"I believe it is in the best interest of my party and the country for me to stand down and to focus solely on fulfilling my duties as President for the remainder of my term."
~~ President Joe Biden, on Sunday 21 July 2024
"I find the public passion for justice quite boring and artificial, for neither life nor nature cares if justice is ever done."
~~ author Patricia Highsmith [1921-95]
"What part soever you take upon you, play that as well as you can and make the best of it."
~~ Sir Thomas More [1478-1535]
"If you think there's a solution you're part of the problem."
~~ comedian George Carlin [1937-2008]
"Happiness is a function of accepting what is."
~~ philosopher Werner Erhard [b. 1935]
"If the first half of the XXth Century was the era of the technical engineers, the second half may well be the era of the social engineers — and the XXIst Century, I suppose, will be the era of World Controllers, the scientific caste system, and 'Brave New World'. The prophecies made in 1931 are coming true much sooner than I thought they would . . . The nightmare of total organization has emerged from the safe, remote future and is now awaiting us, just around the next corner."
~~ Aldous Huxley [1894-1963], in "Brave New World Revisited" (1958)
"The primary requisite for writing well about food is a good appetite."
~~ A.J. Liebling [1904-63]
t-shirt message for short or skinny people: MADE WITH LESS MATERIAL
"The best portion of a good man’s life is his little nameless unremembered acts of kindness and of love."
~~ William Wordsworth [1750-1850]
"If you would be a real seeker after truth, it is necessary that at least once in your life you doubt, as far as possible, all things."
"History doesn’t repeat itself, but it often rhymes."
"There are some conservatives who are trying to make this claim that somehow Biden is a bigger risk than Trump. My view is: I disagree with a lot of Joe Biden’s policies. We can survive bad policies. We cannot survive torching the Constitution."
"Work is the curse of the drinking classes."
"The creation of something new is not accomplished by the intellect but by the play instinct acting from inner necessity."
"The dogmas of the quiet past are inadequate to the stormy present. The occasion is piled high with difficulty, and we must rise with the occasion."
"An early morning walk is a blessing for the whole day."
"You can't smell the roses from a galloping horse."
"[D]ating can be tedious. Sometimes you have to crush a lot of rocks to find a gem."
"Unions have been the only powerful and effective voice [that] working people have ever had in the history of this country."
"Arguing, in the sense of attempting to convince others, has gone out of fashion with conservatives."
"But I suppose the most revolutionary act one can engage in is . . . to tell the truth."
"[Republicans are] an extremist party trying to pass as a normal one."
"Democracy is in crisis mode and things like fundamental human rights, war and peace, and an unencumbered free press are on the line this November."
"I thought gravity was a law, which meant it could be broken."
"Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world."
"Coming together is a beginning. Keeping together is progress. Working together is success."
"There is but one thing of real value - to cultivate truth and justice, and to live without anger in the midst of lying and unjust men."
"The moment [that] you feel that you don't have a choice, in anything, you should rebel."
"A [second] Trump presidency will end American democracy."
"All of us are deeply involved with politics whether we know it or not and whether we like it or not."
"Every man has a tale of woe; unfortunately, there's more woe than tail."
"Distrust and verify"
"Sometimes even to live is an act of courage." ~~ Seneca the Younger [4 B.C.E. - 65 A.D.]
"Elvis impersonation is a dying profession."
"Contradictions are what make writers interesting; consistency is for cooking."
"There is no greater joy than happening across a little bookshop, completely by chance, on a random side street."
"There is a difference between being poor and being broke. Broke is temporary, and poor is eternal."
"The fact of the matter is that fascism is a redemptive excess of patriotic arbitrariness."
"It’s too late to stop World War III."
"It is better to fail in originality than to succeed in imitation."
"Values are like fingerprints. Nobody's are the same, but you leave 'em all over everything you do."
"It is impossible to work in information technology without also engaging in social engineering."
"America is Europe’s finest invention."
t-shirt = Limited Time Deal
"Animal Farm is not a book about how pigs - [as] animals - when bestowed with power start to behave like men. It is a book about how men, when given power over other men, start to behave like pigs."
