Our earliest evidence of government, in the ruins of Babylon and Egypt, shows nothing but ziggurats and pyramids of wasted taxpayer money, the TARP funds and shovel-ready stimulus programs of their day.
P. J. O'Rourke
Related I like to open for a band as it brings on sort of a challenge and it makes things more interesting. ... KELLY JONES Anger - a beast within us that needs taming. SARU SINGHAL I don't know if I have a favorite color. KATE MIDDLETON It's very special having a new little girl. KATE MIDDLETON Pastor Smith did not have the religious constitution needed to provide salvation for any of us who�... CHERYL R COWTAN I'm always highly irritated by people who imply that writing fiction is an escape from reality. It i... FLANNERY O'CONNOR Hard to restrain, unstable is this mind; it flits wherever it lists. Good it is to control the mind.... GAUTAMA BUDDHA When each and every believer rises up to serve others and function according to their capacity, the ... HENRY HON At the end of the warehouse was a dais constructed from pallets of books: stack of vampire novels, w... RICK RIORDAN God created us in his image, male and female, with personhood and sexual passions, so that when he c... JOHN PIPER Who are we if not the stories we pass down? What happens when there's no one left to tell those stor... CARRIE RYAN And what good is a voice when so few will listen? STACEY JAY Trust In Every Words, And You Will Believe In Your Works. EIZZA ZAIZALNIZAM Success is the sum of small efforts, repeated day in day out Success is the not the thing we will fi... AAMIR SARFRAZ (AAMIR RAJPUT KHAN) Yay!” Tyson went around the couches and gave everyone a big hug—even Octavian, who didn't look t... RICK RIORDAN Hazel!” he yelled. “That box! Open it!” She hesitated, then saw the box he meant. Te labe... RICK RIORDAN If not for the horses, Piper would've died. RICK RIORDAN Pluto's pauldrons,” Reyna cursed. RICK RIORDAN Percy was getting tired of water. If he said that aloud, he would probably get kicked out of Po... RICK RIORDAN If in barbed wire things can bloom, why couldn't I? I will not die, I will not die. FRIEDL AND THE CHILDREN OF TEREZIN We have within ourselves as a species, to find the beauty in everything. And once we master it, we w... TOM ALTHOUSE Each day before the end of eve she sought her lover, nor would him leave, until the stars ... J.R.R. TOLKIEN What? You run? Coward! Stand still and die!” Percy had no intention of doing that. RICK RIORDAN Smile is the shortest and fastest communication between strangers. SARU SINGHAL An Indigo Bunting let out a trill, a cheery song, reminding me of better days, of hope and happiness... CHERYL R COWTAN While Maddox now believed the demon did not want to hurt Ashlyn, he wasn't willing to take a chance.... GENA SHOWALTER Your life today is the result of a series of decisions you made that have caused you to arrive where... CHRIS PRENTISS A strong personal philosophy does more than sustain us through the tragedies of life. It also stains... CHRIS PRENTISS The answers are never "out there." All the answers are "in there," inside you, waiting to be discove... CHRIS PRENTISS We pay a price for everything we get or take in this world; and although ambitions are well worth ha... L.M. MONTGOMERY Clay in the hands of a good potter suffers so many good turns, but in the end, we see its real and t... ERNEST AGYEMANG YEBOAH Gods of Olympus.” Piper stared at Leo. “What happened to you ?” His hair was grease... RICK RIORDAN Down in the water, Octavian yelled, “Get me out of here! I’ll kill you!” “Tempting,” ... RICK RIORDAN Sometimes, the wicked will tell us things just to confuse us–to haunt our thoughts long after we'v... SARAH J. MAAS We still should have enough time to reach Rome.” Hazel scowled. “When you say should hav... RICK RIORDAN This is Buford,” Leo announced. “You name your furniture?” Frank asked. RICK RIORDAN He’d learned years ago it was better not to dwell too much on who was related to whom on the godly... RICK RIORDAN Did someone just call me the wine dude ?” he asked in a lazy drawl. “It’s Bacchus, pleas... RICK