Apropos of completely nothing (aside from my wanting to spark a discussion of the rampant anti-intellectualism that runs through the Republican Party), I discovered a page of Dan Quayle quotes that I had to share (you remember Dan Quayle, don't you, former V.P. of the United States?).Each of these quotes are gems in their own right. Some are very (unintentionally) zen-like and read like mind-cleansing Buddhist koans.
Here are several examples (although I encourage you to follow the link and read them all):
"When I have been asked during these last weeks who caused the riots and the killing in L.A., my answer has been direct and simple: Who is to blame for the riots? The rioters are to blame. Who is to blame for the killings? The killers are to blame."
"Verbosity leads to unclear, inarticulate things."
"Mars is essentially in the same orbit... Mars is somewhat the same distance from the Sun, which is very important. We have seen pictures where there are canals, we believe, and water. If there is water, that means there is oxygen. If oxygen, that means we can breathe."
"What a waste it is to lose one's mind. Or not to have a mind is being very wasteful. How true that is."
"I believe we are on an irreversible trend toward more freedom and democracy - but that could change."
"The Holocaust was an obscene period in our nation's history. I mean in this century's history. But we all lived in this century. I didn't live in this century."
Oh, the stupid, it burns!!!!
ReplyDeleteA slow news day - eh, George? America loved Quayle so much, they elected Dubya.
ReplyDeleteHeh, well -- I thought the site could use some comic relief. Sorry for the light blogging -- I'm busy preparing for TransVision 07 -- but that should yield some good posts in the future.
ReplyDeleteCheers,
George
Donald Rumsfeld is his intellectual heir, a la the Zen-like quality of the comments. I swear a few years ago somebody published a book called The Tao of Rumsfeld, although it doesn't come up on Amazon.com, even as being out of print. Here are a few good ones:
ReplyDelete"I would not say that the future is necessarily less predictable than the past. I think the past was not predictable when it started."
"[Osama Bin Laden is] either alive and well or alive and not too well or not alive."
"I believe what I said yesterday. I don't know what I said, but I know what I think, and, well, I assume it's what I said."
"Reports that say that something hasn't happened are always interesting to me, because as we know, there are known knowns; there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns -- the ones we don't know we don't know."
"I don't know what the facts are but somebody's certainly going to sit down with him and find out what he knows that they may not know, and make sure he knows what they know that he may not know."
And my favorite...
"Learn to say 'I don't know.' If used when appropriate, it will be often."
Heh, thanks for that, Martin.
ReplyDeleteMartin,
ReplyDeleteThe book of Rumsfeld poetry is called "Pieces of Intelligence: The Existential Poetry of Donald Rumsfeld"