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PROGRESS --- PROHIBITION
PROMISE --- PROOF --- PROPAGANDA

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PROGRESS

see: "CHANGE"
see: "DISCOVERY"
see: "GROWING"
see: "IMPROVEMENT"
see: "REFORM"
see: "SELF-IMPROVEMENT"
see: "TECHNOLOGY"
see: "SUCCESS" for other related links


Slow and steady wins the race.
--Ζsop (c.620 B.C.—c.560 B.C.)
(Thought to be a legendary figure.)
_Ζsop's Fables_
"The Hare and the Tortoise"

That's one small step for man,
one giant leap for mankind.
--Neil Armstrong (b. 1930)
American astronaut.
When stepping onto the moon, in "New York Times" [21 July 1969];
interference in the transmission obliterated _a_ between "for" and
"man."

Discontent is the source of all trouble, but also
of all progress in individuals and in nations.
--Berthold Auerbach (1812—1882)
German novelist.
Attributed in Maturin M. Ballou _Edge-Tools of Speech_, p. 108 [1886].

Here is a test to find whether your mission
on earth is finished: If you're alive, it isn't.
--Richard Bach (1936— )
American writer.
_Illusions_ [1977], Ch. 15

The exact measure of the progress of civilization is the
degree in which the intelligence of the common mind
has prevailed over wealth and brute force.
--George Bancroft (1800—1891)
American historian and public official.
Speech to the Adelphi Society, Liamstown College [August 1835].

Now, *here* you see, it takes all the running *you* can do,
to keep in the same place. If you want to get somewhere else,
you must run at least twice as fast as that!
--Lewis Carroll [Charles Lutwidge Dodgson] (1832—1898)
English writer and logician.
_Thorough the Looking-Glass_, ch. 2 [1872]

Woman stock is rising in the market. I shall
not live to see women vote, but I'll come
and rap at the ballot box.
--Lydia Marie Child (1802—1880)
Amercan abolitionist and suffragist.
Letter to Sarah Shaw [3 August 1856].

If man is not rising upwards to be an angel,
depend on it, he is sinking downwards to be
a devil. He cannot stop at the beast.
--Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772—1834)
English poet, critic, and philosopher.
_Table Talk_ [1835] "30 August 1833"

Behold the turtle. He only makes progress
when he sticks his neck out.
--James Bryant Conant (1893—1978)
American chemist, educational administrator, and professor.
Quoted in _The American Treasury: 1455—1955_, ed. Clifton Fadiman [1955].

Progress depends very largely on the encouragement of variety.
Whatever tends to standardize the community, to establish fixed
and rigid modes of thought, tends to fossilize society...It is
the ferment of ideas, the clash of disagreeing judgments, the
privilege of the individual to develop his own thoughts and shape
his own character, that makes progress possible.
--Calvin Coolidge (1872—1933)
American Republican statesman and President [1923—1929].
_Autobiography_ [1929]

If it had not been for the discontent of a few fellows
who have not been satisfied with their condition you
would still be living in caves ... Progress is born of
agitation. It is agitation or stagnation.
--Eugene V. Debs (1855—1926)
American socialist leader.
Speech in Girard, Kansas [23 May 1908],
quoted in _Debs: His Life, Writings and Speeches_ [1908].

'Tis wonderful how soon a piano gets into a
log hut on the frontier. You would think they
found it under a pine stump.
--Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803—1882)
American philosopher and poet.
"Civilization" _Society and Solitude_ [1870]

Change is not always progress. ... A fever of newness has
been everywhere confused with the spirit of progress.
--Henry Ford (1863—1947)
American car manufacturer.
_Ford Ideals_ [1922]

What progress we are making. In the Middle Ages they would
have burned me. Now they are content with burning my books.
--Sigmund Freud (1856—1939)
Austrian psychiatrist.
[May 1933] (After the Berlin book burning of 10 May.)

I look upon an increase of the power of the State with
the greatest fear, because although while apparently
doing good by minimizing exploitation, it does the
greatest harm to mankind by destroying individuality,
which lies at the root of all progress. We know of
so many cases where men have adopted trusteeship,
but none where the State has really lived for the
poor.
--Mohandas K. Gandhi (1869—1948)
Indian statesman and leader of the nationalistic movement against British rule.
Interview to Nirmal Kumar Bose in
_The Hindustan Times_ [17 October 1935].

The world owes all its onward impulses to men ill
at ease. The happy man inevitably confines himself
within ancient limits.
--Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804—1864)
American novelist and short-story writer.
_The House of the Seven Gables_, ch. 20 [1851]

Progress isn't made by early risers. It's made by lazy
men trying to find easier ways to do something.
--Robert Heinlein (1907—1988)
American science-fiction writer.
_Time Enough for Love_ [1973]

All men's gains are the fruit of venturing.
--attributed to Herodotus (484—c.425 BC)
Greek author of the first great narrative history produced in the ancient world.

By and by we shall have balloons and pass
over to Europe between sun and sun. Oh,
for the good old days of heavy post-coaches
and speed at the rate of six miles an hour!
--Philip Hone (1780—1851)
New York businessman and political leader.
His diary gave a comprehensive description
of New York life during the second quarter
of the nineteenth century.
_Diary_ "28 November 1844"

The slogan of progress is changing from
the full dinner pail to the full garage.
--Herbert Hoover (1874—1964)
American Republican statesman, President 1929—1933.
(Sometimes paraphrased as a "car in every garage and
a chicken in every pot.") Speech in New York City
[22 October 1928.]

The rung of a ladder was never meant to rest upon,
but only to hold a man's foot long enough to enable
him to put the other somewhat higher.
--T.H. (Thomas Henry) Huxley (1825—1895)
English biologist; grandfather of Aldous Huxley.
Address at University College, London [18 May 1870].

If there's nobody in your way, it's because
you're not going anywhere.
--Robert F. Kennedy (1925—1968)
American Democratic politician.
In Elizabeth Dole _Hearts Touched with Fire_, p. 110 [2004].

