Quotes to inspire and reflect

Don’t spend your time in drilling soldiers, whomay turn out hirelings after all, but give to undrilled peasantry a country to fight for.

We do not ride on the railroad; it rides upon us.

Our life is frittered away by detail. . . . Simplify, simplify.

The mass of men lead lives of quietdesperation. What is called resignation isconfirmed desperation.

Our inventions are wont to be pretty toys, which distract our attention from serious things. They are but improved means to an unimproved end. . . . We are in great haste to construct a magnetic telegraph from Maine to Texas, but Maine and Texas, it may be, have nothing important to communicate.

It is remarkable that, notwithstanding theuniversal favor with which the New Testamentis outwardly received, and even the bigotry with which it is defended, there is no hospitalityshown to, there is no appreciation of, the order of truth with which it deals. I know of no book that has so few readers. There is none so truly strange, and heretical, and unpopular.

The fate of the country . . . does not dependon what kind of paper you drop into the ballot box once a year, but on what kind of man you drop from your chamber into the street every morning.

When I meet a government which says to me, “Your money or your life,” why should I be in haste to give it my money?

I do not hesitate to say, that those who call themselves Abolitionists should at onceeffectually withdraw their support, both in person and property, from the government of Massachusetts, and not wait until theyconstitute a majority of one, before they sufferthe right to prevail through them. I think thatit is enough if they have God on their side, without waiting for that other one. Moreover, any man more right than his neighborsconstitutes a majority of one already.

If the injustice is part of the necessary friction of the machine of government, let it go, let itgo: perchance it will wear smooth,—certainly the machine will wear out. If the injusticehas a spring, or a pulley, or a rope, or acrank, exclusively for itself, then perhaps you may consider whether the remedy will notbe worse than the evil; but if it is of such anature that it requires you to be the agent ofinjustice to another, then, I say, break the law.Let your life be a counter-friction to stop themachine.

As for adopting the ways which the State has provided for remedying the evil, I know notof such ways. They take too much time, and aman’s life will be gone. I have other affairs toattend to. I came into this world, not chiefly tomake this a good place to live in, but to live init, be it good or bad.

The mass of men serve the state thus, notas men mainly, but as machines, with their bodies. They are the standing army, and themilitia, jailers, constables, posse comitatus, etc.In most cases there is no free exercise whateverof the judgement or of the moral sense; butthey put themselves on a level with wood andearth and stones; and wooden men can perhapsbe manufactured that will serve the purposeas well.

I think that we should be men first, andsubjects afterwards. It is not desirable tocultivate a respect for the law, so much as forthe right. The only obligation which I havea right to assume is to do at any time what Ithink right.

The objections which have been broughtagainst a standing army, and they are many and weighty, and deserve to prevail, may also at last be brought against a standing government.

I heartily accept the motto, “That governmentis best which governs least”; and I shouldlike to see it acted up to more rapidly andsystematically. Carried out, it finally amounts tothis, which also I believe,—” That governmentis best which governs not at all”; and whenmen are prepared for it, that will be the kind ofgovernment which they will have.

Perchance, coming generations will not abide the dissolution of the globe, but, availing themselves of future inventions in aerial locomotion, and the navigation of space, theentire race may migrate from the earth, tosettle some vacant and more western planet. . . . It took but little art, a simple applicationof natural laws, a canoe, a paddle, and a sail ofmatting, to people the isles of the Pacific, anda little more will people the shining isles ofspace.

I am a parcel of vain strivings tied

I hate to advocate drugs, alcohol, violence, or insanity to anyone . . . but they’ve always worked for me.

The TV business . . . is normally perceived assome kind of cruel and shallow money trenchthrough the heart of the journalism industry, along plastic hallway where thieves and pimpsrun free and good men die like dogs, for nogood reason.

It is Nixon himself who represents thatdark, venal, and incurably violent side of the American character almost every other country in the world has learned to fear and despise.

Gonzo journalism . . . is a style of “reporting” based on William Faulkner’s idea that the best fiction is far more true than any kind of journalism—and the best journalists have always known this.

No point mentioning those bats, I thought. The poor bastard will see them soon enough.

We were somewhere around Barstow on theedge of the desert when the drugs began to take hold.

Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.

Viewed from the distance of the moon, theastonishing thing about the earth . . . is that it is alive. . . . Aloft, floating free beneath the moist, gleaming membrane of bright blue sky, is therising earth, the only exuberant thing in this part of the cosmos. . . . It has the organized, self-contained look of a live creature, full ofinformation, marvelously skilled in handling the sun.

Deep with the first dead lies London’s daughter,

I read somewhere of a shepherd who, whenasked why he made, from within fairy rings, ritual observances to the moon to protect his flocks, replied: I’d be a damn fool if I didn’t!These poems, with all their crudities, doubts, and confusions, are written for the love of Man and in praise of God, and I’d be a damn fool if they weren’t.

And I must enter again the round

And I rose

When All My Five and Country Senses See.

I see the boys of summer in their ruin

In my lifetime all the problems have come from mainland Europe and all the solutions havecome from the English-speaking nations across the world.

The President of the Commission, Mr. Delors, said at a press conference the other day thathe wanted the European Parliament to be thedemocratic body of the Community, he wantedthe Commission to be the Executive and hewanted the Council of Ministers to be theSenate. No. No. No.

[ Of the Irish Republican Army bombing inBrighton intended to assassinate her :] This was the day I was meant not to see.

[ Of Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev :] We can do business together.

We know we can do it—we haven’t lost the ability. That is the Falklands Factor.

[ On the reconquest of South Georgia in the Falklands War :] Just rejoice at that news and congratulate our forces and the Marines. Rejoice!

They’ve [the Labor Government] got the usual Socialist disease—they’ve run out of other people’s money.

When wireless is perfectly applied the whole earth will be converted into a huge brain, which in fact it is, all things being particles ofa real and rhythmic whole. We shall be able to communicate with one another instantly, irrespective of distance. Not only this, butthrough television and telephony we shall seeand hear one another as perfectly as though we were face to face, despite intervening distances of thousands of miles; and the instrumentsthrough which we shall be able to do thiswill be amazingly simple compared with ourpresent telephone. A man will be able to carryone in his vest pocket.

In the twenty-first century the robot will takethe place which slave labor occupied in ancientcivilization.

Ere many generations pass, our machinery willbe driven by a power obtainable at any point of the universe. . . . Throughout space there is energy . . . it is a mere question of time when men will succeed in attaching their machinery to the very wheelwork of nature.

Much wished, hoped little, and demanded nought.

I die because I do not die.

[ Of Napoleon’s costly victory at the Battle of Borodino, 1812 :] C’est le commencement de la fin . This is the beginning of the end.

[ Response to the tsar of Russia’s criticism of those who “betrayed the cause of Europe” :] That, Sire, is a question of dates.

You can do anything with bayonets except sit on them.

Economic, financial, and political predictors . . . are quite ashamed to say anything outlandish to their clients—and yet events, it turns out, are almost always outlandish .

Our world is dominated by the extreme, the unknown, and the very improbable(improbable according to our current knowledge)—and all the while we spend our time engaged in small talk, focusing on the known, and the repeated.