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IDAHO
IDEALISM/IDEALS/IDEALOGY/IDEAS
IDENTITY --- IDIOTS

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IDAHO

see: "PLACES" for related links


Dice 'em, hash 'em, boil 'em, mash 'em!
Idaho, Idaho, Idaho!
--former Idaho football cheer, quoted in
Charles Kuralt _Dateline America_ [1979]

At the gambling casinos in Ketchum, they took
the big beautiful wheels off the roulette tables
at the end of play every night and locked them
up. Why? Because if they didn't people would
come in and paste numbers on the wheel — say
three or four 27s — and then play that number
the following night, and it would be quite a
while before the dealer realized what had
happened.
--Ernie Pyle (1900—1945)
American journalist and war correspondent.
_Home Country_ [1947]



IDEALISM/IDEALS/IDEALOGY/IDEAS

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see: "OPINIONS"
see: "PURPOSE"
see: "THOUGHT"
see: "BELIEF" for other related links
see: "THE MIND" for other related links
see: "SUCCESS" for other related links


Men love their ideas more than their lives. And
the more preposterous the idea, the more eager
they are to die for it. And to kill for it.
--Edward Abbey (1927—1989)
American author.
_A Voice Crying in the Wilderness_ [1989], ch. 3, "Government and Politics"

Not to engage in this pursuit of ideas
is to live like ants instead of like men.
--Mortimer J. Adler (1902—2001)
American philosopher, educator, and editor.
_Saturday Review_ [22 November 1958]

Nothing is more dangerous than an
idea, when you have only one idea.
--Alain (1868—1951) [pseudonym of Ιmile-Auguste Chartier]
French poet and philosopher.
_Propos sur le Religion_, no. 74 [1938]

Timeo hominem unius libri.
(Beware of the man of one book.)
--attributed to St. Thomas Aquinas (1225—1274)
Catholic philosopher and theologian.

The freethinking of one age is the common sense of the next.
--Matthew Arnold (1822—1888)
English Victorian poet and literary and social critic.
_God and the Bible: A Review of Objections ..._ [1875]

A man would do well to carry a pencil in his pocket and
write down the thoughts of the moment. Those that come
unsought for are commonly the most valuable, and should
be secured, because they seldom return.
--Francis Bacon (1561—1626)
English philosopher and essayist.
Attributed in _Extracts from Ancient and Modern
Authors_ [E. Bridgewater, London, 1828].

A new idea does not gain acceptance by convincing
its opponents. A new idea gains acceptance because
its opponents eventually die and a new generation is
born that is familiar with it.
--attributed to Niels Bohr (1885—1962)
Danish physicist.

The more an idea is developed, the more concise
becomes its expression; the more a tree is pruned,
the better is the fruit.
--Alfred Bougeart (1815—1882)
French writer.
Attributed in J. De Finod (collected and translated by)
_A Thousand Flashes of French Wit, Wisdom, and Wickedness_, p. 66 [1881].

A new idea is delicate. It can be killed by a sneer
or a yawn; it can be stabbed to death by a quip
and worried to death by a frown.
--Charles H. Brower (1901—1984)
American advertising executive and author.
Quoted in Harold R. Buhl _Creative Engineering Design_, p. 97 [1960].

It is a common saying that thought is free. A man can never
be hindered from thinking whatever he chooses so long as he
conceals what he thinks. The working of his mind is limited
only by the bounds of his experience and the power of his
imagination. But this natural liberty of private thinking is of
little value. It is unsatisfactory and even painful to the thinker
himself, if he is not permitted to communicate his thoughts to
others, and it is obviously of no value to his neighbors.
Moreover it is extremely difficult to hide thoughts that have
any power over the mind. If a man's thinking leads him to call
in question ideas and customs which regulate the behavior of
those about him, to reject beliefs which they hold, to see better
ways of life than those they follow, it is almost impossible for
him, if he is convinced of the truth of his own reasoning, not
to betray by silence, chance words, or general attitude that he
is different from them and does not share their opinions. Some
have preferred, like Socrates, some would prefer today, to face
death rather than conceal their thoughts. Thus freedom of
thought, in any valuable sense, includes freedom of speech.
--J. B. [John Bagnell] Bury (1861—1927)
American historian, classical scholar, and philologist.
_A History of Freedom of Thought_, ch. 1 [1913]

Inside every cynical person, there
is a disappointed idealist.
--attributed to George Carlin (1937—2008)
American stand-up comedian and author.

