Tag: “Quote of the Day” Series

Quote of the Day: Abundance

Seawriter
Seawriter
1713681
 

“America’s abundance was created not by public sacrifices to ‘the common good,’ but by the productive genius of free men who pursued their own personal interests and the making of their own private fortunes. They did not starve the people to pay for America’s industrialization. They gave the people better jobs, higher wages and cheaper goods with every new machine they invented, with every scientific discovery or technological advance—and thus the whole country was moving forward and profiting, not suffering, every step of the way.” – Ayn Rand

Reactions to the Billionaires’ Space Race underscore this quote’s relevance today. Bezos and Branson using their bucks to travel into space has triggered a lot of jealousy and envy. Their flights have been decried as a stunt. There are calls to tax or ban this type of space travel.

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Quote of the Day: Momentum

Lilly B
Lilly B
4210
 

“How did you go bankrupt?”
“Two ways. Gradually and then suddenly.”
— Ernest Hemingway, The Sun Also Rises

“Same-sex marriage…was the trigger for not only woke capitalism, but the radicalism of today’s left. It was the success that they had in achieving gay marriage that gave them momentum, made them think that nothing would ever arise within American society to stop them, and has led to a kind of acceleration of all these cultural issues. It wasn’t a week after Obergefell was decided that the cake baking episode happened, and then transgenderism became an issue, where all these same groups began accelerating their attacks on the traditional ideas that there are men and women. So I think same-sex marriage was a real accelerant in the decline of marriage from all of the perspectives, but also an accelerant in the collapse of America’s regime.”
— Dr. Scott Yenor, The American Mind podcast, July 19, 2021

The general public may be finally noticing the leftward lurch happening in universities and in K-12, public and private, but the culture has been shifting for decades. It started in the 1960s with a variety of changes in social norms, like the elimination of strict dress codes and curfews for women at the large public university my mother attended. Her first year, in 1962, the female students had a 10 p.m. curfew. The next year, those rules were scrapped. By the time I got to college, we no longer had female-only dorms. The closest to that you could come was an all-female floor. I have yet to embark on college tours for my own daughter, but what I have read suggests that it will be difficult to find such a sex-segregated living situation. Even in the 1990s, some colleges had embraced co-ed dorms to the extent that even the bathrooms were co-ed. A friend who attended one of these institutions told me about the discomfort of that living situation and the efforts she would make to find a single stall bathroom in another building when she really needed privacy.

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Member Post

Lilly B
Lilly B
97
 

“That is most fully in our minds. I am sure that the mistakes of that time will not be repeated. We shall probably make another set of mistakes.” – Winston S. Churchill, June 8, 1944 “Nothing will stop you being creative more effectively as the fear of making a mistake.” – John Cleese Preview Open
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Member Post

Lilly B
Lilly B
75
 

“Gentlemen, you will never make peace with Napoleon! Napoleon cannot be master of the world until he has smashed us up, and believe me, gentlemen, he means to be master of the world! You cannot make peace with dictators. You have to destroy them, wipe them out!” Laurence Olivier as Lord Horatio Nelson, in That Hamilton […]
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Quote of the Day: A Question from My Son

Seawriter
Seawriter
33201016
 

“Hey dad, dumb question: if you were to recommend a single book discussing race in America, specifically something to counter the current identity politics, what would it be?” – Ben

I’m cheating today. It’s my turn to do a quote of the day, but I am feeling down at the news of Boss Mongo’s death and cannot think of something appropriate. But the show must go on. Moreover, my youngest (who is an adult), Ben, texted me the question quoted above. It is a really good question, and what dad cannot be flattered at being asked for this kind of advice from an adult child?

