“When the people fear their government, there is tyranny; when the government fears the people, there is liberty.”
– Thomas Jefferson
“talking bollocks could save your life”
- Research team at University Hospital Bristol
I am not a number, I am a free man!”
- Number 6
“There are some thing I can’t abide seeing in hell, and tinsel’s one of them”
– Satan – Old Harry’s Game
Every step appears to be, an unavoidable consequence of the preceding one, and in the end there beckons more and more clearly total annihilation”
- Van Der Graaf Generator
“Politicians are like diapers. They both need changing often and for the same reason”
- Mark Twain
“To have an independant mind, to think for oneself, not to follow fashion, not to seek honour or decoration, not to become part of the establishment”
- Marcel Schlumberge
“An intelligent man is sometimes forced to be drunk to spend time with his fools”
- Ernest Hemingway
Sergeant Hara: “I am ready to die, but I don’t understand, my crime were no different from any other soldiers.”
Lawrence: “You are the victim of men who think that they’re right. just as one day, you and Captain Yonoi believed absolutely that you were right; and the truth is, of course, that nobody’s right.”
- Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence
“In a sense, investment banking, like all banking, is a confidence trick.”
- Howard Davies, former deputy governor of The Bank of England. Currently Director of the London School of Economics, BBC Radio 4, 18th September 2008
“There are people who are not sensitive to noise; but they are just the people who are not sensitive to argument, or thought, or poetry, or art…” – Schopenhauer
“When it is dark enough, you can see the stars.”
- Charles A. Beard
“An intellectual is someone who can enter a room containing a tea cosy without putting it on his head”
- Anon
“To hell with reality! I want to die in music, not in reason or in prose. People don’t deserve the restraint we show by not going into delirium in front of them. To hell with them!”
- Louis-Ferdinand Céline
Individuality is either the mark of genius or the reverse. Mediocrity finds safety in standardization.
“Great minds discuss ideas, average minds discuss events, small minds discuss people.”
- Charles Stewart
“… the 20th century has been characterized by three developments of great political importance: The growth of democracy, the growth of corporate power, and the growth of corporate propaganda as a means of protecting corporate power against democracy.”
- Alex Carey
“Men in authority will always think that criticism of their policies is dangerous. They will always equate their policies with patriotism, and find criticism subversive.”
- Henry Steele Commager
“Naturally the common people don’t want war; neither in Russia, nor in England, nor in America, nor in Germany. That is understood. But after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine policy, and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is to tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country.”
- Hermann Goering
“Belief is the death of intelligence. As soon as one believes a doctrine of any sort, or assumes certitude, one stops thinking about that aspect of existence” – Robert Anton Wilson
“Liberty does not consist in making others do what you think right. The difference between a free Government and a Government which is not free is principally this—that a Government which is not free interferes with everything it can, and a free Government interferes with nothing except what it must. A despotic Government tries to make everybody do what it wishes, a Liberal Government tries, so far as the safety of society will permit, to allow everybody to do what he wishes. It has been the function of the Liberal Party consistently to maintain the doctrine of individual liberty. It is because they have done so that England is the country where people can do more what they please than in any country in the world” – Sir William Harcourt
“There are good and bad whereever you go” – E. H. Medhurst
Art Photography
An interesting website, but PLEASE -it’s (used everwhere) isn’t possessive, it means ‘it is’!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Its a fiar cop
It’s a mental tic, Waygood, like tourette’s. Ignore it because it won’t go away.
Great site, my friend.
I’d like to take issue with this argument that “it’s” is not possessive. “Nigel’s” is possessive. So could the argument that “it’s” is not possessive be based on the fact that “it” cannot be a person? What if we were talking about an animal? The dog’s bone. “It’s” bone or “its” bone? The rules tell us that it’s “its” but is this merely based on the fact that the dog is not human? What if the dog were a male dog? Fred’s bone would be acceptable. So the “its” rule is not based on the humanity of the possessor but on stating a definitive gender.
It’s a ridiculous rule!
I heard some nitwit actually telephone in to the BBC last week and complain that presenters kept using the term “slash” when spelling out a web site. The caller complained that there is “no such thing as a slash” only a “back slash” or “forward slash”. Poppycock! The man was a absurd twit. Of course there is such a thing as a slash. Both forward and back slashes are examples of slashes. And since the only slash which works for a URL is a forward slash there is no need to describe the slash precisely. God knows why this man wasted his time on such piffle, God knows why people waste their time on correcting “it’s” and God knows why I am wasting my time on writing this rebuttal. I guess we’re all absurd twits.
Excellent comment on commentaries Jonesxxxx