No folly is more costly than the folly of intolerant idealism.
--Winston Churchill (1874—1965)
British Conservative statesman and Prime Minister [1940—1945, 1951—1955].
Quoted in "The Golden Book Magazine" [1930].

My son is twenty-two years old. If he had not become a Communist at
twenty-two I would have disowned him. If he is still a Communist at
thirty, I will do it then.
--Georges Clemenceau (1841—1929)
French statesman.
Attributed in Bennett Cerf _Try and Stop Me_ [1944].

The accumulation of wealth cannot be justified as the
chief end of existence. ... So long as wealth is made
the means and not the end, we need not greatly fear
it. ... It is only those who do not understand the
American people who believe that our national life
is entirely absorbed by material motives. We make
no concealment of the fact that we want wealth, but
there are many other things we want much more. We
want peace and honor, and that charity which is so
strong an element in all civilization. The chief
ideal of the American people is idealism. That is
the only motive to which they give any strong and
lasting reaction.
--Calvin Coolidge (1872—1933)
American Republican statesman and President [1923—1929].
In his "The chief business of the American people is business" speech.

There is no force so powerful as
an idea whose time has come.
--Everett McKinley Dirksen (1896—1959)
American congressman and senator.
Referring to the Civil Rights Bill in a 1964 speech in the U.S. Senate.

Mr. Kremlin himself was distinguished for ignorance,
for he had only one idea, and that was wrong.
--Benjamin Disraeli (1804—1881)
British Tory statesman, novelist, and Prime Minister [1868, 1874—1880].
_Sybil_, bk. IV, ch. 5 [1845]

Men over forty are no judges of
a book written in a new spirit.
--Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803—1882)
American philosopher and poet.
_Lectures and Biographical Sketches_ [1883] "The Man of Letters"

The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold
two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time, and
still retain the ability to function.
--F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896—1940)
American novelist.
"The Crack-Up" in _Esquire_ [February 1936].

Idealism increases in direct proportion
to one's distance from the problem.
--John Galsworthy (1867—1933)
British author and winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature.
Quoted in "The Golden Book Magazine" [1933].

Political tags — such as royalist, communist, democrat,
populist, fascist, liberal, conservative, and so forth — are
never basic criteria. The human race divides politically
into those who want people to be controlled and those
who have no such desire. The former are idealists acting
from highest motives for the greatest good of the greatest
number. The latter are surely curmudgeons, suspicious
and lacking in altruism. But they are more comfortable
neighbors than the other sort.
--Robert Heinlein (1907—1988)
American science-fiction writer.
_The Notebooks of Lazarus Long_ [1978]

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[W]hen we renounce the self and become part of a compact
whole, we not only renounce personal advantage but are
also rid of personal responsibility. There is no telling to what
extremes of cruelty and ruthlessness a man will go when he
is freed from the fears, hesitations, doubts and the vague
stirrings of decency that go with individual judgement. When
we lose our individual independence in the corporateness of
a mass movement, we find a new freedom — freedom to hate,
bully, lie, torture, murder and betray without shame and
remorse. Herein undoubtedly lies part of the attractiveness
of a mass movement.
--Eric Hoffer (1902—1983)
American longshoreman, philosopher, and author who
received the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1982.
_The True Believer: Thoughts On The Nature Of Mass Movements_ [1951]


The great crimes of the twentieth century were
committed not by money-grubbing capitalists but
by dedicated idealists. Lenin, Stalin, and Hitler
were contemptuous of money. The passage from
the nineteenth to the twentieth century has been
a passage from considerations of money to
considerations of power. How naοve the clichι
that money is the root of evil!
--Eric Hoffer (1902—1983)
American longshoreman, philosopher, and author who
received the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1982.
_Working and Thinking on the Waterfront_ [1969]

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Many ideas grow better when transplanted into another mind
than in the one where they sprung up. That which was a weed
in one intelligence becomes a flower in the other.
--Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (1809—1894)
American physician, poet, and essayist.
_The Poet at the Breakfast-Table_ [1872]


There never was an idea started that woke
up men out of their stupid indifference but
its originator was spoken of as a crank.
--Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (1809—1894)
American physician, poet, and essayist.
_Over the Teacups_ [1891]

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A fixed idea ends in madness or heroism.
--Victor Hugo (1802—1885)
French poet, dramatist, and novelist.
_Quatrevingt-treize_ (Ninety-Three) [1874]


A stand can be made against invasion by an army;
no stand can be made against invasion by an idea.
--Victor Hugo (1802—1885)
French poet, dramatist, and novelist.
_Histoire d'un Crime_ [1877]

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An idea, to be suggestive, must come to the
individual with the force of a revelation.
--William James (1842—1910)
American philosopher.
_The Varieties of Religious Experience: A Study in Human
Nature_ (Lectures delivered in 1901 and 1902.)

