Pray

When I was a kid I used to pray every night for a new bicycle. Then I realized that the Lord doesn't work that way, so I stole one and asked Him to forgive me.

-- Emo Philips (7 February 1956-), American comedian

Necessary

Once we assuage our conscience by calling something a "necessary evil", it begins to look more and more necessary and less and less evil.

-- Sydney J. Harris (1917-1986), journalist

No Moral Precept

There is no moral precept that does not have something inconvenient about it.

-- Denis Diderot (1713 - 1784), French philosopher and chief editor of the historic project to produce L'Encyclopidie, as quoted in Dictionary of Foreign Quotations (1980) by Mary Collison, Robert L. Collison, p. 235

Worst Sin

The worst sin towards our fellow creatures is not to hate them, but to be indifferent to them: that's the essence of inhumanity.

-- George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950), Irish literary critic, playwright and essayist, 1925 Nobel Laureate in Literature, The Devil's Disciple, Act II (1901)

Ethics v Morals

Ethics versus Morals. Ethical behavior may be defined as acting after thinking about what would produce the greatest good for the greatest number affected. Morals are a codification of prior ethical decisions, simplified into easy-to-grasp rules. Morals exist because most people are very uncomfortable with the uncertainties of attempting to figure out what the right course of action might be, and most and are reluctant to take responsibility for having made mistakes. Being ethical means making decisions based on inadequate data and acting anyway. Ethical actions frequently work out badly; the actor has no one to blame for the results but themselves. Acting ethically while still desiring certainties means being uncomfortable. Moral acts also often work out badly. The apparent advantage to being moral is that when a moral act works out badly no one is to blame because the actor did what was supposed to be done. Being moral is comfortable because a moral person always knows what should be done, did it and is not to blame for the outcomes.

-- Steve Solomon, "The Wisdom of Solomon",
www.soilandhealth.org/05steve'sfolder/0502wisdomofsol.html

I Do Not Love Congress

After all these years, my passion for service to my fellow citizens is undiminished, but my desire to do so by serving in Congress has waned. For some time, I have had a growing conviction that Congress is not operating as it should. There is too much partisanship and not enough progress -- too much narrow ideology and not enough practical problem-solving. Even at a time of enormous challenge, the peoples' business is not being done.

... All of this and much more has led me to believe that there are better ways to serve my fellow citizens, my beloved state, and our nation than continued service in Congress.

To put it in words most people can understand: I love working for the people of Indiana, I love helping our citizens make the most of their lives, but I do not love Congress. I will not, therefore, be a candidate for election to the Senate this November.

-- Senator Evan Bayh (D-IN), announcing his retirement from the Senate, 15 February 2010

A Moral

Everything's got a moral, if only you can find it.

-- Lewis Carroll (Charles Lutwidge Dodgson), (1832 - 1898), British author, mathematician, Anglican clergyman, and logician, the Mock Turtle speaking to Alice, in Alice in Wonderland

A Very Small Stage

The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that, in glory and triumph, they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of this pixel on the scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner, how frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds.

-- Carl Sagan (1934-1996), astronomer and writer

Compassion

If you want others to be happy, practice compassion. If you want to be happy, practice compassion.

-- Dalai Lama Jetsun Jamphel Ngawang Lobsang Yeshe Tenzin Gyatso (1935-), quoted in Meditations for Living In Balance: Daily Solutions for People Who Do Too Much (2000) by Anne Wilson Schaef

There Comes A Time

Cowardice asks the question, "Is it safe?" Expediency asks the question, "Is it politic?" Vanity asks the question, "Is it popular?" But, conscience asks the question, "Is it right?" And there comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular but one must take it because one's conscience tells one that it is right.

-- Martin Luther King, Jr.

Never Be Afraid

Never, never be afraid to do what's right, especially if the well-being of a person or animal is at stake. Society's punishments are small compared to the wounds we inflict on our soul when we look the other way.

-- Martin Luther King Jr. (1929-1968), civil-rights leader

Live A Good Life

Live a good life. If there are gods and they are just, they will not care how devout you have been, but will welcome you based on the virtues you have lived by. If there are gods, but unjust, then you should not want to worship them. If there are no gods, then you will be gone, but will have lived a noble life that will live on in the memories of your loved ones.

-- Marcus Aurelius (121-180), philosopher and writer

A Village Of 100 People

If the world were a village of 100 people ....

6 people (all in the USA) would own 59% of all the village's wealth,
74 people would share another 39%, and
20 people would share the remaining 2%.

