A Carload of Monkeys

They know more tricks than a carload of monkeys.
-Walter Neff, Double Indemnity

Ouch

It’s kind of like being diagnosed with testicular cancer. You hope to live through the treatment, but you don’t look forward to what you’re about to lose.
-A reader of The Corner on Obama's victory

If you are part of a society that votes, then do so. There may be no candidates and no measures you want to vote for ... but there are certain to be ones you want to vote against. In case of doubt, vote against. By this rule you will rarely go wrong.
-Robert A. Heinlein

Helping

Helping an individual is hard. Developing a grandiose plan to save the world is not.
-Rufus T, comment 15 at Dirty Harry's Place

"Warm Body" Democracy

The America of my time line is a laboratory example of what can happen to democracies, what has eventually happened to all perfect democracies throughout all histories. A perfect democracy, a "warm body" democracy in which every adult may vote and all votes count equally, has no internal feedback for self-correction.... [O]nce a state extends the franchise to every warm body, be he producer or parasite, that day marks the beginning of the end of the state. For when the plebs discover that they can vote themselves bread and circuses without limit and that the productive members of the body politic cannot stop them, they will do so, until the state bleeds to death, or in its weakened condition the state succumbs to an invader — the barbarians enter Rome.
-Robert A. Heinlein, To Sail Beyond the Sunset

Never Learned Anything

What experience and history teach is this -- that people and governments never have learned anything from history, or acted on principles deduced from it.
-Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, German philosopher

Funny Because It's True

All I want out of life is to be a monkey of moderate intelligence who wears a suit. That's why I've decided to transfer to Business School.
-Guenter the monkey, "Mars University", Futurama

Never Compromise

No. Not even in the face of Armageddon. Never compromise.
-Rorschach, Watchmen

Independence Day

The second day of July, 1776, will be the most memorable epocha in the history of America. I am apt to believe that it will be celebrated by succeeding generations as the great anniversary festival. It ought to be commemorated as the day of deliverance, by solemn acts of devotion to God Almighty. It ought to be solemnized with pomp and parade, with shows, games, sports, guns, bells, bonfires, and illuminations, from one end of this continent to the other, from this time forward forevermore.
-John Adams, from a letter to Abigail Adams.
(The Declaration of Independence was adopted officially two days later, hence Adams referring to the second rather than the fourth.)

Rocks

I am allergic to rocks hitting me in the face.
-Mike Rowe, Dirty Jobs, "Wind Farm Technician"

Unwatched

What Hitler did not believe and what Stalin did not believe and what Mao did not believe and what the SS did not believe and what the Gestapo did not believe and what the NKVD did not believe and what the commissars, functionaries, swaggering executioners, Nazi doctors, Communist Party theoreticians, intellectuals, Brown Shirts, Black Shirts, gauleiters, and a thousand party hacks did not believe was that God was watching what they were doing.
-David Berlinski, The Devil’s Delusion

Vows

I will now read these special vows which Homer has prepared for this occasion. "Do you, Marge, take Homer, in richness and in poorness" -- poorness is underlined -- "in impotence and in potence, in quiet solitude or blasting across the alkali flats in a jet-powered, monkey-navigated"... [consults the notecards] ... and it goes on like this.
-Rev. Lovejoy, The Simpsons, "A Milhouse Divided"

Pants

Pants. Then spaceship. In that order.
-Jaime Reyes, Blue Beetle #24

Beans

You gotta respect a girl who likes beans.
-Darin Labar

Specialization is for insects.

A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects.
-Robert A. Heinlein, Time Enough For Love

Don't just do something...

Don't just do something, stand there!
-Jonah Goldberg

Fundamental law

To understand the workings of American politics, you have to understand this fundamental law: Conservatives think liberals are stupid. Liberals think conservatives are evil.
-Charles Krauthammer

Nanny State

The fundamental insight of libertarianism is that the government is the government. It cannot be your mommy, your daddy, your big brother, your nanny, your friend, your buddy, your god, your salvation, your church or your conscience. It is the government. A big bureaucracy charged with certain responsibilities, some of which it is qualified to carry out, many of which it is not.
-Jonah Goldberg, Liberal Fascism blog

Utterly Dysfunctional

Now, the federal government is utterly dysfunctional. Its actual capabilities, under any conceivable leadership, peter out just the other side of delivering mail. Our billion-dollar intelligence agencies know squat. Our big entitlement programs are all headed for fiscal cliff edges. The Department of Education is sunk in puerile fantasies about there being no such thing as dumb kids. (Worse than that, even: they operate on the principle that there is no such thing as an un-bookish kid.) Does anyone know what the Departments of Energy, Labor, Transportation, and the Interior do? I'll guarantee, whatever it is, they do it badly.
-John Derbyshire, at The Corner

Rough Men Stand Ready

People sleep peaceably in their beds at night only because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf.
-George Orwell

Ugly Thing

War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things. The decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks that nothing is worth war is much worse. The person who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself.
-John Stuart Mill

Specialization is for Insects

A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects.
-Robert A. Heinlein, Time Enough For Love

Not All Bad

Life can't be all bad when for ten dollars you can buy all the Beethoven sonatas and listen to them for ten years.
-William F. Buckley, Jr.

Insult

I won't insult your intelligence by suggesting that you really believe what you just said.
-William F. Buckley, Jr.

Inverse Relationship

There is an inverse relationship between reliance on the state and self-reliance.
-William F. Buckley Jr.

Standing athwart history ...

