alive.”  {blog 12/2007}

Albert Camus [1913-1960]
• • “The purpose of a writer is to keep civilization from destroying itself.”  {Issue #2}
• • “The struggle itself toward the heights is enough to fill a man's heart.”
("Myth of Sisyphus")  {Issue #13}
• • “An intellectual is someone whose mind watches itself.”  {Issue #18}
• • “There is merely bad luck in not being loved; there is
misfortune in not loving.” ("Return To Tipasa")  {Issue #27}
• • “Liberty is your right not to lie.”  {Issue #31}
• • “The only progress lies in learning to be wrong all alone.”  {Issue #52}
• • “Where there is no hope, one must invent hope.”  {Issue #57}
• • “It is the job of thinking people not to be on the side of the executioners.”  {Issue #71}
• • “Integrity needs no rules.”  {blog 10/2007}

Al Capone [1899-1947]
“You can get much farther with a kind word and a gun than with a kind word alone.”  {Issue #63}

Andrew Carnegie [1835-1919]
“No man will make a great leader who wants to do it all himself or get all the credit for doing it.”  {blog 5/2008}

David O. Carter
“A politician worries about the next election; a statesman about the next generation.”  {Issue #38}

Graydon Carter
“The [Bush] administration is well on its way to being the first since Herbert Hoover's to preside over
an overall loss of jobs during its complete term in office.”
(Editor's Letter in Jan 2004 Vanity Fair Magazine>  {Issue #41}

George Washington Carver  [1864-1943]
“Anything will give up its secrets if you love it enough.”  {blog 2/2008}

James Carville
• • “You know back in 2000 a Republican friend of mine warned me that if I voted for Al Gore and he won, the stock market would tank, we'd lose millions of jobs, and our military would be totally overstretched. You know what? I did vote for Al Gore, he did win, and I'll be damned if all those things didn't come true.”  {Issue #62}
• • “Washington [DC] is a dirty diaper that needs a change.”  {Issue #63}

cellist Pablo Casals  [1876-1973]
• • “You must work – we must all work – to make the world worthy of its children.”  {Issue #36}
• • “The love of one's country is a splendid thing. But why should love stop at the border?”  {blog 3/2008}

Neal Cassady  [1926-68]
“Art is good when it springs from necessity.”  {Issue #50}

Carlos Castañeda  [1925-98]
“All of us, whether or not we are warriors, have a cubic centimeter of chance that pops out from time to time. The difference between an average person and a warrior is awareness of this, and one of the tasks is to be alert, deliberately waiting, so that when the cubic centimeter pops out [the warrior] has the necessary speed and prowess to pick it up.”  {Issue #58}

Willa Cather  [1873-1947]
• • “There are some things [that] you learn best in calm, and some in storm.”  {Issue #68}
• • “That is happiness: to be dissolved into something complete and great.”  {blog 11/2008}

Louis-Ferdinand Céline [1894-1961]
“No art is possible without a dance with death.”  {Issue #34}

Nicolas Chamfort  [1741-94]
“Pleasure can be based on illusion, but happiness rests on reality.”  {blog 10/2007}

Charlie Chan character, written by Earl Derr Biggers [1884-1933]
“Life is plenty good.”  {blog 10/2007}

Raymond Chandler  [1888-1959]
• • “There are no vital and significant forms of art; there is only art,
and precious little of that.”  {Issue #18}
• • “Funny thing, civilization. It promises so much and what it delivers
is mass production of shoddy merchandise and shoddy people.”  {Issue #25}
• • “The growth of populations has in no way increased the amount [of art], it has merely increased
the adeptness with which substitutes can be produced and packaged.”  {Issue #50}
• • “All men must escape at times from the deadly rhythm of their private thoughts.”  {blog 11/2008}

Sir Charles Chaplin  [1889-1977]
“Life isn't a meaning but a desire.”  {Issue #71}

labor leader Cesar E. Chavez  [1927-93]
• • “You are never strong enough that you don't need help.”  {blog 7/2008}
• • “It is not enough to teach our young people to be successful ... so they can realize their ambitions, so they can earn good livings, so they can accumulate the material things that this society bestows. Those are worthwhile goals. But it is not enough to progress as individuals while our friends and neighbors are left behind.”  {blog 7/2008}
• • “The first principle of non-violent action is that of non-cooperation with everything humiliating.”  {blog 7/2008}
• • “Being of service is not enough. You must become a servant of the people. When you do,
you can demand their commitment in return.”  {blog 7/2008}

John Cheever [1912-82]
“Trust your editor, and you'll sleep on straw.”  {blog 11/2008}

Anton Chekhov [1860-1904]
• • “Everything is beautiful in this world – except what we think or do ourselves when we forget
our human dignity and the higher aims of our existence.”  {Issue #36}
• • “The knowledge that the aristocrats take for granted, we must pay for with our youth.”  {blog 11/2008}
• • “Don't tell me the moon is shining; show me the glint of light on broken glass.”  {blog 5/2009}

Dick Cheney, U.S. Vice President 2001-2009
“Simply stated, there is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has
weapons of mass destruction.”   (20 August 2002)  {Issue #47}