-- David Copeland, in Value Earth

Too Fatiguing

We ought to hate very rarely, as it is too fatiguing; remain indifferent to a great deal, forgive often and never forget.

-- Sarah Bernhardt (1844 - 1923), French stage actress, My Double Life (1907) Chapter 33

For The Children

I'm not a racist. I do ceremonies for black couples right here in my house. My main concern is for the children.

-- Justice of the Peace Keith Bardwell, of Tangihapoa Parish, Louisiana, on his refusal to grant a marriage license to an interracial couple, 6 October 2009

They Surely Will Abide

My dynamite will sooner lead to peace than a thousand world conventions. As soon as men will find that in one instant, whole armies can be utterly destroyed, they surely will abide by golden peace.

-- Alfred Nobel (21 October 1833 - 10 December 1896), Swedish chemist, armaments manufacturer, inventor of dynamite, who in his will used his enormous fortune to institute the Nobel Prizes, as quoted in The Military Quotation Book (2002) by James Charlton, p. 114


[It didn't turn out that way.]

Corporate Conscience

It is truly enough said that a corporation has no conscience. But a corporation of conscientious men is a corporation with a conscience.

-- Henry David Thoreau (12 July 1817 - 6 May 1862), American author, poet, naturalist, tax resister, development critic, historian, philosopher, "Civil Disobedience" (1849)

Not Units But Fractions

Most men are individuals no longer so far as their business, its activities, or its moralities are concerned. They are not units but fractions; with their individuality and independence of choice in matters of business they have lost all their individual choice within the field of morals.

-- Dr. Thomas Woodrow Wilson (12/28/1856 - 2/3/1924), 28th President of the United States, annual address, American Bar Association, Chattanooga (31 August 1910)

Modern Conservative

The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness.

-- John Kenneth Galbraith, economist (1908-2006)

Lack

I'm glad I didn't have to fight in any war. I'm glad I didn't have to pick up a gun. I'm glad I didn't get killed or kill somebody. I hope my kids enjoy the same lack of manhood.

-- Tom Hanks

The Other Attitude

I don't think there's anything exceptional or noble in being philanthropic. It's the other attitude that confuses me.

-- Paul Leonard Newman (1925-01-26 - 2008-09-26), American actor and film director, founder of Newman's Own, a food company from which Newman donated all profits and royalties to charity, in "Paul Newman's Road To Glory", interview with Paul Fischer, Film Monthly, 1 July 2002

Some Murder Or Other

If once a man indulges himself in murder, very soon he comes to think little of robbing; and from robbing he comes next to drinking and Sabbath-breaking, and from that to incivility and procrastination. Once begun upon this downward path, you never know where you are to stop. Many a man has dated his ruin from some murder or other that perhaps he thought little of at the time.

-- Thomas De Quincey (15 August 1785 - 8 December 1859), English author, "Murder Considered as One of the Fine Arts" (1827)

Hamdan Sentencing

Mr. Hamdan, I hope the day comes that you are able to return to your wife and daughters and your country.

-- Military Judge Keith J. Allred, after the sentencing of Salim Ahmed Hamdan at Guantanamo Bay, New York Times, 8 August 2008.

Awful Privilege

An awful privilege, and an awful responsibility, that we should help to create the world in which posterity will live.

-- William K. Clifford (4 May 1845 - 3 March 1879), English mathematician and philosopher, The Ethics of Belief (1877)

False Confessions

What makes this document doubly stunning is that these were techniques to get false confessions. People say we need intelligence, and we do. But we don't need false intelligence.

-- Senator Carl Levin, on a military interrogation class that was based on a 1957 Air Force study of how China obtained confessions, many of them false, from American prisoners, New York Times, 2 July 2008

Worst?

The United States Supreme Court yesterday rendered a decision which I think is one of the worst decisions in the history of this country.

-- John McCain, NBC 13 June 2008, regarding the recent "Habeas" ruling by SCOTUS

Spitzer

There has been a decline in ethics and we've got to turn it around.

-- Former New York Governor Eliot Spitzer, who resigned 12 March 2008 after being taped by the FBI arranging a $4300 tryst with a prostitute

Voice Of Protest

The voice of protest, of warning, of appeal is never more needed than when the clamor of fife and drum, echoed by the press, and too often by the pulpit, is bidding all men fall in and keep step and obey in silence the tyrannous word of command. Then, more than ever, it is the duty of the good citizen not to be silent.