RIORDAN Reyna looked at Percy without much hope. “You do have a plan?” Percy wanted to step ... RICK RIORDAN Percy blinked. “So your brother is a winged horse. But you’re also my half brother, which means ... RICK RIORDAN I can’t believe how much this place has grown,” Hazel muttered. The taxi driver grinned in... RICK RIORDAN It is no bad thing celebrating a simple life. J.R.R. TOLKIEN Though he walked and breathed, and about him living leaves and flowers were stirred by the same cool... J.R.R. TOLKIEN Stupidity is also a gift of God, but one mustn't misuse it. POPE JOHN PAUL II Humanity should question itself, once more, about the absurd and always unfair phenomenon of war, on... POPE JOHN PAUL II Science can purify religion from error and superstition. Religion can purify science from idolatry a... POPE JOHN PAUL II Wars generally do not resolve the problems for which they are fought and therefore... prove ultimate... POPE JOHN PAUL II I kiss the soil as if I placed a kiss on the hands of a mother, for the homeland is our earthly moth... POPE JOHN PAUL II The vow of celibacy is a matter of keeping one's word to Christ and the Church. a duty and a pro... POPE JOHN PAUL II From now on it is only through a conscious choice and through a deliberate policy that humanity can ... POPE JOHN PAUL II Do not abandon yourselves to despair. We are the Easter people and hallelujah is our song. POPE JOHN PAUL II An excuse is worse and more terrible than a lie, for an excuse is a lie guarded. POPE JOHN PAUL II Love is never defeated, and I could add, the history of Ireland proves it. POPE JOHN PAUL II The great danger for family life, in the midst of any society whose idols are pleasure, comfort and ... POPE JOHN PAUL II Today, for the first time in history, a Bishop of Rome sets foot on English soil. This fair land, on... POPE JOHN PAUL II Pervading nationalism imposes its dominion on man today in many different forms and with an aggressi... POPE JOHN PAUL II The historical experience of socialist countries has sadly demonstrated that collectivism does not d... POPE JOHN PAUL II To maintain a joyful family requires much from both the parents and the children. Each member of the... POPE JOHN PAUL II Young people are threatened... by the evil use of advertising techniques that stimulate the natural ... POPE JOHN PAUL II When freedom does not have a purpose, when it does not wish to know anything about the rule of law e... POPE JOHN PAUL II You will reciprocally promise love, loyalty and matrimonial honesty. We only want for you this day t... POPE JOHN PAUL II The future starts today, not tomorrow. POPE JOHN PAUL II The unworthy successor of Peter who desires to benefit from the immeasurable wealth of Christ feels ... POPE JOHN PAUL II Social justice cannot be attained by violence. Violence kills what it intends to create. POPE JOHN PAUL II Marriage is an act of will that signifies and involves a mutual gift, which unites the spouses and b... POPE JOHN PAUL II The United Nations organization has proclaimed 1979 as the Year of the Child. Are the children to re... POPE JOHN PAUL II Violence and arms can never resolve the problems of men. POPE JOHN PAUL II Have no fear of moving into the unknown. Simply step out fearlessly knowing that I am with you, ther... POPE JOHN PAUL II There are people and nations, Mother, that I would like to say to you by name. I entrust them to you... POPE JOHN PAUL II I have a sweet tooth for song and music. This is my Polish sin. POPE JOHN PAUL II At the end of the day, it's all about money. GARRY KASPAROV Day by day we increase in age. Step by step we reduce the number of our steps. When you grow old, yo... ERNEST AGYEMANG YEBOAH All real programs contain errors until proved otherwise which is
impossible. PAUL DICKSON Algren's Precepts: Never eat at a place called Mom's. Never
play cards with a man named Doc. And... PAUL DICKSON Albrecht's Law: Social innovations tend to the level of minimum
tolerable well being. PAUL DICKSON Ade's Law: Anybody can win--unless there happens to be a second
