" 'The time has come,' the walrus said, 'to talk of many things: Of shoes and ships - and sealing wax - of cabbages and kings' " —Lewis Carroll – Jabberwocky, The Walrus and The Carpenter in "Through the Looking-Glass"
"Photography is my one recreation and I think it should be done well." —Lewis Carroll
"Pictures are not incidental frills to a text; they are essences of our distinctive way of knowing." —Stephen J. Gould
"Give me Liberty or give me Debt!" —with apologies to Patrick Henry
"A private central bank issuing the public currency is a greater menace to the liberties of the people than a standing army ... We must not let our rulers load us with perpetual debt." —Thomas Jefferson
"Having more than one lens assures you that you'll always have the wrong lens on the camera!!" —Ted Orland
"I am always satisfied with the best." —Oscar Wilde
"I would not join any club that would have someone like me for a member." —Groucho Marx
"The two most powerful warriors are patience and time." —Leo Tolstoy
"If I have seen further, it is by standing on ye shoulders of giants." —Sir Isaac Newton in a letter to Robert Hooke 15 February 1676
"When I feel like exercising I just lie down until the feeling goes away." —Robert Maynard Hutchins, who pulled the University of Chicago out of the Big Ten Conference and eliminated the school’s football program
"When I was young, I admired clever people. Now that I am old, I admire kind people." —Abraham Joshua Heschel
"The Federal Government can do most anything in this country." —Congressman Pete Stark, (D) California
"I have altered our agreement; pray I don’t alter it further." —Darth Vader
"You cannot depend on your eyes when your imagination is out of focus." —Mark Twain
"Never criticize someone until you've walked a mile in their shoes. That way, you're a mile away and you've got their shoes." —Colin Corneau
"It's not an optical illusion. It just looks like one." —Anon.
"I miss the days when I used to be nostalgic." —Michael Benveniste
"Thanks to the Interstate Highway System, it is now possible to travel from coast to coast without seeing anything." —Charles Kuralt
"Never attribute to malice that which can be explained by stupidity" —Robert A. Heinlein
"The society that puts equality before freedom will end up with neither. The society that puts freedom before equality will end up with a great measure of both." —Milton Friedman
"By virtue of exchange, one man's prosperity is beneficial to all others." —Frederic Bastiat
"Over himself, over his own body and mind, the individual is sovereign." —John Stuart Mill, "On Liberty"
"Poor people in America today (people who are officially in poverty) have a higher standard of living – in terms of medical standards, in terms of going to college, in terms of the way people live – than middle class people did thirty years ago." —Michael Medved
"The ten scariest words in the English language are 'I'm from the government and I'm here to help you.' " —Ronald Reagan
"There is nothing that does so much harm as good intentions." —Milton Friedman
"One of the reasons that I am in favor of less government is because when you have more government, industrialists take it over." —Milton Friedman
"The ideas of economists and political philosophers, both when they are right and when they are wrong, are more powerful than is commonly understood. Indeed the world is ruled by little else. Practical men, who believe themselves to be quite exempt from any intellectual influence, are usually the slaves of some defunct economist. Madmen in authority, who hear voices in the air, are distilling their frenzy from some academic scribbler of a few years back." —John Maynard Keynes
"The best kept secret in the investing world: Almost nothing turns out as expected." —Harry Browne
"Legal plunder has two roots: One of them is in human greed; the other is in false philanthropy." —Frederic Bastiat
"When the people fear their government, there is tyranny; when the government fears the people, there is liberty." —Thomas Jefferson
"To compel a man to furnish funds for the propagation of ideas he disbelieves and abhors is sinful and tyrannical." —Thomas Jefferson
"Quantum Mechanics: the dreams stuff is made of." —William A. Arnett
"Film isn't dead. It just smells funny." —Lars Vinberg
"From today, painting is dead." —Paul Delacroix, c. 1839, on seeing his first daguerreotype
"Momma don't take my Kodachrome away!" —Paul Simon
"Buying a Nikon doesn't make you a photographer. It makes you a Nikon owner!" —M. David Farrell, Jr.
"If your pictures aren't good enough, you're not close enough." —Robert Capa, photojournalist
... "but [Capa] also died [from] being too close [to] a landmine. So please be careful." —Pascal Méheut
"If a camera has a soul, you will find it in the lens." —PaulC
"Middle age is when you can finally afford the things that a young man could truly enjoy." —Dave Kadolph
"In terms of addiction, there is nothing more powerful than men's toys." —Sammy Davis Jr.
" ... on the whole it wasn't the small green pieces of paper that were unhappy." —Douglas Adams
"Light makes photography. Embrace light. Admire it. Love it. But above all, know light. Know it for all you are worth, and you will know the key to photography." —George Eastman
"My first thought is always of light." —Galen Rowell
"Every journey into the past is complicated by delusions, false memories, false naming of real events." —Adrienne Rich
"Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover." —Mark Twain
"The most important thing you should know about me is that I am not an expert." —Anon.