Laura Chick
“If you're not indignant, you're not paying attention.”  {Issue #47}

Chief Joseph of the Nez Perce [1840-1904]
“It does not require many words to speak the truth.”  {blog 3/2008}

Peter Chippindale
“A good police force is one which catches more criminals than it employs.”  {Issue #28}

Carina Chocano
“Life is ruled by chaos and chance, but made meaningful and worthwhile by love.”   {Issue #62}

Kamo-no Chomei [1155-1216]
“The flowing river never ceases, yet the water is never the same.”  {blog 9/2008}

Noam Chomsky
• • “Where society is ruled by ... a privileged elite, barriers must be created to prevent those outside
from understanding reality and acting on it in their own interests.” (1991)  {Issue #24}
• • “Truisms are best.”  {blog 11/2008}

Dame Agatha Christie  [1890-1976]
• • “There's too much tendency to attribute to God the evils that man
does of his own free will.” (in "The Moving Finger")  {Issue #27}
• • “Money's queer. It goes where it's wanted.”  {Issue #36}
• • “What is required is a passion for the truth.”  {Issue #66}
• • “Good advice is always certain to be ignored, but that's not reason not to give it.”  {Issue #68}
• • “Life, you know, is inclined to make a fellow cynical.”  {Issue #68}
• • “Fiction is founded on fact – but is rather superior to it.”  {blog 4/2008}
• • “Life is a difficult business... It needs infinite courage and a lot of endurance. And in the end
one wonders, Was it worth while?”  {blog 8/2008}

automaker Walter P. Chrysler  [1875-1940]
“Give the public something better and the public will buy.”  {blog 12/2007}

Chuang-Tzu [circa IVth Century B.C.E.]
“The fish trap exists because of the fish; once you've gotten the fish, you can forget the trap. The rabbit snare exists because of the rabbit; once you've gotten the rabbit, you can forget the snare. Words exist because of meaning; once you've gotten the meaning, you can forget the words. Where can I find a man who has forgotten words so [that] I can have a word with him?”  {blog 9/2008}

Sir Winston Churchill  [1874-1965]
• • “The inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of the blessings.
The inherent blessing of socialism is the equal sharing of misery.”  {Issue #43}
• • “In war you can only be killed once, but in politics many times.”  {Issue #45}
• • “Never give up! Never give up! Never give up!”  {Issue #48}
• • “One ought never to turn one's back on a threatened danger and try to run away from it.
If you do that, you will double the danger. But if you meet it promptly and without flinching,
you will reduce the danger by half.”  {Issue #49}
• • “You make a living by what you get. You make a life by what you give.”  {Issue #60}
• • “Sometimes it's not enough to do your very best. Sometimes you have to get the job done.”  {Issue #66}
• • “Many forms of government have been tried, and will be tried in this world of sin and woe. No one pretends
that democracy is perfect or all-wise. Indeed, it has been said that democracy is the worst form of
government except all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.”  {blog 12/2007}
• • “When you're going thru hell, keep going.”  {blog 6/2008}
• • “Writing a book is an adventure: It begins as an amusement, then it becomes a mistress,
then a master, and finally a tyrant.”  {blog 11/2008}
• • “Nothing is more costly, nothing is more sterile, than vengeance.”  {blog 5/2009}

Frank A. Clark
“The most important thing that parents can teach their children is how to get along
without them.”  {blog 5/2009}

Keri Clark
“Everyone can find the time to write; not everyone can find the courage.”  {Issue #33}

author-visionary Arthur C. Clarke
• • “All explorers are seeking something [that] they have lost. It is seldom
that they find it, and more seldom still that the attainment brings them
more happiness than the quest.”  {Issue #38}
• • “One of the great tragedies of mankind is that morality has been hijacked by religion.”
(in Free Inquiry, Spring 1999)  {Issue #65}

Frank Clarke
“There are 10 kinds of people in this world: those who can deal in binary
and those who can't.”  {Issue #30}

Eldridge Cleaver [1935-98]
“You are either part of the solution, or you are part of the problem.”  {Issues #28 & #62}

Bill Clinton
“A slight majority seem to have decided [that] they would like a new
president. Kerry just has to close the deal.”  (July 2004)  {Issue #47}

William Cobbett
“It is by attempting to reach the top at a single leap that so much misery
is caused in the world.”  {blog 7/2008}

[Ms] Maxi Cohen, filmmaker of Venice, CA
“Television is the glue that keeps us apart.”  {Issue #43}

Samuel T. Coleridge [1772-1834]
“Talent, lying in the understanding, is often inherited; genius, being the action of reason
or imagination, rarely or never.”  {blog 1/2008}

Colette [1873-1954]
• • “Who said you should be happy? Do your work.”  {Issue #21}
• • “Sit down, and put down everything that comes into your head and then you're a writer. But an author
is one who can judge his own stuff's worth, without pity, and destroy most of it.”  {blog 6/2008}
• • “A happy childhood is poor preparation for human contacts.”  {blog 4/2009}