entry. PAUL DICKSON Acting, First Rule of: Whatever happens, look as if you intended
it to happen. PAUL DICKSON Acheson's Rule of Bureaucracy: A memorandum is written not to
inform the reader but to protect the ... PAUL DICKSON Accuracy, Rule of, Corollary: Provided, of course, that you know
there is a problem. PAUL DICKSON A clean tie attracts the soup of the day. PAUL DICKSON Experience is that marvelous thing that enables you recognize a
mistake when you make it again. PAUL DICKSON About the time we think we can make ends meet, somebody moves the
ends. PAUL DICKSON Acton's Law: Power tends to corrupt; absolute power corrupts
absolutely. PAUL DICKSON Accuracy, Rule of: When working toward the solution of a
problem, it always helps if you know the ... PAUL DICKSON Rowe's Rule: the odds are five to six that the light at the end
of the tunnel is the headlight of ... PAUL DICKSON Lieutenant Dunbar wasn't really swallowed. But that was the
first word that stuck in his head. MICHAEL BLAKE A system tends to grow in complexity instead of simplicity, until
the resulting unreliability becom... PAUL DICKSON Allen's Law of Civilization: It is better for civilization to be
going down the drain than to be c... PAUL DICKSON Airplane Law, The: When the plane you are on is late, the plane
you want to transfer to is on time... PAUL DICKSON Advice, First Law of: The correct advice to give is the advice
that is desired. PAUL DICKSON Abrams's Advice: When eating an elephant, take one bite at a
time. PAUL DICKSON A conclusion is the place where you got tired of thinking. PAUL DICKSON Allen's Law: Almost anything is easier to get into than out of. PAUL DICKSON Agnes Allen's Law: Almost anything is easier to get into than
out of. PAUL DICKSON Abbott's Admonitions: (1) If you have to ask, you're not
entitled to know. (2) If you don't like ... PAUL DICKSON A real person has two reasons for doing anything . . . a good
reason and the real reason. PAUL DICKSON A free agent is anything but. PAUL DICKSON The problem is not with people or churches that are politically active. It is with a party that has ... JOHN C. DANFORTH The phrase ‘separation of church and state,’ which appears in no founding document (only in a le... DENNIS PRAGER Besides the danger of a direct mixture of religion and civil government, there is an evil which ough... JAMES MADISON
More P. J. O'Rourke
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DONLEAVY Political systems are run by self-selecting politicians. We don't draft people; it's not jur... P. J. O'ROURKE My mom is a sculptress. P. J. HARVEY I'm not an autobiographical writer, but I am a writer who deals with human emotion on all levels... P. J. HARVEY I've always felt that I'm affected by the world, by the way we treat each other, by the way ... P. J. HARVEY There's also a level of discipline I use as a writer, designed to get better at what I'm doi... P. J. HARVEY I'm probably much more influenced by film-makers and painters than I am by other songwriters or ... P. J. HARVEY I did photography, painting, and drawing, but I prefer sculpture. I like it because it's very ph... P. J. HARVEY I'm a very private person, so obviously I don't enjoy talking about more personal matters. P. J. HARVEY My father is actually a quarry man - he deals in stone. He also at one point had a lot of sheep, he ... P. J. 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O'ROURKE Good manners are a combination of intelligence, education, taste and style mixed together so that yo... P. J. O'ROURKE The principle feature of American liberalism is sanctimoniousness. By loudly denouncing all bad thin... P. J. O'ROURKE In the end we beat them with Levi 501 jeans. Seventy-two years of Communist indoctrination and propa... P. J. O'ROURKE Marijuana is self-punishing. It makes you acutely sensitive, and in this world, what worse punishmen... P. J. O'ROURKE No drug, not even alcohol, causes the fundamental ills of society. If we're looking for the sources ... P. J. O'ROURKE Anyway, no drug, not even alcohol, causes the fundamental ills of society. If we're looking for the ... P. J. O'ROURKE Authority has always