Memorable Quotes

"People with power and money conspire to create an economic situation that enables them to keep their power and money at the expense of the workers who made their success possible"

"Imagine a puddle waking up one morning and thinking, 'This is an interesting world I find myself in — an interesting hole I find myself in — fits me rather neatly, doesn't it? In fact, it fits me staggeringly well, must have been made to have me in it!' This is such a powerful idea that as the sun rises in the sky and the air heats up and as, gradually, the puddle gets smaller and smaller, frantically hanging on to the notion that everything's going to be alright, because this world was meant to have him in it, was built to have him in it; so the moment he disappears catches him rather by surprise. I think this may be something we need to be on the watch out for"

"The major problem—one of the major problems, for there are several—one of the many major problems with governing people is that of whom you get to do it; or rather of who manages to get people to let them do it to them. To summarize: it is a well-known fact that those people who must want to rule people are, ipso facto, those least suited to do it. To summarize the summary: anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no account be allowed to do the job."

"The world will not be destroyed by those who do evil, but by those who watch them without doing anything"

"Regulations are written in blood"

"Everyone cheering for new masters to save them from the old masters while a handful of us are waiting for the masses to realize that the root of the problem is the indoctrinated belief that we need masters at all"

"We the people are the rightful masters of both Congress and the courts, not to overthrow the Constitution, but to overthrow the men who pervert the Constitution"

"For every complex problem, there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong"

"Those who do not remember the past are condemned to repeat it"

"Religion is regarded by the common people as true, by the wise as false, and by rulers as useful."

"Democracy is only as good as the education that surrounds it"

"Conservatism consists of exactly one proposition …There must be in-groups whom the law protects but does not bind, alongside out-groups whom the law binds but does not protect."

"When injustice becomes law, resistance becomes duty"

"Think of how stupid the average person is, and realize half of them are stupider than that. "

"It is the first responsibility of every citizen to question authority"

"The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants."

"Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities."

"I am somehow less interested in the weight and convolutions of Einstein’s brain than I am in the near certainty that people of equal talent have lived and died in cotton fields and sweatshops"

"There are four boxes to be used in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, and cartridge (or ammo). Please use in that order."

"When the king is a liar, truth is treason."

"Socialism is when the fire department arrives, capitalism is when the insurance company refuses to pay"

"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic"

"Poverty exists not because we cannot feed the poor, but because we cannot satisfy the rich "

"The law, in its majestic equality, forbids rich and poor alike to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal bread"

"Anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that 'my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge."

"Patriotism is, fundamentally, a conviction that a particular country is the best in the world because you were born in it"

"Pride should be reserved for something you achieve or obtain on your own, not something that happens by accident of birth. Being Irish isn't a skill... it's a fucking genetic accident. You wouldn't say I'm proud to be 5'11"; I'm proud to have a pre-disposition for colon cancer."

"The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing"

"The master has failed more times than the beginner has even tried"

"Growth for the sake of growth is the ideology of the cancer cell."

"Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable."

"We'll go down in history as the first society that wouldn't save itself because it wasn't cost-effective"

"You can safely assume that you've created God in your own image when it turns out that God hates all the same people you do."

"Never believe that anti-Semites are completely unaware of the absurdity of their replies. They know that their remarks are frivolous, open to challenge. But they are amusing themselves, for it is their adversary who is obliged to use words responsibly, since he believes in words. The anti-Semites have the right to play. They even like to play with discourse for, by giving ridiculous reasons, they discredit the seriousness of their interlocutors. They delight in acting in bad faith, since they seek not to persuade by sound argument but to intimidate and disconcert. If you press them too closely, they will abruptly fall silent, loftily indicating by some phrase that the time for argument is past"

"It's easier to fool people than to convince them that they have been fooled"

"It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it."

"In three words I can sum up everything I've learned about life: it goes on."

"Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I'm not sure about the universe."

"As democracy is perfected, the office [of president] represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people…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. "

"Life is what happens when you're busy making other plans."

"The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams."

"Be the change you wish to see in the world."

"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."

"Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country."

"The only thing we have to fear is fear itself."