Quote of the Day

“The vice of the modern notion of mental progress is that it is always something concerned with the breaking of bonds, the effacing of boundaries, the casting away of dogmas.  But if there be such a thing as mental growth, it must mean the growth into more and more definite convictions, into more and more dogmas.  The human brain is a machine for coming to conclusions; if it cannot come to conclusions it is rusty. When we hear of a man too clever to believe, we are hearing of something having almost the character of a contradiction in terms. It is like hearing of a nail that was too good to hold down a carpet; or a bolt that was too strong to keep a door shut.

Man can hardly be defined, after the fashion of Carlyle, as an animal who makes tools; ants and beavers and many other animals make tools, in the sense that they make an apparatus.  Man can be defined as an animal that makes dogmas.  As he piles doctrine on doctrine and conclusion on conclusion in the formation of some tremendous scheme of philosophy and religion, he is, in the only legitimate sense of which the expression is capable, becoming more and more human. When he drops one doctrine after another in a refined scepticism, when he declines to tie himself to a system, when he says that he has outgrown definitions, when he says that he disbelieves in finality, when, in his own imagination, he sits as God, holding no form of creed but contemplating all, then he is by that very process sinking slowly backwards into the vagueness of the vagrant animals and the unconsciousness of the grass. Trees have no dogmas. Turnips are singularly broad-minded.”

– G.K. Chesterton
Heretics

Quote of the Day

“It is the common fate of the indolent to see their rights become a prey to the active. The condition upon which God hath given liberty to man is eternal vigilance; which condition if he break, servitude is at once the consequence of his crime and the punishment of his guilt.”

– John Philpot Curran
Speech upon the Right of Election
for Lord Mayor of Dublin, 1790

Quote of the Day

“THESE are the times that try men’s souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands by it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph. What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly: it is dearness only that gives every thing its value. Heaven knows how to put a proper price upon its goods; and it would be strange indeed if so celestial an article as FREEDOM should not be highly rated. Britain, with an army to enforce her tyranny, has declared that she has a right (not only to TAX) but ‘to BIND us in ALL CASES WHATSOEVER’ and if being bound in that manner, is not slavery, then is there not such a thing as slavery upon earth. Even the expression is impious; for so unlimited a power can belong only to God.”

– Thomas Paine
The Crisis

Quote of the Day

“Advertising is based on one thing, happiness. And you know what happiness is? Happiness is the smell of a new car. It’s freedom from fear. It’s a billboard on the side of the road that screams reassurance that whatever you are doing is okay. You are okay.”

– Jon Hamm as Don Draper
Mad Men

Quote of the Day

“I hate this man more than I can express with mere words. He is like an mystical avatar of everything wrong with the 1990s wrapped up in the doughy body of a frat boy well past a prime that never existed.”

–  Lastdaysofrain,
SDMB poster
on Guy Fieri

Quote of the Day

“When I came to, the general back-alley ambiance of the suite was so rotten, so incredibly foul. How long had I been lying there? All these signs of violence. What had happened? There was evidence in this room of excessive consumption of almost every type of drug known to civilized man since 1544 AD. What kind of addict would need all these coconut husks and crushed honeydew rinds? Would the presence of junkies account for all these uneaten french fries? These puddles of glazed ketchup on the bureau? Maybe so. But then why all this booze? And these crude pornographic photos smeared with mustard that had dried to a hard yellow crust? These were not the hoofprints of your average God-fearing junky. It was too savage. Too aggressive.”

– Hunter S. Thompson
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas

Quote of the Day

“Don’t worry,” I said.

Worry? Jesus, I almost went crazy down there in the bar. They’ll never let us back in that place — not after your scene at the press table.”

“What scene?”

“You bastard,” he said. “I left you alone for three minutes! You scared the shit out of those people! Waving that goddamn marlin spike around and yelling about reptiles. You’re lucky I came back in time. They were ready to call the cops. I said you were only drunk and that I was taking you up to your room from a cold shower. Hell, the only reason they gave us the press pass was to get you out of there.”

– Hunter S. Thompson
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas

Quote of the Day

“The poor girl, Star, had been brought up by a stepmother with three children of her own, one an almost grown boy who had taken advantage of her in such dreadful ways that she had been forced to run away and find her real mother. Once found, her real mother had sent her to various boarding schools to get rid of her. At each of these she had been forced to run away by the presence of perverts and sadists so monstrous that their acts defied description. Thomas could tell that his mother had not been spared the details that she was now sparing him. Now and again when she spoke vaguely, her voice shook and he could tell that she was remembering some horror that had been put to her graphically. He had hoped that in a few days the memory of all this would wear off, but it did not. The next day she returned to the jail with Kleenex and cold-cream and a few days later, she announced that she had consulted a lawyer.

It was at these times that Thomas truly mourned the death of his father though he had not been able to endure him in life. The old man would have had none of this foolishness. Untouched by useless compassion, he would (behind her back) have pulled the necessary strings with his crony, the sheriff, and the girl would have been packed off to the state penitentiary to serve her time. He had always been engaged in some enraged action until one morning when (with an angry glance at his wife as if she alone were responsible) he had dropped dead at the breakfast table. Thomas had inherited his father’s reason without his ruthlessness and his mother’s love without her tendency to pursue it. His plan for all practical action was to wait and see what happened.”

– Flannery O’Connor
“The Comforts of Home”

Quote of the Day

Kevin: “I need to you teach me [whispering] how to be a liar.”

Ruxin: “[whispering] You don’t need to whisper… we’re at a law firm… [loudly] lying is encouraged here. Look, I’m not your guy for this. You need a low-level maintenance liar like Pete. ‘No, I’ve never been married before.’ ‘Yeah, I definitely own my own home.’ ‘No, this isn’t a cold sore.’ I’m the guy who you come to when you’re ready to perjure yourself to protect an Australian mining consortium.”

Kevin: “Ruxin, you are the best worst person I know.”

– Stephen Rannazzisi and Nick Kroll as
Kevin MacArthur and Rodney Ruxin
on The League