attracted the lowest elements in the human race. All through history mankind ha... P. J. O'ROURKE When I die I want to decompose in a barrel of porter and have it served in all the pubs in Dublin. J. P. DONLEAVY The government is huge, stupid, greedy and makes nosy, officious and dangerous intrusions into the s... P. J. O'ROURKE But Jesus, when you don't have any money, the problem is food. When you have money, it's sex. When y... J. P. DONLEAVY Social Security is a government program with a constituency made up of the old, the near old and tho... P. J. O'ROURKE Majority rule is a precious, sacred thing worth dying for. But -- like other precious, sacred things... P. J. O'ROURKE Farm policy, although it's complex, can be explained. What it can't be is believed. No cheating spou... P. J. O'ROURKE Government proposes, bureaucracy disposes. And the bureaucracy must dispose of government proposals ... P. J. O'ROURKE Automobiles are free of egotism, passion, prejudice and stupid ideas about where to have dinner. The... P. J. O'ROURKE There's no telling what might have happened to our defense budget if Saddam Hussein hadn't invaded K... P. J. O'ROURKE One of the annoying things about believing in free will and individual responsibility is the difficu... P. J. O'ROURKE Some people are better imagined in one's bed than found there in the morning. P. J. O'ROURKE There are a number of mechanical devices which increase sexual arousal, particularly in women. Chief... P. J. O'ROURKE Old age adds to the respect due to virtue, but it takes nothing from the contempt inspired by vice... J. P. SENN Every government is a parliament of whores. The trouble is, in a democracy, the whores are us. P. J. O'ROURKE A man always has two reasons for doing anything--a good reason and the real reason. J. P. MORGAN Agriculture is a business that has been up to its bib overalls in politics since the first Thanksgiv... P. J. O'ROURKE Supposedly, summer vacation happens because that's when the kids are home from school, although ... P. J. O'ROURKE Sheep farming is heavily subsidized in Great Britain. Without the subsidies, the green grazing in th... P. J. O'ROURKE Arab-led Islamic fundamentalism destabilizes nations from Algeria to the Philippines. P. J. O'ROURKE What Alexander Graham Bell thought up occupied less space than a flower vase. Now it's so small ... P. J. O'ROURKE Adam Smith is misread as being amoral precisely because people don't read his first book, becaus... P. J. O'ROURKE The whole melodrama of the Middle East would be improved if amnesia were as common here as it is in ... P. J. O'ROURKE Chinese economic development has cost many American workers their jobs. That's the price of prog... P. J. O'ROURKE The 1960s was an era of big thoughts. And yet, amazingly, each of these thoughts could fit on a T-sh... P. J. O'ROURKE What is obnoxious about the motives of politicians - whatever those motives may be - is that politic... P. J. O'ROURKE I'm old enough to remember when the air over American cities was a lot dirtier than it is now. P. J. O'ROURKE The Nobel Peace Prize has always been a joke - albeit a grim one. 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O'ROURKE Everybody knows how to raise children, except the people who have them. P. J. O'ROURKE If you are young and you drink a great deal it will spoil your health, slow your mind, make you fat ... P. J. O'ROURKE There is no virtue in compulsory government charity, and there is no virtue in advocating it. A poli... P. J. O'ROURKE Each child is biologically required to have a mother. Fatherhood is a well-regarded theory, but moth... P. J. O'ROURKE Gun violence has cost us too many political leaders, and hardly ever the worst ones. P. J. O'ROURKE The two most frightening words in Washington are 'bipartisan consensus.' Bipartisan consensu... P. J. O'ROURKE Computers seem a little too adaptively flexible, like the strange natives, odd societies, and head c... P. J. O'ROURKE I live in New Hampshire. We're in favor of global warming. Eleven hundred more feet of sea-level... P. J. O'ROURKE A man always has two