The means by which we live have outdistanced the ends
for which we live. Our scientific power has outrun our
spiritual power. We have guided missiles and misguided
men.
--Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929—1968)
American civil rights leader.
_Strength to Love_, ch. 7 [1963]

The journey of a thousand miles must
begin with a single step.
--Lao-tzu (c. 6th cent. B.C.)
the first philosopher of Chinese Taoism and alleged author of
the _Tao-te Ching_ (Chinese: Classic of the Way of Power).
_The Way of Lao-tzu_ #64

Is it progress if a cannibal uses knife and fork?
--Stanislaw Jerzy Lec (1909—1966)
Polish writer.
_Unkempt Thoughts_ [1962]

One step forward two steps back.
--V.I. Lenin (1870—1924)
Russian revolutionary and first head of the Soviet state (1917—1924).
(Title of book) [1904]

I am a slow walker, but I never walk backwards.
--Abraham Lincoln (1809—1865)
American Republican statesman, President [1861—1865].

I will go anywhere, provided it is forward.
--David Livingstone (1813—1873)
Scottish missionary and explorer.

And what they dare to dream of, they dare to do.
--James Russell Lowell (1819—1891)
American poet, critic, essayist, and diplomat.

There is nothing more difficult to take in hand, more perilous
to conduct, or more uncertain in its success, than to take the
lead in the introduction of a new order of things. Because the
innovator has for enemies all those who have done well under
the old conditions and lukewarm defenders in those who may
do well under the new.
--Niccolς Machiavelli (1469—1527)
Florentine statesman and political philosopher.
_The Prince_ [written 1513], ch. 6

Let us be frank about it: most of our people
have never had it so good.
--Harold MacMillan (1894—1986)
British Conservative statesman,
Prime Minister [1957—1963].
(Speech at Bedford [20 July 1957]) "You never had it so good"
was the Democratic Party slogan during the 1952 election
campaign.

It is common to assume that human progress affects
everyone - that even the dullest man, in these bright
days, knows more than any man of, say, the Eighteenth
Century, and is far more civilized. This assumption
is quite erroneous. The men of the educated minority,
no doubt, know more than their predecessors, and of
some of them, perhaps, it may be said that they are
more civilized - though I should not like to be put
to giving names - but the great masses of men, even
in this inspired republic, are precisely where the
mob was at the dawn of history. They are ignorant,
they are dishonest, they are cowardly, they are
ignoble. They know little if anything that is worth
knowing, and there is not the slightest sign of a
natural desire among them to increase their knowledge.
--H.L. (Henry Louis) Mencken (1880—1956)
American journalist and literary critic.

The despotism of custom is everywhere the
standing hindrance to human advancement.
--John Stuart Mill (1806—1873)
English philosopher and social reformer.
_On Liberty_, ch. III [1859]

[Groucho Marx speaking:]
I worked myself up from nothing to a state of extreme poverty.
--"Monkey Business" [1931 film]
Screenplay by Will B. Johnstone and S.J. Perelman.

If I have seen further it is by standing
on the shoulders of giants.
--Sir Isaac Newton (1642—1727)
English mathematician and physicist.
Letter to Robert Hooke [5 February 1676].

Take the sum of human achievement in action, in science, in art,
in literature — subtract the work of the men above forty, and
while we should miss great treasures, even priceless treasures,
we would practically be where we are today. [...] The effective,
moving, vitalizing work of the world is done between the ages
of twenty-five and forty.
--Sir William Osler (1849—1919)
Canadian-born physician.
Address at Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Md. [22 February 1905].

If civilization had been left in female hands,
we would still be living in grass huts.
--Camille Paglia (1947— )
American writer and social critic.
_Sexual Personae_, ch. I [1990]
Introduction to _Sex, Art, and American Culture: Essays_ [1992].

The chief product of an automated society is a
widespread and deepening sense of boredom.
--C. Northcote Parkinson (1909—1993)
English writer.
_The Economist_, vol. 303 [1987]

An important scientific innovation rarely makes its way by gradually
winning over and converting its opponents: it rarely happens that
Saul becomes Paul. What does happen is that its opponents
gradually die out and that the growing generation is familiarized
with the idea from the beginning.
--Max Plank [Karl Ernst Ludwig] (1858—1947)
German theoretical physicist who originated
quantum theory; winner of the Nobel Prize
for Physics in 1918.
_The Philosophy of Physics_ [1936]

Any comfortable American who is cynical of progress — or the
competent decency of modern civilization — hasn't pondered
how life was for our ancestors. Any day that cossacks haven't
burned your home should start out a happy one, overflowing
with optimism.
--M.N. Plano, quoted by David Brin, keynote address delivered
to the Libertarian Party National Convention in Indianapolis [5 July 2002].

Never discourage anyone who continually makes
progress, no matter how slow.
--Plato (427?—347 B.C.)
Greek philosopher.

Everything we think of as great has come to us from
neurotics. It is they and they alone who have founded
religions and created great works of art.
--Marcel Proust (1871—1922)
French novelist.
_Le Cτtι de Guermantes_ (The Guermantes Way), pt. 1 [1920]
(According to Ramon Guthrie, "This passage was meant to show
what fools people who are capable of uttering such idiocies are.")

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You can't say civilization don't advance, however,
for in every war they kill you in a new way.
--Will Rogers [William Penn Adair Rogers] (1879—1935)
American humorist and actor.
In "New York Times" [23 December 1929].


We do more talking progress than we do progressing.
--Will Rogers [William Penn Adair Rogers] (1879—1935)
American humorist and actor.
Quoted in Ben Yagoda _Will Rogers: A Biography_ [1993].

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He who cannot change the very fabric of his
thought will never be able to change reality,
and will never, therefore, make any progress.
--Anwar Sadat (1918—1981)
Egyptian politician and Pesident [1970-1981].
_In Search of Identity: An Autobiography_ [1979 ed.]

