A Few Inspiring Words

There are consistently a handful of authors that I normally read throughout a given month and year several times over. In addition to their first hand work there are also additional reading material that they, the authors have suggested in the course of my inquiries. Below I have included some notable quotations and words of advice that I have tried from the moment I was made aware, to live and think upon.

"Sometimes the first duty of the intelligent man is to restate the obvious." - George Orwell

"One of the great mistakes is to judge policies and programs by their intentions rather than their results." - Milton Friedman

"The conservative response to modernity is to embrace it, but to embrace it critically, in full consciousness that human achievements are rare and precarious, that we have no God-given right to destroy our inheritance, but must always patiently submit to the voice of order, and set an example of orderly living." - Roger Scruton

"The attack on economics sprang rather from a dislike of the application of scientific methods to the investigation of social problems. The existence of a body of reasoning which prevented people from following their first impulsive reactions, and which compelled them to balance indirect effects, which could be seen only by exercising the intellect, against intense feeling caused by the direct observation of concrete suffering, then as now, occasioned intense resentment." - F.A. Hayek

"One of the painful signs of years of dumbed-down education is how many people are unable to make a coherent argument. They can vent their emotions, question other people's motives, make bold assertions, repeat slogans-- anything except reason." - Thomas Sowell

 "In history, one gathers clues like a detective, tries to present an honest account of what most likely happened, and writes a narrative according to what we know and, where we aren't absolutely sure, what might be most likely to have happened within the generally accepted rules of evidence and sources." - Victor Davis Hanson

"In today's impoverished dialogue, critiques of liberalism are often naively called 'conservative,' as if twenty-five hundred years of Western intellectual tradition presented no other alternatives." - Camille Paglia

"Optimism is the parent of despair, while pessimism allows the mind to accustom itself to the inevitable disappointments of human existence by degrees, just as some drugs induce a state of tolerance. Pessimists, moreover, have the better sense of humour, for they have a livelier apprehension of pretension and absurdity. In a meritocracy, furthermore, those who fail must either indulge in elaborate mental contortions to disguise reality from themselves or sink into a deep melancholy." - Theodore Dalrymple

I hope you enjoy these as much as I have and since we are always evolving in some shape with regard to mental ability and our point of view there is no doubt that in due course this list will continue to grow or change in one particular facet or another.

In history, one gathers clues like a detective, tries to present an honest account of what most likely happened, and writes a narrative according to what we know and, where we aren't absolutely sure, what might be most likely to have happened, within the generally accepted rules of evidence and sources.
Read more at: http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/v/victor_davis_hanson.html