It is the highest impertinence and presumption, therefore, in kings and ministers to pretend to watch over the economy of private people, and to restrain their expense. … They are themselves always, and without exception, the greatest spendthrifts in the society. Let them look well after their own expense, and they may safely trust private people with theirs.

Adam Smith

Everything happens for a reason. Sometimes that reason is you’re stupid and make bad choices.

Anonymous

Another flaw in the human character is that everybody wants to build and nobody wants to do maintenance.

Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.

The core of racism is the notion that the individual is meaningless and that membership in the collective — the race — is the source of his identity and value … The notion of ‘diversity’ entails exactly the same premises as racism — that one’s ideas are determined by one’s race and that the source of an individual’s identity is his ethnic heritage.

Peter Schwartz

It doesn’t matter what rights you have under the Constitution of the United States, if the government can punish you for exercising those rights. And it doesn’t matter what limits the Constitution puts on government officials’ power, if they can exceed those limits without any adverse consequences. In other words, the Constitution cannot protect you, if you don’t protect the Constitution with your votes against anyone who violates it. Those government officials who want more power are not going to stop unless they get stopped. As long as millions of Americans vote on the basis of who gives them free stuff, look for their freedom — and all our freedom — to be eroded away, bit by bit. Our children and grandchildren may yet come to see the Constitution as just some quaint words from the past that people once took seriously.

Thomas Sowell