"Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself."
- Leo Tolstoy

"If enough little people like me make our little differences, one day we're going to wake up to find that we really did manage to change the world."
- Charles de Lint, The Ivory & the Horn

"If enough people think of a thing and work hard enough at it, I guess it's
pretty nearly bound to happen, wind and weather permitting."
- Laura Ingalls Wilder

"Legend and myth are what we use to describe what we don't comprehend. They are our attempts to make the impossible, possible - at least insofar as our spirits interact with the spirit of the world, or if that's too animistic for you, then let us use Jung's terminology and call it our racial subconscious. No matter the semantics, they are of a kind and it is legend and myth that binds us all together.
Through them, through their retellings, and through those new versions that are called religion while they are current, we are taught Truth and we attempt to understand Mystery. How many brave and chivalrous deeds have come about through a young boy's fascination with childhood stories of King Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table? Or how many injustices were attacked by those who learned right and wrong from tales of Robin Hood?
Teaching a child the correct moral choices he or she should make is simple, but not always effective. The young rebel - not because they're amoral, but because it is in their nature to do so. The words of an elder are always suspect - especially here in what is traditionally called Western society. It is through legend and myth, through the young spirit's connection with the old spirit that lies at the heart of this matter, that the lessons are learned without being deliberately taught.
The lessons lie in the subtext of the stories, as it were.
Today, children are given toys to look up to as heroic figures. Rock performers and movie stars form their pantheon - an amoral pantheon where the performer who eloquently speaks out against drugs is arrested two weeks later for possession of heroin. Where the stalwart heroic figure from the silver screen is discovered to be a wife beater.
The subtext here is that one may do anything one wishes - one need only make certain not to get caught."
- Charles de Lint, The Little Country

"No matter how qualified or deserving we are, we will never reach a better life until we can imagine it for ourselves and allow ourselves to have it."
- Richard Bach, One

"Wonderland is what we are. Oz is what we would hope and like to be."
- Ray Bradbury

"I have this dread that afflicts me ... it is that, somehow, we have lost the power to generate new mythologies for a technological age. We are withdrawing into another age's mythotypes, an age when the issues were so much simpler, clearly defined, and could be solved with one stroke of a sword called something like Durththane.
We have created a comfortable, sanitised, pseudo feudal world of trolls and orcs and mages and swords and sorcery, big-breasted women in scanty armour and dungeonmasters; a world where evil is a host of angry goblins threatening to take over Hobbitland and not starvation in the Horn of Africa, child slavery in Filipino sweatshops, Columbian drug squirarchs, unbridled free market forces, secret police, the destruction of the ozone layer, child pornography, snuff videos, the death of the whales, and the desecration of the rain forests.
Where is the mythic archetype who will save us from ecological catastrophe, or credit card debit? Where are the Sagas and Eddas of the Great Cities? Where are our Cuchulains and Rolands and Arthurs? Why do we turn back to these simplistic heroes of simplistic days, when black was black and white biological washing-powder white? Where are the Translators who can shape our dreams and dreads, our hopes and fears, into the heroes and villains of the Oil Age?"
- Ian MacDonald, "King of Morning, Queen of Day"

"I arise in the morning torn between a desire to improve (or save) the world
and a desire to enjoy (or savor) the world. This makes it hard to plan the day."
- E.B. White

"People don't alter history any more than birds alter the sky,
they just make brief patterns in it."
- Terry Pratchett, Mort

"The fact that an opinion has been widely held is no evidence whatever that it is not utterly absurd; indeed in view of the silliness of the majority of mankind, a widespread belief is more likely to be foolish than sensible."
- Bertrand Russell, "Marriage & Morals"

"Cautious, careful people, always casting about to preserve their reputation and social standing, can never bring about a reform."
- Susan B. Anthony

"Disobedience, in the eyes of anyone who has read history, is man's original virtue. It is through disobedience and rebellion that progress has been made."
- Oscar Wilde, "The Soul of Man Under Socialism"