"No one spends someone else's money as wisely as he spends his own." —Dick Armey
"The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people's money." —Margaret Thatcher
"The Cuban [economic] model doesn't even work for us anymore." —Fidel Castro, Sept. 2010
"Preserving debt affordability at levels consistent with [U.S. Treasury bond] AAA ratings will invariably require adjustments of a magnitude that, in some cases, will test social cohesion." —Moody's Investors Services, Inc., 3/16/2010
"I don't teach my students, I provide the circumstances in which they can learn." —Albert Einstein
"If I had to choose between government without newspapers, and newspapers without government, I wouldn't hesitate to choose the latter." —Thomas Jefferson
"I don't have a photograph, but you can have my footprints. They're upstairs in my socks." —Groucho Marx
"Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect." —Mark Twain
"The truth will set you free, but first it will make you miserable." —U.S. President James A. Garfield
"Big things happen fast." —Vesta Mason Clement
"The greatest enemy of a good plan is the dream of a perfect plan." —Von Clausewitz
" ... trash talk ... Washington floats on a river of aspersion." —David Brooks
"A vulture boards an airplane, carrying two dead raccoons. The stewardess looks at him and says, 'I'm sorry, sir, only one carrion allowed per passenger.' " —International Pun Contest: "The ability to make and understand puns is considered to be the highest level of language development."
After theoretical scientist, Mrs. Mental, divorced her husband, Perry, what was she called?
"Don't anthropomorphize digital cameras. They don't like it." —Carlos Echenique
"Eternity is a very long time, especially towards the end." —Stephen Hawking [also attributed to Woody Allen]
"The only reason for time is so that everything doesn't happen at once.” —Albert Einstein
"There was a young lady called Bright; Who could travel much faster than light. She set out one day; In a relative way; And returned on the previous night." —Arthur Buller, Punch, Dec. 19, 1923
"You don't take a photograph – you ask to quietly borrow it." —Debbi, Texas
Priorities in upgrading photographic quality: First improve the photographer's skills, camera/lens support (tripod, etc.), lens, and camera body last. —Thom Hogan
"A man's soul can be judged by the way he treats his dog." —Charles Doran
"Don't go for the geniuses. They never want to sleep." —First lady, Abigail Bartlett, M.D., played by Stockard Channing on "The West Wing"
"Social Conservatives hate big government; they want it just small enough so it can fit into our bedrooms ... " —paraphrasing Josh Lyman on "The West Wing"
"My reading of history convinces me that most bad government results from too much government." —Thomas Jefferson
"I am always learning." —Michelangelo
'The people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world are the ones who do." —Steve Jobs – 1955-2011 R.I.P.
"When you grow up, you tend to get told that the world is the way it is, and your life is just to live your life inside the world. Try not to bash into the walls too much. Try to have a nice family life. Have fun. Save a little money. ... That's a very limited life. Life can be much broader once you discover one simple fact, and that is everything around you that you call life was made up by people that were no smarter than you, and you can change it, you can influence it, you can build your own things that people can use. Once you learn that you'll never be the same again." —Steve Jobs
In 2009, "Steve Jobs, the inventive and often strong-willed co-founder of Apple, warned Barack Obama, 'You're headed for a one-term presidency' during a frank 45-minute meeting ... He told Obama that the United States needed to become more business-friendly if it did not want to lose its edge. He talked about how much easier it was to build a factory in China than in the U.S., where there were too many regulations and needless costs. And he complained about the U.S. education system, saying unions protected bad teachers and kept principals from hiring good ones."
White House Science 'Czar' Tells Students: "We [the United States] can’t expect to be number one in everything indefinitely." —Dr. John P. Holdren, Director, White House Office of Science and Technology Policy
"Stay on target... Stay on target..." —Star Wars
"Today's consumer protection hurts consumers more than it helps us. Competition and the open society protects us far better than government ever can or ever will." —John Stossel
"A citizen's right to film government officials, including law enforcement officers, in the discharge of their duties in a public place is a basic, vital, and well-established liberty safeguarded by the First Amendment." —Federal First Circus Court of Appeals, Boston, MA, 2011
Clueless: " ... there are these incredibly hot rocks, 'cause the interior of the earth is extremely hot, several million degrees ... " —Al Gore, Nobel Laureate
"Caution: Cape does not enable user to fly." —Warning label on a Batman costume
"Who told you to think? I don't give you enough information to think." —Total Recall (movie)
"If you want to create jobs the quickest way to do it is to provide more funding for food stamps ... it's the biggest bang for the buck." —House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (Democrat - California)
"Dictatorial Powers: The sad truth is that government does everything incompetently, whether it is something trivial or something on which the fate of the country depends. War is the health of the state because the government uses war to fighten us into surrendering our liberties and our property." —Judge Andrew Nepolitano
"It's all rigged." —Senator Michael Bennet (D-Colorado)
"If everyone is thinking alike, then no one is thinking." —Ben Franklin
"Seen at a coffee shop: Sleep is the primary symptom of caffeine deprivation." —Travis Saling
"All photographs are accurate. None of them is the truth." —Richard Avedon
"There is no real magic in photography, just the sloppy intersection of physics and art." —Kirk Tuck
"I am less interested in the return on my money than the return of my money." —Will Rogers
"Amateurs worry about sharpness; Professionals worry about sales; Photographers worry about light." —Jamie Howell
"A dog teaches a boy three things: fidelity, perseverance, and to turn around three times before lying down." —Robert Benchley
"On top of all my other medical problems, now they tell me I have hypochondria ... " —Rick Oleson
"Photography is not like painting. There is a creative fraction of a second when you are taking a picture. Your eye must see a composition or an expression that life itself offers you, and you must know with intuition when to click the camera." —Henri Cartier-Bresson
"The function of economic forecasting is to make astrology look respectable." —John Kenneth Galbraith
"Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter." —Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr.
"Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one." —Albert Einstein
"On two occasions, I have been asked [by members of Parliament], 'Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?' I am not able to rightly apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question." —Charles Babbage (1791-1871)
"The milliHelen (the amount of beauty required to launch 1 ship)." —Patrick Perez
"I have been in 57 states ... " —Barack Hussein Obama
Protests have now "spread to 1,000 countries." —Diane Sawyer, ABC News
"Every month that we do not have an economic recovery package, 500 million Americans will lose their jobs." —Nancy Pelosi
"If ignorance is bliss, then why aren't there more happy people?" —graffiti
"I would love to spend a lot of my time venting and yelling at people." ... "I ... talk to experts ... so I know whose [tuchus] to kick." —Barack Hussein Obama, II, 44th President of the United States
"You and I are told we must choose between a left or right, but I suggest there is no such thing as a left or right. There is only an up or down. Up to man's age-old dream – the maximum of individual freedom consistent with order – or down to the ant heap of totalitarianism." —Ronald Wilson Reagan, "A Time For Choosing"
"Liberty is meaningless where the right to utter one's thoughts and opinions has ceased to exist. That, of all rights, is the dread of tyrants. It is the right which they first of all strike down." —Frederick Douglass
"What country can preserve its liberties if its rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance?" —Thomas Jefferson
"You shall not criticize anything or anybody in the government any longer or you shall go to jail." —Progressive California Senator Hiram Johnson explaining President Woodrow Wilson's Sedition Act
"The only thing necessary for the triumph [of evil] is for good men to do nothing." —Edmund Burke
"Silence in the face of evil is itself evil: God will not hold us guiltless. Not to speak is to speak. Not to act is to act." —Dietrich Bonhoeffer
"Travel is the antidote to racism, bigotry and prejudice." —Mark Twain
"Americans will always do the right thing ... after they've exhausted all the alternatives." —Winston Churchill
"A lead – however earnestly and expensively won – once lost is nearly impossible to regain." —Neil Armstrong
"I've never been interested in the process of photography, never, never. Right from the beginning. For me, photography with a small camera like the Leica is an instant drawing." —Henri Cartier Bresson
"The camera is an instrument that teaches people how to see without a camera." —Dorothea Lange
"Photographers deal in things which are continually vanishing and when they have vanished there is no contrivance on earth which can make them come back again."—Henri Cartier Bresson
"A man hears what he wants to hear and disregards the rest" —Paul Simon
Summit tests freedom of press: "Obama's disregard for media reaches new heights ... putting on a clinic for some of the world's greatest dictators in how to circumvent a free press." —Dana Milbank, Washington Post
"Progressive" anti-capitalist mentality: "A man who has never gone to school may steal from a freight car; but if he has a university education, he may steal the whole railroad. " —Theodore Roosevelt
"You will never correct by logic a man's error, if that error did not get into his mind by logic" —Mark Twain
"I'm an Internet expert too. It's all right to wire the industrial zone only, but there are many problems if other regions of the North are wired." —North Korean "Supreme Commander" Kim Jong-il
"I believe in returning the nation's wealth to its rightful owners. ... I think when you spread the wealth around it's good for everybody." ... "I do think at some point you've made enough money." —Barack Hussein Obama, II, 44th President of the United States
"The American public overwhelmingly voted for Socialism when they voted for President Obama." —Rev. Al Sharpton
"Obama is talking about how he is going to 'spread the wealth' and like most people who set out to spread the wealth he ends up spreading poverty." —Professor Thomas Sowell, Hover Institution, Stanford
"The biggest threat to our national security is our debt." —Admiral Mike Mullen, Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff
"Everything Ronald Reagan did to the Soviet Union, Barack Obama is doing to America today." —Michael Reagan
"Let me give you a tip on a clue to men's characters: the man who damns money has obtained it dishonorably; the man who respects it has earned it. Run for your life from any man who tells you that money is evil. That sentence is the leper's bell of an approaching looter." —Ayn Rand, "Atlas Shrugged"
"One of the tragedies of the civil rights movement was that the civil rights movement became so court focused, I think, there was a tendency to lose track of the political and organizing activities on the ground that are able to bring about the coalitions of power through which you bring about redistributive change." —Barack Hussein Obama
"We'll keep clinging to our Constitution and our guns and religion and you can keep the change. ... and when they say 'yes we can,' we'll say 'no you don't!' " —Sarah Palin
"Paying more taxes is the patriotic thing to do for wealthier Americans ... the people who do not need a tax cut ... We want to take money and put it back in the pocket of middle-class people ... It's time to be patriotic ... " —Joseph Robinette Biden, Jr., Vice-President of the United States
"I've got a bad feeling about this." —Star Wars
"The way to crush the bourgeoisie is to grind them between the millstones of taxation and inflation." —Vladimir Lenin