Progress, far from consisting in change, depends on retentiveness.
When change is absolute there remains no being to improve and
no direction is set for possible improvement: and when experience
is not retained, as among savages, infancy is perpetual. Those who
cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it. In the first
stage of life the mind is frivolous and easily distracted; it misses
progress by failing in consecutiveness and persistence. This is the
condition of children and barbarians, in which instinct has learned
nothing from experience.
--George Santayana (1863—1952)
Spanish-born philosopher and critic.
_Life of Reason_, vol. 1, chap. 12, p. 284 [1905]

Every man takes the limits of his own field
of vision for the limits of the world.
--Arthur Schopenhauer (1788—1860)
German philosopher.
"Psychological Observations" in
_Studies in Pessimism_ [1851], tr. T. Bailey Saunders

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The reasonable man adapts himself to the world;
the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt
the world to himself. Therefore, all progress
depends on the unreasonable man.
--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.]
_Man and Superman_ "Maxims for Revolutionists" [1903, opened in 1905]


Progress is impossible without change; and those who
cannot change their minds, cannot change anything.
--George Bernard Shaw (1856—1950)
Irish dramatist and critic.
_Everybody's Political What's What?_ [1950 ed.]

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All progress has resulted from people who
took unpopular positions.
--Adlai E. Stevenson (1900—1965)
American Democratic politician.
Speech at Princeton University,
New Jersey [22 March 1954].

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It is said to have been reported to one of the Roman
emperors, as a piece of good news, that one of his
subjects had invented a process for manufacturing
unbreakable glass. The emperor gave orders that the
inventor should be put to death and the records of
his invention should be destroyed.

If the invention had been put on the market, the
manufacturers of ordinary glass would have been put
out of business; there would have been unemployment
that would have caused political unrest, and perhaps
revolution.

--Arnold Toynbee (1889—1975)
English historian.
_Change And Habit: The Challenge Of Our Time_ [1966], Chapter 7

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In Italy for thirty years under the Borgias they had warfare,
terror, murder and bloodshed but they produced Michelangelo,
Leonardo da Vinci and the Renaissance. In Switzerland, they
had brotherly love; they had five hundred years of democracy
and peace and what did that produce? The cuckoo clock.
--Orson Welles (1915—1985)
American motion-picture actor, director, producer, and writer.
"The Third Man" [1949 film]
(Words added by Welles to Graham Geene's script - ODTQ.)

Anybody Can Cross the Country, Now, in Fifty Days.
--Literary Digest [1922]



Click picture to ZOOM
PROHIBITION

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see: "ALCOHOL" for related links


Prohibition is an awful flop,
We like it.
It can't stop what it's meant to stop.
We like it.
It's left a trail of graft and slime,
It don't prohibit worth a dime,
It's filled our land with vice and crime,
Nevertheless, we're for it.
--Franklin Pierce Adams (1881—1960)
American columnist and member of the Algonquin Round Table.
_New York World_ [February 1931],
following release of the report by the Wickersham Commission.

Prohibition has diverted the energies of the
Salvation Army from the drunkard in the gutter
to the boys and girls in their teens. The work
of the Army has completely changed in the past
five years since the dry era came into being,
and Prohibition has so materially affected
society that we have girls in our rescue homes
who are 14 and 15 years old, while 10 years
ago the youngest was in the early twenties.
--Colonel William L. Barker,
head of Northern Division, Salvation Army, and organizer of
the Salvation Army Unit in France during the World War.
Testifies that Prohibition is demoralizing boys and girls. In
the St. Cloud, Minn., "Daily Times" [9 February 1925].

Alcohol didn't cause the high crime rates of the
'20s and '30s, Prohibition did. Drugs don't cause
today's alarming crime rates, but drug
prohibtion does.
--David Boaz (b. 1953)
American lawyer.
"The Legalization of Drugs" [27 April 1988],
quoted by Judge James C. Paine, addressing
the Federal Bar Association in Miami [1991].

The prestige of government has undoubtedly been lowered
considerably by the Prohibition law. For nothing is more
destructive of respect for the government and the law of
the land than passing laws which cannot be enforced. It
is an open secret that the dangerous increase of crime
in this country is closely connected with this.
--Albert Einstein (1879—1955)
German-American physicist who developed the
special and general theories of relativity.
"My First Impressions of the U.S.A."
in _Berliner Tageblatt_ [7 July 1921].

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[ . . . ]

In the aught years and teens of the last century, alcohol was an issue fought over with a vigor that makes today's abortion debate seem tame. From late in the 19th century, the temperance movement had gained steam in no small part because the problems flowing from Americans' copious thirst had been compounded by the new density of city living. At the same time, savvy, scientifically minded entrepreneurs were applying new-fangled factory production models to the business of brewing beer. The result: a superabundance of the stuff and a need by the brewers to find outlets. Dozens of brewers competed to see who could build or finance the most saloons to sell their beers.

Soon saloons were everywhere, and no small number of them were actually the seedy dens of vice that the anti-alcohol crowd made them out to be. The temperance movement came into its own when it made as its target not alcohol per se but rather saloons. The Anti-Saloon League, Ms. Ogle notes, pioneered many of the techniques and tactics common to today's single-issue lobbying groups.

Prohibition would likely never have passed if it had come to a direct vote of the people, but the Anti-Saloon League discovered that it could target and intimidate enough lawmakers to get the supermajority necessary for a constitutional amendment.

[ . . . ]

[I]t was World War II that made beer the American drink. In the years after Prohibition ended in 1933, the nation's stocks of whisky and gin were hardly deep. And the war didn't help. After Pearl Harbor, distilleries were turned to war work, producing industrial alcohol with which to make synthetic rubber and torpedo fuel. (The distillers manufacturing this fuel eventually had to introduce noxious chemicals into the mix to discourage submariners from drinking their torpedoes' go-juice.) But beer-making was considered part of the war effort — in no small part because brewers contributed 15% of their output directly to the troops. By the end of the war, civilians and returning soldiers alike had solidified a taste for beer.