That fellow seems to me to possess but
one idea, and that is a wrong one.
--Samuel Johnson (1709—1784)
English poet, critic, and lexicographer.
On a 'dull, tiresome' acquaintance, quoted by Rev. Dr. Maxwell
[1770] in James Boswell _The Life of Samuel Johnson_ [1791].

Abuse of words, foundation of idealogy.
--Joseph Joubert (1754—1824)
French philosopher.
_Pensιes_ [1838], tr. Paul Auster [1983]

Every form of addiction is bad, no matter whether
the narcotic be alcohol or morphine or idealism.
--Carl Gustav Jung (1875-1961)
Swiss psychologist.
_Erinnerungen, Trδume, Gedanken_ (Memories, Dreams, Reflections), ch. 12. [1963]

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What is objectionable, what is dangerous, about
extremists is not that they are extreme, but that
they are intolerant. The evil is not what they
say about their cause, but what they say about
their opponents.
--Robert F. Kennedy (1925—1968)
American Democratic politician
_The Pursuit of Justice_, pt. 3 "Extremism, Left and Right" [1964]


It is from numberless diverse acts of courage and belief that
human history is shaped. Each time a man stands up for an
ideal, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against
injustice, he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope, and crossing
each other from a million different centers of energy and daring,
those ripples can sweep down the mightiest walls of repression
and resistance.
--Robert F. Kennedy (1925—1968)
American Democratic politician.
"Day of Affirmation" address, University of Capetown, South Africa,
[6 June 1966]. The first two sentences of this quotation are inscribed
on the Robert F. Kennedy gravesite in Arlington National Cemetary - Q.

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Madmen in authority, who hear voices in the air,
are distilling their frenzy from some academic
scribbler of a few years back.
--John Maynard Keynes (1883—1946)
English economist.
_General Theory_ [1947 ed.]

I submit to you that if a man hasn't discovered
something he will die for, he isn't fit to live.
--Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929—1968)
American civil rights leader.
Speech in Detroit [23 June 1963].

It is not the murderers, the criminals, the
delinquents and the wildly nonconformist who
have embarked on the really significant rampages
of killing, torture and mayhem. Rather it is the
conformist, virtuous citizens, acting in the name
of righteous causes and intensely held beliefs,
who throughout history have perpetrated the fiery
holocausts of war, the religious persecutions,
the sacks of cities, the wholesale rape of women,
the dismemberment of the old and the young and
the other unspeakable horrors... The crimes of
violence committed for selfish, personal motives
are historically insignificant compared to those
committed 'ad majorem gloriam Dei', out of a self-
sacrificing devotion to a flag, a leader, a religious
faith, a political conviction.
--Arthur Koestler (1905—1983)
Hungarian-born British novelist, journalist, and critic.
_The Ghost in the Machine_ [1967]

The fonder you are of your ideals, the greater your heart breaks.
--Lin Yutang (1895—1976)
Chinese writer and philogist.
_Between Tears and Laughter_, p. 6 [1943, 2005 ed.]

He has honor if he holds himself to an ideal of
conduct though it is inconvenient, unprofitable,
or dangerous to do so.
--Walter Lippmann (1889—1974)
American journalist.
_A Preface to Morals_ [1929]

New opinions are always suspected, and usually opposed,
without any other reason but because they are not
already common.
--John Locke (1632—1704)
English political and educational philosopher.
"An Essay Concerning Human Understanding" [1690]

Every reiteration of the idea that nothing
matters debases the human spirit.
--David Mamet (b. 1947)
American playwright and screenwriter.
_Writing in Restaurants_ [1986]

An idea isn't responsible for the people who believe in it.
--Don Marquis (1878—1937)
American poet and journalist.
Quoted in Herbert V. Prochnow
_The Complete Toastmaster: A New Treasury for Speakers_ [1960].

Every thought is a seed. If you plant crab apples,
don't count on harvesting Golden Delicious.
--attributed to Bill Meyer,
in Donald M. Dible _Build a Better You - Starting Now!_ [1980].

That which seems the height of absurdity in one
generation often becomes the height of wisdom
in the next.
--attributed to John Stuart Mill (1806—1873)
English philosopher and social reformer.