"I would definitely say that I am a Marxist." —Lee Harvey Oswald, the assasin who murdered President John F. Kennedy
A liberal economist's view of how to balance the federal budget: "Some years down the pike, we're going to get the real solution, which is going to be a combination of death panels and sales taxes." —Paul Krugman, 11/14/2010
"We're going to have to, if you're very old, we're not going to give you all that technology and all those drugs for the last couple of years of your life to keep you maybe going for another couple of months. It's too expensive ... so we're going to let you die." —Robert Reich
"I want the people of America to be able to work less for the government and more for themselves. I want them to have the rewards of their own industry. This is the chief meaning of freedom." —U.S. President Calvin Coolidge
The title says it all ... "The End of Prosperity: How Higher Taxes Will Doom the Economy – If We Let It Happen." —Arthur B. Laffer, Stephen Moore, and Peter Tanous
"tax increases are highly contractionary. .... The large effect stems in considerable part from a
powerful negative effect of tax increases on investment." —Christina and David Romer
"The great debate is still Keynes versus Hayek. All else is footnote." —Mario Rizzo
"When the people find they can vote themselves money, that will herald the end of the republic." —Benjamin Franklin
"I wish it were possible to obtain a single amendment to our Constitution ... an article taking from the federal government the power of borrowing." ... "It is incumbent on every generation to pay its own debts as it goes ... " —Thomas Jefferson
"We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security." —Dwight David Eisenhower
Why the U.S. is a constitutional republic instead of a democracy: "Remember democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide." —John Adams, April 15, 1814
"A lie will fly around the whole world while the truth is getting its boots on." —Mark Twain
"You never want a serious crisis to go to waste. And by that I mean it’s an opportunity to do things you did not think you could do before." —Rahm Emanuel, White House Chief of Staff
"Put down the can opener, and step away from that can of worms." —Ctein's famous advice
"Under capitalism everybody provides for their own needs by serving others." —Ludwig von Mises
"Don’t gamble! Take all your savings and buy some good stock and hold it ‘till it goes up, then sell it. If it don’t go up, don’t buy it." —Will Rogers
"I can tolerate risk – it's losing money that bothers me." —Lbill
"A foole and his money is soone parted." —J. Bridges, 1587
"The welfare state has always been judged by its good intentions, rather than its bad results." —Thomas Sowell
"You only get one sunrise and one sunset a day and you only get so many days on the planet. A good photographer does the math and doesn't waste either." —Galen Rowell
"We are all agreed that your theory is crazy. The question that divides us is whether it is crazy enough to have a chance of being correct." —Niels Bohr
"Macs WANT to be anthropomorphosized." —Nick May
"Washington, D.C., [has] all the charm of a northern industrial city and all the efficiency of a southern town." —John F. Kennedy
"I try to be cynical, but its hard to keep up." —Lilly Tomlin
"The stone age did not end for lack of stone." —attributed to the former Saudi Oil Minister, Sheikh Ahmed Zaki Yamani
"Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge." —Charles Darwin
Monopolies: "We don't care; we don't have to. We're the phone company." —Lily Tomlin's character, Ernestine
"Its a dangerous business going out your front door." —J.R.R.Tolkien
"The Google policy on a lot of things is to get right up to the creepy line and not cross it." —Eric Schmidt, Google Executive Chairman
"The only free cheese is in a mousetrap." —Gekko
"Keep an open mind, but not so open that your brain falls out." —Richard Feynman
"Government is not reason, it is not eloquent, it is force. Like fire, it is a dangerous servant and a fearful master." —George Washington
"The means of defense against foreign danger historically have become the instruments of tyranny at home." —James Madison
"Save the Earth. It's the only planet with chocolate." —"Shmoo"
"Of all the preposterous assumptions of humanity, nothing exceeds the criticisms made of the habits of the poor by the well housed, well warmed, and well fed." —Herman Melville
"If you want to help the poor, help them feel uncomfortable in their poverty." —Benjamin Franklin
"If you are not rich or if you are not financially secure, blame yourself." —Herman Cain
"The democracy will cease to exist when you take away from those who are willing to work and give to those who would not." —Thomas Jefferson
"Talent hits a target no one else can hit; Genius hits a target no one else can see." —Arthur Schopenhauer
"Do not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail." —Ralph Waldo Emerson
"All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident." —Arthur Schopenhauer
"First they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you, and then you win." —Mahatma Gandhi
"I don't foresee any Black Swans appearing in the future." —Brad baw703916
"Complexity is easy; Simplicity is hard." —Edmund Keane
"We are spending more money than we have ever spent before and it [the 'New Deal'] does not work ... we have never made good on our promises ... I say after eight years of this [FDR] administration we have just as much unemployment as when we started ... and an enormous debt to boot." —Henry Morgenthau, Jr., U.S. Treasury Secretary, 1939 [when the federal government spent 4.3% of GDP vs. 26% in 2009]
"Disclaimer: I am making all of this up." —Anon.