--Eric Felten,
reviewing Maureen Ogle's _Ambitious Brew_
"The Wall Street Journal" [October 28, 2006]

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Once, during Prohibition, I was forced to live for
days on nothing but food and water.
--W. C. Fields [William Claude Dukenfield] (1880—1946)
American vaudeville star and film actor.

^

jazzed
corked
potted
boiled as an owl
loaded to the muzzle
loaded for bear
tanked
burning with a blue flame
pie-eyed
slopped
lit
oiled
--Prohibition terms for someone who was drunk,
in Peter Jennings and Todd Brewster _The Century_ [1998] p. 123.

^

This year in October [1613], the Turks observed
their feasts of Bayram ... a Turk having drunk wine
too freely (the drinking whereof is forbidden
amongst them, although they love it well, and
drink in private) was apprehended, and carried
before the Grand Vizier: who seeing the fact
verified, inflicted this punishment upon him, to
have boiling lead poured into his mouth and ears,
the which was speedily executed.
--Richard Knolles (c.1545—1610 )
English historian.
In M.J. Cohan and John Major {eds.} _History in Quotations_ [2004] p. 265.

I'd rather that England should be free than that
England should be compulsorily sober. With freedom
we might in the end attain sobriety, but in the other
alternative we should eventually lose both freedom
and sobriety.
--William Connor Magee (1821—1891)
Irish clergyman of the Anglican church.
Sermon at Peterborough [1868].

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Aurangzeb ... ordered that all Christians, excepting physicians
and surgeons, should leave the city and remove to ... beyond
the suburbs at one league's distance from the city. There they
had leave to prepare and drink spirits on condition they did not
sell them.

After the issue of this order he directed the kotwal [chief of
police] to search Mahomedans and Hindus who sold spirits,
everyone of whom was to lose one hand and one foot ... and
during the period of strictness the nobles, who found it hard
to live without spirits, distilled in their houses, there being few
who do not drink secretly.

--Niccolao Manucci (1639—1717)
Italian writer and traveller.
_Storia do Mogor or Mogul lndia [I705; 1981 edn.] Vol. 2,
in M.J. Cohan and John Major {eds.} _History in Quotations_ [2004].

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Prohibition makes you want to cry into your
beer and denies you the beer to cry into.
--Don Marquis (1878—1937)
American poet and journalist.
"Sun Dial Time" [1936]

Whereas in England all is permitted that is not
expressly prohibited, it has been said that in
Germany all is prohibited unless expressly
permitted and in France all is permitted that
is expressly prohibited. In the European Common
Market no one knows what is permitted and it
all costs more.
--Robert Megarry (1910—2006)
British lawyer and judge.

The sole end for which mankind are warranted, individually or
collectively, in interfering with the liberty of action of any of their
number, is self-protection. The only purpose for which power
can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized
community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others. His
own good, either physical or moral, is not a sufficient warrant.
He cannot rightfully be compelled to do or forbear because it
will be better for him to do so, because it will make him happier,
because, in the opinions of others, to do so would be wise, or
even right. These are good reasons for remonstrating with him,
or reasoning with him, or persuading him, or entreating him, but
not for compelling him, or visiting him with evil in case he do
otherwise. To justify that, the conduct from which it is desired
to deter him must be calculated to produce evil in someone
else. The only part of the conduct of anyone, for which he is
amenable to society, is that which concerns others. In the part
which merely concerns himself, his independence is, of right,
absolute. Over himself, over his own body and mind, the
individual is sovereign.
--John Stuart Mill (1806—1873)
English philosopher and social reformer.
_On Liberty_ [1859], ch. 1

There ain't gonna be no whiskey, there ain't gonna be no gin;
There ain't gonna be no highball to put the whiskey in;
There ain't gonna be no cigarettes to make folks pale and thin;
But you can't take away that tendency to sin, sin, sin.
[alt: There ain't gonna be no women to make you sin, sin, sin.]
--Vaugh Miller [1919 song]

A woman is stripped of everything by them [saloons].
Her husband is torn from her; she is robbed of her
sons, her home, her food, and her virtue; and then
they strip her clothes off and hang her up bare in
these dens of robbery and murder. Truly does the
saloon make a woman bare of all things!
--Carry Nation (Carry Amelia Nation, nθe Moore)
[1846—1911]
American temperance advocate. .
Quoted in Carleton Beals' _Cyclone Carry_ [1962], Ch. 14.

No drug, not even alcohol, causes the fundamental ills
of society. If we're looking for the sources of our troubles,
we shouldn't test people for drugs, we should test them
for stupidity, ignorance, greed, and love of power.
--P.J. O'Rourke (b. 1947)
American political satirist.
_Give War A Chance_ [1992], as quoted in
Robert Andrews _The Columbia Dictionary of Quotations_ [1993].

Tolerance to my mind has been greatly overrated.
. . . I take as much pleasure in detesting the
good brothers and sisters of the [Anti-Saloon]
League as they have in hating me.
--Westbrook Pegler (1884—1969)
American Pulitzer Prize winning journalist and war correspondent.
c.1929, quoted in Oliver Pilat, _Pegler: Angry Man of the Press_ [1963].

Mother's in the kitchen washing out the jugs,
Sister's in the pantry bottling the suds,
Father's in the cellar mixin' up the hops,
Johnny's on the front porch watchin' for the cops.
--Prohibition song

Instead of giving money to found colleges to promote learning,
why don't they pass a constitutional amendment prohibiting
anybody from learning anything? If it works as good as the
Prohibition one did, why, in five years we would have the
smartest race of people on earth.
--attributed to Will Rogers [William Penn Adair Rogers] (1879—1935)
American humorist and actor.

The prohibition law, written for weaklings
and derelicts, has divided the nation, like
Gaul, into three parts — wet, dry, and
hypocrites.
--Florence Sabin (1871—1953)
American anatomist and teacher.
In a speech [9 February 1931].

