There are just two rules of governance in a free society: Mind your own business. Keep your hands to yourself. P. J. O'Rourke More Quotes by P. J. O'Rourke More Quotes From P. J. O'Rourke There are no kinder or better people in the world than those who listen to you when you are 18. P. J. O'Rourke kinderpeopleworld Government conspiracy? They can't even deliver our mail and it's got our address on it and everything! P. J. O'Rourke addressesmailgovernment Wealth is, for most people, the only honest and likely path to liberty. With money comes power over the world. Men are freed from drudgery, women from exploitation. Businesses can be started, homes built, communities formed, religions practiced, educations pursued. But liberals aren't very interested in such real and material freedoms. They have a more innocent - not to say toddlerlike - idea of freedom. Liberals want the freedom to put anything into their mouths, to say bad words and to expose their private parts in art museums. P. J. O'Rourke realhomeart One of these suburbs is actually named Stalingrad, which goes to show that the French have learned nothing about politics since they guillotined all the smart people in 1793. P. J. O'Rourke smartfunnypeople Mercedes Benz : A mechanical device that increases sexual arousal in women. P. J. O'Rourke smartcleverfunny The idea of a news broadcast once was to find someone with information and broadcast it. The idea now is to find someone with ignorance and spread it around. P. J. O'Rourke newsignoranceideas What would annoy the most people most often? That is the true left-wing test of government intervention. P. J. O'Rourke governmentwingspeople Your money does not cause my poverty. Refusal to believe this is at the bottom of most bad economic thinking. P. J. O'Rourke doebelievethinking Health care is too expensive, so the Clinton administration is putting a high-powered coporate lawyer - Hillary - in charge of making it cheaper. (This is what I always do when I want to spend less money - hire a lawyer from Yale.) If you think health care is expensive now, wait until you see what it costs when it's free. P. J. O'Rourke yalewaitingthinking Humor is a terrific tool for explaining things, especially when what you're explaining is frightening or dull and complicated. P. J. O'Rourke toolscomplicateddull When a government controls both the economic power of individuals and the coercive power of the state ... this violates a fundamental rule of happy living: Never let the people with all the money and the people with all the guns be the same people. P. J. O'Rourke governmentgunpeople A little government and a little luck are necessary in life, but only a fool trusts either of them. P. J. O'Rourke politicalgovernmentlife If you spend seventy-two hours in a place you've never been, talking to people whose language you don't speak about social, political, and economic complexities you don't understand, and you come back as the world's biggest know-it-all, you're a reporter. P. J. O'Rourke talkingtwopeople All lies are told with a straight face. It is truth that's said with a dismissive giggle. P. J. O'Rourke cynicismfaceslying Harvard has been almost as important to the American Jewish community as the pork-sausage industry. P. J. O'Rourke porkcommunityimportant Never wear anything that panics the cat. P. J. O'Rourke catanimalfun The only really good vegetable is Tabasco sauce. Put Tabasco sauce in everything. Tabasco sauce is to bachelor cooking what forgiveness is to sin. The next best vegetable is the jalapeno pepper. It has the virtue of turning salads into practical jokes. P. J. O'Rourke stupiditycookingvegetables If libertarianism were easy to explain, and it weren't easy to exaggerate the effects of libertarianism, I think it would have been done already. Many many very intelligent people have applied themselves to crafting an agenda that people could grab ahold of. But the problem of course is that libertarianism isn't political. It is kind of anti-political. It wants to take a lot of things out of the political arena. P. J. O'Rourke intelligentpeoplethinking You know, if government were a product, selling it would be illegal. ... Government contains impure ingredients - as anybody who's looked at Congress can tell you. ... government practices deceptive advertising. And the merest glance at the federal budget is enough to convict the government of perjury, extortion, and fraud. ... in a nutshell: government should be against the law. Term limits aren't enough. We need jail. P. J. O'Rourke jailpracticelaw If the wind is blowing like stink and everything is working right, a twelve-meter sailboat can go eleven and a half or twelve miles an hour, the same speed at which a bond lawyer runs around the Cental Park Reservoir. P. J. O'Rourke runningwindfunny