"Don't Steal – The government hates competition." —Bumper Sticker
"I have wondered at times about what the 10 Commandments would have looked like if Moses had run them through the US Congress." —Ronald Reagan
"To do creative work I must be completely free." —Nikola Tesla
"It's about time we started to take photography seriously and treat it as a hobby." —Elliott Erwitt
"It's life ... activities available, just add meaning." —A Beautiful Mind (motion picture)
"The more I practice, the luckier I get." —Arnold Palmer
"At a gallery opening in New York, years ago ... Ernest Hemingway said to Irving Penn, 'I like your photographs, what kind of camera do you use?' Penn replied, 'I like your novels, what kind of typewriter do you use?'" —Steve Porte
"If you don't read the newspaper, you are uninformed; if you do read the newspaper, you are misinformed." —Mark Twain
"I keep six honest serving-men
(They taught me all I knew);
Their names are What and Why and When
And How and Where and Who." —Kipling
"It does not require a majority to prevail, but rather an irate, tireless minority keen to set brush fires in people's minds." —Samuel Adams
" ... all adults should own their lives and property, and have the right to make their own choices as to how they live their lives, as long as they respect the same right of other people." —Judge James P. Gray
The Golden Rule (negative form): "That which is hateful to you, do not unto another: This is the whole Torah. The rest is commentary — [and now] go study." —Hillel, first-century-BCE rabbinic sage
"That government is best which governs the least, because its people discipline themselves." —Henry David Thoreau
"I, like most of the American people, don't begrudge people success or wealth ... That's part of the free market system." —U.S. President Barack Hussein Obama, II
"I am not a crook." —U.S. President Richard Milhous Nixon
"Academic politics are so vicious precisely because the stakes are so small.” —Henry Kissinger, et al
"I used to eat a lot of natural foods until I learned that most people die of natural causes." —Anon.
"Any fool can take a picture but a photographer that can make an ugly [person] look good will have a job for life" —Groucho Marx
"If you don't want to work, you have to work to earn enough money so that you won't have to work." —Ogden Nash
"The universe is big. Really big." —Douglas Adams
"The American Republic will endure until the day the Congress discovers it can bribe the public with the public's money." —Alexis de Tocqueville
"The production of a perfect picture by means of photography is an Art; the production of a technically perfect negative is a science." —Hurter & Driffield, 1890
On internet advertising vs. privacy: "If you're not paying for something, you're not the customer; you're the product being sold." —blue_beetle
"There are many things the government can't do, many good purposes it must renounce. It must leave them to the enterprise of others. It cannot feed the people. It cannot enrich the people. It cannot teach the people." —Lord Acton
"I am free of all prejudices. I hate everyone equally." —W. C. Fields
"Although the moon is smaller than the earth, they are about the same distance apart." —Nathan Tenny
"If you believe everything you read, better not read." —Japanese proverb
"Normal is getting dressed in clothes that you buy for work and driving through traffic in a car that you are still paying for – in order to get to the job you need to pay for the clothes and the car, and the house you leave vacant all day so you can afford to live in it." —Ellen Goodman
"Historically, the claim of consensus has been the first refuge of scoundrels; it is a way to avoid debate by claiming that the matter is already settled. ... Whenever you hear the consensus of scientists agrees on something or other, reach for your wallet, because you're being had." —Michael Crichton
"Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds." —Albert Einstein
"We are bits of stellar matter that got cold by accident, bits of a star gone wrong." —Sir Arthur Eddington
"If a cluttered desk is the sign of a cluttered mind, what is the significance of a clean desk?" —Laurence J. Peter
"A strong conviction that something must be done is the parent of many bad measures." —Daniel Webster
"Progress isn't made by early risers. It's made by lazy men trying to find easier ways to do something." —Robert Heinlein
"You've achieved success in your field when you don't know whether what you're doing is work or play." —Warren Beatty
"All my life, I always wanted to be somebody. Now I see that I should have been more specific." —Jane Wagner, The Search For Intelligent Life In The Universe, performed by Lily Tomlin
"Half of all published studies turn out to be incorrect, and it was found that 84.7% of statistics are entirely made up!"
"The large print giveth, but the small print taketh away." —Tom Waits, Small Change
"He who believes that the past cannot be changed has not yet written his memoirs." —Torvald Gahlin
"The single most useful [photography] advice I ever got was to make sure that I have the lens pointed at something that's actually interesting." —Matt Laur
"It costs 1.75 trillion dollars [per year] to comply with just [United States] Federal regulations – that is a number larger than just eight economies in the world." —Senator Ron Johnson (R) Wisconsin, 11/7/2011
"The two enemies of the people are criminals and government, so let us tie the second down with the chains of the Constitution so the second will not become the legalized version of the first." —Thomas Jefferson
"The pioneers of a warless world are the [youth] who refuse military service." —Albert Einstein
"I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character." —Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr.
"Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty or safety." —Benjamin Franklin
"I typically prefer buying the best since I have done so many times the most expensive route: buy cheap, buy better and buy best and you end up having 3 of each item ... " —Samuli Vahonen
"On the whole human beings want to be good, but not too good, and not quite all the time." —George Orwell
"There are many things of which a wise man might wish to be ignorant." —Ralph Waldo Emerson
"Nothing shocks me. I'm a scientist." —Indiana Jones
" ... A wise and frugal government, which shall restrain men from injuring one another, but shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement." —Thomas Jefferson
"Is this the right room for an argument?" —Monty Python's Flying Circus
"I'd shut it down and give the money back to the shareholders." —Michael Dell on what he would do if he were Apple acting chief executive Steve Jobs
"We shall consider ourselves unauthorized to saddle posterity with our debts, and morally bound to pay them ourselves." —Thomas Jefferson
"it is preposterous that businesses are under attack in the United States of America" —Steve Wynn
"Even if you're on the right track, you'll get run over if you just sit there." —Will Rogers
"There is no such thing as a profit; there are only costs." —Peter Drucker [Profits are the cost of capital – would you invest in a company without them? – as wages are the cost of labor.]
"Start every day with a smile, and get it over with." —W. C. Fields
"Results are uncertain even for the more experienced photographers." —Matthew Brady
"If I could tell the story in words, I wouldn't need to lug around a camera." —Lewis Hine
"The quickest way to make money at photography is to sell your camera." —Anon.
"Few people have the resources to resist authority." —Yale Professor Stanley Milgram, "The Perils of Obedience"
"Everyone has a plan, until they get hit." —Mike Tyson
"The important thing is never to stop questioning." —Albert Einstein
"Do, or do not. There is no 'try'." —Yoda
"We have to pass the [Obamacare] bill so that you can find out what is in it ... " —House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (Democrat - California)
"Learn the rules so you know how to break them properly." —Dalai Lama
"My goal in life is to be as good of a person my dog already thinks I am." —Anonymous
"I think the best way of doing good to the poor, is not making them easy in poverty but leading or driving them out of it. In my youth I traveled much, I observed in different countries that the more public provisions were made for the poor, the less they provided for themselves, and of course became poorer. And on the contrary, the less was done for them, the more they did for themselves and became richer." —Benjamin Franklin, 1766
"Best advice I ever got ... 'Let me tell you all you need to know about the investment business: Nobody knows nuthin'.' " —John C. Bogle, Founder, Vanguard Investments
Lawlessness in America: "There ain't no rules around here – we're trying to accomplish something – and therefore when the deal goes down, all this talk about rules – we make them up as we go along ... " —Alcee Hastings, Chairman, Rules Committee, U.S. House of Representatives, Democrat, Florida, March 20, 2010
"If you don't tie our [Congress'] hands, we'll keep stealing." —Rep. Tom Perriello (D-Va.)
"The urge to save humanity is always a false front for the urge to rule it." —H. L. Mencken
"Don’t worry about the unsustainable. The unsustainable won't last.” —Herb Stein
"I predict future happiness for Americans if they can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them." —Thomas Jefferson
" ... it takes a long time to do the necessary administrative steps that have to be taken to put the [health care] legislation together to control the people." —Rep. John Dingell (D-MI), the longest serving member of the House of Representatives
"No man's life, liberty, or property are safe while the legislature is in session." —Gideon J. Tucker in Final Accounting in the Estate of A. B., 1866
"When the capital development of a country is the byproduct of the operations of a casino, the job is likely to be ill done." —John Maynard Keynes
"All electronics gear works on smoke. If you let the smoke get out, it stops working." —Robert Wallis
"The bigger the government the smaller the citizen." —Dennis Praeger
Washington's War on Prosperity: "There will be a time for them to make profits ... Now is not that time." —Barack Hussein Obama, II, 44th President of the United States
"I don't worry about the constitution ... it doesn't matter to me." —Rep. Phil Hare (Democrat - Illinois)
"If we lose freedom, there is no place to escape to. This is the last stand on earth." —Ronald Wilson Reagan
"Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn't pass it to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same, or one day we will spend our sunset years telling our children and our children's children what it was once like in the United States where men were free." —Ronald Reagan, 40th President of United States
"In my many years I have come to a conclusion that one useless man is a shame, two is a law firm, and three or more is a congress." —John Adams
"Gentlemen: You have undertaken to cheat me. I won't sue you, for the law is too slow. I'll ruin you. Yours truly, Cornelius Vanderbilt."