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Quote of the Day: Friendship and Stories

OmegaPaladin
OmegaPaladin
139429
 

“Those who cannot conceive of friendship as a substantive love but only as a disguise or elaboration of Eros betray the fact that they have never had a friend.” – C.S. Lewis

Contemporary media and culture does not seem to understand friendship, which is a tragedy beyond measure.  A true friend is worth more than refined platinum.   There was the friend who picked me up in another state, the friend who prayed with me after I snapped and lost control of myself, the friend who asked me to be his best man, the friend I talked down from the brink of suicide, the friend I trained and hired for my job, the friend who taught me how to shoot, the friend who I introduced to his future wife.   All of these are men I care about and respect – my bros.   There are also close friends I have that are ladies whom I am not romantically involved with at all.  These are co-workers and old college friends, one of whom is like an adopted younger sister.  The idea that having a close friend actually means a desire to screw them is utterly disgusting to me, but society seems to aim that way.

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QotD: Socialism

Seawriter
Seawriter
79517
 

Accepting Socialism is basically admitting you can’t compete in the real world. You’re saying “I’m willing to give up my liberty, my religion, and my dreams as long as the state will take care of me.” Accepting Socialism is accepting failure. It’s the complete opposite of America. – Quang Nguyen

Quang Nguyen is a refugee from Communism. He fled Vietnam and moved to the United States and today he is a state representative in Arizona.  If anyone knows socialism and the evil it perpetuates close up and personally, it is him. He lost most of his family to socialistic communism, and had to start over with the clothes on his back and no more. He pushed back in the Arizona legislature against those who minimized socialism’s threat.

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QOTD: Words Have Value

OmegaPaladin
OmegaPaladin
78
 

“Equally clear is the right to hear. To suppress free speech is a double wrong. It violates the rights of the hearer as well as those of the speaker. It is just as criminal to rob a man of his right to speak and hear as it would be to rob him of his money.”

—Frederick Douglass

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Quote of the Day: Provincialism

Clifford A. Brown
Clifford A. Brown
3516933
 

New Yorker Cover Map“I can’t believe Nixon won. I don’t know anyone who voted for him.”
— Pauline Kael misquote

You have probably heard this quote, or a variation. It points to a particular form of provincialism, a view from within a bubble that blocks out all the disagreeable peoples’ opinions. The real quote seems to reflect some self-awareness, perhaps with self-satisfaction, about the speaker’s separation from those with whom she disagrees. It significantly predates things like the internet and social media, much blamed for echo chambers and halls of mirrors around our minds. Consider the quote, the context, and a few implications.

The quote: Pauline Kael was a film critic for The New Yorker from 1968 to 1991. So, she started the year Nixon first won a presidential election. That should, perhaps, have cued her to the larger society beyond Manhattan. Kael’s infamous comment came after the 1972 election, when Nixon obliterated McGovern in 1972.

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Member Post

She
She
7411
 

The Quote of the Day is the easiest way to start a fun conversation on Ricochet.  You don’t have to think up something intelligent, pithy, or eloquent yourself–just steal borrow (with proper credit, of course) from somebody else! You can share a written or spoken passage that you’ve come across and find worthy, a quote from popular, classical, or […]
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Quote of the Day: The Empty People

OmegaPaladin
OmegaPaladin
2111984
 

“From the moment I joined @LokiOfficial it was very important to me, and my goal, to acknowledge Loki was bisexual. It is a part of who he is and who I am too. I know this is a small step but I’m happy, and heart is so full, to say that this is now Canon in MCU.”
― Kate Herron, Twitter

“Belief in yourself is more important than endless worries of what others think of you. Value yourself and others will value you. Validation is best that comes from within.”
― Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o, Dreams in a Time of War

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Quote of the Day: On Safetyism

Seawriter
Seawriter
712628
 

“The nation which can prefer disgrace to danger is prepared for a master and deserves one.” – Alexander Hamilton

Hamilton wrote this in the context of the Quasi-War with France and the Barbary Wars against North African states. A nation unwilling to defend its rights and borders soon gets conquered by foreign states and ends up ruled from afar. Or, having paid the Dane-Geld, discovers they never get rid of the Dane.