You cannot put a rope around the neck of an idea; you
cannot put an idea up against the barrack-square wall
and riddle it with bullets; you cannot confine it in
the strongest prison cell that your slaves could ever
build.
--Sean O'Casey (1880—1964)
Irish dramatist and memorist.
_The Story of Thomas Ashe_ [1917]

And what, incidentally, do you think integrity
is? The ability not to pick a watch out of your
neighbor's pocket? No, it's not as easy as that.
If that were all, I'd say that ninety-five percent
of humanity were honest, upright men. Only,
as you can see, they aren't. Integrity is the
ability to stand by an idea.
--Ayn Rand (1905—1982)
Russian-born American writer.
_The Fountainhead_ [1943] Part Two, "Ellsworth M. Toohey", ch. 10

Some men can live up to their loftiest ideals
without ever going higher than a basement.
--attributed to Theodore Roosevelt (1858—1919)
American Republican statesman and President [1901—1909].

In our ideals we unwittingly reveal our vices.
--Jean Rostand (1894—1977)
French biologist and philosopher.
Attributed in Auriel Douglas
_Webster's New World Best Book of Aphorisms_ [1989].

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It seems to be the fate of idealists to obtain what they
have struggled for in a form which destroys their ideals.
--Bertrand Russell (1872—1970)
British philosopher, mathematician, and Nobel laureate.
_Marriage and Morals_, ch. 7 [1929]


Much that passes as idealism is disguised
hatred or disguised love of power.
--Bertrand Russell (1872—1970)
British philosopher, mathematician, and Nobel laureate.
_Human Society in Ethics and Politics_ [1954]

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The well-meaning contention that all ideas
have equal merit seems to me little different
from the disastrous contention that no ideas
have any merit.
--Carl Sagan (1934—1996)
American astronomer and author.
_Broca's Brain: Reflections on the Romance of Science_ [1979]

It takes a wonderful brain and exquisite
senses to produce a few stupid ideas.
--George Santayana (1863—1952)
Spanish-born philosopher and critic.
_The Life of Reason_ [1905]

It seemed like a good idea ... at the time.
--John Monk Saunders (1895—1940)
American writer.
_Single Lady_, ch. 12 [1931], (Ellipsis in original.)

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You see things; and you say 'Why?'
But I dream things that never were;
and I say 'Why not?'
--George Bernard Shaw (1856—1950)
Irish comic dramatist, literary critic, Socialist
propagandist, and winner of the Nobel Prize
for Literature in 1925 [he didn't accept it.]
_Back to Methuselah_ [1921]


If you have an apple and I have an apple and we
exchange apples then you and I will still each have
one apple. But if you have an idea and I have an
idea and we exchange these ideas, then each of
us will have two ideas.
--George Bernard Shaw (1856—1950)
Irish dramatist and critic.
Attributed in "Internet Passport: NorthWestNet's Guide to Our World Online" [1993].

perhaps derived from::

If I have an apple and you have an apple and we exchange
apples — then you have an apple and I have an apple. But
if I have the idea that the apple is red and you have the idea
that the apple is small and we exchange ideas, then you have
two ideas and I have two ideas.
--anon.
In "Phi Kappa Phi Journal" [1952]

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Men think that evil must come in the disguise of
a germ, or a bomb, or a raid, or an explosion, or
a train wreck, or a bank failure, forgetful that
the greatest grief can come to man under the
disguise of human ideals.
--Fulton John Sheen (1895—1979)
Roman Catholic bishop; the first popular preacher to appear on television.
_For God and Country_ [1941]

When they come downstairs from their Ivory Towers,
idealists are very apt to walk straight into the gutter.
--Logan Pearsall Smith (1865—1946)
American-born man of letters.
_Afterthoughts_ [1931] "Other People"

To do evil a human being must first of all
believe that what he's doing is good. ...
Ideology — that is what gives evildoing
its long-sought justification and gives the
evildoer the necessary steadfastness and
determination. That is the social theory
which helps to make his acts seem good
instead of bad in his own and others' eyes,
so that he won't hear reproaches and
curses but will receive praise and honors.
--Alexander Solzhenitsyn (b. 1918)
Russian novelist.
_The Gulag Archipelago_, ch. 4 [1973]

Ideas are more powerful than guns. We would
not let our enemies have guns, why should we
let them have ideas.
--attributed to Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin (1879—1953),
Soviet Communist leader and head of the USSR from
the death of V. I. Lenin (1924) until his own death.

