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Leech said that, just as a good airplane pilot should always be looking for places to land, so should a lawyer be looking for situations where large amounts of money were about to change hands.
“We are here for no purpose, unless we can invent one. Of that I am sure. The human condition in an exploding universe would not have been altered one iota if, rather than live as I have, I had done nothing but carry a rubber ice-cream cone from closet to closet for sixty years.”
― Jailbird
― Jailbird
“It goes against the American storytelling grain to have someone in a situation he can't get out of, but I think this is very usual in life. [...] And it strikes me as gruesome and comical that in our culture we have an expectation that a man can always solve his problems. There is an implication that if you just have a little more energy, a little more fight, the problem can always be solved. That is so untrue that it makes me want to cry--or laugh.”
― Wampeters, Foma and Granfalloons
― Wampeters, Foma and Granfalloons
“Thinking the guy up ahead knows what he's doing is the most dangerous religion there is.”
― Wampeters, Foma and Granfalloons
― Wampeters, Foma and Granfalloons
“And contrast Mary Kathleen, if you will, with my wife Ruth, the Ophelia of the death camps, who believed that even the most intelligent human beings were so stupid that they could only make things worse by speaking their minds. It was thinkers, after all, who had set up the death camps. Setting up a death camp, with its railroad sidings and its around-the-clock crematoria, was not something a moron could do. Neither could a moron explain why a death camp was ultimately humane.”
― Jailbird
― Jailbird
“Unjust laws exist; shall we be content to obey them, or shall we endeavor to amend them, and obey them until we have succeeded, or shall we transgress them at once? Men generally, under such a government as this, think that they ought to wait until they have persuaded the majority to alter them. They think that, if they should resist, the remedy would be worse than the evil. But it is the fault of the government itself that the remedy is worse than the evil. It makes it worse. Why is it not more apt to anticipate and provide for reform? Why does it not cherish its wise minority? Why does it cry and resist before it is hurt? Why does it not encourage its citizens to be on the alert to point out its faults, and do better than it would have them?”
― Civil Disobedience and Other Essays
― Civil Disobedience and Other Essays
Philip’s 2025 Year in Books
Take a look at Philip’s Year in Books, including some fun facts about their reading.
2,795 books
|
3,511 friends
645 books
|
302 friends
93 books
|
125 friends
306 books
|
121 friends
69 books
|
87 friends
210 books
|
102 friends
64 books
|
11 friends
15 books
|
49 friends
More friends…
Favorite Genres
Polls voted on by Philip
Lists liked by Philip
