"The ideal tool kit contains two items - a hammer and a roll of duct tape. If it moves and shouldn't, use the tape. If it doesn't move and should, use the hammer." -Mechanic's joke.
"If you can't fix it with a hammer, what you have is an electrical problem." -Mechanic's joke
"Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard." -H. L. Mencken
"Fiction suffers from the necessity to be believable. Fact suffers no such handicap." -I don't remember who said this, but I like it.
"All government, in its essence, is a conspiracy against the superior man: its one permanent object is to oppress him and cripple him. If it be aristocratic in organization, then it seeks to protect the man who is superior only in law against the man who is superior in fact; if it be democratic, then it seeks to protect the man who is inferior in every way against both. One of its primary functions is to regiment men by force, to make them as much alike as possible and as dependent upon one another as possible, to search out and combat originality among them. All it can see in an original idea is potential change, and hence an invasion of its prerogatives. The most dangerous man to any government is the man who is able to think things out for himself, without regard to the prevailing superstitions and taboos. Almost inevitably he comes to the conclusion that the government he lives under is dishonest, insane and intolerable, and so, if he is romantic, he tries to change it. And even if he is not romantic personally he is very apt to spread discontent among those who are." -H. L. Mencken
"Do not handicap your children by making their lives too easy." -Robert A. Heinlein (speaking as Lazarus Long)
"The only good bureaucrat is one with a pistol at his head. Put it in his hand and it's good-bye to the Bill of Rights." -H. L. Mencken
"Democracy is the art of running the circus from the monkey cage." -H. L. Mencken
"My old suggestion that public offices be filled by drawing lots, as a jury box is filled, was probably more intelligent than I suspected. It has been criticized on the ground that selecting a man at random would probably produce some extremely bad State governors. [...] But I incline to believe that it would be best to choose members of the Legislature quite at random. No matter how stupid they were, they could not be more stupid than the average legislator under the present system. Certainly, they'd be measurably more honest, taking one with another. Finally, there would be the great advantage that all of them had got their jobs unwillingly, and were eager, not to spin out their sessions endlessly, but to get home as soon as possible." -H. L. Mencken
"Every law that was ever written opened up a new way to graft." -R. A. Heinlein
"We lived like that "Happy Family" you sometimes see in traveling zoos: a lion caged with a lamb. It is a startling exhibit but the lamb has to be replaced frequently." -R. A. Heinlein
"I would say that my position is not too far from that of Ayn Rand's; that I would like to see government reduced to no more than internal police and courts, external armed forces — with the other matters handled otherwise. I'm sick of the way the government sticks its nose into everything, now." -R. A. Heinlein, ca. late 1980's
"Take sides! Always take sides! You will sometimes be wrong — but the man who refuses to take sides must always be wrong." -R. A. Heinlein
"Morals — all correct moral laws — derive from the instinct to survive. Moral behavior is survival behavior above the individual level." -R. A. Heinlein
"Any government will work if authority and responsibility are equal and coordinate. This does not insure 'good' government; it simply insures that it will work. But such governments are rare — most people want to run things but want no part of the blame. This used to be called the 'backseat-driver syndrome.' " -R. A. Heinlein
"A monarch's neck should always have a noose around it. It keeps him upright." -R. A. Heinlein
"Reader, suppose you were an idiot. And suppose you were a member of Congress. But I repeat myself. " -Mark Twain
"I am opposed to millionaires, but it would be dangerous to offer me the position." -Mark Twain
"Rules are passed by Man, Laws are passed by God. Laws may not under any circumstances, be broken. Rules may be bent, bent severely, or even broken wholly. However, breaking a rule requires perfect execution. For instance, when flying under a bridge, it is critical to not hit the bridge." -Pilot's Maxim
"The three most useless things to a pilot: the altitude above you, the runway behind you, and five seconds ago."
"Old cops, bold cops, but no old bold cops." -Police Officer's Rule for Living to Retirement
