Quote of the Day

"Nothing is more common,than for a free people, in times of heat and violence, to gratify momentary passions, by letting into the government principles and precedents which afterwards prove fatal to themselves. Of this kind is the doctrine of disqualification, disfranchisement, and banishment by acts of the legislature. The dangerous consequences of this power are manifest. If the legislature can disfranchise any number of citizens at pleasure by general descriptions, it may soon confine all the votes to a small number of partisans, and establish an aristocracy or an oligarchy ; if it may banish at discretion all those whom particular circumstances render obnoxious, without hearing or trial, no man can be safe, nor know when he may be the innocent victim of a prevailing faction. The name of liberty applied to such a government, would be a mockery of common sense." 

Alexander Hamilton - ‘History of the Republic of the United States‘

Quote of the Day - March 18, 2012

  For an order to be properly carried out, it is necessary for a man to issue an order that is capable of being carried out. But to know what is and isn't capable of being carried out is impossible, not only in the case of Napoleon's campaign against Russia, involving millions, but even in the case of the simplest occurrence, since millions of obstacles can always get in the way of either of these. Every order carried out is always one of many that are not. All the impossible orders fail to engage with the course of events and don't get carried out. It is only the possible ones that do engage with the run of subsequent orders, do correspond with the course of events and do get carried out.

Leo Tolstoy, War & Peace Epilogue, Part II, Chapter 6

Quote of the Day

‎"There is a principle which is a bar against all information, which is proof against all arguments and which cannot fail to keep a man in everlasting ignorance - that principle is contempt for investigation."
-Herbert Spencer

Quote of the Day

"A family can act as gangsters, offering each other mutual protection against each other's violence. It is a reciprocal terrorism, with the offer of protection-security against the violence that each threatens the other with, and is threatened by, if anyone steps out of line."
   -R.D. Laing, The Politics of Experience.
    New York: Random House, Inc., 1967. p89

Quote of the Day

"Under the pretext of not accepting Evil, we end up making believe that we have, if not the Good, at least the best possible state of affairs—even if this best is not so great. The refrain of "human rights" is nothing other than the ideology of modern liberal capitalism: We won't massacre you, we won't torture you in caves, so keep quiet and worship the golden calf. As for those who don't want to worship it, or who don't believe in our superiority, there's always the American army and its European minions to make them be quiet."
-Alain Badiou

War & Peace - Volume III, Part II, Chapter 25

 Prince Andrey glanced across at Timokhin, who was staring at his commanding officer in alarm and bemusement. In contrast to his commanding officer in alarm and bemusement. In contrast to his former silence and reserve, Prince Andrey now seemed to be all worked up. He seemed unable to stop himself blurting out every thought that came into his head.

 'A battle is won by the side that is absolutely determined to win. Why did we lose the battle of Austerlitz? Our casualties were about the same as those of the French, but we had told ourselves earl in the day that the battle was lost, so it was lost. And we said that because then we had nothing to fight for. We wanted to get off the battlefield as fast as we could. "All is lost! Let's run away!" And run we did. If we had waited till evening before saying that, God knows what might have happened.

 'But we shan't be saying that tomorrow. You talk about our position. The left flank's weak, and the right flank's too spread out," he went on. 'It's all nonsense. Irrelevant. So what is in store for us tomorrow? A hundred million contingent factors, and they'll all be determined by what happens on the day - who's run away and who's going to run away, us or them, who gets killed, one man or another. But what's going on right now is just fooling about. The point is this: those people who took you round the positions don't help things along, they just get in the way. They're completely absorbed in their own petty interests.'

 'At a time like this?' said Pierre, full of reproach.

 'Yes. At a time like this,' repeated Prince Andrey.'They think this is a good time to get one over on a rival and win themselves another cross or ribbon. The way I see it, tomorrow looks like this: a hundred thousand Russians and a hundred thousand Frenchmen have come together to fight, and the fact is these two hundred thousand me will fight, and the side that fights hardest and spares itself least will come out on top. And if you like, I'll tell you something else: whatever happens, however much the top brass messes things up, we shall win tomorrow. Tomorrow, whatever happens, we are going to win!'¹

"I wouldn't mess with that website." -Hanshi Duessel

¹Tolstoy, Leo. War & Peace. Anthony Briggs Trans.  London: Penguin Books, 2005. p858-859 First published 1865.

Quote of the Day - War & Peace

Volume III, Part II, Chapter 17

"As the enemy closed in on Moscow the attitude of the inhabitants to their situation, far from becoming all serious-minded, actually became more frivolous, as always happens with people who can see a terrible danger bearing down on them. At the first approach of danger two voices always speak out with equal force in a man's heart: one tells him very sensibly to consider the exact extent of the danger and any means of avoiding it; the other says even more sensibly that it's too wearisome and agonizing to contemplate the danger, since it is not in a man's power to anticipate future events and avoid the general run of things, so you might as well turn away from the nastiness until it hits you, and dwell on things that are pleasant. Left to himself a man will usually listen to the first voice; out in society he listens to the second one. This is what was now happening to the good people of Moscow. It was years since there had been so much fun in the city." ¹

¹Tolstoy, Leo. War & Peace. Anthony Briggs Trans. Penguin Classics: London, 1868-9/2005.

Kung Fu Quote of the Day

"You tell a man he is something less than a man, and say it often enough, and even he will believe it. The price he pays is easy to see. The price you pay is hidden, but it is just as deep."
-Kwai Chang Caine