A duck farting in thunder.

Now, if I, a former mere bank clerk, know that this is a piece of window-dressing, you can bet Warren and the M and S bloke know it too. Whatever their generous contributions to their nations’ exchequers, in the context of our economy, and the huge American one, the effect will be as a duck farting in thunder.

-Terry Wogan, Paying more tax will get us nowhere very fast, The Telegraph

Duly Harsh

Just to be clear, my views of, and appreciation for, France have improved since the days of my hardcore French-bashing. In the past I may have been unduly harsh. Now I would like to think I am merely duly harsh.

-Jonah Goldberg, The Corner

Best Billy Madison Quote

Mr. Madison, what you've just said . . . is one of the most insanely idiotic things I have ever heard. At no point in your rambling, incoherent response were you even close to anything that could be considered a rational thought. Everyone in this room is now dumber for having listened to it. I award you no points, and may God have mercy on your soul.

-Principal, Billy Madison

Speak softly...

Teddy Roosevelt never said, "Speak softly and carry 'Cat in the Hat.'"

-Greg Gutfeld, Daily Gut

Mass Transit

Everyone wants their neighbors to take mass transit so the roads will be clear when they drive to work.

-Jack Nerad, editorial director of Kelley Blue Book, "Eco-friendly vehicles lack mass appeal"

No Place

No place for women and children!

-Coach O.

Judgement

You know, I rather like it that way: Let Republican candidates be judged on their ideas and character; and let Democratic candidates be judged on their skin color and genital equipment.

-Jay Nordlinger, The Corner

Private Keep

Bradbury learned long ago that amidst the joy, there is also evil in the world and in the hearts of men. In a letter, he once wrote that each one of us has "a private keep somewhere in the upper part of the head where, from time to time, of midnights, the beast can be heard raving. To control that, to the end of life, to stay contemplative, sane, good-humored, is our entire work, in the midst of cities that tempt us to inhumanity, and passions that threaten to drive through the skin with invisible spikes."

-James E. Person Jr., "Ray Bradbury at 90", NRO

Terrifying

In one of those weird ironies of nature, being surrounded by a bunch of soapy-sponge-wielding attractive University of Alabama female zoology students in wet t-shirts is an excellent plot device for a late night cinemax movie when the subject "victim" getting a bath is a sensitive-yet-jocular ski instructor, but it's terrifying if you're a brown pelican.

-Jonah Goldberg, post on The Corner

Progress

About the Declaration there is a finality that is exceedingly restful. It is often asserted that the world has made a great deal of progress since 1776, that we have had new thoughts and new experiences which have given us a great advance over the people of that day, and that we may therefore very well discard their conclusions for something more modern. But that reasoning can not be applied to this great charter. If all men are created equal, that is final. If they are endowed with inalienable rights, that is final. If governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed, that is final. No advance, no progress can be made beyond these propositions. If anyone wishes to deny their truth or their soundness, the only direction in which he can proceed historically is not forward, but backward toward the time when there was no equality, no rights of the individual, no rule of the people. Those who wish to proceed in that direction can not lay claim to progress. They are reactionary. Their ideas are not more modern, but more ancient, than those of the Revolutionary fathers.

-Calvin Coolidge, Address at the Celebration of the 150th Anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, Philadelphia, Pa.