reasons for doing anything: a good reason and the real reason. J. P. MORGAN People are not ants or bees. We do not reason or love or live or die collectively. P. J. O'ROURKE The idea of a stag hunt evokes chivalry - knights in jerkins and hose, ladies on sidesaddles with wi... P. J. O'ROURKE Why do elites hate the poor? It's xenophobia. They don't know any poor people - except their... P. J. O'ROURKE Family love is messy, clinging, and of an annoying and repetitive pattern, like bad wallpaper. P. J. O'ROURKE Watching Republicans in Washington is like watching lemmings, if lemmings jumped into cesspools inst... P. J. O'ROURKE Disney's House of the Future had the clean simplicity prized in the 1950s as relief from decades... P. J. O'ROURKE All business is capitalistic. You require capital for any sort of business endeavour. P. J. O'ROURKE The great apologist has to have lived large and wild. If he's going to kiss the world's boo-... P. J. O'ROURKE 'Carrie' was a pretty big-budget movie at a real studio, with a director that had already do... P. J. SOLES I like making things. I have a wood shop at home. I am a terrible carpenter but I love doing it. P. J. O'ROURKE Mikhail Gorbachev was the Jimmy Carter of the Communist bloc. The Russians hate him. P. J. O'ROURKE Jimmy Carter was - he still - he remains to this day America's most ex of ex-presidents. You jus... P. J. O'ROURKE There is a simple rule here, a rule of legislation, a rule of business, a rule of life: beyond a cer... P. J. O'ROURKE In Henry Adams, I discovered not only the prototype of the modern thinker but also someone who is mo... P. J. O'ROURKE Everybody with a gun has a checkpoint in Lebanon. And in Lebanon, you'd be crazy not to have a g... P. J. O'ROURKE A U.S. dollar is an IOU from the Federal Reserve Bank. It's a promissory note that doesn't a... P. J. O'ROURKE The baby boomers' politics have covered a wide band of silliness, from the Weather Underground t... P. J. O'ROURKE Now, do I think the baby boomers tend to be self-absorbed? I do. P. J. O'ROURKE Excessive speed and quantity are, like chattiness and digression, besetting sins of cyber-assisted a... P. J. O'ROURKE The car provided Americans with an enviable standard of living. You could not get a steady job with ... P. J. O'ROURKE Of course, no one wants to ban the vote. Voting should remain available for sporting and recreationa... P. J. O'ROURKE You're not a baby boomer if you don't have a visceral recollection of a Kennedy and a King a... P. J. O'ROURKE You know your children are growing up when they stop asking you where they came from and refuse to t... P. J. O'ROURKE Anyway, no drug, not even alcohol, causes the fundamental ills of society. If we're looking for ... P. J. O'ROURKE There's a certain kind of behavior in the Arab world that, to me, resembles the way young men be... P. J. O'ROURKE The U.S. tax code was written by A students. Every April 15, we have to pay somebody who got an A in... P. J. O'ROURKE We loved cars until the '70s or so. Then they became appliances. They turned into motorized cup ... P. J. O'ROURKE I'm on Medicare now. If I go and have a big operation, it costs me nothing. It should cost me a ... P. J. O'ROURKE I literally left school and went straight into music via art college for a year, and I've been s... P. J. HARVEY Go as far as you can see; when you get there, you'll be able to see farther. J. P. MORGAN Kabul is a walled city, which sounds romantic except the walls are pre-cast reinforced concrete blas... P. J. O'ROURKE Some taxpayers may object to a print journalism bailout on the grounds that it mostly benefits the l... P. J. O'ROURKE The great majority of Baghdad is a slum - a lot of it's new, but it's still slum. It's u... P. J. O'ROURKE As a nation, Kuwait has been, arguably, free of freedom itself. Claimed in turn by Constantinople, R... P. J. O'ROURKE What Enron was doing, what caused investors to embrace it in a rapture of baffled awe, was hiding de... P. J. O'ROURKE There are a number of Americans who shouldn't vote. The number is 57 percent, to judge by the co... P. J. O'ROURKE The