Jack Good, mathematician:
“My Windows 98 computer tells lies and often forces me to shut down improperly. Such behaviour in a human would be called neurotic.”
Tag: quote
“Would it not be better to simplify the system of taxation rather than to spread it over such a variety of subjects and pass through so many new hands.”
— Thomas Jefferson (letter to James Madison, 1784)
[I]t was not until Oct. 14, six days after Israel had communicated its willingness to help the earthquake victims “in any way possible,” that it finally received a formal response. Yes, aid from Israel would be welcome, provided it was laundered through a third party. “We have established the president’s relief fund, and everyone is free to contribute to it,” a government spokeswoman coolly acknowledged. “If Israel was to contribute — that’s fine, we would accept it.” Israel could help save Pakistani lives, in other words, as long as it wasn’t too public about doing so. There mustn’t be any embarrassing images of planes with Israeli markings offloading relief supplies at Islamabad’s airport.
Two decades of research produced a consensus among social scientists of both left and right that family structure has a serious impact on children, even when controlling for income, race, and other variables. In other words, we are not talking about a problem of race but about a problem of family formation or, rather, the lack of it. The best outcomes for children–whether in academic performance, avoidance of crime and drugs, or financial and economic success–are almost invariably produced by married biological parents. The worst results are by never-married women.
[…]
The upshot of these studies is that America is confronted by a form of poverty that money alone can’t cure. Many of us think social breakdown is a result of racism and poverty. Yes, they are factors, but study after study shows that alterations in norms and values are at the heart of economic and behavioral troubles. That’s why so much research boils down to the old rule: If you want to avoid poverty, finish high school, don’t have kids in your teens, and get married.
“I think we have more machinery of government than is necessary, too many parasites living on the labor of the industrious.” –Thomas Jefferson
“[T]he present Constitution is the standard to which we are to cling. Under its banners, bona fide must we combat our political foes – rejecting all changes but through the channel itself provides for amendments.” — Alexander Hamilton (letter to James Bayard, April 1802)
“[T]he States can best govern our home concerns and the general government our foreign ones. I wish, therefore…never to see all offices transferred to Washington, where, further withdrawn from the eyes of the people, they may more secretly be bought and sold at market.” –Thomas Jefferson
The term you’re looking for here is “rolling over in his grave.”
“Nothing in the world can take the place of Persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent. The slogan ‘Press On’ has solved and always will solve the problems of the human race.” –Calvin Coolidge (1872 – 1933)
[With thanks to Israel R. for the e-mail.]
I have a new reason to develop a more positive attitude.
“A positive attitude may not solve all your problems, but it will annoy enough people to make it worth the effort.” — Herm Albright, author, quoted in the St. Paul Pioneer Press
“The idea is that crap is crap and we’re not going to distinguish between the degrees.” —ATPM Publisher Michael Tsai, to one of our writers on the subject of review ratings
I love this line.