-- Charles Eliot Norton (1827-1908), American writer, editor, and educator

Try To Persuade

I would rather try to persuade a man to go along, because once I have persuaded him he will stick. If I scare him, he will stay just as long as he is scared, and then he is gone.

-- Dwight D. Eisenhower, U.S. general and 34th president (1890-1969)

Marijuana

Marijuana never kicks down your door in the middle of the night. Marijuana never locks up sick and dying people, does not suppress medical research, does not peek in bedroom windows. Even if one takes every reefer madness allegation of the prohibitionists at face value, marijuana prohibition has done far more harm to far more people than marijuana ever could.

-- William F. Buckley, Jr. (November 24, 1925 - February 27, 2008), American author and conservative commentator

Is It Obvious?

Is it really so easy to determine that smacking someone in the face to find out where he has hidden the bomb that is about to blow up Los Angeles is prohibited by the Constitution?

Is it obvious, that what can't be done for punishment can't be done to exact information that is crucial to the society? I think it's not at all an easy question, to tell you the truth.

-- Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, interview on BBC Radio, 12 February 2008

God's Standards

I have opponents in this race who do not want to change the Constitution. But I believe it's a lot easier to change the Constitution than it would be to change the word of the living god. And that's what we need to do -- to amend the Constitution so it's in God's standards rather than try to change God's standards so it lines up with some contemporary view.

-- Republican presidential contender Mike Huckabee, as reported January 15 on MSNBC's "Morning Joe"

It Takes An Instant

It requires twenty years for a man to rise from the vegetable state in which he is within his mother's womb, and from the pure animal state which is the lot of his early childhood, to the state when the maturity of reason begins to appear. It has required thirty centuries to learn a little about his structure. It would need eternity to learn something about his soul. It takes an instant to kill him.

-- Voltaire

Baseball's Collective Failure

Manny Alexander     Brendan Donnelly    Ryan Jorgensen     
Chad Allen          Chris Donnels       Mike Judd          
Rick Ankiel         Lenny Dykstra       David Justice      
David Bell          Bobby Estalella     Chuck Knoblauch    
Mike Bell           Matt Franco         Tim Laker          
Marvin Benard       Ryan Franklin       Mike Lansing       
Gary Bennett        Eric Gagne          Paul Lo Duca       
Larry Bigbie        Jason Giambi        Nook Logan         
Barry Bonds         Jeremy Giambi       Josias Manzanillo  
Ricky Bones         Jay Gibbons         Gary Matthews Jr.  
Kevin Brown         Troy Glaus          Cody McKay         
Paul Byrd           Juan Gonzalez       Kent Mercker       
Alex Cabrera        Jason Grimsley      Bart Miadich       
Jose Canseco        Jose Guillen        Hal Morris         
Mark Carreon        Jerry Hairston Jr.  Daniel Naulty      
Jason Christiansen  Matt Herges         Denny Neagle       
Howie Clark         Phil Hiatt          Rafael Palmeiro    
Roger Clemens       Glenallen Hill      Jim Parque         
Paxton Crawford     Darren Holmes       Andy Pettitte      
Jack Cust           Todd Hundley        Adam Piatt         

Todd Pratt          Jeff Williams
Stephen Randolph    Matt Williams
Adam Riggs          Todd Williams
Armando Rios        Steve Woodard
Brian Roberts       Kevin Young
John Rocker         Gregg Zaun
F.P. Santangelo
Benito Santiago
Scott Schoeneweis
David Segui
Gary Sheffield
Mike Stanton
Ricky Stone
Miguel Tejada
Ismael Valdez
Mo Vaughn
Randy Velarde
Ron Villone
Fernando Vina
Rondell White

Everybody in baseball -- commissioners, club officials, the players' association, players -- shares responsibility.

-- George J. Mitchell, issuing a report on use of performance-enhancing drugs in baseball naming 86 past & current players, 13 December 2007

Living A Second Time

Live as if you were living a second time, and as though you had acted wrongly the first time.

-- Viktor Frankl (1905-1997), author, neurologist, psychiatrist, and Holocaust survivor

It Will Not Matter

One hundred years from now, it will not matter what my bank account was, how big my house was, or what kind of car I drove. But the world may be a little better, because I was important in the life of a child.

-- Dr. Forest E. Witcraft (1894-1967), scholar, teacher, and Boy Scout administrator, Scouting Magazine, October 1950, p2

Resolving Technosocial Problems

Democratic societies, at least, have a right to expect that experts will help them, experts from all parts of academia and all the professions. I would even go so far as to say that there is at least an implicit social contract between professionals and the democratic societies in which they live, giving rise to this expectation that professionals will shoulder their responsibilities to improve the societies in which they live and work.