good news is that, according to the Obama administration, the rich will pay for everything. The ... P. J. O'ROURKE A Kindle returns us to the inconvenience of the scroll, except with batteries and electronic glitche... P. J. O'ROURKE Government is a health hazard. Governments have killed many more people than cigarettes or unbuckled... P. J. O'ROURKE If it were not for government regulation of big corporations, executives at companies like Enron, Wo... P. J. O'ROURKE You can learn all about the human condition from covering the crime beat in a big city - you don'... P. J. O'ROURKE The perpetuation of slavery, the exile and extermination of American Indians, and the passage of Jim... P. J. O'ROURKE Northwest Ohio is flat. There isn't much up. The land is so flat that a child from Toledo is und... P. J. O'ROURKE The 20th century was a test bed for big ideas - fascism, communism, the atomic bomb. P. J. O'ROURKE A fundamental American question is, 'What's the big idea?' P. J. O'ROURKE Preachers at black churches are the last people left in the English-speaking world who know the sche... P. J. O'ROURKE Politics is a necessary evil, or a necessary annoyance, a necessary conundrum. P. J. O'ROURKE If I were a congressman who had voted for the American Jobs Creation Act of 2004, I'd claim it w... P. J. O'ROURKE The inherent purpose of American government is let people seek their own goals and to encourage them... P. J. O'ROURKE Detroit's industrial ruins are picturesque, like crumbling Rome in an 18th-century etching. P. J. O'ROURKE I like fiction and the kind of history that gives the grace and flavor of fiction to the past. No bl... P. J. O'ROURKE Daniel Patrick Moynihan is the archetypal extremely smart person who went into politics anyway inste... P. J. O'ROURKE Kids are disorganized. P. J. O'ROURKE People say free trade causes dislocation. In actual fact, it's the lowering of trade barriers th... P. J. O'ROURKE Distracting a politician from governing is like distracting a bear from eating your baby. P. J. O'ROURKE Writing is turning one's worst moments into money. J P DONLEAVY Inside every Sancho Panza there's a Don Quixote struggling to get out. P. J. O'ROURKE Wealth is not a pizza, where if I have too many slices you have to eat the Domino's box. P. J. O'ROURKE In Hong Kong there is agglomeration beyond my fondest imaginings. The Kowloon district claims a popu... P. J. O'ROURKE There are plenty of problems in the world, and doubtless climate change - or whatever the currently ... P. J. O'ROURKE Kuwait City is not gorgeous, actually, but it's got a kind of Epcot Center thing going for it. I... P. J. O'ROURKE The importance of local governance may not be obvious to an America accustomed to treating city and ... P. J. O'ROURKE Political discourse has become so rotten that it's no longer possible to tell the stench of one ... P. J. O'ROURKE Israel is slightly smaller than New Jersey. Moses in effect led the tribes of Israel out of the Dist... P. J. O'ROURKE It could be that all awful dictators are frustrated artists - Mao with his poetry and Mussolini with... P. J. O'ROURKE I'm too tough and sensitive to have to have some pubescent twerp with his mom's earring in h... P. J. O'ROURKE Earnestness is stupidity sent to college. P. J. O'ROURKE Even very young children need to be informed about dying. Explain the concept of death very carefull... P. J. O'ROURKE I like to think of my behavior in the sixties as a learning experience. Then again, I like to think ... P. J. O'ROURKE The purpose of a funeral service is to comfort the living. It is important at a funeral to display e... P. J. O'ROURKE There's a whiff of the lynch mob or the lemming migration about any overlarge concentration of like-... P. J. O'ROURKE With Epcot Center the Disney corporation has accomplished something I didn't think possible in today... P. J. O'ROURKE When buying and selling are controlled by legislation, the first things to be bought and sold are le... P. J. O'ROURKE Very little is known of the Canadian country since it is rarely visited by anyone but the Queen and ... P. J. O'ROURKE