"I was tired yesterday and I'm tired again today. I'm retired." —Sleepless
" ... President Obama['s] ... decision to cancel ... America’s only path to low Earth orbit ... will have wasted our current ten plus billion dollar investment ... and ... lost the many years required to recreate the equivalent of what we will have discarded. ... to be without carriage to low Earth orbit and with no human exploration capability to go beyond Earth orbit for an indeterminate time into the future, destines our nation to become one of second or even third rate stature. ... the USA is far too likely to be on a long downhill slide to mediocrity. ... " —Neil Armstrong, Commander, Apollo 11, James Lovell, Commander, Apollo 13, and Eugene Cernan, Commander, Apollo 17
"Under my plan of a cap and trade [carbon dioxide tax] system electricity rates would necessarily skyrocket." ... "if somebody wants to build a coal fired plant they can, it's just that it will bankrupt them ... " —Barack Hussein Obama
"Somehow we have to figure out how to boost the price of gasoline to the levels in Europe ... " —Steven Chu, Ph.D., September, 2008, prior to taking office as U.S. Secretary of Energy
"I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too much liberty than to those attending too small a degree of it." —Thomas Jefferson
"Those who think they can, and those who think they can't, are both right." —Henry Ford
Clarke’s Law: "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." —Arthur C. Clarke
Clark’s Law: "Any sufficiently advanced cluelessness is indistinguishable from malice." — J. Porter Clark
"Consulting the rules of composition before taking a photograph is like consulting the laws of gravity before going for a walk." —Edward Weston
"My husband has bet me $20 you won't say even three words to me. What do you answer to that?" Calvin ["Silent Cal"] Coolidge: "You lose."
"You're guaranteed to miss 100% of the shots you don't take" —Wayne Gretzky
"Scarcity is a myth perpetrated by those that want the protection racket of regulation." —Andy Kessler
"There are 10,000 living species [of birds, but] only about 4,000 mammals, so [it is] still the age of dinosaurs." —Jacques Gauthier, Nova
"A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky dangerous animals and you know it."
—'K', Men in Black
"A common mistake that people make when trying to design something completely foolproof is to underestimate the ingenuity of complete fools." —Douglas Adams
"[Obama] was a social activist in the Saul Olinsky school that says rich people are mean, businesses are terrible, take down the power structure, go after them ... " —Rudy Giuliani, former Mayor of New York City, 11/3/2010
"[Obama] is embarassed by America and our success and ... the feeling is mutual." —Tim Pawlenty, Minnesota Governor, 11/3/2010
"We have piled deficit upon deficit, mortgaging our future and our children's future, for the temporary convenience of the present ... government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem." —President Ronald Reagan
"We have four basic general areas of policy: the one everyone focuses on is low rate flat taxes; our second policy was sound money – the value of the dollar maintained itself over time; the third area which was free trade; and the fourth area is what we call 'incomes policies' – these are all the indirect ways government can effect businesses – regulations or minimum wage, union activity – all four of those are equally important; you can't have a healthy economy with any one of those being out of kilter." —Arthur Laffer
"Wisdom comes from experience. Experience comes from bad decisions." —Anon.
"In theory there is no difference between theory and practice. In practice there is." —Variously attributed to Yogi Berra, Albert Einstein, Chuck Reid, and Jan L. A. van de Snepscheut
"An optimist says 'the glass is half full.' A pessimist says 'the glass is half empty.' But the engineer says 'the glass is twice as large as it needs to be.'" —"tarnish"
"We don't stop playing with trains because we get old; we get old because we stop playing with trains." —Belmondo
"The coldest winter I ever saw was the summer I spent in San Francisco." —attributed to Mark Twain
"Today is the first day of the rest of your life."
"Today is yesterday, tomorrow."
"Anyone who is not shocked by quantum theory has not understood it." —Niels Bohr
"It's tough to make predictions, especially about the future." —Yogi Berra
"The world wouldn't be – In such a snarl – If Marx had been Groucho – Instead of Karl." —Irving Berlin
"The only thing new in this world is the history that you don't know." —Harry S Truman
Danger of government regulation in America: "A network of small, complicated rules. It does not break wills, but softens them. It does not tyrannize, it hinders, represses, stupifies, and finally it reduces each nation to being nothing more than a flock of timid animals, of which the government is shepherd." —Alexis De Tocqueville, "Democracy in America," 1840
"Error of opinion may be tolerated where reason is left free to combat it." —Thomas Jefferson
"Outside its legitimate function, government does nothing as well or economically as the private sector." —Ronald W. Reagan
"Whatever you are, be a good one." —Abraham Lincoln
"Peace, commerce, and honest friendship with all nations – entangling alliances with none." —Thomas Jefferson
"If past history was all there was to the game, the richest people would be librarians." — Warren Buffett
"I have no purpose, directly or indirectly, to interfere with the institution of slavery ... I believe I have no lawful right to do so, and I have no inclination to do so." —President Abraham Lincoln, inaugural address
"You know you can't please everyone so you got to please yourself." —Rick Nelson
"Look and think before opening the shutter. The heart and mind are the true lens of the camera." —Yousuf Karsh
"Art is making something out of nothing and selling it." —Frank Zappa
"A strike of public employees manifests nothing less than an intent on their part to prevent or obstruct the operations of Government until their demands are satisfied. Such action, looking toward the paralysis of Government by those who have sworn to support it, is unthinkable and intolerable." —Franklin D. Roosevelt
Steve: "Don't you ever sleep???????"; Paul: "I have a condition called insomnia photografica. Nothing serious. My doctor says I can live to be a hundred years old. Thanks for your concern!"