There is as much chance of repealing the Eighteenth
Amendment [prohibition] as there is for a humming-bird
to fly to the planet Mars with the Washington Monument
tied to its tail.
--Morris Sheppard (1875—1941)
American politician who served as U.S. Senator from Texas [1913—1941].
1930 comment, as quoted in Charles Merz _The Dry Decade_ [1931].

No tendency is quite so strong in human nature as the
desire to lay down rules of conduct for other people.
--William Howard Taft (1857—1930)
27th President of the United States [1909—1913]
and Chief Justice of the Supreme Court [1921—1930].

Prohibition only drives drunkenness behind
doors and into dark places, and does not
cure it or even diminish it.
--Mark Twain [Samuel Langhorne Clemens] (1835—1910)
American humorist, novelist, journalist, and river pilot.
In a letter to the _San Francisco Alta California_ [28 May 1867].

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Opium and morphine are certainly dangerous, habit-
forming drugs. But once the principle is admitted
that it is the duty of the government to protect
the individual against his own foolishness, no
serious objections can be advanced against further
encroachments … Is not the harm a man can inflict
on his mind and soul even more disastrous than any
bodily evils.? Why not prevent him from reading bad
books and bad plays, from looking at bad paintings
and statues and from hearing bad music? The mischief
done by bad ideologies, surely, is much more pernicious
both for the individual and for the whole society,
than that done by narcotic drugs.
--Ludwig von Mises (1881—1973)
Austrian-American liberatarian economist.
_Human Action_


It is an established fact that alcoholism, cocainism, and morphinism
are deadly enemies of life, of health, and of the capacity for work
and enjoyment; and a utilitarian must therefore consider them as
vices. But this is far from demonstrating that the authorities must
interpose to suppress these vices by commercial prohibitions, nor
is it by any means evident that such intervention on the part of
the government is really capable of suppressing them or that,
even if this end could be attained, it might not therewith open
up a Pandora's box of other dangers, no less mischievous than
alcoholism and morphinism.
--Ludwig von Mises (1881—1973)
Austrian-American liberatarian economist.
_Liberalism_ [1927]

-

-

Mother's in the kitchen washing out the jugs,
Sister's in the pantry bottling the suds,
Father's in the cellar mixin' up the hops,
Johnny's on the front porch watchin' for the cops.
--Prohibition song

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enjoin [en-JOIN], transitive verb:
1. To direct or impose with authority; to order.
2. To prohibit; to forbid.

forfend [for-FEND], transitive verb;
also forefend:
1. a. (Archaic) To prohibit; to forbid.
b. To ward off; to prevent; to avert.
2. To defend; to protect; to preserve.

scofflaw (Noun) ['skahf-la or -law]
Someone who scoffs or shows contempt for the law, a law-breaker.
Etymology: In 1923 a wealthy prohibitionist, Delcevare King of Quincy,
Massachusetts, offered $200 for a word that would best describe "a
lawless drinker of illegally made or illegally obtained liquor." On January
15, 1924 the Boston Herald declared "scofflaw" the winner.

verboten [ver-BOHT-n], adjective:
Forbidden, as by law; prohibited.



PROMISE

.
.

see: "INTENTIONS"
see: "CHARACTER" for other related links


Guarantees which are not worth the paper
they are written on.
--Johann Bernhard Graf von Rechberg und Rothenlφwen (1806—1899)
Austrian statesman.
In a dispatch concerning the recognition of Italy [1861].

Oaths are but words, and words but wind.
--Samuel Butler (1612—1680)
English poet and satirist.
"Hudibras" [1663], pt. II, canto II, l. 117 [1663]

What woman says to fond lover should
be written on air or the swift water.
--Gaius Valerius Catullus (c. 84 BC – c. 54 BC)
Latin poet.
"Carmina", LXX. 3, as quoted in Kate Louise Roberts
_Hoyt's New Cyclopedia of Practical Quotations_, p. 466 [1922].

There are two major kinds of promises in politics:
the promises made by candidates to the voters and
the promises made by the candidates to persons and
groups able to deliver the vote. Promises falling into
the latter category are loosely called 'patronage,'
and promises falling into the former category
are most frequently called 'lies.'
--Dick Gregory (1932— )
American comedian and social activist.
_Dick Gregory's Political Primer_ [1972]

And so, standing before the aforesaid officiator, the two swore that at
every other time of their lives till death took them, they would assuredly
believe, feel, and desire precisely as they had believed, felt, and desired
during the few preceding weeks. What was as remarkable as the
undertaking itself was the fact that nobody seemed at all surprised at
what they swore.
--Thomas Hardy (1840—1928)
English novelist and poet.
_Jude the Obscure_, pt. I, ch. 9 [1896]

Financial sense is knowing that certain men
will promise to do certain things, and fail.
--Edgar Watson Howe (1854—1937)
American journalist and author.
Quoted in "The American Magazine" [1915].

An acre of performance is worth a whole world of promise.
--James Howell (1593—1666)
British writer.
Attributed in James Wood (ed.) _Dictionary of Quotations from
Ancient and Modern, English and Foreign Sources_, p. 14 [1893].

All unnecessary vows are folly, because they suppose a
prescience of the future, which has not been given us.
--Samuel Johnson (1709—1784)
English poet, critic, and lexicographer.
Letter to Mrs. Thrale [17 May 1773].

We promise according to our hopes, and
perform according to our fears.
--Franηois de La Rochefoucauld (1613—1680)
French classical author.
_Maxims_ [1665]

We must not promise what we ought not, lest we
be called on to perform what we cannot.
--Abraham Lincoln (1809—1865)
American Republican statesman, President [1861—1865].
Speech in Bloomington, Illinois [29 May 1856].

I'm 1000% for Tom Eagleton and have no
intention of dropping him from the ticket.
--George S. McGovern (1922— )
American politician.
Quoted in "N.Y. Times" [27 July 1972].
Democratic candidate for president McGovern was affirming
his support for running mate Thomas Eagleton. A few days
later McGovern dropped Eagleton from the ticket.

