Thought for Today

"The senses deceive from time to time, and it is prudent never to trust wholly those who have deceived us even once."

~~~~ Rene Descartes

Thought for Today

"Do not consider it proof just because it is written in books, for a liar who will deceive with his tongue will not hesitate to do the same with his pen."

~~~~~ Moshe ben Maimon (Maimonides)

Thought for Today

"Popularity, I have always thought, may aptly be compared to a coquette – the more you woo her, the more apt is she to elude your embrace."

~~~~ John Tyler

Thought for Today

"Never play cards with a man called Doc. Never eat at a place called Mom's. Never sleep with a woman whose troubles are worse than your own."

~~~~~ Nelson Algren

Thought for Today

"If the law is a bad law, there is always the contingent right to take action that you would not otherwise take."

~~~~~ James Callaghan

Thought for Today

"The strongest and most effective force in guaranteeing the long-term maintenance of power is not violence in all the forms deployed by the dominant to control the dominated, but consent in all the forms in which the dominated acquiesce in their own domination."

~~~~~ Robert Frost

Thought for Today

"For the saddest epitaph which can be carved in memory of a vanished freedom is that it was lost because its possessors failed to stretch forth a saving hand while there was still time."

~~~~ George Sutherland

Thought for Today

"Do not rely completely on any other human being, however dear. We meet all life's greatest tests alone."

~~~~~ Agnes Macphail

Thought for Today

"If we believe a thing to be bad, and if we have a right to prevent it, it is our duty to try to prevent it and damn the consequences."

~~~~~ Lord Milner

Thought for Today

"Fullness of knowledge always means some understanding of the depths of our ignorance; and that is always conducive to humility and reverence."

~~~~~ Robert Millikan

Thought for Today

"When blithe to argument I come, Though armed with facts, and merry, May Providence protect me from The fool as adversary, Whose mind to him a kingdom is Where reason lacks dominion, Who calls conviction prejudice And prejudice opinion."

~~~~~ Phyllis McGinley

Thought for Today

"Books are the quietest and most constant of friends; they are the most accessible and wisest of counselors, and the most patient of teachers."

~~~~~ Charles William Eliot

Thought for Today

"The way to develop self-confidence is to do the thing you fear and get a record of successful experiences behind you."

~~~~~ William Jennings Bryan

Thought for Today

"No one had ever told me that whites were supposed to sing one kind of music and blacks another – I sang what I liked in the only voice I had."

~~~~~ Charley Pride

Thought for Today

"It's not the people in the South who create racial problems – it's the people who are governing."

~~~~~ Nat King Cole

Thought for Today

"When everything is easy one quickly gets stupid."

~~~~~ Maxim Gorky

Thought for Today

"Any man worth his salt will stick up for what he believes right, but it takes a slightly better man to acknowledge instantly and without reservation that he is in error."

~~~~~ Andrew Jackson

Thought for Today

"When the solution is simple, God is answering."

~~~~~ Albert Einstein

Thought for Today

"The human brain is a wonderful organ. It starts to work as soon as you are born and doesn't stop until you get up to deliver a speech."

~~~~~ George Jessel

Thought for Today

"He who says there is no such thing as an honest man, you may be sure is himself a knave."

~~~~~ George Berkeley

Thought for Today

"What is a moderate interpretation of the text? Halfway between what it really means and what you'd like it to mean?"

~~~~~ Antonin Scalia

Thought for Today

"You make mistakes. Mistakes don't make you."

~~~~~ Maxwell Maltz

Thought for Today

"The tendency of taxation is to create a class of persons who do not labor, to take from those who do labor the produce of that labor, and to give it to those who do not labor."

~~~~~ William Cobbett

Thought for Today

"Truth is tough. It will not break, like a bubble, at the touch, nay, you may kick it about all day like a football, and it will be round and full at evening."

~~~~~ Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.

The Obama Video: The Smoking Gun

Earlier this evening, watching the newly released Obama video on Hannity, I was struck by the contrast between Obama's relaxed eloquence despite the absence of notes or teleprompter and his more recent public speeches. There he was standing in the middle of a small crowd of students without even so much as a portable lectern in front of him, yet his words flowed smoothly and freely.

Contrast that with his well-known tendency to hesitate, stumble, mispronounce common words, blurt out ridiculous nonsense, and even lapse into total incoherence whenever, as candidate or President, he attempts to go off the 'prompter and speak extemporaneously. By now, we are no longer surprised to see Obama depending on his ever-present teleprompter even in such unlikely settings as a grade-school classroom or an athletic field. He (or, more likely, his handlers) realizes that especially in the age of YouTube, he can no longer afford to take the chance of generating fresh examples of Obamateurisms which can be endlessly replayed in the upcoming campaign.

I drew one inescapable, alarming but not surprising conclusion: the words Obama was so effortlessly speaking in that video represented what he really, honestly, deep-down believes. In essence, he has provided yet another demonstration of the essential truth of this Bible verse:

"O generation of vipers, how can ye, being evil, speak good things? for out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh."
~~~~~ Matthew 12:34 (KJV)

That, to me, is the real smoking gun.

Thought for Today

"For those who do not think, it is best at least to rearrange their prejudices once in a while."

~~~~~ Luther Burbank

Thought for Today

"I believe that government is for the use of the people, and not the people for the use of the government."

~~~~~ Gerrit Smith

Thought for Today

"If the world seems cold to you, kindle fires to warm it."

~~~~~ Lucy Larcom

Thought for Today

"I'm getting sick and tired of doing anything half-way."

~~~~~ Knute Rockne

Thought for Today

"Above all we should not forget that government is an evil, a usurpation upon the private judgement and individual conscience of mankind."

~~~~~ William Godwin

Thought for Today

"Ideals are like the stars: we never reach them, but like the mariners of the sea, we chart our course by them."

~~~~~ Carl Schurz

Thought for Today

"I never use a score when conducting my orchestra. Does a lion tamer enter a cage with a book on how to tame a lion?"

~~~~~ Dimitri Mitropoulos