London, GB | Formerly of New York, Buenos Aires, Fife, and the Western Cape. | Saoránach d’Éirinn.

Quotations

Classic Beck

I’ve heard tell that the ‘Indian head’ is a ‘racist depiction’ of Native Americans. But it should be obvious that the Indian mascot is not meant to depict present-day Native Americans, so how can this be the case? Native Americans have changed a great deal over the course of history. So have people of all ethnicities. That’s why I’m studying English at Dartmouth College rather than wearing a bearskin and sacrificing holly-crowned virgins to Wotan. That’s why people of Scandinavian descent don’t dust off their battle-axes and sack Minneapolis whenever the Vikings play.

— Stefan Beck, the Dartmouth Review, 12 May 2003
November 27, 2006 8:32 pm | Link | 4 Comments »

Esther Goes to the State Fair

Once, when I was worried that someone would find my money, I taped it under the sofa and forgot about it. Later, when I traded that sofa for a new sofa, I forgot to transfer my taped money to the new sofa. When I found the guy who had my money sofa, I told him I forgot my leg medicine in the cushions and could he please let me find my leg medicine. He said sure, so I retrieved my money and got out of there.

But that’s not all. I also use the leg medicine story to get free admission to the state fair. Every year I tell the admissions guy that I left my leg medicine at the root beer stand. “I need that medicine to live,” I tell him. One year, when the state fair guy got wise and asked me why I take leg medicine, I told him I don’t take leg medicine, and then I punched him in the face.

October 4, 2006 8:48 am | Link | No Comments »

The Unique Genius of Our American Democracy

“A famous Loyalist said that ‘I would rather be ruled by one tyrant 3,000 miles away, than by 3,000 tyrants not a mile away.’ It is the unique genius of our system (given that D.C. is 3,000 miles away from my home here in Los Angeles) that we are able to have both.”

— Charles A. Coulombe
September 7, 2006 9:21 am | Link | 1 Comment »

Words of Wisdom

“Men are basically 1) smart or dumb and 2) lazy or ambitious. The dumb and ambitious ones are dangerous and I get rid of them. The dumb and lazy ones I give mundane duties. The smart ambitious ones I put on my staff. The smart and lazy ones I make my commanders.”

— Field Marshal Erwin Rommel

I’d like to thank Field Marshal Rommel for vindicating my life.

UPDATE: This is actually a misquotation of Gen. Kurt von Hammerstein-Equord. See here for the correct version.
May 3, 2006 6:09 pm | Link | 7 Comments »

T.R. on Education

“To educate a man in mind and not in morals is to educate a menace to society.”

– Theodore Roosevelt
August 3, 2005 2:39 pm | Link | No Comments »

Brownson on the Scholar

“The scholar is not one who stands above the people and looks down on the people with contempt. He has no contempt for the people; but a deep and all-enduring love for them, which commands him to live and labor, and, if need be, to suffer and die, for their redemption; but he never forgets that he is their instructor, their guide, their chief, not their echo, their slave, their tool.”

— Orestes Brownson
June 20, 2005 10:02 am | Link | No Comments »

“Saints are simply men & women who have fulfilled their natural obligation, which is to approach God.”

— Evelyn Waugh
April 2, 2005 8:52 am | Link | No Comments »

Taki Mellows

Taki is mellowing a bit — last year at the Royal Enclosure at Ascot, he ended a feud with the Aga Khan that began 40 years ago over a pretty girl — but not completely. He vows, “The only man I’ll continue to hate is Hillary Clinton.”
Ocean Drive magazine, December 2000
November 12, 2004 12:02 pm | Link | No Comments »

A tribute to Otto Clemson

A tribute to Otto Clemson Hiss:

(Stumbles upon corpse)
Frau Hoffner: Hmmm, it is little Otto. He was one of your mother’s lovers. We often find him lying around.
Mata Bond: Is he dead?
Frau Hoffner: Hard to tell. He always looked like that.

– Casino Royale (1967)
July 9, 2004 3:21 am | Link | No Comments »

On athletics

“I have often observed in women of her type a tendency to regard all athletics as inferior forms of foxhunting”

– Dr. Kagan, Decline and Fall, by Evelyn Waugh
July 6, 2004 12:33 pm | Link | No Comments »

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