It is easy to promise, and alas! how easy to forget!
--Alfred de Musset (1810—1857)
French poet, dramatist, and author.
Quoted in Maturin M. Ballou _Treasury of Thought_, p. 423 [10th ed. 1884].

Be true to your word and your work and your friend.
--John Boyle O'Reilly (1844—1890)
Irish-born poet and journalist.
"Rules of the Road" in _The Life of John Boyle
O’Reilly_ by James Jeffrey Roche [1891].

Guarantees which are not worth the paper
they are written on.
--Johann Bernhard Graf von Rechberg und Rothenlφwen (1806—1899)
Austrian statesman.
In a dispatch concerning the recognition of Italy [1861].

And be these juggling fiends no more believ'd,
That palter with us in a double sense;
That keep the word of promise to our ear
And break it to our hope.
--William Shakespeare (1564—1616)
English dramatist.
_Macbeth_ [1606], act V, sc. vii

The President has kept all of the promises he intended to keep.
--George Stephanopolous (b. 1961)
American television journalist and political adviser.
Clinton's aide speaking on "Larry King Live" [16 February 1996].

The righteous promise little and perform much, the
wicked promise much and perform not even a little.
---Talmud (A.D.1st—6th cent.)
Rabbinical writings.

-----

conjure (verb) ['kahn-jκ(r)]
1. To swear by oath or something sacred;
2. To entreat or beg someone by some secret or sacred power;
3. To call upon some spirit;
4. To accomplish with the help of unseen spirits or powers.



Click picture to ZOOM
PROOF

.
.

see: "EVIDENCE"


I don't believe it. Prove it to me and I still won't believe it.
--Douglas Adams (1952—2001)
British comic radio dramatist and author.
_Life, the Universe and Everything_ [1982]

The proof of the pudding is in the eating.
--Miguel de Cervantes (1547—1616)
Spanish novelist.
"Don Quixote de la Mancha", pt. I, bk. IV, ch. 10 [1605]

Take nothing on its looks; take everything
on evidence. There's no better rule.
--Charles Dickens (1812—1870)
English novelist.
_Great Expectations_, ch 40 [1861]

Q.E.D. [Quod erat demonstrandum:
Which was to be proved.]
--Euclid (fl. 300 B.C.)
(The most prominent mathematician of Greco-
Roman antiquity, best known for his treatise
on geometry, the _Elements_. - E.B..)
_Elements_ bk. I, proposition 5

It is always better to say right out what you
think without trying to prove anything much:
for all our proofs are only variations of our
opinions, and the contrary-minded listen
neither to one nor the other.
--Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749—1832)
German poet, novelist, and playwright.
Attributed in Rudolf Flesch _The Art of Clear Thinking_ [1951].

If you demand my authorities for this and that, I must reply that
only those who have never hunted up the authorities as I have
believe that there is any authority who is not contradicted flatly
by some other authority.
--George Bernard Shaw (1856—1950)
Irish dramatist and critic.
_Androcles and the Lion_, preface [1912]

-----

confute [kuhn-FYOOT], transitive verb:
To overwhelm by argument; to refute conclusively;
to prove or show to be false.
Ex.: "As he says, a professor of geography does not
feel obliged regularly to confute those who believe
that the earth is flat."
--Geoffrey Wheatcroft, "Bearing False Witness,"
_New York Times_, [13 May 2001]

corroborate [kuh-ROB-uh-rayt], transitive verb:
To strengthen or make more certain with other evidence.

incontrovertible [in-kon-truh-VUR-tuh-buhl], adjective:
Too clear or certain to admit of dispute; indisputable; unquestionable

irrefragable [ih-REF-ruh-guh-buhl], adjective:
Impossible to refute; incontestable; undeniable; as,
an irrefragable argument; irrefragable evidence.

onus, noun:
1. A burden; an obligation; a disagreeable necessity.
2. a: A stigma. b: Blame.
3. The burden of proof.

putative (adjective) [PYOO-tuh-tiv]
Commonly supposed; assumed without conclusive grounds for belief.
Ex.: A report has found that the putative evidence for the paper
that started the controversy was fabricated.
--Margot O'Toole,
"The Whistle-Blower and the Train Wreck,"
_New York Times_ [12 April 1991]



PROPAGANDA

.
.

see: "INDOCTRINATION"
see "DECEPTION" for other related links
see: "WAR & PEACE" for other related links


The most potent weapon in the hands of the
oppressor is the mind of the oppressed.
--Steve Biko (1946—1977)
South African anti-apartheid campaigner.

The essence of propaganda is the presentation
of one side of the picture only.
--J. A. Brown (1911—1964)
_Techniques of Persuasion: From Propaganda to Brainwashing_
[1963], Chapter 1

If an idiot were to tell you the same story every
day for a year, you would end by believing him.
--Edmund Burke (1729—1797)
Irish-born Whig politician and man of letters.

In wartime. . . truth is so precious that she should always
be attended by a bodyguard of lies.
--Winston Churchill (1874—1965)
British Conservative statesman and
Prime Minister [1940—1945, 1951—1955].
_The Second World War_ vol. 5 [1951]

The best form of newspaper propaganda was not
'propaganda' (i.e.., editorials and exhortation),
but slanted news which appeared to be straight.
--Leonard W. Doob (1909—2000)
American psychologist, educator, and author.
_Goebbels' Principles of Propaganda_ [1950]

The danger of total propaganda is not that the
propaganda will be believed. The danger is that
nothing will be believed. . . . The end result of
total propaganda are not fanatics, but cynics.
--Peter Drucker (1909—2005)
Austrian-born American management consultant, educator, and author.
_Management: Tasks, Responsibilities, Practices_ [1974], ch. 30

-

Thoughts about the movie "Fahrenheit 9/11":

On the whole, it [Fahrenheit 9/11] is not accurate.
--PBS journalist Gwen Ifill

Anybody who gets their information from Michael Moore
is as dumb as somebody who gets their history from
Oliver Stone.
--film critic Leonard Martin (who gave the film a 'do see'
recommendation, but cautioned that Moore's work should
be viewed as "propaganda," not as "documentary.")

