Quotes of the day

As for me, by the blessing of indifference, I have simplified my politics into an utter detestation of all existing governments; and as it is the shortest and most agreeable and summary feeling imaginable, the first moment of an universal republic would convert me into an advocate for single and uncontradicted despotism. The fact is, riches are power, and poverty is slavery all over the earth, and one sort of establishment is no better, nor worse, for a people than another. I shall adhere to my party, because it would not be honorable to act otherwise; but as to opinions, I don't think politics worth an opinion. Conduct is another thing: -- if you begin with a party, go on with them. I have no consistency, except in politics; and that probably arises from my indifference on the subject altogether.

-- Lord Byron

A society which was really like a good poem, embodying the aesthetic virtues of beauty, order, economy, and subordination of detail to the whole, would be a nightmare of horror, for, given the historical reality of actual men, such a society could only come into being through selective breeding, extermination of the physically and mentally unfit, absolute obedience to the Director, and a large slave class kept out of sight in cellars.

...The peasant may play cards in the evening while the poet writes verses, but there is one political principle to which they both subscribe, namely, that among the half dozen or so things for which a man of honor should be prepared, if necessary to die, the right to play, the right to frivolity, is not the least.

-- W.H. Auden