Grandma

Mom

Dad

Dave

Sheri

Dan

Alex

Dave

Sue

“There are four ways in which you can spend money:

1. You can spend your own money on yourself. When you do that, why then you really watch out what you’re doing, and you try to get the most for your money.
2. You can spend your own money on somebody else. For example, I buy a birthday present for someone. Well, then I’m not so careful about the content of the present, but I’m very careful about the cost.
3. I can spend somebody else’s money on myself. And if I spend somebody else’s money on myself, then I’m sure going to have a good lunch!
4. I can spend somebody else’s money on somebody else. And if I spend somebody else’s money on somebody else, I’m not concerned about how much it is, and I’m not concerned about what I get.

That’s government, and that’s close to 40% of our national income.”

Source unknown:

“The last official act of any government is to loot the treasury.”

George Washington, first elected president of the United States of America:

“Government is not reason; it is not eloquence; it is force. Like fire, it is a dangerous servant and a fearful master.”

Thomas Jefferson, third president of the United States of America and author of the Declaration of Independence:

“That government is best which governs the least, because its people discipline themselves.”

“When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.”

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government.”

(Related reading: An Open Letter to High School Students)

“Efficiency is doing things right; effectiveness is doing the right things.”

“The ultimate result of shielding men from the effects of folly is to fill the world with fools.”

ApochPiQ, The Bag of Holding:

“The most successful people in history are not those who have attained perfection. On the contrary, the successful people are those who have learned to handle failure. Our collective consciousness is slathered with pithy quotes from Newton, Einstein, Edison, and a horde of others; they speak of standing on the shoulders of giants, of dogged persistence in the face of apparent defeat, of sweat and work and getting back up after we’ve been kicked down and beaten a little bit.

“All the great people became great not because they had some magic recipe for perfection, but because they had mastered fallibility.”

“You have a life. It’s a precious thing, and it’s yours. Make the most of it. Don’t give it up, don’t waste it on things you don’t value, regardless of what others demand from you. Work with others when you can, love and give yourself to them as they deserve – but always by the standard of what is best for your own life. The purpose of ethics is to help you find and enjoy what is best, not to sacrifice it. Pursuing your happiness, taking full responsibility for it, is a worthy and challenging task. It will take thought and effort, it will take ambition and courage, it will take everything you have, and if you succeed you will have the right to be proud, morally proud, of what you have accomplished.” (Source)

“We know that reality is a tradeoff machine. Anything that consumes energy or information requires a tradeoff. New powers will generate new problems, and incur new costs elsewhere. You can’t be infinite in all directions.” (Source)

Thomas Sowell, economist and author:

“There are no solutions…there are only trade-offs.”