The man with a new idea is a
Crank until the idea succeeds.
--Mark Twain [Samuel Langhorne Clemens] (1835—1910)
American humorist, novelist, journalist, and river pilot.
_Following the Equator_ [1897], ch. 32, epigraph

Human beings are perhaps never more frightening than
when they are convinced beyond doubt that they are right.
--Laurens van der Post (1906—1996)
South African explorer and writer.
_The Lost World of the Kalahari_, ch. 3 [1958]

From the saintly and single-minded idealist
to the fanatic is often but a step.
--Friedrich A. von Hayek (1899—1992)
Austrian-born British economist; co-winner of the
1974 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics.
_The Road to Selfdom_ [1944]

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The value of an idea has nothing whatever to do
with the sincerity of the man who expresses it.
--Oscar Wilde (1854—1900)
Anglo-Irish dramatist and poet.
_The Picture of Dorian Gray_ [1891]


We are all in the gutter, but some
of us are looking at the stars.
--Oscar Wilde (1854—1900)
Anglo-Irish dramatist and poet.
_Lady Windermere's Fan_ [1892]


All great ideas are dangerous.
--Oscar Wilde (1854—1900)
Anglo-Irish dramatist and poet.
_De Profundis_ [1905]

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A cult is a religion with no political power.
--Tom Wolfe (b. 1931)
American journalist and novelist.
_In Our Time_ [1980], ch. 2 "Entr'actes and Canapes"

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Great minds discuss ideas; Average minds
discuss events; Small minds discuss people.
--anon.
Hyman G. Rickover in _The Saturday Evening Post_ of 28
November 1959 credits the saying to an "unknown sage".

The aged hold far too obstinately to their outmoded ideas.
Perhaps that is why the natives of the Fiji Islands kill their
parents when they grow old. They facilitate evolution by
garroting their ancestors.
--unattributed in "The New Freeman" [1930—1931 U.S. magazine].


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chimera (noun)
1: A mythical fire-breathing female monster with a lion's
head, a goat's body, and a snake's tail.
Similar: monster, Gorgon
2: a fantastic, often horrible, idea or image produced by
the mind.
Synonyms: specter, apparition, phantasm, phantom
Similar: monster, bugbear, bogeyman, hallucination, nightmare,
bugaboo

crotchet (noun)
An odd, whimsical, or stubborn notion.
Synonyms: oddity, queerness, quirk

felicitous [fuh-LIS-uh-tuhs], adjective:
1. Well suited or expressed; appropriate; apt.
2. Pleasant; delightful; marked by happiness or good fortune.

ideate (transitive verb)
To form a thought or idea of; imagine.

inchoate (adj.)
1. Just beginning to develop.
2. Only partly formed.

inkling (noun)
Faint idea: a vague idea or suspicion about a fact, event, or person.

nascent [NAS-uhnt; NAY-suhnt], adjective:
Beginning to exist or having recently come
into existence; coming into being.

quixotic (adj.) [kwik-'sah-tik]
Naively idealistic; erratic, unpredictable.

syzygy (noun) ['si-zκ-jee]
The alignment of two (or more) celestial bodies, as the moon
and sun are in alignment vis-a-vis the earth during an eclipse;
by extension, any two distinct objects or ideas in alignment
or conjunction with each other.

vacuity (noun)
Lack of ideas: a lack of intelligent or serious content.

zeitgeist (noun)
Ideas and spirit of time: the ideas prevalent in
a period and place, particularly as expressed in
literature, philosophy, and religion.



IDENTITY

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see: "KNOWING (ONESELF)"


"Who are you?" said the Caterpillar.
This was not an encouraging opening for a
conversation. Alice replied, rather shyly, "I
— I hardly know, Sir, just at present — at least
I know who I was when I got up this morning,
but I think I must have been changed several
times since then."
--Lewis Carroll [Charles Lutwidge Dodgson] (1832—1898)
English writer and logician.
_Alice's Adventures in Wonderland_ [1865]

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Je pense, donc je suis.
I think, therefore I am.
--Renι Descartes (1596—1650)
French philosopher and mathematician.
(Usually quoted as 'Cogito, ergo sum' from the 1641 Latin edition.)
_Discourse on Method and the Meditations_ [1637]

& see:

Cogito cogito ergo cogito sum. — I think
that I think, therefore, I think that I am.
--Ambrose Bierce (1842—1914)
American newspaperman, wit, and satirist.
_The Devil's Dictionary_ [1911]

& see:

Cogito sum, ergo sum cogito. — I think
I am. Therefore, I am . . . I think.
--attributed to George Carlin (1937—2008)
American stand-up comedian and author.