-- Paul T. Durbin, emeritus professor, University of Delaware, ACM Ubiquity, 11/13/07

Moral Order

The order of the universe that we live in is the moral order. It has become the moral order by becoming the self-conscious method of the members of a human society. The world that comes to us from the past possesses and controls us. We possess and control the world that we discover and invent. And this is the world of the moral order. It is a splendid adventure if we can rise to it.

-- G. H. Mead, cited in Ubiquity, November 2007

Perfect Order

Perfect order is the forerunner of perfect horror.

-- Carlos Fuentes (1928-)

Aghast

I walked through the World Trade Center 20 minutes before the attack; saw the buildings burning; breathed the poisonous dust; wept for my country. Now Blackwater. Torture. An unprovoked, botched war. I am aghast, revolted. And ashamed.

-- Paul Nadler, Metuchen, N.J., Letter to the Editor, New York Times, October 4, 2007

Big Pharma Protects The Environment

Here's a point to ponder.

My ex has no health insurance, and currently has nine separate prescriptions to address her congestive heart failure and related maladies. Of these nine, I've been paying cash for the seven that cost under $100 per month each, skipping the two remaining, exorbitantly-priced meds.

This week I went to pick up her Albuterol inhaler, which has been available as a generic for quite a while. Unfortunately, I discovered that it's no longer available as a generic. The pharmaceutical company now has another 2(?) or 3(?) year monopoly on this product which, since it is so widely prescribed, is probably worth a $billion or so.

The change?

The old-style inhaler used CFCs for the propellant; the new-style inhaler uses something more environmentally friendly. I'm guessing that it was big pharma that pushed for the environmental restriction against CFCs as a propellant for inhalers. I'm also guessing that more people will die from not being able to afford inhalers than would have died from the extra CFCs in the atmosphere.

So, an apparently innocuous and right-minded change to environmental law, meant to keep us healthy, is likely going to kill people.

What A Living

If the rich could pay the poor to die for them, what a living the poor could make!

-- anonymous

Cowardly Escape

War is a cowardly escape from the problems of peace.

-- Thomas Mann (1875-1955), German novelist, essayist, short story writer, and Nobel laureate

Counsel Of Our Fears

Former Secretary of State Colin Powell: What is the greatest threat facing us now? People will say it's terrorism. But are there any terrorists in the world who can change the American way of life or our political system? No. Can they knock down a building? Yes. Can they kill somebody? Yes. But can they change us? No. Only we can change ourselves. So what is the great threat we are facing?

I would approach this differently, in almost Marshall-like terms. What are the great opportunities out there\u2014ones that we can take advantage of? It should not be just about creating alliances to deal with a guy in a cave in Pakistan. It should be about how do we create institutions that keep the world moving down a path of wealth creation, of increasing respect for human rights, creating democratic institutions, and increasing the efficiency and power of market economies? This is perhaps the most effective way to go after terrorists.

Interviewer: So you think we are getting too hunkered down and scared?

Powell: Yes! We are taking too much counsel of our fears.

This doesn't mean there isn't a terrorist threat. There is a threat. And we should send in military forces when we have a target to deal with. We should also secure our airports, if that makes us safer. But let's welcome every foreign student we can get our hands on. Let's make sure that foreigners come to the Mayo Clinic here, and not the Mayo facility in Dubai or somewhere else. Let's make sure people come to Disney World and not throw them up against the wall in Orlando simply because they have a Muslim name. Let's also remember that this country was created by immigrants and thrives as a result of immigration, and we need a sound immigration policy.

Let's show the world a face of openness and what a democratic system can do. That's why I want to see Guantanamo closed. It's so harmful to what we stand for. We literally bang ourselves in the head by having that place. What are we doing this to ourselves for? Because we're worried about the 380 guys there? Bring them here! Give them lawyers and habeas corpus. We can deal with them. We are paying a price when the rest of the world sees an America that seems to be afraid and is not the America they remember.

-- Colin Powell in GQ Magazine, October 2007

Occupied

If someone occupied my hometown in the same manner Americans occupy Iraq, I'd be killing them any way I could.

-- Marine Scott Ritter, "Reporting from Baghdad" (TruthDig, September 7, 2007)

A Great Soul And Vast Views

Power always thinks it has a great soul and vast views beyond the comprehension of the weak; and that it is doing God's service when it is violating all His laws.