"Battle season. Sweating and shoving and yelling. Bared teeth and clenched fists, faces white with fear and red with rage. Shoulder into belly, elbow into throat, hurl slash thrust, dance away dance away and come back roaring.
Immortality gushing out of a body suddenly emptied of its future."
- Morgan Llywelyn, "Finn Mac Cool"

"The very existence of flame-throwers proves that some time, somewhere,
someone said to themselves, 'You know, I want to set those people over there
on fire, but I'm just not close enough to get the job done.'"
- George Carlin

"The object of war is not to die for your country but to make the other bastard die for his."
- George Patton

"We sure liberated the hell out of this place."
- American soldier in the ruins of a French village, 1944

"It became necessary to destroy the town in order to save it."
- American officer near the ruins of a Vietnamese village, 1968

"I may not be able to kill you with my bare hands,
but I could have a lot of fun trying my very hardest and eventually failing."
- Tom Holt, "My Hero"

"I am not anti-gun. I'm pro-knife. Consider the merits of the knife.
In the first place, you have catch up with someone in order to stab him. A general substitution of knives for guns would promote physical fitness. We'd turn into a whole nation of great runners.
Plus, knives don't ricochet. And people are seldom killed while cleaning their knives."
- Molly Ivins, columnist

"I hate war as only a soldier who has lived it can, only as one who has seen its brutality, its futility, its stupidity."
- Dwight D. Eisenhower

"People think that professional soldiers think a lot about fighting, but serious professional soldiers think a lot more about food and a warm place to sleep, because these are two things that are generally hard to get, whereas fighting tends to turn up all the time."
- Terry Pratchett, "Small Gods"

"Only the winners decide what were war crimes."
- Gary Wills

"World War II was a successful federal program."
- Pat Buchanan, a confused man with presidential aspirations

"If the enemy is in range, so are you."
- unknown

"They couldn't hit an elephant at this dist--"
- last words of Union commander General John Sedgwick, spoken as he watched enemy troops at the Battle of Spotsylvania Court House

"If you're in a war, instead of throwing a hand grenade at some guys, throw one of those little
baby-type pumpkins. Maybe it'll make everyone think of how crazy war is, and while they're
thinking, you can throw a real grenade."
- Jack Handey

"We are getting tired of making bombs. It's no fun having to spend
all your evenings and weekends preparing dangerous mixtures."
- The Unabomber, in a letter to the New York Times

"I found one day in school a boy of medium size ill-treating a smaller boy. I expostulated, but he replied: 'The bigs hit me, so I hit the babies; that's fair.' In these words he epitomized the history of the human race."
- Bertrand Russell, "Education & the Social Order"

"The more you sweat in peace, the less you bleed in war."
- George Hyman Rickover

"Sometime they'll give a war and nobody will come."
- Carl Sandburg

"I can picture in my mind a world without war, a world without hate.
And I can picture us attacking that world, because they'd never expect it."
- Jack Handey

"You always write it's bombing, bombing, bombing. It's not bombing, it's air support."
- Air Force Colonel David Opfer, complaining to reporters about coverage of the Vietnam War

"If we let people see that kind of thing, there would never again be any war."
- Senior Pentagon official, explaining why the U.S. military censored footage of Iraqi soldiers sliced in two by U.S. helicopter fire.

"Of course it was a righteous war. My son fell in it."
- Kahlil Gibran, "Sand & Foam"

"I believe that, in general, women are saner than men. ... If women were in charge of all the world's nations there would be - I sincerely believe this - virtually no military conflicts, and when there WAS a military conflict, everybody involved would feel just awful and there would soon be a high-level exchange of thoughtful notes written on greeting cards with flowers on the front, followed by a Peace Luncheon (which would be salads, with the dressing on the side)."
- Dave Barry

"I do not love the bright sword for its sharpness, nor the arrow for its swiftness, nor the warrior for his glory. I love only that which they defend."
- J.R.R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings

