 Companies that form the foundation of our financial markets are shrinking and disappearing practically overnight. Their insatiable appetite for risk has permeated all sectors of the financial services industry, and has spread beyond our shores.
Chris Dodd, Sen (D)
http://dodd.senate.gov/index.php?q=node/4572
A hero is one who knows how to make a friend out of an opponent.
The Talmud
Adam Reed's Translation
It needs but one foe to breed a war, not two... And those who have not swords can still die upon them.
J. R. R. Tolkien
Eowyn, Return of the King, p 264
You see a lot, Doctor. But are you strong enough to point that high-powered perception at yourself? What about it? Why don't you -- why don't you look at yourself and write down what you see? Or maybe you're afraid to.
Clarice Starling
The Silence of the Lambs
To be successful, a rat requires cunning, not genius.
Steve Wolfer
Corporate Bailout
The larger the mob, the harder the test. In small areas, before small electorates, a first-rate man occasionally fights his way through, carrying even the mob with him by force of his personality. But when the field is nationwide, and the fight must be waged chiefly at second and third hand, and the force of personality cannot so readily make itself felt, then all the odds are on the man who is, intrinsically, the most devious and mediocre - the man who can most easily adeptly disperse the notion that his mind is a virtual vacuum. The Presidency tends, year by year, to go to such men. As democracy is perfected, the office represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. We move toward a lofty ideal. On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart's desire at last, and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron.
H. L. Mencken
Baltimore Evening Sun, July 26, 1920
OCTOBER: This is one of the peculiarly dangerous months to speculate in stocks in. The other are July, January, September, April, November, May, March, June, December, August, and February.
Mark Twain
POVERTY is attracted to the one whose mind is favorable to it, as money is attracted to the one whose mind has been deliberately prepared to attract it, and through the same laws. POVERTY CONSCIOUSNESS WILL VOLUNTARILY SEIZE THE MIND WHICH IS NOT OCCUPIED WITH MONEY CONSCIOUSNESS.
Napoleon Hill
Think and grow rich
Consider that you too are a "governmentalist" just like all anarchists. You want men governed after all, just by your lights. An anarchist society is a governed society or it wouldn't exist. A true anarchist is a banished tribal member and he is alone.
Brant Gaede
Objectivist Living
You're right [Congressman Frank], I'm a dumb guy, and you... you are the brilliant guy that presided over the biggest financial collapse in history!
Bill O'Reilly
Fox News - O'Reilly Factor
It's not that I don't give a damn. It's just that I don't really care about the student evaluations.
Dr. Henry Tosi
University of Florida Outreach Engineering Management Program, Final Day of Organizational Behavior Course, December 8, 2007
Nearly all marriages, even happy ones, are mistakes: in the sense that almost certainly (in a more perfect world, or even with a little more care in this very imperfect one) both partners might be found more suitable mates. But the real soul-mate is the one you are actually married to.
J. R. R. Tolkien
http://www.quotationspage.com/quotes/J._R._R._Tolkien
The [$700 Billion Buyout] votes have been tallied. 228 NAY. 205 YEA. The Crap Sandwich goes down in flames.
Michelle Malkin
http://michellemalkin.com/
In a rational society, Barney Franks would find himself walking down some dirt road, trying to find his way back home, wondering about what to do with his life and how to get the tar and feathers off of his miserable hide.
Steve Wolfer
http://rebirthofreason.com/Forum/Blogs/0043_1.shtml#21
Furthermore, the very speech we must be most careful to protect is that which is most onerous to us. Our natural inclination is to shut up the Other Side. The problem is, many days we are the other side.
Anonymous
"Editorial," The Free Lance-Star
I am enough of an artist to draw freely upon my imagination. Imagination is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited. Imagination encircles the world
David Harrison Levi
Entertainment Worldwide
Do you see how a focus on human disfigurement -- a focus which doesn't include any attempt to fix or prevent it, but to just focus on it for the mere fact that it is there -- is immoral?
