Jeff Tucker on building societies from the bottom up vs. "some great man"

Let’s just rule out right now that Trump’s hope of personally making America great is achievable. In fact, the illusion that it could happen is ridiculous. Societies become great only through the diffusion of action among millions and billions of people, one decision at a time. It is the absence of power, not its presence, that builds nations. It does not result from the authoritarian dictate from some great man.

~ Jeffrey A. Tucker, "Lance the Boil: How a Donald Trump Victory Might Be Good for Liberty," Liberty.me, March 10, 2016

Francis Ford Coppola on critics

Usually, the stuff that's your best idea or work is going to be attacked the most.

~ Francis Ford Coppola

Alexander Graham Bell on opportunity

When one door closes, another opens.  But we often look so long and so regretfully at the closed door that we cannot see the one that has opened for us.

~ Alexander Graham Bell

Alexander Graham Bell
1940

Aubrey McClendon on becoming a grandfather

A baby is God’s opinion that life should go on.

~ Aubrey McClendon (spoken after he became a grandfather)

Katniss Everdeen on centralized systems

It must be a fragile system if it can be brought down by just a few berries.

~ Katniss Everdeen, visit from President Snow in Catching Fire

Butler Shaffer on the decline of Western Civilization

What I was saying – and what I have been saying for many decades – is that Western Civilization should be spoken of in the past tense; that its life-affirming conditions have been destroyed by the content of our thinking.  I have written elsewhere that civilizations are created by individuals; they are destroyed by collectives.

~ Butler Shaffer, "'The Death of Western Civilization' - Continued," LewRockwell.com Blog, November 14, 2015

Yogi Berra on the value of going to funerals

You should always go to other people's funerals. Otherwise they won't come to yours.

~ Yogi Berra

(Baseball legend Yogi Berra died September 22nd at the age of 90.)