"The good guys are always the winners, aren't they? I mean, the President doesn't get up on the rostrum at the Victory Parade and say to all the world, 'Okay, we admit it, we were in the wrong but fuck it, we won anyway.' Who's good and who's evil is decided by trial by combat; it's the only way."
- Tom Holt, Paint Your Dragon

"The world has achieved brilliance without conscience.
Ours is a world of nuclear giants and ethical infants."
- Omar Bradley

"Laws are sand, customs are rock. Laws can be evaded and punishment escaped,
but an openly transgressed custom brings sure punishment."
- Mark Twain, "Gorky Park"

"Of all the strange 'crimes' that human beings have legislated out of nothing, 'blasphemy' is the most amazing, with 'obscenity' and 'indecent exposure' fight it out for second and third place."
- Robert Heinlein, "Time Enough for Love"

"Everything's got a moral if only you can find it."
- Lewis Carroll, "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland"

"People are very inclined to set moral standards for others."
- Elizabeth Drew

"Your conscience is the measure of the honesty of your selfishness. Listen to it carefully."
- Richard Bach, "Illusions"

"Do not be too moral. You may cheat yourself out of much life so.
Aim above morality. Be not simply good; be good for something."
- Henry David Thoreau

"Whoever comes to your door, you must feed him and care for him, with no questions asked."
- from Ireland's ancient Brehon laws

"Always do right. This will gratify some people, and astonish the rest."
- Mark Twain

"Once you begin being naughty, it is easier to go on and on and on,
and sooner or later something dreadful happens."
- Laura Ingalls Wilder

"I shall run away from laws if laws can't live in the heart."
- Christopher Fry, "The Lady's Not for Burning"

"For a moment, he felt good about this.
A moment or two later he felt bad about feeling good about it.
Then he felt good about feeling bad about feeling
good about it and, satisfied, drove on into the night."
- Douglas Adams, "So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish"

"I robbed from the rich, kind of like Robin Hood, except I kept it."
- Bill Becker, career criminal

"Dead Serious, a crime-prevention organization in Fort Worth,
Texas, began offering $5,000 to anyone who kills an attacker."
- Esquire magazine

"Crime is a logical extension of the sort of behavior that is often considered perfectly respectable in legitimate business."
- Robert Rice

"I haven't commited a crime. What I did was fail to comply with the law."
- former New York City Mayor David Dinkins

"Outside of the killings, Washington has one of the lowest crime rates in the country."
- Washington, D.C., Mayor Marion Barry

"Government is not the reason, it is not eloquence - it is a force.
Like fire, it is a dangerous servant and a fearful master."
- George Washington

"If the rights of the individual are ignored by the group, then the group itself cannot survive."
- Audrey Hepburn, "Funny Face"

"The best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter."
- Winston Churchill

"Votes are like trees, if you are trying to build a forest. If you have more trees
than you have forests, then at that point the pollsters will probably say you will win."
- Dan Quayle

"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 or 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. To summarize the summary of the summary: people are a problem."
- Douglas Adams, The Restaurant at the End of the Universe

"They're all in favor of the unborn ... but once you're born, you're on your own. Pro-life conservatives are obsessed with the fetus from conception 'til nine months. After that, they don't want to hear from you. No neo-natal care, no day care, no Head Start, no school lunch, no food stamps, no welfare, no nothing."
- George Carlin

"A leader is best when people barely know he exists,
Not so good when people obey and acclaim him,
Worse when they despise him.
Fail to honor people,
They fail to honor you.
But of a good leader who talks little,
When his work is done, his aim fulfilled.
The people will say, 'We did this ourselves.'"
- Lao Tzu

"I believe we are on an irreversible trend toward more freedom and democracy. But that could change."
- Vice President Dan Quayle

"I've got God's shoulder to cry on. And I cry a lot. I do a lot of crying in this job. I'll bet I've shed more tears than you can count, as president. I'll shed some tomorrow."
- George W. Bush