Edward D. Thompson
http://rebirthofreason.com/Forum/ObjectivismQ&A/0294.shtml#5
Crisis is the friend of the State.
John Stossel
http://www.creators.com/opinion/john-stossel.html
Thou shalt not make a machine in the likeness of a human mind.
Frank Herbert
The Orange Catholic Bible
Despite corrections in the marketplace and instances of abuse, democratic capitalism is the best system ever devised. It has unleashed the talents and the productivity, and entrepreneurial spirit of our citizens. It has made this country the best place in the world to invest and do business. And it gives our economy the flexibility and resilience to absorb shocks, adjust, and bounce back.
George W. Bush
President's Address to the Nation, 24 Sep 2008
All your power to accomplish, your ability to be effective, make decisions, be happy, and to exert maximum personal control over your life, lies only in each SUCCESSION OF PRESENT MOMENTS.
Charles Givens
Russia is filthy rich? Sadly, a more appropriate description than you might think.
Jay Abbott
http://rebirthofreason.com/Forum/ArticleDiscussions/2038_2.shtml#40
Ever heard Hollywood liberals talk about suspected jihadists the way they talk of suspected GOP book banners?
Michelle Malkin
NY Post, 9/17/2008
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You say, "Never mind the theories - those are but academic exercises... " But there have been nothing but empty theories and foolish academic exercises to support the absurd claim that anarchy could ever work.
On the other hand, government is already working, and working extremely well in every area where it is aligned with individual rights. Go out and buy something - an ink cartridge for the computer printer, for example. Look at the chain of transactions protected by courts, laws, legislature, law enforcement, etc., that define the terms of valid contracts, property rights, and outlaw the fraud or initiation of force, or theft that could interfere with that. You can point out all the things that are wrong, like the taxes, or a limitation on importation, or requirements for a business license - and we would agree. But each of these can be diminished to the vanishing point until there is no complaint left except a claim that government itself is bad even if it no longer does ANYTHING bad. And there is nothing sensible in that!
Steve Wolfer
http://rebirthofreason.com/Forum/Quotes/1208.shtml#11
(I)f libertarianism could account for children and foreign policy, it would be the ideal political philosophy.
Jonah Goldberg
Liberal Fascism
And yet, as a result of Atlas -- just as a consequence of the telegraph, telephone, radio and television -- the world has changed. The voices of reason do speak up and are heard, if only to encourage each other. That, to me, was the singular benefit of Rand's works: the realization that standing alone does not mean being alone.
Michael Marotta
http://rebirthofreason.com/Forum/Quotes/1208.shtml#7
We could keep arguing about when America should go to war, but something happened this week. We went broke. Now, war is just one of the things we will shortly no longer be able to afford.
Steve Wolfer
Punishment, limping in one leg, patiently follows every criminal
George Santayana
Volume Five of "The Life of Reason"
Impartiality is a pompous name for indifference, which is an elegant name for ignorance.
Gilbert Keith Chesterton
The Speaker, 12/15/1900
Your economic security has been put at risk by the greed of Wall Street. ... My opponent's only solutions are talk and taxes. I'll reform Wall Street and fix Washington.
Senator John McCain, R-Arizona
John McCain, 2008 Campaign Ad (from: http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/09/17/campaign.wrap/index.html?iref=mpstoryview)
It is terrible to contemplate how few politicians are hanged.
Gilbert Keith Chesterton
The Cleveland Press, 3/1/21
A human group transforms itself into a crowd when it suddenly responds to a suggestion rather than to reasoning, to an image rather than to an idea, to an affirmation rather than to proof, to the repetition of a phrase rather than to arguments, to prestige rather than to competence.
Jean-François Revel
There is no advantage to putting out a mistruth.
Bob Schieffer
http://minnesota.publicradio.org/display/web/2008/09/16/midmorning2/
When you break the big laws, you do not get freedom; you do not even get anarchy. You get the small laws.
Gilbert Keith Chesterton
London Daily News
I certainly don't fault Senator McCain for these problems, but I do fault the economic philosophy he subscribes to.
