The obvious is hard to see

"To see what is in front of one's nose needs a constant struggle."
~ George Orwell

History

It is a cliché that if we do not study the past we are condemned to repeat it. Almost equally certain, however, is that if there are lessons to be learned from an historical episode, the political class will draw all the wrong ones — and often deliberately so.
Far from viewing the past as a potential source of wisdom and insight, political regimes have a habit of employing history as an ideological weapon, to be distorted and manipulated in the service of present-day ambitions. That's what Winston Churchill meant when he described the history of the Soviet Union as "unpredictable."
Tom Woods

Pink Floyd: Time

Ticking away the moments that make up a dull day
You fritter and waste the hours in an offhand way
Kicking around on a piece of ground in your home town
Waiting for someone or something to show you the way

Tired of lying in the sunshine
Staying home to watch the rain
And you are young and life is long
And there is time to kill today
And then one day you find
Ten years have got behind you
No one told you when to run
You missed the starting gun

And you run, and you run to catch up with the sun, but it's sinking
Racing around to come up behind you again
The sun is the same in a relative way, but you're older
Shorter of breath and one day closer to death

~ Pink Floyd – Time

The realm of irrationality

"Die Unvernunft einer Sache ist kein Grund gegen ihr Dasein, vielmehr eine Bedingung desselben."
Friedrich Nietzsche

Yes, we can

"Our enemies are innovative and resourceful, and so are we. They never stop thinking about new ways to harm our country and our people, and neither do we."
George W. Bush II

Lew Rockwell on government

"Government is the institution that builds and manages the roads on which tens of thousands of people die every year. Government is the institution that starts the wars that have killed tens of millions of people. They not only send people to be killed in foreign lands, but actively recruit the youth into this "job," bribing them with free education that they can enjoy if they happen to emerge alive and not brain-damaged at the end of their indentured servitude. Government is the institution prepared to beat you and shock you with electricity, and put you in a dirty cage, if you do not comply with its arbitrary demands"
Lew Rockwell

Quotes on liberty and government

The Bob Higgs collection of quotes

Futility of regret

Ludwig von Mises:  
"Nothing is more useless than complaining over errors that can no longer be rectified, nothing more vain than regret." - Nation, State, and Economy

Beware of the cult of popularity

"Students of social science must fear popular approval; evil is with them when all men speak well of them. If there is any set of opinions by the advocacy of which a newspaper can increase its sales, then the student . . . is bound to dwell on the limitations and defects and errors, if any, in that set of opinions; and never to advocate them unconditionally even in an ad hoc discussion. It is almost impossible for a student to be a true patriot and have the reputation of being one at the same time."
Alfred Marshall