Metaphor allows the mind to use a few basic ideas--substance, location, force, goal--to understand more abstract domains. Combinatorics allows a finite set of simple ideas to give rise to an infinite set of complex ones. -- Steven Pinker, The Stuff of Thought To abolish that taxation which, acting and reacting, now hampers every wheel of exchange and presses upon every form of industry, would be like removing an immense weight from a powerful spring. Imbued with fresh energy, production would start into new life, and trade would receive a stimulus which would be felt to the remotest arteries. -- Henry George, Poverty and Progress [on shifting taxation off labor and capital onto economic land, emphasis mine] I think it's appropriate to call [suburbia] the greatest misallocation of resources in the history of the world. -- James Howard Kunstler, TED 2004 "I have done that," says my memory. "I cannot have done that," says my pride, and remains adamant. At last, memory yields. -- Friedrich Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil Knowledge forbidden? Suspicious. -- Satan, Paradise Lost, John Milton There's nothing that causes so much harm as good intentions. -- Milton Friedman Free trade consists simply in letting people buy and sell as they want to buy and sell. Protective tariffs are as much applications of force as are blockading squadrons, and their objective is the same -- to prevent trade. The difference between the two is that blockading squadrons are a means whereby nations seek to prevent their enemies from trading; protective tariffs are a means whereby nations attempt to prevent their own people from trading. -- Henry George, Protection or Free Trade 1886 Underlying most arguments against the free market is a lack of belief in freedom itself. -- Milton Friedman The Single Tax will wait, I fancy, for years, since it is so fundamental and mankind never attacks fundamental problems until it has exhausted all the superficial ones. --Brand Whitlock I have common sense, so I am forever barred from public office. -- I forget who. The Fountain (2006) Izzi: [as a vision of Izzi in 2500] Finish it. Tom Creo: Stop... Stop it! [he rises from beside the tree and marches to her] Tom Creo: What do you want? Leave me, leave me alone! Please, please... It's not my... [kneels and breaks into sobs] Izzi: [she touches his head with a robed arm; he looks up and sees Queen Isabella, smiles, and stands] Will you deliver Spain from bondage? Tom Creo: I don't know... I'm trying, trying... I don't know how. Izzi: You do. You will. [cut to Tom, then cut to Izzi] Izzi: You do... You will. [silent flashbacks; Izzi's voiceover: "I'm not afraid anymore, Tommy."] Tom Creo: I'm going to die. [Izzi smiles] Tom Creo: I'm going to die! [he smiles, laughing] Izzi: Together we will live forever. [sheds a tear] Tom Creo: Forever. [smiling] Izzi: [as Queen Isabella] Forever. Tom Creo: [walks back to the Tree] Forever. [looks at it] Tom Creo: We will live forever. Izzi: [as Izzi] Finish it. Tom Creo: OK The Fountain (2006) Lord of Xibalba: Death is the Road to Awe. I distrust those people who know so well what God wants them to do, because I notice it always coincides with their own desires. -- Susan B. Anthony, 1896 |