Knowledge is power » Quotes

Retarded politics of the atom bomb

Alpha — Tue, 02 Oct 2007 16:16:10 +0000

I think the politicians who are after atomic bombs, politically, they are backwards. Retarded.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad speaking at the UN in New York.

Worry

Alpha — Mon, 23 Apr 2007 20:26:12 +0000

“As a rule, men worry more about what they can’t see than about what they can.”
- Julius Ceasar, 102-44 BC

Leaving a small footprint

Alpha — Sat, 07 Apr 2007 20:14:56 +0000

“Well, I’d rather see people watching whales than hunting them. And I’d rather see people hiking through old-growth forests than cutting them down.”
- David Suzuki

To be smart or not to be

Alpha — Sun, 18 Mar 2007 17:42:19 +0000

“It is indisputable that the being whose capacities of enjoyment are low, has the greatest chance of having them fully satisfied; and a highly endowed being will always feel that any happiness which he can look for, as the world is constituted, is imperfect. But he can learn to bear its imperfections, if they are at all bearable; and they will not make him envy the being who is indeed unconscious of the imperfections, but only because he feels not at all the good which those imperfections qualify. It is better to be a human being dissatisfied than a pig satisfied; better to be Socrates dissatisfied than a fool satisfied. And if the fool, or the pig, are a different opinion, it is because they only know their own side of the question. The other party to the comparison knows both sides.”
- John Stuart Mill, Utilitarianism, 1863.

The stock market gamble

Alpha — Fri, 16 Mar 2007 02:44:07 +0000

“The foundations for stable operation of the stock market are not firm. There are still many problems that must be resolved.”
- Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao, speaking on Jan. 19, just five weeks before Chinese stocks fell 9% in one day of trading

Girl soldiers

Alpha — Sat, 03 Mar 2007 03:29:24 +0000

“Once you put an AK-47 in their hands, child soldiers can mutilate, kill. I’ve seen a 14-year old commanding 30 or 40 kids.”
-Retired Lieutenant General Romeo Dallaire talking about the ‘value’ of girl soldiers in a Maclean’s Magazine interview, Januray, 2007.

The Moral Weight of Leadership

Alpha — Fri, 02 Mar 2007 00:28:01 +0000

I have seen men in the depth of wickedness, and I have thought to myself, “There I go, except by the grace of God.”
- Billy Graham, In the New York Times, March 17, 1998, The Moral Weight of Leadership

Hell

Alpha — Fri, 23 Feb 2007 23:37:07 +0000

“There’s an idea that Hell is other people. My idea is that it might be repetition.”
- Stephen King

Copernicus epitaph

Alpha — Mon, 19 Feb 2007 19:34:54 +0000

“O Lord, the faith thou didst give to St. Paul, I cannot ask; the mercy thou didst show to St. Peter; I dare not ask; but Lord, the grace thou didst show unto the dying robber, that, Lord, show to me.”
-Copernicus, epitaph of his own composition

An ethical unethical investor

Alpha — Fri, 16 Feb 2007 03:02:29 +0000

“Trying to express your moral viewpoint through your stock holdings is a bit like trying to express your musical tastes through your choice of a hacksaw.”
-Ian McGucan, “Confessions of an unethical investor,” MoneySense magazine article