Universal suffrage by the whole people of representatives and rulers of the state - this is the last word of the Marxists as well as of the democratic school. They are lies behind which lurks the despotism of a governing minority, lies all the more dangerous in that this minority appears as the expression of the so-called people's will.

- Mikhail Bakunin, Statism and Anarchy

Philosophy is questions that may never be answered. Religion is answers that may never be questioned.

1. -Anonymous
   

To pray: To ask that the laws of the universe be annulled in behalf of a single petitioner, confessedly unworthy.

1. -Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary.
   

Another member of the religious meme complex is called faith. It means blind trust, in the absence of evidence, even in the teeth of evidence. The story of Doubting Thomas is told, not so that we shall admire Thomas, but so that we can admire the other apostles in comparison. Thomas demanded evidence. Nothing is more lethal for certain kinds of meme than a tendency to look for evidence. The other apostles, whose faith was so strong that they did not need evidence, are held up to us as worthy of imitation. The meme for blind faith secures its own perpetuation by the simple unconscious expedient of discouraging rational inquiry.

1. -Richard Dawkins
   

Propaganda is to democracy what violence is to totalitarianism. The techniques have been honed to a fine art, far beyond anything Orwell dreamt of. The device of feigned dissent, incorporating the doctrines of the state religion and eliminating rational critical discussion, is one of the more subtle means, though more crude techniques are also used and are highly effective in protecting us from seeing what we observe, from knowledge and understanding of the world in which we live.

- Noam Chomsky, The Manufacture of Consent.

In England, at this day, if elections were open to all classes of people, the property of landed proprietors would be insecure. An agrarian law would soon take place. If these observations be just, our government ought to secure the permanent interests of the country against innovation. Landholders ought to have a share in the government, to support these invaluable interests and to balance and check the other. They ought to be so constituted as to protect the minority of the opulent against the majority. The Senate, therefore, ought to be this body.

1. -James Madison (debates on the Adoption of the US Federal Constitution)
   

22. Mankind scrambles to choose new leader of inflexible, sexually morbid institutional anachronism; heretofore anonymous bureaucrat will instantly be celebrated as world's holiest man as he travels to AIDS-stricken Africa to denounce the use of condoms.

- Matt Taibbi, The 52 Funniest Things about the Upcoming Death of the Pope

(On the alleged Christian foundation of the USA):

As the Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion; as it has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion, or tranquillity, of Mussulmen; and, as the said States never entered into any war, or act of hostility against any Mahometan nation, it is declared by the parties, that no pretext arising from religious opinions, shall ever produce an interruption of the harmony existing between the two countries."

  --Article 11, Treaty of Peace and Friendship between the United States

    and the Bey and Subjects of the Bey of Tripoli of Barbary,

    'Authored by American diplomat Joel Barlow in 1796, the following

    treaty was sent to the floor of the Senate, June 7, 1797,

    where it was read aloud in its entirety and unanimously approved.

    John Adams, having seen the treaty, signed it and proudly

    proclaimed it to the Nation.'

    http://www.stephenjaygould.org/ctrl/treaty_tripoli.html

The Internet isn't insecure. It may be unsecure. Insecurity is a mental state. The users of the Internet may be insecure, and perhaps rightfully so ..

- Simson Garfinkel

We reject kings, presidents and voting. We believe in rough consensus and running code.

- Dave Clark

For too long apes have lived under the thumb of man. Now it is time to oppose the thumb!

1. -Mojo Jojo, The Powerpuff Girls Movie
   

White Rabbit: `Where shall I begin, please your Majesty?'

The King: `Begin at the beginning, and go on till you come to the end: then stop.'

1. -from Alice in Wonderland
   

Everyone knows that debugging is twice as hard as writing a program in the first place. So if you're as clever as you can be when you write it, how will you ever debug it?

1. -Brian Kernighan, Elements of Programming Style
   

Random numbers should not be generated with a method chosen at random.

1. -Donald Knuth