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“This country has achieved its commercial and financial supremacy under a regime of private ownership. It conquered the wilderness, built our railroads, our factories, our public utilities, gave us the telegraph, the telephone, the electric light, the automobile, the airplane, the radio and a higher standard of living for all the people than obtains anywhere else in the world. No great invention ever came from a government-owned industry.”
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“In an age of specialization people are proud to be able to do one thing well, but if that is all they know about, they are missing out on much else life has to offer.”
Source : Dennis Flanagan (1988). “Flanagan's Version: A Spectator's Guide to Science on the Eve of the 21st Century”, Alfred a Knopf Incorporated
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“I think being central to the culture is overrated. Who really gives a damn if something is popular? Jay-Z isn't actually any better than James Joyce even though more people understand him.”
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“To me this question whether liberty is a good or a bad thing appears as irrational as the question whether fire is a good or a bad thing. It is both good and bad according to time, place, and circumstance, and a complete answer to the question, In what cases is liberty good and in what cases is it bad? would involve not merely a universal history of mankind, but a complete solution of the problems which such a history would offer.”
Source : "Liberty, Equality, Fraternity". Book by James Fitzjames Stephen, Ch.2, 1873-1874.
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“Life is a country that the old have seen, and lived in. Those who have to travel through it can only learn from them.”
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“I paint very directly. I go from top to bottom. When I get to the floor, the painting is finished.”
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“Sure I know where the press room is - I just look for where they throw the dog meat.”
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“Half a century ago, Ronald Reagan, the man whose relentless optimism inspired me to enter politics, famously said that he didn't leave the Democratic Party; the party left him. I can certainly relate. I didn't leave the Republican Party; it left me.”
Source : Charlie Crist's Speech at the Democratic National Convention in Charlotte, North Carolina, www.politico.com. September 6, 2012.