Tag: Quote of the Day

Member Post

Seawriter
Seawriter
1212
 

The society that separates its scholars from its warriors will have its thinking done by cowards and its fighting by fools. ― Thucydides In Ancient Greece Socrates fought in the phalanx and Xenophon, a military leader wrote works of scholarship.  There was no separation between scholars and warriors.  Nor was there in Republican Rome. Cicero […]
Join Ricochet!

This is a members-only post on Ricochet's Member Feed. Want to read it? Join Ricochet’s community of conservatives and be part of the conversation. Join Ricochet for Free.

Quote of the Day: Fight for the Right

Seawriter
Seawriter
3112
 

“Still, if you will not fight for the right when you can easily win without bloodshed; if you will not fight when your victory will be sure and not too costly; you may come to the moment when you will have to fight with all the odds against you and only a precarious chance of survival. There may even be a worse case. You may have to fight when there is no hope of victory, because it is better to perish than to live as slaves.” – Winston Churchill

Churchill knew of what he spoke. He was in Parliament when Hitler remilitarized the Rhineland in 1936 in violation of the Treaty of Versailles. Had France and Britain moved in with just a battalion or two of troops each, the Germans would have been rolled back. The entire occupation was a bluff and could have been easily reversed. Hitler would have been deposed by the German Army.

Preview Open

Quote of the Day: War and Peace

Seawriter
Seawriter
89
 

Si vis pacem, para bellum (If you want peace, prepare for war). – Publius Flavius Vegetius Renatus, Epitoma rei militaris 4th Century AD

The United States has been at peace for the last 70-odd years. Yes, it has been involved in foreign conflicts since the end of World War II from the Korea War through the ill-named War on Terror. Yet during that time actual US soil has not been touched by war, except possibly by the terrorism of 9-11. The last year there was a real existential threat to US soil was in 1942, including a brief occupation of minor bits of what later became Alaska.

Preview Open

Quote of the Day: War

Seawriter
Seawriter
2612
 

“God created war so that Americans would learn geography.” – Mark Twain

It is true, isn’t it? Two years ago, how many of you had heard of Kherson or Melitopol? Back then I thought It was Nikoliav, not Mykolaiv. Before October 7, who knew where Wadi as-Salqua was?

Preview Open

Quote of the Day: Pro-Free Speech

Seawriter
Seawriter
1310
 

Any online community that is explicitly pro-free speech will inevitably become right-leaning. This is because in the free market of ideas right-leaning ideas win. Which is why we see these left-wing tech companies censoring. No one is buying their progressive, globalist [REDACTED] anymore, so it must be force-fed down the throats of users and dissent must be stamped out with the iron fist of censorship.” — Gab CEO Andrew Torba

If you think about it, it makes sense. Ricochet is an example. We have had progressives and liberals join Ricochet to convert the heathen conservatives t0 their political bent instead staying and becoming right-leaning. Because the center-right arguments convinced them. In a free marketplace of ideas, the better arguments win.

Preview Open

Quote of the Day: Silencing the Opposition

Seawriter
Seawriter
813
 

“Once a government is committed to the principle of silencing the voice of opposition, it has only one way to go, and that is down the path of increasingly repressive measures, until it becomes a source of terror to all its citizens and creates a country where everyone lives in fear.” – Harry S. Truman

There is not much I can add to that. Harry S. pretty much nailed it.  Other than to note, he was a Democrat, which shows how much the Democrats have gone down the path of Fascism since 1972. (Yes, the big shift started after McGovern’s loss,  when the socialist wing of the Democrats captured the party machinery and  chased out first the anti-Communists and eventually everyone to the right of Henry Wallace.)

Preview Open

Quote of the Day: Miracles

Seawriter
Seawriter
37
 

“There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle.” ― Albert Einstein

Is he right?  I do not know. I tend to fall in the second camp. To me, everything about life is to some extent miraculous, even the everyday pleasures. Waking up in the morning seems like a miracle. (It always has, even when I was a child, but somehow it seems even more so at 68.) There is a new day ahead. The smell and taste of the first cup of coffee in the morning. (Add a bit of heavy cream and I hear the angels sing.) The beginning of a fresh day at work with new challenges to overcome – or on weekends projects to start or finish. There is a gorgeous blue October sky outside. It all seems so remarkable, so special.

Preview Open

Quote of the Day: Lies

Seawriter
Seawriter
2011
 

“Every lie we tell incurs a debt to the truth. Sooner or later, that debt is paid. The truth doesn’t care about our needs or wants; it doesn’t care about our governments our ideologies or our religions. It will lie in wait for all time.” – Professor Lagasov, Chernobyl

We live in an age of lies. “The border is secure.” “The economy is strong.” “No one is above the law.” These are three of the most common lies repeated by our current Administration and their lap-dog press. There are many others. Put your own favorite Administration lie in the comments

Preview Open

Quote of the Day: A Conversation with a 911 Operator

Seawriter
Seawriter
2217
 

Sometimes the quote of the day comes to you. This is a recording of the 911 call requesting an ambulance to assist the pilot who bailed out of the F-35 last week. I have to say the dispatcher’s determination to stay on script is amazing. It does remind me of the waitress in the “toast scene” in Five Easy Pieces.