& see:

I don't think, so, therefore I'm probably not.
--attributed to Alan Smithee

& see:

Cogito eggo sum.
(I think, therefore I am a waffle.)
--anon.

& finally:

I am, because my little dog knows me.
--Gertrude Stein (1874—1946)
American writer.
"Identity"

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There's as much difference between us and
ourselves as between us and others.
--Michel Eyquem de Montaigne (1533—1592)
French moralist and essayist.
_Essais_ (Essays) [pub. 1580—1588].



IDIOTS

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see: "FOOLS"
see: "IGNORANCE"
see: "STUPIDITY"
see: "THE MIND" for other related links


Outside of the killings [Washington, D.C.] has
one of the lowest crime rates in the country.
--Marion Barry (b. 1936)
Mayor of Washington DC [1979—1991 & 1995—1999].
Quoted in "Chicago Tribune" [28 March 1989].

I'm obsessed with ice cubes. ... Ice is very much
like flowers. It just dies at a certain point. But
you know what's weird? You can bring it back
to life. Just by freezing it. Ice, I worship it.
--attributed to Drew Barrymore (b. 1975)
American actress.

To generalize is to be an idiot. To particularize is the
alone distinction of merit — general knowledges are
those knowledges that idiots possess.
--William Blake (1757—1827)
English poet.
"Annotations to The Works of Sir Joshua Reynolds" [c. 1798—1809]

[Rufus T. Firefly (Groucho Marx):]
Chicolini here may talk like an idiot, and look like
an idiot, but don't let that fool you. He really is
an idiot.
--"Duck Soup" [1933 film]
Screenplay by Bert Kalmar and Harry Ruby.

By dint of railing at idiots, one runs
the risk of becoming idiotic oneself.
--Gustave Flaubert (1821—1880)
French novelist.
Attributed by Irving Babbitt; quoted in Josephine
Ketcham Piercy _Modern Writers at Work_ [1930].

Man is a clever animal who behaves like an imbecile.
--Albert Schweitzer (1875—1965)
Franco-German theologian, philosopher, and mission doctor.
Quoted in James Cameron
_Point of Departure: An Attempt at Autobiography_ [1967].

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I have defined the 100 per cent American as 99 per cent an idiot.
--George Bernard Shaw (1856—1950)
Irish dramatist and critic.
In "N.Y. Times" [19 December 1930].


The world is populated in the main by people who should not exist.
--attributed to George Bernard Shaw (1856—1950)
Irish comic dramatist, literary critic, Socialist
propagandist, and winner of the Nobel Prize
for Literature in 1925 [he didn't accept it.]

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Smoking . . . kills you, and if you are killed, you
have lost a very important part of your life.
--Brooke Shields (b. 1965)
American actress.
Testimony at the House of Representatives [25 June 1981].

It was like a trip into the future. I could write
a mile and not tell all that makes me glad these
days. I have seen the future; and it works.
--Lincoln Steffens (1866—1936)
American journalist.
In a letter to Marie Howe, during his visit to Russia [3 April 1919].

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In the first place God made idiots. That was
for practice. Then He made School Boards.
--Mark Twain [Samuel Langhorne Clemens] (1835—1910)
American humorist, novelist, journalist, and river pilot.
_Following the Equator_ [1897], ch. 61 epigraph: "Pudd'nhead Wilson's New Calendar"


Suppose you were an idiot. And suppose you were
a member of Congress. But I repeat myself.
--Mark Twain [Samuel Langhorne Clemens] (1835—1910)
American humorist, novelist, journalist, and river pilot.
Quoted in Albert Bigelow Paine _Mark Twain: A Biography_ [1912].

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The main difference between men and women
is that men are lunatics and women are idiots.
--Dame Rebecca West [Cecily Isabel Fairfiield] (1892—1983)
British-Irish journalist, novelist, and critic.
_Black Lamb and Grey Falcon_ [1941], as quoted in "Harpers" [1945].

--

See the happy moron,
He doesn't give a damn.
I wish I were a moron —
My God, perhaps I am!
--rhyme

-----

flibbertigibbet [FLIB-ur-tee-jib-it], noun:
A silly, flighty, or scatterbrained person, especially
a pert young woman with such qualities.


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