Question
What is your favorite motto?
Libertarians, My Libertarians!
Cruel to be kind means that I love you . Because, while I think you are mistaken, your hearts are in the right place -- yes, even you, Silas -- unlike some people . This Breitbart fellow (discussed in the link above), by all appearances, deliberately doctored a video of Shirley Sherrod to make her remarks appear virulently racist, when they had, in fact, the opposite import. I heard that at a recent Austrian conference, some folks were talking about "Callahan's conservative turn." While that description is not entirely inaccurate, I must say that a lot of these people who today call themselves conservative give me the heebie-jeebies.
The first one I thought of was from the late Harry Browne: "No one owes you anything."
ReplyDeleteHe makes this seemingly cynical insight surprisingly inspiring and freeing, as he had a knack for doing.
http://www.harrybrowne.org/articles/GiftDaughter.htm
To my great dismay:
ReplyDeleteThe era of "the era of big government is over" is over.
(credit: R. W. Bradford, former publisher of Liberty magazine)
"If dogs don't need to use toilet paper, then neither do I."
ReplyDelete"Down with Wabulon!"
ReplyDeleteI like all of yours so far. I'm no friend of the Olympic Games, but "Citius, altius, fortius" is bitchin'. Or is it "Altius,..."?
ReplyDeleteRunners up: "Qui transtulit sustinet" -- motto of one of the New England states: He Who brought us across will sustain us. "Hinc robur et securitas" -- motto of the Swedish equivalent of the Federal Reserve Bank: Hence strength and security. "Robustness" really, but I can't think of how to say it.
“Does it matter that this waste of time is what makes a life for you?”
ReplyDeleteThis is a quote from Zappa’s “Greggery Peccary.” In the proper context it’s critique of the perceived freedom of many individuals in a consumption driven society. A man can “choose” to build a life around beer and football.
I quoted Mr. Zappa last week in the waiting room at Sloan Kettering in Manhattan. It’s funny; I was with my father who is dying from liver cancer. We were talking about things we liked to do that others might not find so interesting.
One of my father’s favorite mottos, presumable from somewhere in his Catholic background, was “each man finds his own way to paradise.” To me Zappa succinctly combines this sentiment with Shakespeare’s “Out, out, brief candle! Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player that struts and frets his hour upon the stage and then is heard no more: it is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing."
I don't know what my favorite motto is, but two interesting ones:
ReplyDeleteDo not give in to evil, but proceed ever more boldly against it. --Ludwig von Mises, borrowing from Virgil
Don't take any sh*t from anybody. --Billy Joel
What's a motto with you?
ReplyDeleteBut seriously folks,
Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?
That last is certainly the one that best fits this blog.
ReplyDelete