The 20th century was a test bed for big ideas – fascism, communism, the atomic bomb.
P. J. O'ROURKELittle islands of human happiness, peace, and prosperity are so exceptional at this point in history that I’m not even sure we can draw lessons from them.
More P. J. O'Rourke Quotes
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Death is so important that God visited death upon his own son, thereby helping us learn right from wrong well enough that we may escape death forever and live eternally in God’s grace.
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To mistrust science and deny the validity of scientific method is to resign your job as a human. You’d better go look for work as a plant or wild animal.
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Politics is the attempt to achieve power and prestige without merit.
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The French are a smallish, monkey-looking bunch and not dressed any better, on average, than the citizens of Baltimore.
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I had always thought of Egypt as a rather secular country. And I think it is, but people are quite observant of the strictures of Ramadan.
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My dad died when I was young; my mom remarried with more haste than sense to a fellow… he wasn’t evil or anything, but he was worthless.
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There are a number of mechanical devices which increase sexual arousal, particularly in women. Chief among these is the Mercedes-Benz 380SL convertible.
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When elites see a homeless person in the gutter, they assume he’s saving a parking place.
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In its worse forms, conservatism is a matter of ‘I hate strangers and anything that’s different.’
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We need a government, alas, because of the nature of humans.
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Government proposes, bureaucracy disposes. And the bureaucracy must dispose of government proposals by dumping them on us.
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People think the free market is a philosophy, they think that it is a creed. It is none of those things. Free market is a bathroom scale, it is a measuring tape, it’s simply a measurement.
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Once you’ve built the big machinery of political power, remember you won’t always be the one to run it.
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Fiscal conservatism is just an easy way to express something that is a bit more difficult, which is that the size and scope of government, and really the size and scope of politics in our lives, has grown uncomfortable, unwieldy, intrusive and inefficient.
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Some people think that welfare reform should have hurt Bill Clinton with black voters.
P. J. O'ROURKE






