The government functionaries are humans too. (Probably. Most of them. The story my friend Rebecca Lickiss wrote where the IRS was staffed by vampires is fiction. PROBABLY.) They don’t know the inside of anyone’s head.
—Sarah A. Hoyt, ‘Balancing the Scales’
Quotations from all quarters on life, literature, and whatever else tickled my fancy. Browse and enjoy. —T. S.
Hoyt on bureaucracy
20 February 2017 by Leave a Comment
M. T. on ©
4 January 2017 by 1 Comment
Only one thing is impossible for God: To find any sense in any copyright law on the planet.
—Mark Twain
I reply:
Mr. S. L. Clemens believed that copyright ought to be perpetual, and that it required uncommon stupidity to think otherwise. He liked to say, in tones of surprise and personal affront, that every other kind of property was eternal, but copyright alone was confiscated by the government at an arbitrary date.
Which ignored the fact that patents are also ‘confiscated’ after shorter terms than copyrights.
And the fact that real estate is liable to confiscation after a term as short as one year, if you fail to pay your property taxes; and likewise with mines. [Read more…]
Sowell on book reviews
6 December 2016 by 1 Comment
Over the years, I have come to find writing book reviews even more distasteful than reading them. Part of this is my own fault, for being one of those old-fashioned holdouts who still believes that you should actually read the book before reviewing it.
Sometimes I am only into the first 20 pages of a 500-page book when it becomes painfully clear that this one is a real dog. The rest of the ordeal is like crossing the Sahara Desert—except that often there are no oases. True, the reviewer gets to slaughter the author in print at the end of it all, but this merely appeases the desire for revenge, which only real blood would satisfy.
—Thomas Sowell, ‘Some Thoughts about Writing’
Sowell on editors
29 November 2016 by 3 Comments
If there is any rhyme or reason to the way editing varies from one editor to another, it seems to be this: The less the editor has written under his own name, the more he wants to write under someone else’s name.
—Thomas Sowell, ‘Some Thoughts about Writing’
Thomas Sowell on writing methods
22 November 2016 by 1 Comment
My own writing practices are the direct opposite of that followed by these prolific and renowned writers. I write only when I have something to say.
—Thomas Sowell, ‘Some Thoughts about Writing’
Culture wars
14 November 2016 by Leave a Comment
So, the culture is still there waiting to be taken. Pick up your kit and follow me, into the trenches. The advantage of a culture war is that even those of us who are old and ill can fight, and even those who don’t create can provide perspective, review and dissemination. Onward.
Justice
15 October 2016 by 1 Comment
But if this man has a son who sees all the sins that his father has done, considers, and does not do likewise, who does not eat upon the mountains or lift up his eyes to the idols of the house of Israel, does not defile his neighbor’s wife, does not wrong anyone, exacts no pledge, commits no robbery, but gives his bread to the hungry and covers the naked with a garment, withholds his hand from iniquity, takes no advance or accrued interest, observes my ordinances, and follows my statutes; he shall not die for his father’s iniquity; he shall surely live. As for his father, because he practiced extortion, robbed his brother, and did what is not good among his people, he dies for his iniquity.
Yet you say, ‘Why should not the son suffer for the iniquity of the father?’ When the son has done what is lawful and right, and has been careful to observe all my statutes, he shall surely live. The person who sins shall die. A child shall not suffer for the iniquity of a parent, nor a parent suffer for the iniquity of a child; the righteousness of the righteous shall be his own, and the wickedness of the wicked shall be his own.
—Ezekiel 18:14–20
Originality
5 October 2016 by 3 Comments
The modernist thirst for originality makes the mediocre artist believe that the secret of originality consists simply in being different.
—Nicolás Gómez Dávila
Toleration
28 September 2016 by Leave a Comment
To tolerate does not mean to forget that what we tolerate does not deserve anything more.
—Nicolás Gómez Dávila
Relative truths
21 September 2016 by Leave a Comment
Truths are not relative. What is relative are opinions about truth.
—Nicolás Gómez Dávila
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