Barack H. Obama
Obama explaining collapse of Lehman Brothers and Merrill Lynch; in news article: "Obama says McCain is running dishonest campaign"
Reason demanded, Choice directed, and Courage sustained.
Steve Wolfer
http://rebirthofreason.com/Forum/Videos/0093.shtml#9
If your life is built on pessimism, you are not an Objectivist. If you hold the majority of humanity in contempt, you are not an Objectivist. If you have become so jaded that your sanction of a person or concept requires perfection, you are not an Objectivist.
George Cordero
If plan A isn't working, it is good to have a plan B. I suspect Objectivism could use a good plan B.
Jay Abbott
http://rebirthofreason.com/Forum/GeneralForum/1292_1.shtml#35
Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch. Liberty is a well-armed lamb contesting the vote.
Benjamin Franklin
Erik
Only if democracy eventually prevails in Pyongyang and Tehran can the West breathe easy.
Max Boot
http://www.csmonitor.com/specials/neocon/boot.html
Hell is other people.
Jean-Paul Sartre
No Exit
So Bob Barr's claim to fame now is that he barely beat an anarchist who defended the legality of child pornography. Barr may have lent the Libertarian Party his credibility, but the Libertarian Party has lent Barr its insanity.
FreeCololrado.com
http://www.freecolorado.com/2008/06/barr-beats-anarchist.html
There is a tide in the affairs of men, Which taken at the flood, leads on to fortune. Omitted, all the voyage of their life is bound in shallows and in miseries. On such a full sea are we now afloat. And we must take the current when it serves, or lose our ventures.
William Shakespeare
Julius Caesar
I can just see [Ariana Huffington], face knotted up in anger and determination, busily duct-taping McCain and Bush together like some three-legged potato sack racer. "Stand still, damn it! You are staying fastened together till Obama gets a chance to win this race!" But Bush isn't running we say, and she says, "He is now! What do you think I'm doing with this tape?"
Steve Wolfer
http://rebirthofreason.com/Forum/GeneralForum/1283.shtml#11
We laugh at the buffoon Chavez but at least he nationalizes the profitable enterprises.
Steve Wolfer
http://rebirthofreason.com/Forum/NewsDiscussions/2140.shtml#4
Watching [Sarah Palin], everyone can say to himself, somewhere in his subconscious, "The best within me is like her (even if not as successful, or powerful, or whatever) and as long as I'm being honest and standing up for my values I too am a hero (even if on a smaller scale)."
Steve Wolfer
http://rebirthofreason.com/Forum/NewsDiscussions/2137_4.shtml#96
What I think is going on, at least in part, with the Palin phenomenon is that a large portion of the population is fed up to the teeth with political correctness and Nanny regulations. These go from helmet laws to trans-fat bans to global warming hysteria and spotted owl environmentalists and everything in between. So when it is said that her goal in life is to kill caribou it's a throw-it-in-your-face cry of 'enough already' to the latte-sipping solipsistic city-dwelling sissies who don't know how to do anything practical. Many of rural Americans do know how to change their own oil, shoot varmints, cook an apple pie and build a fence and they're finally having their say.
Paul Hibbert
http://rebirthofreason.com/Forum/NewsDiscussions/2137_4.shtml#95
Jurisdiction is a moral concept applicable only to legitimate nations, nations which respect the individual civil liberties of their populace. We have no jurisdiction to apprehend a criminal in France, France is a free nation. Iran is a non free nation, as such, we do not need jurisdictional approval from whatever murderous theocratic tyrants happens to be oppressing the populace this year in order to act in our own long term rational self interest, either by removing that dictator from power or apprehending a terrorist residing in that nation.
Michael F Dickey
http://rebirthofreason.com/Forum/Blogs/0039.shtml#16
So remember, the only way to waste your vote is to vote!
Penn Jillette
http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/09/02/jillette.presidency/index.html
This is a man who can give an entire speech about the wars America is fighting, and never use the word 'victory' except when he's talking about his own campaign.
Sarah Palin
RNC Acceptance Speech
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