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Quote of the Day: Partiality

Clifford A. Brown
Clifford A. Brown
811514
 

balanced scales justiceAnd I charged your judges at that time, ‘Hear the cases between your brothers, and judge righteously between a man and his brother or the alien who is with him. You shall not be partial in judgment. You shall hear the small and the great alike. You shall not be intimidated by anyone, for the judgment is God’s. And the case that is too hard for you, you shall bring to me, and I will hear it.’
— Deuteronomy 1:16-17 (ESV)

My brothers, show no partiality as you hold the faith in our Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord of glory.  For if a man wearing a gold ring and fine clothing comes into your assembly, and a poor man in shabby clothing also comes in, and if you pay attention to the one who wears the fine clothing and say, “You sit here in a good place,” while you say to the poor man, “You stand over there,” or, “Sit down at my feet,” have you not then made distinctions among yourselves and become judges with evil thoughts?
— James 2: 1-4 (ESV)

As Critical Race Theory is imported even into the Southern Baptist Convention, despite deceptive denials from the previous and new leadership, it is worth going back to the texts the Christian church has long professed to reverence as the Word of God. Racism and sexism are not “sins” named in the scriptures. Instead, what is consistently condemned and prohibited is “partiality” or “favoritism” in judging between people or deciding how to treat them.

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Midwest Southerner
Midwest Southerner
98
 

You are never too old to set another goal or dream a new dream. — C.S. Lewis The notepad on my desk is perfect for jotting down the quick notes, reminders, and tasks I need to remember. For someone whose brain leans aggressively in the direction of ADHD, it’s a valuable (and necessary) tool to […]
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Member Post

OmegaPaladin
OmegaPaladin
139155
 

“When the politicians complain that TV turns the proceedings into a circus, it should be made clear that the circus was already there, and that TV has merely demonstrated that not all the performers are well trained.” —Edward R. Murrow I often here people complain about how confirmation and investigation hearings are TV performances.  True […]
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QOTD: “Lucky you” (Harry Potter)

Allie Hahn
Allie Hahn
3611
 

I don’t know how many Harry Potter fans are on Ricochet, considering that I’ve never seen a post about it before, but as a typical millennial, it’s probably my favorite book series. I’m currently listening to them on audiobook for the first time (the Jim Dale versions), and I recently finished book 5, Order of the Phoenix. As always, this particular conversation between Ginny and Harry jumped out at me, and since it includes one of my favorite quotes from the entire series, I thought I’d share: 

“We wanted to talk to you, Harry,” said Ginny, “but as you’ve been hiding ever since we got back–”

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Nanocelt TheContrarian
Nanocelt TheContrarian
2689
 

“These are the boys of Pointe du Hoc. These are the men who took the cliffs. These are the champions who helped free a continent. These are the heroes who helped end a war.  Gentlemen, I look at you and I think of the words of Stephen Spender’s poem.  You are men who in your […]
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Quote of the Day: Fallen from the Pedestal

OmegaPaladin
OmegaPaladin
49151099
 

“Time makes heroes but dissolves celebrities.” — Daniel J. Boorstin

During the beginning of the pandemic, I was seriously worried.  Things were not going well, and a lot of the Democrats seemed to be more interested in virtue signaling than disease control.  As someone trained in public health, I know that epidemics need to be managed aggressively.  Contrary to what many people say, you can stop a virus from spreading with proper quarantine and infection control practices.  Trump was taking decisive action on border control  (similar measures of containment have been used throughout history), but he needed a trusted advisor who knew about fighting disease.  Then we saw the nightmare in Italy, and people really wanted to avoid it.

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Quote of the Day: Rhyme and Season

Andrew Miller
Andrew Miller
169
 

‘To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven:’ – Ecclesiastes, Chapter 3, Verse 1.

This is the nearest I’ve been able to come up with for a quote that reflects something that’s been on my mind a lot lately: It has to do with not getting overly worried if the slugs or snails in the greenhouse plough a swathe through my rudbeckia seedlings. With not letting it get to me if things are, ah, a little behind in the garden, after what felt like a weeks-long stretch of rain and cold in the merry, merry month of May. With, in short, not seeing any one thing that’d be nice as the be-all and end-all of existence at that point in time.

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