"The good thing about science is that it's true whether or not you believe in it."
"We must have Christian ethics for our children, good and strong, but we must make them attractive, too, and it can be done."
"Go as far as you can see; when you get there, you'll be able to see farther."
"When a clown moves into a palace, he doesn't become a king. The palace becomes a circus."
"Some folks need killing! It's time for somebody to say it. It's not a matter of vengeance. It's not a matter of being mean or spiteful. It's a matter of necessity!"
"Be sure you are right, then go ahead."
"Let’s face the facts: Voters aren’t facing the facts."
"This constant lying is not aimed at making the people believe a lie, but at ensuring that no one believes anything anymore. A people that can no longer distinguish between truth and lies cannot distinguish between right and wrong. And such a people, deprived of the power to think and judge, is, without knowing and willing it, completely subjected to the rule of lies. With such a people, you can do whatever you want."
"We are in the process of the second American Revolution, which will remain bloodless - if the left allows it to be."
{each set of posted quotations are then posted at the Working Minds website, alphabetical by author}
~~ French/Dutch philosopher René Descartes [1596-1650]
~~ Mark Twain [1835-1910] probably never said it, the quote’s attribution is apocryphal
~~ former Cong. Liz Cheney [GOP WY-01]
~~ Oscar Wilde [1854-1900]
~~ Carl Jung [1875-1961]
~~ Abraham Lincoln [1809-65]
~~ Henry David Thoreau [1817-62]
~~ Chairman Mao Tse-tung [1893-1976]
~~ Rob Henderson, on substack
~~ music legend Bruce Springsteen, in 2024
~~ writer P.J. (Patrick Jake) O'Rourke [1947-2022]
~~ activist-historian Howard Zinn [1922-2010], in “Marx In Soho: A Play On History” (1999)
~~ Daily Kos newsletter, 5/2024
~~ Monika Bauerlein, CEO at Mother Jones Magazine
~~ Ocean Vuong, in the poem “Theology”
~~ South African statesman Nelson Mandela [1918-2013]
~~ business tycoon Henry Ford [1863-1947]
~~ Marcus Aurelius Antoninus [121-180 C.E.]
~~ visionary Jaron Lanier
~~ Prof. Heather Cox Richardson
~~ Malcolm Ferguson, assistant editor at The Atlantic Magazine [est. 1857]
~~ stand-up comedian Rodney Dangerfield [1921-2004]
~~ computer programmer Simon Willison
"One must think like a hero to behave like a merely decent human being."
~~ American poet May Sarton [1912-95]
"In times such as these, it may be an act of courage to be a merely decent human being." ~~ Brian Regnier [1943-2021]
~~ journalist Meg Bernhard
~~ James Wood, book critic at The New Yorker Magazine [est. 1925]
~~ M.E. Rothwell, on substack
~~ Robert T. Kiyosaki
~~ Russian political philosopher Ivan Alexandrovich Ilyin [1883-1954], in 1927
~~ esteemed British historian Richard Overy, in June 2024
~~ Herman Melville [1819-91]
~~ rock music legend Elvis Presley [1935-77]
~~ virtual reality pioneer Jaron Lanier
~~ British travel writer A.A. Gill [1954-2016], in his spectacular essay “America The Marvelous”
~~ George Orwell [1903-50]
~~ astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson
~~ British children's author Enid Blyton [1897-1968]
~~ banker John Pierpont 'J.P.' Morgan [1837-1913]
~~ Türkish proverb
~~ North Carolina Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson, 2024 Republican nominee for governor
~~ American frontiersman David 'Davy' Crockett [1786-1836], inscribed on the Crockett statue in Ozona, Texas
~~ headline by Daily Kos staff
~~ German historian and philosopher Hannah Arendt [1906-75]
~~ Heritage Foundation president and 'Project 2025' leader Kevin Roberts, speaking on the MAGA propaganda outlet Real America's Voice [est. 2020]
