The marvel of all history is the patience with which men and women submit to burdens unnecessarily laid upon them by their governments. — George Washington

Despair is the absolute extreme of self-love.

Despair is the ultimate development of a pride so great and so stiff-necked that it selects the absolute misery of damnation rather than accept happiness from the hands of God and thereby acknowledge that [God] is above us. — Thomas Merton (1961)

Anything that is in the world when you’re born is normal and ordinary and is just a natural part of the way the world works. Anything that’s invented between when you’re fifteen and thirty-five is new and exciting and revolutionary and you can probably get a career in it. Anything invented after you’re thirty-five is against the natural order of things. — Douglas Adams, “The Salmon of Doubt”

The way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race. — Chief Justice John Roberts (Parents Involved In Community Schools v. Seattle School Dist. No. 1 [June 28, 2007])

When everything is good enough, it takes work to discover what’s better, and better is often a matter of whim and preference anyway. — Jerry Pournelle

Real science looks at data, makes falsifiable predictions, and attempts to falsify or confirm those predictions. The rest is ‘other forces’ at work. — Jerry Pournelle

The problem with Internet quotations is that many are not genuine. — Abraham Lincoln

When everything is evidence of the thing you want to believe, it might be time to stop pretending you’re all about science. – Ann Althouse