November 2009 Quotations

"The problem isn't left versus right, it's up versus down."
~~ Michael Chute of the Second Maine Militia, 2009

"All the perplexities, confusion, and distress in America arise, not from defects in the Constitution or Confederation, not from want of honor or virtue, so much as from downright ignorance of the nature of coin, credit and circulation."
~~ President John Adams [1735-1826]

"When plunder becomes a way of life for a group of men living together in society, they create for themselves in the course of time, a legal system that authorizes it and a moral code that glorifies it."
~~ Frederic Bastiat [1801-50]

"This is a government of the people, by the people and for the people no longer. It is a government of corporations, by corporations, and for corporations."
~~ President Rutherford B. Hayes [1822-93]

"Capitalism without failure is like religion without sin. It doesn't work."
~~ Allan H. Meltzer

"The balance of power has shifted in recent years from territorially bound governments to companies that can roam the world."
~~ Richard Barnet and John Cavanagh, in the book "Global Dreams" (1994)

"The Federal Reserve [Banks] are one of the most corrupt institutions the world has ever seen. There is not a man within the sound of my voice who does not know that this Nation is run by the International Bankers."
~~ Rep. Louis Thomas McFadden [1876-1936], circa 1933

"History shows that the money changers have used every form of abuse, intrigue, deceit and violent means possible to maintain control over governments by controlling the money and the issuance of it."
~~ President James A. Madison [1751-1836]

"Permit me to issue and control the money of a nation and I care not who makes the laws."
~~ Mayer Amschel Rothschild [1744-1812]

"Give me control over a man's economic actions, and hence over his means of survival, and except for a few occasional heroes, I'll promise to deliver to you men who think and write and behave as I want them to."
~~ Benjamine A. Rooge

"The few who can understand the [Federal Reserve] system will be so interested in its profits, or so dependent on its favors, that there will be no opposition from that class; while on the other hand, the great body of the people, mentally incapable of comprehending the tremendous advantage that capital derives from the system, will bear its burdens without complaint, and perhaps without even suspecting that the system is inimical to their interests."
~~ Rothschild Brothers of London

"He who has learned to die has unlearned how to be a slave."
~~ Montaigne [1533-92]

"Experience is just another word for losing hope."
~~ Scott Adams (in "Dilbert" Sunday strip, 2009)

"A writer is somebody for whom writing is more difficult than it is for other people."
~~ Thomas Mann [1875-1955]

"The most essential gift for a good writer is a built-in, shock-proof, sh*t detector. This is the writer's radar and all great writers have had it."
~~ Ernest Hemingway [1899-1961]

"The possible ranks higher than the actual."
~~ Martin Heidegger [1889-1976]

"Government is the great fiction, through which everybody endeavors to live at the expense of everybody else."
~~ Frederic Bastiat [1801-50]

“It is a far, far better thing to have a firm anchor in nonsense than to put out on the troubled sea of thought.”
~~ John Kenneth Galbraith [1908-2006]

"It's better to know some of the questions than all of the answers."
~~ James Thurber [1894-1961]

"Finance is the art of passing money from hand to hand until it finally disappears."
~~ Robert W. Sarnoff [1919-97]

"The stock broker services his clients in the same way that Bonnie & Clyde serviced banks."
~~ William Bernstein

"What is robbing a bank compared to the founding of a bank?"
~~ Bertolt Brecht 1898-1956]

"With an evening coat and a white tie, even a stockbroker can gain a reputation for being civilized."
~~ Oscar Wilde [1854-1900]

"I spent my youth worrying about corporate power. Now I worry about corporate incompetence."
~~ John Kenneth Galbraith [1908-2006]

"The best way to rob a bank is to own one."
~~ William Crawford

"What we have in this country is socialism for the rich and free enterprise for the poor."
~~ Gore Vidal

"Nobody talks more of free enterprise and competition and of the best man winning than the man who inherited his father's store or farm."
~~ C. Wright Mills [1916-62]

"Finance is the art or science of managing revebnues or resources for the best advantage of the manager."
~~ Ambrose Bierce [1842–1914?]

"The business of government is to keep government out of business – that is, unless business needs government aid."
~~ Will Rogers [1879-1935]

"It's a good thing that aliens have not abducted Limp Rushbaugh or Sean Vannity or Karl Rove or Glenn Beck. If they ever do, they will find sufficient justification to incinerate Planet Earth."
~~ G.E. Nordell

"A photograph doesn't have to be pretty to be true. But if it's true, it's beautiful."
~~ photographer Roy DeCarava [1919-2009]

"We should be worrying about Wall Street-run health care."
~~ Wendell Potter

{each set of posted quotations are then posted at the Working Minds website, alphabetical by author}