"A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die, and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it." —Max Planck
"Real cost of government – the total tax burden – equals what government spends plus the cost to the public of complying with government mandates and regulations and of calculating, paying, and taking measures to avoid taxes." ... "Anything that reduces that real cost – lower government spending, elimination of costly regulations on individuals or businesses, simplification of explicit taxes – is a tax reform." —Milton Friedman, 1999
"I pray Heaven to bestow the best of blessings on this [White] house and all that shall hereafter inhabit it. May none but honest and wise men ever rule under this roof." —John Adams, writing to his wife Abigail, on Nov. 2, 1800, his second day as President
"People will believe a big lie sooner than a little one, and if you repeat it frequently enough, people will sooner or later believe it." —Walter Langer, Psychoanalyst
Liar, Liar, pants on fire: "We will not be adding more to the national debt." —Barack Hussein Obama, II, 2/18/2010 [the month that Obama added a record $223 billion to the national debt – more than previous entire years!]
" ... driving up our national debt ... adding ... trillion[s of] dollars ... that's irresponsible, its unpatriotic." —Barack Hussein Obama
Another whopper: "You got their plan, which is let's have dirtier air, dirtier water, [and] less people with health insurance ... " —Barack Hussein Obama
"I can calculate the motions of the heavenly bodies, but not the madness of people." —Issac Newton
" ... it is not because we care about children, and it is not because we have a vision of a great public school for every child. NEA and its affiliates are effective advocates because we have power, and we have power because there are more than 3.2 million people who are willing to pay us hundreds of millions of dollars in dues each year." —Robert Chanin, who was the head lawyer for the National Education Association, Teacher's Union (the largest Labor Union in the United States)
"Put not your trust in princes ... " —Psalm 146:3
[What are the other things?] "We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard ... " —President John F. Kennedy, Rice University, September 12, 1962
America's goal in the Cold War: "My idea of American policy toward the Soviet Union is simple, and some would say simplistic ... It is this: We win and they lose." —Ronald Reagan to Richard V. Allen, 1977
"[The Chinese government is] trying to stop history, which is a fool's errand. They cannot do it. But they're going to hold it off as long as possible." —U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's assertion that the repressive Chinese system will eventually collapse
"Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they aren't after you." —Joseph Heller, "Catch-22"
"Do not fold, spindle or mutilate." —From an IBM punch card
"Ne-ver mind … " —Emily Litella
"Go west, young man, go west!" —John L.B. Soule, Terre Haute Express, 1851
"If you can't explain it to a six year old, you don't understand it yourself." —Albert Einstein
"If you want to improve, be content to be thought foolish and stupid." —Epictetus
"Photography is 90% mental, the other half is the equipment." —paraphrase of Yogi Berra by RBFresno
"Personally I never liked a photo just because it was in focus or properly exposed. Achieving that shouldn't make you feel like a photographer – you need to take the medium well beyond that. Shock, inspire, create beauty, make a social commentary, etc. – that's photography." —Graham Mitchell
"Riding a Harley, playing a guitar though a vacuum tube Marshall amplifier, listening to an album on vinyl and shooting a rangefinder ... all some of lifes great choices." —millsart
"If you want to succeed, double your failure rate." –Thomas Watson, IBM President
" 'Richard Nixon, if he were alive today, would feel vindicated that all the crimes he committed against me – which forced his resignation facing impeachment – are now legal.' (Thanks to the Patriot Act and other laws passed in recent years.)" —Daniel Ellsberg
"I know that you believe that you understood what you think I said, but I am not sure you realize that what you heard is not what I meant."
"Wish I didn't know now what I didn't know then." —Bob Seeger
"Never install version point zero of anything." —Gates' Law
New Deal failed: "We have tried spending money. We are spending more than we have ever spent before and it does not work." —Henry Morgenthau, Jr., U.S. Secretary of the Treasury under FDR, 1939
"We didn't admit it at the time, but practically the whole New Deal was extrapolated from programs that Hoover started." —Rexford G. Tugwell, New Deal Architect
"Well, the trouble with our liberal friends is not that they are ignorant, but that they know so much that isn't so."—Ronald Wilson Reagan,
"Everybody is a genius, but if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid." —Albert Einstein
"What is harder, is trying to photograph the past." —Paul VanAudenhove
"It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends upon his not understanding it." —Upton Sinclair
"Socialism is a philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance, and the gospel of envy. Its inherent virtue is the equal sharing of misery." —Winston Churchill
"Greed has fed more mouths than charity ever could." —Rush Limbaugh
"Difficult to predit the future is!" —Yoda, "Star Wars"
"Nobody understands quantum mechanics." —Richard Feynman
"Black and white ... creates a nostalgia for the present." —"American Masters" Woody Allen: A Documentary (2011)
"the sheer length of your [blog] post is impressive. seriously. ... you, sir, are the monarch of eternity." —Eric Arnold