To describe this film as dishonest and demagogic would almost be to promote
those terms to the level of respectability. To describe this film as a piece of crap
would be to run the risk of a discourse that would never again rise above the
excremental. To describe it as an exercise in facile crowd-pleasing would be
too obvious. Fahrenheit 9/11 is a sinister exercise in moral frivolity, crudely
disguised as an exercise in seriousness. It is also a spectacle of abject political
cowardice masking itself as a demonstration of "dissenting" bravery.
--Christopher Hitchens (1949— )
British journalist, author, and literary critic.
"Unfairenheit 9/11: The lies of Michael Moore" [21 June 2004]

-

It is imperative in the political interest of the state not only that the
whole nation participates in broadcasting, but that the entire nation
is ready to receive radio programmes at any moment.
--Nazi propagandist Artur Freudenberg [in 1939]

-

Like the effect of advertising upon the customer, the
methods of political propaganda tend to increase the
feeling of insignificance of the individual voter.
--Erich Fromm (1900—1980)
American philosopher and psychologist.
_Escape from Freedom_ [1941]


The lack of objectivity, as far as foreign nations are concerned, is notorious.
From one day to another, another nation is made out to be utterly depraved
and fiendish, while one's own nation stands for everything that is good and
noble. Every action of the enemy is judged by one standard - every action
of oneself by another. Even good deeds by the enemy are considered a sign
of particular devilishness, meant to deceive us and the world, while our bad
deeds are necessary and justified by our noble goals which they serve.
--Erich Fromm (1900—1980)
American philosopher and psychologist.
_The Art of Loving_ [1956], ch. 4

-

If you can write a nation's stories, you needn't
worry about who makes its laws.
--George Gerbner (1919—2005)
American professor of mass communication.
_Bill Moyers' Journal_ "TV or Not TV" [23 April 1979]

-

Propaganda has only one object: to conquer the masses.
Every means that furthers this aim is good; every means
that hinders it is bad.
--Joseph Goebbels (1897—1945)
German Nazi leader & minister of propaganda.
_The Goebbels Diaries, 1942-1943_, tr. Louis P. Lochner [1948]


It is the absolute right of the State to supervise
the formation of public opinion.
--Joseph Goebbels (1897—1945)
German Nazi leader & minister of propaganda.

-

Successful propagandists have succeeded because the doctrine
they bring into form is that which their listeners have for some time
felt without being able to shape.
--Thomas Hardy (1840—1928)
English novelist and poet.
_The Return of the Native_ [1878], bk. 3, ch. 2

Given time and plenty of paper, a philosopher
can prove anything.
--Robert A(nson) Heinlein (1907—1988)
American science-fiction writer.
_Double Star_ [1956]

-

Through clever and constant application of propaganda,
people can be made to see paradise as hell, and also
the other way round, to consider the most wretched
sort of life as paradise.
--Adolf Hitler (1889—1945)
German dictator.
_Mein Kampf_ (My Battle) [1925]


It is a mistake to make propaganda many-sided, like
scientific instruction, for instance... As soon as
you sacrifice this slogan and try to be many-sided,
the effect will piddle away, for the crowd can neither
digest nor retain the material offered.
--Adolf Hitler (1889—1945)
German dictator.
_Mein Kampf_ (My Battle) [1925], pp. 180-181


The great masses of the people . . . will more easily
fall victims to a big lie than to a small one.
--Adolf Hitler (1889—1945)
German dictator.
_Mein Kampf_ (My Battle) [1925], vol 1, ch. 10


To whom should propaganda be addressed? To the
scientifically trained intelligentsia or the
less educated masses? It must be addressed always
and exclusively to the masses.
--Adolf Hitler (1889—1945)
German dictator.
_Mein Kampf_ (My Battle) [1925], p. 179


No matter how skillfully propaganda is presented
it will not lead to success unless a fundamental
principle is considered with continually sharp
attention: it has to confine itself to little
and to repeat this eternally.
--Adolf Hitler (1889—1945)
German dictator.
_Mein Kampf_ (My Battle) [1925]


Tell a lie loud enough and long enough
and people will believe it.
--Adolf Hitler (1889—1945)
German dictator.

-

Propaganda does not deceive people; it merely
helps them to deceive themselves.
--Eric Hoffer (1902—1983)
American longshoreman, philosopher,
and author who received the Presidential
Medal of Freedom in 1982.
_The Passionate State of Mind: And Other Aphorisms_ [1954]

-

The ... propagandist must ... be consistently dogmatic. All his
statements are made without qualification, everything is either
diabolically black or celestially white ... He must never admit
that he might be wrong or that people with a different point of
view might be even partially right. Opponents should not be
argued with; they should be attacked, shouted down, or ...
liquidated.
--Aldous Huxley (1894—1963)
English novelist {grandson of T.H. Huxley}.
_Brave New World Revisited_ [1958]


The propagandist's purpose is to make one set
of people forget that certain other sets of people
are human.
--Aldous Huxley (1894—1963)
English novelist {grandson of T.H. Huxley}.
_The Olive Tree_ [1936]


...Today the press is still legally free; but most of the little papers have
disappeared. The cost of wood-pulp, of modern printing machinery and
of syndicated news is too high for the Little Man. In the totalitarian East
there is political censorship, and the media of mass communication are
controlled by the state. In the democratic West there is economic
censorship and the media of mass communication are controlled by
members of the Power Elite. Censorship by rising costs and the
concentration of communication power in the hands of a few big
concerns is less objectionable than State ownership and government
propaganda; but certainly it is not something of which a Jeffersonian
democrat could possibly approve.

In regard to propaganda the early advocates of universal literacy and
a free press envisaged only two possibilities: the propaganda might
be true, or it might be false. They did not foresee what in fact has
happened, above all in our Western capitalist democracies -- the
development of a vast mass communications industry, concerned
in the main neither with the true nor the false, but with the unreal,
the more or less totally irrelevant. In a word, they failed to take
into account man's almost infinite appetite for distractions.

