
“Name me someone that's not a parasite and I'll go out and say a prayer for him.”
Song lyrics, Blonde on Blonde (1966), Visions of Johanna
On the City of London, Labour Monthly (December 1974).
“Name me someone that's not a parasite and I'll go out and say a prayer for him.”
Song lyrics, Blonde on Blonde (1966), Visions of Johanna
As quoted in Charting the Candidates '72 (1972) by Ronald Van Doren, p. 7
1940s–present
Context: The state — or, to make the matter more concrete, the government — consists of a gang of men exactly like you and me. They have, taking one with another, no special talent for the business of government; they have only a talent for getting and holding office. Their principal device to that end is to search out groups who pant and pine for something they can't get and to promise to give it to them. Nine times out of ten that promise is worth nothing. The tenth time is made good by looting A to satisfy B. In other words, government is a broker in pillage, and every election is sort of an advance auction sale of stolen goods.
“Government! Three fourths parasitic and the other fourth Stupid fumbling.”
Source: Stranger in a Strange Land
"Wall Street Survival 101" http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/WallSt101.html
“Panic in Wall Street, brokers feeling melancholy.”
"Wall Street Rag" (1909)
Source: The Virtue of Selfishness: A New Concept of Egoism
“Listening to the strains of genuine negro ragtime, brokers forget their cares.”
"Wall Street Rag" (1909)