Preview Open

Quote of the Day: Home Defense Edition

Seawriter
Seawriter
3516
 

I don’t own a gun, but I keep a bag of baseballs near our bed. If someone breaks in they better be wearing a batting helmet because I am going to throw at their head.  – Randy Johnson, Major League Baseball pitcher

Considering Johnson threw a 90mph fastball during his major league career, I’d consider that a credible defense strategy. He is supposed to have said this while he was with the Seattle Mariners in the 1990s, but even today, at age 60, I’ll bet he still has enough heat left to strike out a home invader or two. I will also bet this home defense strategy served him well during stints in gun-averse New York and San Francisco. Someone might get in trouble for being in possession of a handgun in those cities, but deny a MLB pitcher possession of hardballs? It would get laughed out of court.

Preview Open

Quote of the Day: Doomerism Nonsense

Seawriter
Seawriter
1814
 

I’m so weary of black pilled doomerism:

“Everything sucks. This is the worst it has ever been. Nothing matters. Nothing you do matters. Defeat is inevitable. Failure is inevitable. Everything used to be better. Nothing ever improves. Things only get worse. We can only lose. Winning is impossible.”

Preview Open

Quote of the Day: Politics and Alarmism

Seawriter
Seawriter
1815
 

“The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by an endless series of hobgoblins, most of them imaginary.” — H. L. Mencken

Can you say global climate change, boys and girls? Or Covid 19? I knew you could. Both are overblown political crises intended to keep people scared and isolated. As this century-old quote from H. L. Menken shows, it is not a new tactic. It is the whole aim of politics. To convince you the devil is in the chimney and only government intervention can exorcise it.

Preview Open

Member Post

Lilly B
Lilly B
3411
 

“The greatest of all curses is in the curse of sterility, and the severest of all condemnations should be that visited upon willful sterility. The first essential in any civilization is that the man and woman shall be father and mother of healthy children, so that the race shall increase and not decrease. If that […]
Join Ricochet!

This is a members-only post on Ricochet's Member Feed. Want to read it? Join Ricochet’s community of conservatives and be part of the conversation. Join Ricochet for Free.

Quote of the Day: Menaces to Civilization

Seawriter
Seawriter
1415
 

“There is no more dangerous menace to civilization than a government of incompetent, corrupt, or vile men. The worst evils which mankind ever had to endure were inflicted by governments.” – Ludwig von Mises

We saw examples of the effects of government by incompetent, corrupt, or vile men illustrated over the last few weeks.

Preview Open

Quote of the Day: Humility and Politics

Susan Quinn
Susan Quinn
51111051
 

What the world needs is more geniuses with humility; there are so few of us left. — Oscar Levant

I tell my kids and I tell proteges, always have humility when you create and grace when you succeed, because it’s not about you. You are a terminal for a higher power. As soon as you accept that, you can do it forever. — Quincy Jones

Preview Open

Quote of the Day: Poverty

Seawriter
Seawriter
5522
 

“I am for doing good to the poor, but…I think the best way of doing good to the poor, is not making them easy in poverty, but leading or driving them out of it. I observed…that the more public provisions were made for the poor, the less they provided for themselves, and of course became poorer.” – Benjamin Franklin

Oliver Anthony‘s “Rich Men North of Richmond” has sparked a lot of discussion and even more criticism, mostly by those online rich men (and women) north of Richmond. The folks whose definition of hard work was an all-nighter in college.  It is a heartfelt cry, however.

Preview Open

Quote of the Day: Yesterday

Seawriter
Seawriter
48
 

He wove His spell, Where heart-blood beat or hearth-smoke curled, With unconsidered miracle, Hedged in a backward-gazing world;
Then taught His chosen bard to say: “Our King was with us — yesterday!”
– Rudyard Kipling, “The King”

We are a backward-gazing world, looking back to the good old days, when things were better and life was simpler.  That struck home for me when I read @jennastocker‘s outstanding post 50 Years of ‘American Graffiti’ and especially the reactions to it. For me, and for everyone that graduated from high school between 1962 and 1973, if we saw that movie for the first time when it came out, the movie was about the summer after our graduation from high school. We could pick out students from our school to fill every role in the movie.  That was especially true for me, since I saw it during the late summer following graduation, during its release.

Preview Open

Quote of the Day: Wealth

Seawriter
Seawriter
1511
 

“Only coolie can become millionaire.” — C. Northcote Parkinson

C. Northcote Parkinson was a 20th-century British historian. He is best known for Parkinson’s Law (Work expands to fill all time allotted to it). Most don’t realize that is Parkinson’s First Law. He had a slew of them, all useful, collected in a book titled Parkinson’s Law, which can be found at the link. Today’s quote comes from a chapter in the book, examining wealth accumulation titled “Palm Thatch to Packard or a Formula for Success.”

Preview Open