...Only the vigilant can maintain their liberties, and only those who
are constantly and intelligently on the spot can hope to govern
themselves effectively by democratic procedures. A society,
most of whose members spend a great part of their time, not
on the spot, not here and now and in the calculable future, but
somewhere else, in the irrelevant other worlds of sport and
soap opera, of mythology and metaphysical fantasy, will
find it hard to resist the encroachments of those who would
manipulate and control it.

In their propaganda today's dictators rely for the most part on repetition,
suppression and rationalization -- the repetition of catchwords which they
wish to be accepted as true, the suppression of facts which they wish to
be ignored, the arousal and rationalization of passions which may be
used in the interests of the Party or the State. As the art and science
of manipulation come to be better understood, the dictators of the
future will doubtless learn to combine these techniques with the non-
stop distractions which, in the West, are now threatening to drown in
a sea of irrelevance the rational propaganda essential to the
maintenance of individual liberty and the survival of democratic
institutions.

--Aldous Huxley (1894—1963)
English novelist {grandson of T.H. Huxley}.
_Brave New World Revisited_ [1958],
ch. 4 "Propaganda in a Democratic Society"

-

I give you bitter pills in sugar coating. The
pills are harmless, the poison is in the sugar.
--Stanislaw Jerzy Lec (1909—1966)
Polish writer.
_Unkempt Thoughts_ [1962]

Give me four years to teach the children, and the
seed I have sown will never be uprooted.
--V.I. Lenin (1870—1924)
Russian revolutionary and first head of the Soviet state (1917—1924).
Quoted in Bruce Hopper
_Pan-sovietism: The Issue Before America and the World_ [1931].

How many legs does a dog have if you
call the tail a leg? Four. Calling a tail
a leg doesn't make it a leg.
--attributed to Abraham Lincoln (1809—1865)
American Republican statesman, President [1861—1865].
In a slightly different format published anon. in "The Genesee Farmer" [July 1863].

[Of the Hungarian uprising:]
The Soviet troops are assisting the Hungarian
people to retain their independence from
imperialism.
--The London _Daily Worker_ [7 November 1956]

As a spy chief and a general in the former Soviet
satellite of Romania, I produced the very same
vitriol Kerry repeated to the U.S. Congress almost
word for word and planted it in leftist movements
throughout Europe. KGB chairman Yuri Andropov
managed our anti-Vietnam War operation. He often
bragged about having damaged the U.S. foreign-
policy consensus, poisoned domestic debate in the
U.S., and built a credibility gap between America
and European public opinion through our
isinformation operations. Vietnam was, he once
told me, "our most significant success."
--Ion Mihai Pacepa
http://www.nationalreview.com/comment/pacepa200402260828.asp

Almost all propaganda is designed to create fear.
Heads of governments and their officials know that
a frightened people is easier to govern, will forfeit
rights it would otherwise defend, is less likely to
demand a better life, and will agree to millions and
millions being spend on "Defense."
--J.B. [John Boynton] Priestley (1894—1984)
English novelist, playwright and critic.
_Outcries And Asides_ [1974], "The Root Is Fear"

The weapon of the dictator is not so much propaganda as censorship.
--Terence H. Qualter (b. 1925)
_Propaganda and Psychological Warfare_ [1962], "Introduction"

Why is propaganda so much more successful when it stirs
up hatred than when it tries to stir up friendly feeling?
--Bertrand Russell (1872—1970)
British philosopher, mathematician, and Nobel laureate.
_The Conquest of Happiness_ [1930]

There is no absurdity so palpable but that it may be firmly
planted in the human head if you only begin to inculcate
it before the age of five, by constantly repeating it with an
air of great solemnity.
--Arthur Schopenhauer (1788—1860)
German philosopher.
_Studies in Pessimism_ [1851] "Further Psychological Observations"

Education is a weapon, whose effect depends on
who holds it in his hands and at whom it is aimed.
--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.
Interview with H. G. Wells [September 1937].

Many men are like unto sausages: whatever you
stuff them with, that they will bear in them.
--Aleksey Konstantinovich Tolstoy (1817—1875)
Russian poet, novelist, and dramatist.
_Collected Works of Kosma Prutkov_ [1884]
Tr. by B.G. Gurney

Those who can make you believe absurdities
can make you commit atrocities.
--attributed to Voltaire (Franηois Marie Arouet) (1694—1778)
French writer and philosopher.

When war is declared, Truth is the first casualty.
--anon., epigraph to Arthur Ponsonby's _Falsehood in Wartime_ [1928];
attributed also to Hiram Johnson, speaking in the U.S. Senate [1918],
but not recorded in his speech; possibly based on a passage by Samuel
Johnson in "The Idler" [11 November 1758] - ODTQ.

The Russian soldier is our friend. He is here to protect us.
--anon.
First sentence in an Bulgarian school textbook [1967]
(printed in Moscow).

The Filipino is treacherous and deceitful.
Besides we want his country.
--"St. Louis Post Dispatch" [c.1898], quoted in
Richard West, _Victory in Vietnam_ [1974].

Members and front organizations must continually
embarrass, discredit and degrade our critics. When
obstructionists become too irritating, label them
as fascist, or Nazi or anti-Semitic .... The
association will, after enough repetition, become
"fact" in the public mind.
--Communist Party,
Moscow Central Committee [1943]

-----

agitprop [AJ-it-prop], noun:
Propaganda, especially pro-communist political propaganda
disseminated through literature, drama, music, or art.

inculcate [in-KUHL-kayt; IN-kuhl-kayt], transitive verb:
To teach and impress by frequent repetition or instruction.
Inculcate is from Latin inculcare, "to tread upon, to force upon.

suffuse (verb) [sκ-'fyuz]
To spread throughout or all over,
to permeate or infuse thoroughly.


end page



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