"Showgirl-turned-legislator Susy Diaz attributes her success in Peruvian politics
to God, fate and a willingness to bare her bottom to lure votes."
- Reuters News Agency

"My body is a political weapon. My breasts are nuclear warheads!"
- Cu Caodan, after baring her breasts while campaigning for the Taiwanese legislature

"Nine politicians out of 10 are knaves who maintain themselves by preying
on the idiotic vanities and pathetic hopes of half-wits."
- H.L. Mencken

"The question is, why are politicians so eager to be president? What is it about the job that makes it worth revealing, on national television, that you have the ethical standards of a slime-coated piece of industrial waste?"
- Dave Barry

"He knows nothing and thinks he knows everything. That points clearly to a political career."
- George Bernard Shaw

"What is a committee? A group of the unwilling, picked from the unfit, to do the unnecessary."
- Richard Harkness, The New York Times

"A low voter turnout is an indication of fewer people going to the polls."
- Dan Quayle

"Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want
and deserve to get it good and hard."
- H.L. Mencken

"Democracy is the art and science of running the circus from the monkey cage."
- H.L. Mencken

"The Democrats are the party that says government will make you smarter, taller, richer, and remove the crabgrass on your lawn. The Republicans are the party that says government doesn't work and then they get elected and prove it."
- P.J. O'Rourke

"Never vote for the best candidate, vote for the one who will do the least harm."
- Frank Dane

"So this is America. They all seem out of their minds."
- Ringo Starr

"America has been discovered before, but it has always been hushed up."
- Oscar Wilde

"What a pity, when Christopher Columbus discovered America, that he ever mentioned it."
- Margot Asquith

"Nesso Chemo kemon." (The American kills.)
- Blackhawk

"I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just."
- Thomas Jefferson

"We're rebels and failures - people who couldn't make it anywhere else came here."
- Joe Klein, political correspondent

"The time has come for all of us as Americans to stop thinking in little ways. We are too diverse and too myriad to fit into an antebellum mind set. It's time to believe in an America of inclusion, not exclusion."
- Rev. Webster "Kit" Howell

"We talk about the American Dream, and want to tell the world about the American Dream, but what is that Dream, in most cases, but the dream of material things? I sometimes think that the United States for this reason is the greatest failure the world has ever seen."
- Eugene O'Neill

"I don't feel we did wrong in taking this great country away from them.
There were great numbers of people who needed new land, and the Indians were selfishly trying to keep it for themselves."
- John Wayne

"We are not afraid to entrust the American people with unpleasant facts, foreign ideas, alien philosophies and competitive values. For a nation that is afraid to let its people judge the truth and falsehood in an open market is a nation afraid of its people."
- John F. Kennedy

"All too often, American companies try to solve their design problems with lawyers, rather than scientists and engineers."
- Superman, For Earth by Roger Stern

"In America, anybody can be president. That's one of the risks you take."
- Adlai Stevenson

"This country will not be a good place for any of us to live in
unless we make it a good place for all of us to live in."
- Theodore Roosevelt

"This land of ours cannot be a good place for any of us to live in
unless it is a good place for all of us to live in."
- Richard Nixon (Hm.)

"No one ever went broke underestimating the taste of the American public."
- H.L. Mencken

"What the country needs is dirtier fingernails and cleaner minds."
- Will Rogers

"This will never be a civilized country until we spend more money for books than we do for chewing gum."
- Elbert Hubbard

"Patriotism is the conviction that your country is better than all the others because you were born in it."
- George Bernard Shaw

"'Tis pride that pulls the country down."
- William Shakespeare, Othello

"Patriotism is the veneration of real estate above principals."
- George Jean Nathan

"Patriotism is the willingness to kill and be killed for trivial reasons."
- Bertrand Russell

"You can't be a real country unless you have a beer and an airline -- it helps if you have some kind of a football team, or some nuclear weapons, but at the very least you need a beer."
- Frank Zappa

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