A Conservative is a fellow who is standing athwart history yelling 'Stop!'
-William F. Buckley, Jr.

Demure Lady

Truth is a demure lady, much too ladylike to knock you on your head and drag you to her cave. She is there, but people must want her, and seek her out.
-William F. Buckley, Jr.

Matt...

"Matt... you're gay."
-Aaron Barrigar

Radioactive Shotgun

"There's no problem that can't be solved with a radioactive shotgun."
-Adam Stoeckle

Comin' to a Middle

"Well, my days of not taking you seriously are certainly comin' to a middle."
-Malcolm Reynolds, Firefly

Small Sins

It does not matter how small the sins are, provided that their cumulative effect is to edge the man away from the Light and out into the Nothing. Murder is no better than cards if cards can do the trick.
-C.S. Lewis

Reason to Believe

"I've wasted so much time
coming up with questions.
Asking 'Why?' has never answered much for me.
And really who am I,
to never feel the weight of burden?
When was I promised simplicity?"
-Stavesacre, "Reason to Believe"

Thy Will Be Done

There are only two kinds of people in the end: those who say to God, "Thy will be done," and those to whom God says, in the end, "Thy will be done."
-C.S. Lewis

Madman or something worse.

I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him: 'I'm ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don't accept His claim to be God.' That is the one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic -- on the level with the man who says he is a poached egg -- or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God: or else a madman or something worse. You can shut Him up for a fool, you can spit at Him and kill Him as a demon; or you can fall at His feet and call Him Lord and God. But let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about His being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to.
–C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity, pages 40-41.

Garage

"Standing in a garage doesn't make you a car."
-Pastor Ronn Johnson

We made up for it...

"We didn’t tackle well today, but we made up for it by not blocking."
-John McKay

Win or Tie

"The alumni are with you, win or tie."
-Duffy Daugherty

Taxes

Via Instapundit, hat tip to Libertas:

"Others have said they would personally be happy to pay higher taxes. I welcome their enthusiasm, and I am pleased to report that the IRS accepts both checks and money orders."
-George W. Bush, State of the Union Address, 1/28/2008

Machete

"If I might lend a machete to your intellectual thicket..."
-Captain Jack Sparrow, Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End

"Some kids are dumb."

"Trust me on this: Some kids are dumb."
-John Derbyshire, The Corner at NRO

A Robo

Hobo1: "Let's give a friendly welcome to this new robo."
Bender: "What did you call me?!"
Hobo2: "A Robo. You know ... a robot hobo."
Bender: "Oh, ok, I thought you said romo."

From Futurama, "The 30% Iron Chef".

Spider Monkey

"They just jumped on us like a spider monkey."
-San Diego fullback Lorenzo Neal after a 38-14 loss to the Patriots.

Flamethrower

The very existence of flamethrowers 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 Wookiees?

Jolee Bindo: I guess you could say I did it all for the Wookiees.
Revan: The Wookiees?
Jolee Bindo: The Wookiees!

HK-47

HK-47: Statement: HK-47 is ready to serve, master.
Revan: You don't need to call me master, you know.
HK-47: Query: Don't I? I was under the assumption that organic meatbags such as yourself enjoyed such forms of address.
Revan: "Organic meatbags?"
HK-47: Retraction: Did I say that out loud? I apologize, master. While you are a meatbag, I suppose I should not call you as such.
Revan: You just called me a meatbag again!
HK-47: Explanation: It's just that... you have all these squishy parts, master. And all that water! How the constant sloshing doesn't drive you mad, I have no idea...
Revan: Neither do I, come to think of it...
HK-47: Statement: Now do you understand the travails of my existence, master? Surely it does not compare to your existence, but still...
Revan: I survive. Somehow.
HK-47: Commentary: As do I. It is our lot in life, I suppose, master. Shall we find something to kill to cheer ourselves up?

HK-47: Can I break his neck now master? It's been a long time fantasy of mine...
Revan: Maybe later...
HK-47: Did you hear that meatbag? "I'LL BE BACK!"

[Speaking with a Jawa who refers to 'Ghosts in the desert']
HK-47: Explanation: Two per cent probability that the miniature organic is simply looking for trouble and needs to be blasted. That may be wishful thinking on my part, master.

HK-47: Definition: 'Love' is making a shot to the knees of a target 120 kilometers away using an Aratech sniper rifle with a tri-light scope... Love is knowing your target, putting them in your targeting reticule, and together, achieving a singular purpose against statistically long odds.

Additional Voices: There's something out there... it got the other submersible already.
HK-47: Suggestion: Perhaps we could dismember the organic? It would make it easier for transport to the surface.
Additional Voices: Hey! Y-you... you can't rip me to pieces! I'll die!!
HK-47: Amendment: I did forget that. Stupid, frail, non-compartmentalized meatbags!

HK-47: Suggestion: Electrocution work well. Evisceration and Decapitation are also effective, or, um, so I've heard.

HK-47: Statement: HK-47 is ready to serve, master. Observation: Notice that I did not ask if you need anyone killed. You may be curious as to why. Answer: That is because you told me to stop asking if you needed anyone killed. So I have. From now on, I will simply say, "I am ready to serve." Yes, ready to serve. In whatever way a common protocol or utility droid might serve. It seems that is my lot in life. Not to kill.

HK-47: Statement: Pain is really the only reliable means by which truth may be obtained. Or so I choose to believe.

Money Management

"Money management. Or, I guess, more like actually having some money to manage."
-Cedric Benson on his biggest off-field priority after the draft, from ESPN.com