If we heard that somebody starved to death in Sweden or Switzerland, we would be shocked.
P. J. O'ROURKELet’s reintroduce corporal punishment in the schools – and use it on the teachers.
More P. J. O'Rourke Quotes
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Political systems are run by self-selecting politicians. We don’t draft people; it’s not jury duty.
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I like making things. I have a wood shop at home. I am a terrible carpenter but I love doing it.
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Because of their size, parents may be difficult to discipline properly.
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Nobody is making Americans buy Chinese goods.
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I come from Toledo, Ohio, a town that has been hurt badly by the shift of the automobile business towards Japan. And yet I remember how the car workers lived in the neighborhood that I grew up in. My father was a car salesman, and I remember how we lived. I remember how modestly we lived.
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You’re never going to read ‘The Wealth of Nations,’ and you shouldn’t, really. It’s 900 pages.
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Everybody is xenophobic to an extent.
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Adam Smith’s huge failure was the fact that he did not foresee the industrial revolution.
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The idea of a stag hunt evokes chivalry – knights in jerkins and hose, ladies on sidesaddles with wimples and billowing dresses, a white stag symbolizing something-or-other, and Robin Hood getting in the way. An actual stag hunt is more like a horseback meeting of a county planning commission.
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Liberals have invented whole college majors – psychology, sociology and women’s studies – to prove that nothing is anybody’s fault.
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It’s better to make fun of yourself because you’ve always got someone around to make fun of, and they can’t sue you.
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A hat should be taken off when you greet a lady and left off for the rest of your life. Nothing looks more stupid than a hat.
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The people who despise America are the editors of the ‘New Statesman.’ Their green-card applications must have been turned down.
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Teasing and a sense of humor, if you can develop that in your kids, and if you can exercise it with the kids, just makes for a pleasanter atmosphere.
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Stupid is a great force in human affairs.
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Whatever it is that the government does, sensible Americans would prefer that the government does it to somebody else. This is the idea behind foreign policy.
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People will tell you anything but what they do is always the truth.
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People are not ants or bees. We do not reason or love or live or die collectively.
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Politics is the attempt to achieve power and prestige without merit.
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Arab-led Islamic fundamentalism destabilizes nations from Algeria to the Philippines.
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Always read something that will make you look good if you die in the middle of it.
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Even very young children need to be informed about dying. Explain the concept of death very carefully to your child. This will make threatening him with it much more effective.
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Richard Nixon was the best thing that ever happened to journalism. I mean this guy was wonderful. Just when you thought he could get no worse, he got worse.
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Catchphrases flourish in contemporary American English.
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The weirder you’re going to behave, the more normal you should look. It works in reverse, too. When I see a kid with three or four rings in his nose, I know there is absolutely nothing extraordinary about that person.
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Never be unfaithful to a lover, except with your wife.
P. J. O'ROURKE