Stephen Perlstein

“I think, ladies and gentlemen, and I particularly address those of you who have a socialist outlook, that we should at least permit this socialist economy to prove its superiority. Let's allow it to show that it is advanced, that it is omnipotent, that it has defeated you, that it has overtaken you. Let us not interfere with it. Let us stop selling to it and giving it loans. If it's all that powerful, then let it stand on its own feet for ten or fifteen years. Then we will see what it looks like. I can tell you what it will look like. I am being quite serious now. When the Soviet economy will no longer be able to deal with everything, it will have to reduce its military preparations. It will have to abandon the useless space effort and it will have to feed and clothe its own people. And the system will be forced to relax.

Thus, all I ask of you is that as long as this Soviet economy is so proud, so flourishing, and yours is so rotten and so moribund—stop helping it. When has a cripple ever helped along an athlete?”
― Alexander Solzhenitsyn, Warning to the West

“Freedom has been defined as the opportunity for self-discipline.”
― Dwight D. Eisenhower

“I don't understand German myself. I learned it at school, but forgot every word of it two years after I had left, and have felt much better ever since.”
― Jerome K. Jerome, Three Men in a Boat

“In my opinion, a problem derails your life and an inconvenience is not being able to get a nice seat on the un-derailed train.”
― Carrie Fisher, Wishful Drinking