Samizdata

Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph.
-Thomas Paine

Human society is probably “sustainable” only in a very low-tech mode, or a very high-tech mode. Anything in between is necessarily transitional, in one direction or the other. We must either move forward, or die in large numbers, and face miserable stagnation afterward. Personally, I’m against the latter.
– Glenn Reynolds

You don’t need a government to tell you when you’ve gone too far. There’s no greater deterrent for a comedian than stone silence.
– Mike Myers

Everybody, soon or late, sits down to a banquet of consequences.
-Robert Louis Stevenson

Never become mired in defending an unworkable idea out of some misguided ego or machismo motivation. Cut your losses and move on.
– James C. Freund

“Cleanse The State With The Blood of Martyrs”, rumbled Three Yoked Oxen. Rincewind spun around and waved a finger under Three Yoked Oxen’s nose, which was as high as he could reach. “I’ll bloody well thump you if you trot out something like that one more time!” he shouted, and then grimaced at the realisation that he had just threatened a man three times heavier than he was. “Listen to me, will you? I know about people who talk about suffering for the common good. It’s never bloody them! When you hear a man shouting “Forward, brave commrades!” you’ll see he’s the one behind the bloody big rock and wearing the only really arrow-proof helmet!”
– Rincewind, the Wizard from Terry Pratchett’s Interesting Times