P. J. O'Rourke: Quotes about people

P. J. O'Rourke is American journalist. Explore interesting quotes on people.

P. J. O'Rourke: 370 quotes20 likes

“Everything on a boat has a different name than it would have if it weren't on a boat. Either this is ancient seafaring tradition or it's how people who mess around with boats try to impress the rest of us who actually finished college.”

P. J. O'Rourke book Holidays in Hell

Holidays in Hell (1989)

“People with a mission to save the earth want the earth to seem worse than it is so their mission will look more important.”

All the Trouble in the World (1994)

“And the Clinton administration launched an attack on people in Texas because those people were religious nuts with guns. Hell, this country was founded by religious nuts with guns. Who does Bill Clinton think stepped ashore on Plymouth Rock? Peace Corps volunteers? Or maybe the people in Texas were attacked because of child abuse. But, if child abuse was the issue, why didn't Janet Reno tear-gas Woody Allen?”

The Liberty Manifesto (1993)

“Freedom is not empowerment. Empowerment is what the Serbs have in Bosnia. Anybody can grab a gun and be empowered. It's not entitlement. An entitlement is what people on welfare get, and how free are they? It's not an endlessly expanding list of rights — the "right" to education, the "right" to food and housing. That's not freedom, that's dependency. Those aren't rights, those are the rations of slavery — hay and a barn for human cattle.”

The Liberty Manifesto (1993)

“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 book Eat the Rich

Eat the Rich (1999)

“The people who believe that, as a result of industrial development, life is about to become a hell, or may be one already, are guilty, at least, of sloppy pronouncements. On page 8 of Earth in the Balance, Al Gore claims that his study of the arms race gave him "a deeper appreciation for the most horrifying fact in all our lives: civilization is now capable of destroying itself." In the first place, the most horrifying fact in many of our lives is that our ex-spouse has gotten ahold of our ATM card. And civilization has always been able to destroy itself. The Greeks of ancient Athens, who had a civilization remarkable for lack of technological progress during its period of greatest knowledge and power, managed to destroy them fine.”

All the Trouble in the World (1994)

“There is parody, when you make fun of people who are smarter than you; satire, when you make fun of people who are richer than you; and burlesque, when you make fun of both while taking your clothes off.”

Age and Guile Beat Youth, Innocence, and a Bad Haircut (2005)

“I wonder how many of the people who profess to believe in the leveling ideas of collectivism and egalitarianism really just believe that they themselves are good for nothing. I mean, how many leftists are animated by a quite reasonable self-loathing? In their hearts they know that they are not going to become scholars or inventors or industrialists or even ordinary good kind people. So they need a way to achieve that smugness for which the left is so justifiably famous. They need a way to achieve self-esteem without merit. Well, there is politics. In an egalitarian world everything will be controlled by politics, and politics requires no merit.”

A Message to Redistributionists (1997)

“Saigon is like all the other great modern cities of the world. It's the mess left from people getting rich.”

All the Trouble in the World (1994)

“The most extraordinary change in Moscow was Arbat Street, the USSR's first pedestrian mall. Of course, there's something a little sad about a pedestrian mall in a nation where few people own cars— the whole damn country's a pedestrian mall.”

P. J. O'Rourke book Holidays in Hell

Holidays in Hell (1989)