“Of all political ideals, that of making people happy is perhaps the most dangerous one. It leads invariably to the attempt to impose our scale of ‘higher’ values upon others, in order to make them realize what seems to us of greatest importance for their happiness; in order, as it were, to save their souls.”
Karl Popper, The Open Society and Its Enemies, Vol. 2
“Well, if that’s what you call being at peace, for heaven’s sake just warn me before you go to war, will you?”
The main character in Sinclair Lewis, Babbitt
“Idleness… is the holiday of fools.”
From a fortune cookie I got c. 1993 - the Internet says it’s actually from Philip Dormer Shanhope, Lord Chesterfield (1694-1773). I originally had it without the elision but while that version circulates, I’m credibly informed that the proper full quotation is “Idleness is only the refuge of weak minds, and the holiday of fools.” (Source: https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/299455-idleness-is-only-the-refuge-of-weak-minds-and-the)
“If I profess with the loudest voice and clearest exposition every portion of the truth of God except precisely that little point which the world and the devil are at the moment attacking, I am not confessing Christ, however boldly I may be professing Christ. Where the battle rages, there the loyalty of the soldier is proved. And to be steady on all the battle fields besides is merely flight and disgrace if he flinches at that point.”
Martin Luther, quoted among many other places by https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/657155-if-i-profess-with-the-loudest-voice-and-clearest-exposition
“He’s so morally bankrupt they repossessed his conscience.”
Another of my would-be witticisms, from November 1, 1991
“Let the cymbals of popularity tinkle still. Let the butterflies of fame glitter with their wings. I shall envy neither their music nor their colors.”
John Adams, quoted without further attribution in Epoch Times email newsletter 23 November 2021
“‘What we anticipate seldom occurs; what we least expected generally happens.”
Benjamin Disraeli, quoted as “Thought du jour” in “Social Studies” in Globe & Mail September 1, 2005
“Liberty underlies the entire enterprise; it’s not just one more vector in an indifference curve.”
Walter Block in Michael A. Walker, ed. Freedom Democracy and Economic Welfare: Proceedings of an International Symposium