| 16 Feb, 2009 |
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The one function TV news performs very well is that when there is no news we give it to you with the same emphasis as if there were. Television has raised writing to a new low. There is no expedient to which a man will not go to avoid the labor of thinking. He can compress the most words into the smallest ideas of any man I ever met. His lack of education is more than compensated for by his keenly developed moral bankruptcy. The difference between a violin and a viola is that a viola burns longer. Wars teach us not to love our enemies, but to hate our allies. Half our life is spent trying to find something to do with the time we have rushed through life trying to save. Washington is a city of Southern efficiency and Northern charm. Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself. Talking with you is sort of the conversational equivalent of an out of body experience. Speak the truth, but leave immediately after. Anything not worth doing is worth not doing well. Think about it. Everything you can imagine is real. Your true value depends entirely on what you are compared with. For every action there is an equal and opposite government program. Education is a progressive discovery of our own ignorance. Whatever you do will be insignificant, but it is very important that you do it. Any fool can make a rule, and any fool will mind it. The key to being a good manager is keeping the people who hate me away from those who are still undecided. Words ought to be a little wild for they are the assaults of thought on the unthinking. They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety. That you may retain your self-respect, it is better to displease the people by doing what you know is right, than to temporarily please them by doing what you know is wrong. My definition of a free society is a society where it is safe to be unpopular. The real art of conversation is not only to say the right thing at the right place but to leave unsaid the wrong thing at the tempting moment. The direct use of force is such a poor solution to any problem, it is generally employed only by small children and large nations. I have found the best way to give advice to your children is to find out what they want and then advise them to do it. In real life, unlike in Shakespeare, the sweetness of the rose depends upon the name it bears. Things are not only what they are. They are, in very important respects, what they seem to be. The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and science. God is a comedian playing to an audience too afraid to laugh. Grown-ups never understand anything for themselves, and it is tiresome for children to be always and forever explaining things to them. She had a pretty gift for quotation, which is a serviceable substitute for wit. It is by the goodness of God that in our country we have those three unspeakably precious things: freedom of speech, freedom of conscience, and the prudence never to practice either of them. The point of philosophy is to start with something so simple as not to seem worth stating, and to end with something so paradoxical that no one will believe it. Punctuality is the virtue of the bored. It has been my experience that folks who have no vices have very few virtues. The most wasted of all days is one without laughter. Nobody realizes that some people expend tremendous energy merely to be normal. A little nonsense now and then, is cherished by the wisest men. Cynics regarded everybody as equally corrupt... Idealists regarded everybody as equally corrupt, except themselves. A lot of people mistake a short memory for a clear conscience. My theory of evolution is that Darwin was adopted. The young have aspirations that never come to pass, the old have reminiscences of what never happened. Never offend people with style when you can offend them with substance. What is written without effort is in general read without pleasure. My work is a game, a very serious game. Democracy is a process by which the people are free to choose the man who will get the blame. Dreaming permits each and every one of us to be quietly and safely insane every night of our lives. The illiterate of the 21st century will not be those who cannot read and write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn, and relearn. Wise men talk because they have something to say; fools, because they have to say something. |
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