Saying Atheism is a “belief” is like saying darkness is just another color of light.
– Kushal
There is a simple way to get corporate money out of politics: get the government out of our lives and economic affairs. If government has no favors to sell, no one will spend money trying to win them.
– John Stossel, “A Blow for Free Speech“
I [also] read 50 books a year, mostly histories of war and empires. Centuries of blunders and successes are there for guidance. For a handful of dollars you can buy an explanation that would have spared Napoleon thousands of lives. For little more than the price of a Big Mac you can discover the mistakes of the Tokugawa shotguns in leaving their camp at Nara unguarded. For less than it costs to fill your tank with gas you can find out why Winston Churchill couldn’t manage to get himself elected after World War II.
– Ricardo Semler (in his book Maverick!)
A wise and frugal Government, which shall restrain men from injuring one another, shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned. This is the sum of good government.
–Thomas Jefferson
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.
Measures are too often decided, not according to the rules of justice and the rights of the minor party, but by the superior force of an interested and overbearing majority.
– James Madison
Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There was never a democracy yet that did not commit suicide.
– John Adams
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
To say ‘I love you’ one must first be able to say the ‘I.’
– Ayn Rand
It is simplicity that makes the uneducated more effective than the educated when addressing popular audiences
– Aristotle
The spread of evil is the symptom of a vacuum. Whenever evil wins, it is only by default: by the moral failure of those who evade the fact that there can be no compromise on basic principles.
– Ayn Rand
Few people are capable of expressing with equanimity opinions which differ from the prejudices of their social environment. Most people are even incapable of forming such opinions.
– Albert Einstein
It took God or evolution about 3.6 million years to develop a human being. But in a few hundred years, man has almost learned how to create a new creature through cloning. Do you still believe man can never do what God allegedly did?
– Kushal
Ours is the system where one of the most honest men, our former Prime Minister Mr. Lal Bahadur Shastri, as a tribute to his honesty, ended up with a bank balance of about Rs. 20 when he died. In the face of this fact, a common man would say, “to hell with medals, how do I live?” There is just too much help needed for the system that rewards honesty with medallions and an empty account. And here’s what’s worse: the example I just gave, is cited with pride by Indians.
– Kushal
Anyone who thinks that the rich owe it to the poor, let them try this on their conscience: Steve Woz created the Apple computer that helped create a company that employs over 20000 people. So, this man took some plastic, some aluminium, some silicon chips, some magnets, and created a product that helped sustain the lives of 20000 families. And then there is a man who didn’t do anything of the sort; he simply looked at Woz’s bank account and said that he didn’t deserve his wealth. Which one of the two is better?
– Kushal
Whenever I say things to people, they often respond with, “If you can’t offer better solutions for our problems, then shut the hell up; don’t just sit and talk about how bad the world is.” Here’s my answer to this condescension once and for all — when you hire a doctor to treat you for a disease and he doesn’t do the job well, would you argue with yourself saying “if I can’t think of a better treatment than what this doctor suggests, then I should shut the hell up and let him mess with my body”? Or better still, would you ask yourself, “well, you chose this doctor, why are you complaining now?”
– Kushal
Shake off all the fears of servile prejudices, under which weak minds are servilely crouched. Fix reason firmly in her seat, and call on her tribunal for every fact, every opinion. Question with boldness even the existence of a God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason than that of blindfolded fear.
– Thomas Jefferson
Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds. The latter cannot understand it when a man does not thoughtlessly submit to hereditary prejudices, but honestly and courageously uses his intelligence.
– Albert Einstein
If voting could change the system, it would be against the law
– Anonymous (found it first on Alex Butziger’s blog)
The ultimate result of shielding men from the effects of folly is to fill the world with fools.
– Herbert Spencer