“If you make the smokestacks out of children, who will you force to clean them?”
May 17, 2006
The Areas of My Expertise (2005), Appearances on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart
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John Hodgman 20
American humorist 1971Related quotes

The trial of Charles B. Reynolds for blasphemy (1887)
Context: By force you can make hypocrites -- men who will agree with you from the teeth out, and in their hearts hate you. We want no more hypocrites. We have enough in every community. And how are you going to keep from having more? By having the air free, -- by wiping from your statute books such miserable and infamous laws as this.

Boundless Love (co-written with Dan Auerbach and Pat McLaughlin)
Song lyrics, The Tree of Forgiveness (2018)
“You ought not to cross your children unnecessarily, for it makes them ill-natured.”
The Communistic Societies of the United States (1875)
Source: Notes of Thought (1883), p. 147

Could you be loved
Uprising (1979)
Variant: I know that I'm not perfect and that I don't claim to be,
so before you point your fingers make sure your hands are clean.
Context: Who are you to judge the life I live?
I know that I'm not perfect and that I don't claim to be,
so before you point your fingers make sure your hands are clean.