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There is a simple rule here, a rule of legislation, a rule of business, a rule of life: beyond a certain point, complexity is fraud. You can apply that rule to left-wing social programs, but you can also apply that rule to credit derivatives, hedge funds, all the rest of it.

P. J. O'Rourke

Humans are the only animals that have children on purpose with the exception of guppies, who like to eat theirs.
P. J. O'ROURKE

Animal Children Eat Exception Human Purpose
The minute somebody joins a committee… they immediately suffer from committee brain. They become wildly over-enthusiastic, over-optimistic, over-pessimistic. Committees turn people into idiots, and politics is a committee.
P. J. O'ROURKE

Brain Community Enthusiastic Immediately Join Minute Somebody Suffer
Politics is the attempt to achieve power and prestige without merit.
P. J. O'ROURKE

Achieve Attempt Merit Politics Power Prestige
The Democrats are the party that says government will make you smarter, taller, richer, and remove the crabgrass on your lawn. The Republicans are the party that says government doesn’t work and then they get elected and prove it.
P. J. O'ROURKE

Democrat Government Lawn Make Party Republican Smarter
They are just really stupid people in Hollywood. You write them a script, and they say they love it, they absolutely love it. Then they say, ‘But doesn’t it need a small dog, and an Eskimo, and shouldn’t it be set in New Guinea?’ And you say, ‘But it is a sophisticated romantic comedy set in Paris.’
P. J. O'ROURKE

Absolute Love People Really Say Script Stupid Write
Mikhail Gorbachev was the Jimmy Carter of the Communist bloc. The Russians hate him.
P. J. O'ROURKE

Cater Communist Country Hate People Person
Once you’ve built the big machinery of political power, remember you won’t always be the one to run it.
P. J. O'ROURKE

Always Build Machinery Once One Political Remember Rum
By the end of the 1950s, American cars were so reliable that their reliability went without saying even in car ads. Thousands of them bear testimony to this today, still running on the roads of Cuba though fueled with nationalized Venezuelan gasoline and maintained with spit and haywire.
P. J. O'ROURKE

Car Country End Ernt Reliable Say Thousand
Call a man ‘ignorant,’ and you have license to show the world your vast fund of knowledge and wise him up.
P. J. O'ROURKE

Call Him Ignorant Knowledge Licence Man Show Vast Wise
Why do elites hate the poor? It’s xenophobia. They don’t know any poor people – except their off-the-books Brazilian nanny and illegal immigrant cleaning lady from Upper Revolta who don’t speak English.
P. J. O'ROURKE

Book Elite English Except People Poor Speak Xenophobia
Let’s reintroduce corporal punishment in the schools – and use it on the teachers.
P. J. O'ROURKE

Corporal Introduce Let Punishment School Tracker Use
No doubt the ridiculous politicians are right to like politics. They have found careers in which success can be achieved by being ridiculous. Imagine Jimmy Carter or George W. Bush rising to the top of any other profession.
P. J. O'ROURKE

Archive Career Doubt Politics Profession Ridiculous Right Success
Government is a health hazard. Governments have killed many more people than cigarettes or unbuckled seat belts ever have.
P. J. O'ROURKE

Belt Cigarette Government Hazard Helth Kill Many More People Set
Each child is biologically required to have a mother. Fatherhood is a well-regarded theory, but motherhood is a fact.
P. J. O'ROURKE

Biological Child Each Fact Fatherhood Mother Requires Well
If you ask the government to solve all of your problems, it’s a bit like asking your wife to cook and clean, to raise the children, to hold down a second job to help with the family finances, to keep her parents happy and well and keep your parents happy and well, and to also – to do the lawn and clean the gutters.
P. J. O'ROURKE

Ask Children Clean Cook Down Government Hold Problem Solve
Computers seem a little too adaptively flexible, like the strange natives, odd societies, and head cases we study in the social sciences. There’s more opposable thumb in the digital world than I care for; it’s awfully close to human.
P. J. O'ROURKE

Adaptively Computer Little Native Odd Science Seem Social Society Strange

There is a simple rule here, a rule of legislation, a rule of business, a rule of life: beyond a certain point, complexity is fraud. You can apply that rule to left-wing social programs, but you can also apply that rule to credit derivatives, hedge funds, all the rest of it.

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There is a simple rule here, a rule of legislation, a rule of business, a rule of life: beyond a certain point, complexity is fraud. You can apply that rule to left-wing social programs, but you can also apply that rule to credit derivatives, hedge funds, all the rest of it.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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