-- John Adams, letter to Thomas Jefferson, 1816

Lack Of Access

I believe, if we don't fix the health care system, that lack of access will be a bigger cancer killer than tobacco. The ultimate control of cancer is as much a public policy issue as it is a medical and scientific issue.

-- John R. Seffrin, of the American Cancer Society, which plans to devote its entire advertising budget this year to the consequences of inadequate health coverage, NY Times, 8/31/07

Do It Right

There is no labor a person does that is undignified, if they do it right.

-- Bill Cosby (1937-, American Actor, Comedian)

Bodies Of Men

Has it been found that bodies of men act with more rectitude or greater disinterestedness than individuals? The contrary of this has been inferred by all accurate observers of the conduct of mankind; and the inference is founded upon obvious reasons. Regard to reputation has a less active influence, when the infamy of a bad action is to be divided among a number than when it is to fall singly upon one. A spirit of faction, which is apt to mingle its poison in the deliberations of all bodies of men, will often hurry the persons of whom they are composed into improprieties and excesses, for which they would blush in a private capacity.

-- Alexander Hamilton

When We Teach

When we teach a child to draw, we teach him how to see. When we teach a child to play a musical instrument, we teach her how to listen. When we teach a child to dance, we teach him how to move through life with grace. When we tach a child to read and write, we teach her how to think. When we nurture imagination, we create a better world, one child at a time.

-- Jane Alexander

Crying And Rejoicing

When you were born, you cried and the world rejoiced. Live your life so that when you die, the world cries and you rejoice.

-- Cherokee proverb

Pervading Evil

The one pervading evil of democracy is the tyranny of the majority, or rather of that party, not always the majority, that succeeds, by force or fraud, in carrying elections.

-- Lord Acton (10 January 1834 - 19 June 1902), English historian, The History of Freedom in Antiquity (February 28, 1877)

Power Corrupts

All power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men, even when they exercise influence and not authority: still more when you superadd the tendency or the certainty of corruption by authority.

-- Lord Acton (10 January 1834 - 19 June 1902), English historian, Letter to Mandell Creighton, April 1887

Everything Secret Degenerates

Every thing secret degenerates, even the administration of justice; nothing is safe that does not show how it can bear discussion and publicity.

-- Lord Acton (10 January 1834 - 19 June 1902), English historian, Letter (January 23, 1861)

Presidential Scholars

We do not want America to represent torture. We urge you to do all in your power to stop violations of the human rights of detainees, to cease illegal renditions, and to apply the Geneva Convention to all detainees, including those designated enemy combatants.

-- Excerpt from a letter signed by 50 Presidential Scholars, presented to President George W. Bush, June 25, 2007

Discrimination

The way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race.

-- Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr., in the majority opinion on school integration, June 28, 2007

Properly Free

I myself am human and free only to the extent that I acknowledge the humanity and liberty of all my fellows .... I am properly free when all the men and women about me are equally free. Far from being a limitation or a denial of my liberty, the liberty of another is its necessary condition and confirmation.

-- Mikhail Bakunin

Ready Booted And Spurred

I never would believe that Providence had sent a few men into the world, ready booted and spurred to ride, and millions ready saddled and bridled to be ridden.

-- Walt Whitman, American poet (1819-1892)

As I Interpret Them

His message of peace and reconciliation under almost all circumstances is simply incompatible with Christian teachings as I interpret them. This "turn the other cheek" business is all well and good but it's not what Jesus fought and died for. What we need to do is take the battle to the Muslim heathens and do unto them before they do unto us.

-- Jerry Falwell (11 August 1933 - 15 May 2007) American pastor and conservative activist, on Jimmy Carter in a radio interview, 4 March 2002

Falwell At His Best

And, I know that I'll hear from them for this. But, throwing God out successfully with the help of the federal court system, throwing God out of the public square, out of the schools. The abortionists have got to bear some burden for this because God will not be mocked. And when we destroy 40 million little innocent babies, we make God mad. I really believe that the pagans, and the abortionists, an the feminists, and the gays and the lesbians who are actively trying to make that an alternative lifestyle, the ACLU, People for the American Way -- all of them who have tried to secularize America -- I point the finger in their face and say, "You helped this happen."

-- Jerry Falwell (11 August 1933 - 15 May 2007) American pastor, and conservative activist, in remarks to Pat Robertson after the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, on The 700 Club, September 13, 2001

A Moral Man And A Man Of Honor

The difference between a moral man and a man of honor is that the latter regrets a discreditable act, even when it has worked and he has not been caught.

-- H. L. Mencken (1880 - 1956), "Prejudices: Fourth Series," 1924