Michael Collins
“Only people destroy beauty.”  {blog 12/2008}

Chinese philosopher Confucius [551-479 B.C.E.]
• • “What you do not wish for yourself, do not do to others.” (in "Analects of Confucius")  {blog 11/2007}
• • “The superior man is distressed by his want of ability.”  {blog 11/2008}

Darby Conley (draws the "Get Fuzzy" comic strip)
• • “Cogito ergo consume.”  {Issue #35}
• • “I think, therefore I am annoyed.”  {blog 12/2007}

mystery author Michael Connelly
• • “There are too many people in the world who believe everything
they see on television.”  {Issue #41}
• • “Live by the media, die by the media.”  {Issue #43}
• • “Civil unrest occurs when the feelings of overwhelming powerlessness hit critical mass... It has to do
with society not addressing the essential needs of overlooked people.” (in "Angels Flight")  {Issue #66}

Cyril Connolly [1903-74]
“We must select the illusion which appeals to our temperament, and embrace it
with passion, if we want to be happy.”   {blog 5/2009}

Joseph Conrad [1857-1924]
“Give me the right words and the right actions, and I will move the world.”  {Issue #46}

editorial cartoonist Paul Conrad
“Beware of the leader who bangs the drums of war in order to whip the citizenry into patriotic fervor, for patriotism is indeed a double-edged sword. It both emboldens the blood, just as it narrows the mind. And when the drums of war have reached a fever pitch and the blood boils with hate and the mind has closed, the leader will have no need in seizing the rights of the citizenry, [who] infused with fear and blinded by patriotism, will offer up all of their rights unto the leader and gladly so. How will I know? For this I have done. And I am Julius Caesar.”
{Issue #29}   { often falsely attributed to Julius Caesar [100-44 B.C.E.] }

mystery author K.C. Constantine
• • “How'd it get like this? It's like the Depression all over again.”  {Issue #38}
• • “Fiction is damn near the only way to tell the truth in America.”  {Issue #39}

Dave Contarino, manager of Bill Richardson's 2008 presidential campaign
“If Job #1 for the next American president is getting us out of Iraq, Job #2 is leading
the world's response to global climate change.”  {blog 7/2008}

sports announcer Dan Cook {not Yogi Berra}
“It ain't over till the fat lady sings.”  {Issue #38}

Calvin Coolidge [1872-1933]
“[T]he accumulation of wealth cannot be justified as the chief end of existence ... So long as
wealth is made the means and not the end, we need not greatly fear it.”  {blog 6/2008}

columnist Marc Cooper
• • “The Swift Boat Veterans for Truth attack on John Kerry is the lowest, filthiest campaign maneuver
I've seen in my adult life. It is deeply offensive and intellectually insulting.”  {Issue #47}
• • “The Big Three Unresolved Issues that neither party has much to say about [are]
jobs, education, and health care.”  {Issue #54}

Francis Ford Coppola
“Time is the lens through which dreams are captured.”  {Issue #37}

beat poet Gregory Corso
“You have to hurry. Death is chasing you and it's closer than you think.
There's a lot to do in a short time.”  {Issue #46}

entertainer Bill Cosby
• • “The revolution is in your neighborhood, it's in your house, it's in your mind.”  {Issue #53}
• • “I don't know the key to success, but the key to failure is trying to please everybody.”
{after Herbert Bayard Swope [1882-1958]}  {Issue #59}

writer-activist Norman Cousins [1915-90]
• • “The wild dream is the first step to reality.”  {Issue #36}
• • “Death is not the greatest loss in life. The greatest loss is what dies within us while we live.”  {Issue #62}
• • “In a democracy, the individual enjoys not only the ultimate power but carries
the ultimate responsibility.”  {blog 11/2007}

Jacques Cousteau [1910-97]
“Population growth is the primary cause of environmental damage.”  {Issue #43}

Noel Coward [1899-1973]
“Time has convinced me of one thing: Television is for appearing on – not for looking at.”  {blog 10/2008}

Crazy Horse [c. 1840-1877]
“One day I will leave this world and dream myself to reality.” (1874)  {Issue #24}

Robert Crais
“There isn't so much love in the world that you can turn it away
when it's offered.”  {Issue #33}

Rudy Crew
“Education is about the distribution of knowledge ... and to whom we actually distribute
this particular commodity is a major question in this country.”  {Issue #43}

Francis H.C. Crick
“Consciousness is the product of millions of years of evolution.”  {Issue #30}

Quentin Crisp [1908-99]
“Never keep up with the Joneses. Drag them down to your level.”  {blog 9/2008}

Walter Cronkite
“Most of the people say they ... get their news from television. That means they're inadequately informed,
too poorly informed to exercise their rights in a democracy. You cannot give people enough information
on the nightly news.”  (Writers' Digest Sept 2001)  {Issue #14}

James Crumley [1939-2008]
“Not everything in California is a bad idea.”  {Issue #42}

Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
“I have a naive trust in the universe ... that at some level it all makes sense,
and we can get glimpses of that sense if we try.”  {blog 9/2008}

American poet e.e. cummings [1894-1962]
“The most wasted of all days is one without laughter.”  {Issue #41}

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