Smart Stuff

As I have often said, I am easily influenced. Compared with me, a weather vane
is Gibraltar.
Franklin Pierce Adams
Defeat is a fact and victory can be a fact. If the idea is good, it will survive defeat, it may even survive the victory.
Stephen Vincent Benet
A new idea is delicate. It can be killed by a sneer […]

We expect to be inspired by mediocre appeals for “excellence,” to be made literate by illiterate appeals for literacy.
Daniel Boorstin
Idealism is fine, but as it approaches reality the cost becomes prohibitive.
William F. Buckley, Jr.
Idealism increases in direct proportion to one’s distance from the problem.
John Galsworthy
Don’t part company with your ideals. They are anchors […]

If all else fails, give up.
S. Frederick
If at first you don’t succeed, give up, no use being a damn fool.
If at first you don’t succeed, redefine success.
If dolphins are so smart, why did Flipper work for television?
If entropy is increasing, where is it coming from?
If I don’t drive around the park
I’m pretty sure to make […]

Ignorance and incuriosity are two very soft pillows.
French Proverb
Better an empty purse than an empty head.
German Proverb
There is no dunce like a mature dunce.
George Santayana

Were it not for imagination, Sir, a man would be as happy in the arms of a chambermaid as of a Duchess.
Samuel Johnson
His imagination resembled the wings of an ostrich. It enabled him to run, though not to soar.
Thomas Babbington Macaulay
Many people live in ugly wastelands, but in the absence of imaginative standards, most of […]

The tree casts shade upon all, even upon the woodcutter.
Unknown

Powerlessness frustrates; absolute powerlessness frustrates absolutely. Absolute
frustration is a dangerous emotion to run a world with.
Russell Baker
We’ve traveled too far, and our momentum has taken over; we move idly towards
eternity, without possibility of reprieve or hope of explanation.
Tom Stoppard

His indecision is final. Anon
They call him “Jigsaw” because every time he’s faced with a problem, he goes to
pieces.
Anon
There is no more miserable human being than one in whom nothing is habitual but
indecision.
William James
Indecision is like the stepchild: if he doesn’t wash his hands, he is called dirty; if he does, he is wasting […]

“Sub-” is no idle prefix in its application to this continent.
P. J. O’Rourke
“Foreigners Around the World”
National Lampoon, 1976

Indignation does no good unless it is backed with a club of sufficient size to awe the opposition.
Edgar Watson Howe