Thought for Today

"Religion which requires persecution to sustain, it is of the devil's propagation."

~~~~~ Hosea Ballou

Thought for Today

"Composers should write tunes that chauffeurs and errand boys can whistle."

~~~~~ Sir Thomas Beecham

Thought for Today

"If you saw a dog going to be crushed under a car, wouldn't you help him?"

~~~~~ Oskar Schindler

Thought for Today

"Leave the matter of religion to the family altar, the church, and the private school, supported entirely by private contributions. Keep the church and state forever separate."

~~~~~ Ulysses S. Grant

Thought for Today

"Nothing is so difficult as not deceiving oneself."

~~~~~ Ludwig Wittgenstein

Not Under Command

If the United States were a ship, it would be displaying its "Not under command" signal -- two red balls (by day) or lights (by night) in a vertical line indicating that the ship cannot control its movements because of problems with its steering gear or propulsion system. Other vessels who observe the signal know that they must take action to stay out of the ship's way because it is incapable of fulfilling its obligations under the International Rules of the Road.

During my Navy days, in order to remember the meaning of three similar signals, white over red (a pilot boat on station), red over white (a fishing boat engaged in fishing), and the aforementioned red over red, we used this mnemonic: 

"White over red: Pilot ahead; 

Red over white: Fishing at night; 

Red over red: Captain is dead."

Thought for Today

"After a big war a nation doesn't want another for a generation or more."

~~~~~ Edward Grey

Thought for Today

"Be discreet in all things, and so render it unnecessary to be mysterious."

~~~~~ Arthur Wellesley

Thought for Today

"Let us all be happy, and live within our means, even if we have to borrow the money to do it with."

~~~~~ Charles Farrar Browne

Thought for Today

"Envy's a coal comes hissing hot from Hell."

~~~~~ Philip James Bailey

Thought for Today

"I have studied many philosophers and many cats. The wisdom of cats is infinitely superior."

~~~~~ Hippolyte Taine

Thought for Today

"Obamacare is simply incapable of doing what it is supposed to do - provide nearly universal care at an affordable and sustainable cost."

~~~~~ Dr. Marcia Angell

Thought for Today

"A democracy is a volcano which conceals the fiery materials of its own destruction. These will produce an eruption and carry desolation in their way."

~~~~~ Fisher Ames

Thought for Today

"When I was a boy I was told that anybody could become President; I'm beginning to believe it."

~~~~~ Clarence Darrow

Thought for Today

"I know that every good and excellent thing in the world stands moment by moment on the razor-edge of danger and must be fought for."

~~~~~ Thornton Wilder

Thought for Today

"He who leaves nothing to chance will do few things poorly, but he will do few things."

~~~~~ E. F. L. Wood, 1st Earl of Halifax

Thought for Today

"History shows how feeble are barriers of paper."

~~~~~ John Lothrop Motley

Thought for Today

"While it is well enough to leave footprints on the sands of time, it is even more important to make sure they point in a commendable direction."

~~~~~ James Branch Cabell

Thought for Today

"Absence is to love what wind is to fire; it extinguishes the small, it enkindles the great."

~~~~~ Roger de Rabutin

Thought for Today

"Of all the properties which belong to honorable men, not one is so highly prized as that of character."

~~~~~ Henry Clay

Thought for Today

"We are under a Constitution, but the Constitution is what the judges say it is, and the judiciary is the safeguard of our property and our liberty and our property under the Constitution."

~~~~~ Chief Justice Charles Evans Hughes

Thought for Today

"The love of liberty is the love of others; the love of power is the love of ourselves."

~~~~~ William Hazlitt

Thought for Today

"There is no such thing as a long piece of work, except one that you dare not start."

~~~~~ Charles Baudelaire

Thought for Today

"Standardization of our educational systems is apt to stamp out individualism and defeat the very ends of education by leveling the product down rather than up."

~~~~~ Dr. Harvey Cushing (foreseeing Common Core?)

Thought for Today

"God be thanked for books; they are the voices of the distant and the dead, and make us heirs of the spiritual life of past ages."

~~~~~ William Ellery Channing

Thought for Today

"Some things are easier to legalize than to legitimate."

~~~~~ Nicolas Chamfort

Thought for Today

"No greater injury can be done to any youth than to let him feel that because he belongs to this or that race he will be advanced in life regardless of his own merits or efforts."

~~~~~ Booker T. Washington on what we now call "Affirmative Action"

Thought for the Century

"There is no nonsense so gross that society will not, at some time, make a doctrine of it and defend it with every weapon of communal stupidity."

~~~~~ Robertson Davies

Thought for Today

"Earnestness is stupidity sent to college."

~~~~~ P. J. O'Rourke

Thought for Today

"Some minds seem almost to create themselves, springing up under every disadvantage and working their solitary but irresistible way through a thousand obstacles."

~~~~~ Washington Irving (anticipating Dr. Benjamin Carson?)

Thought for Today

"The fate of animals is of greater importance to me than the fear of appearing ridiculous; it is indissolubly connected with the fate of men."

~~~~~ Emile Zola

Thought for Today

"False opinions are like false money, struck first of all by guilty men and thereafter circulated by honest people who perpetuate the crime without knowing what they are doing."

~~~~~ Joseph de Maistre