“If you want to kill an intellectual, don't blow his brains out, hire him as a clerk.”

Last update Nov. 30, 2023. History

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“Asked what his artistic purpose was: "There is no purpose. We do whatever we do. You either blow your brains out or get on with something."”

Roger Waters (1943) English songwriter, bassist, and lyricist of Pink Floyd

June 1987[citation needed]
Philosophy

“In looking for people to hire, you look for three qualities: integrity, intelligence, and energy. And if they don't have the first, the other two will kill you.”

Warren Buffett (1930) American business magnate, investor, and philanthropist

“A soldier is a "Yahoo" hired to kill in cold blood as many of his own Species, who have never offended him, as possibly he can.”

Jonathan Swift (1667–1745) Anglo-Irish satirist, essayist, and poet

“If you don't want to be killed by ISIS, don't go to Syria. If you don't want to be killed by a Mexican, there's nothing I can tell you.”

Ann Coulter (1961) author, political commentator

2015-05-26
America With Jorge Ramos
TV
http://mediamatters.org/embed/clips/2015/05/27/40128/fusion-america-20150526-coulter
2015

“Let me make it clear: You don’t want his disapproval. He never forgets these things. If he needs to, he hires other people to carry his grudges for him.”

George Alec Effinger book A Fire in the Sun

Source: A Fire in the Sun (1989), Chapter 3 (p. 31).

“If you are a conservative, you think that a citizen has no right to hire another to kill him (much less to kill a third party), because life is a sacred gift that cannot be negotiated. But for the liberal, there is nothing more sacred than the right to buy and sell - even life itself: if you think your life sucks and want to hire a professional to put an end to it, neither the State nor the Church have the right to give the slightest opinion.”

Olavo de Carvalho (1947) Brazilian journalist, essayist and professor of philosophy

Jornal do Brasil - Por que não sou liberal http://www.olavodecarvalho.org/semana/070308jb.html (8 March 2007)

“If you want to communicate an idea to a man's brain, you must talk to him through his pecker. It's like an ear horn, y'all.”

Kresley Cole American writer

Variant: If you want to communicate an idea to a man's brain, talk to him through his pecker. It's like an ear horn, y'all.
Source: Lothaire

“I don't want to kill you.”

P. D. James book The Children of Men

The Children of Men (1992)

“The combat man isn't the same clean-cut lad because you don't fight a kraut by Marquess of Queensberry rules. You shoot him in the back, you blow him apart with mines, you kill or maim him the quickest and most effective way you can with the least danger to yourself. He does the same to you.”

Bill Mauldin (1921–2003) American editorial cartoonist

Up Front (1945)
Context: Many celebrities and self-appointed authorities have returned from quick tours of war zones (some of them getting within hearing distance of the shooting) and have put out their personal theories to batteries of photographers and reporters. Some say the American soldier is the same clean-cut young man who left his home; others say morale is sky-high at the front because everybody's face is shining for the great Cause.
They are wrong. The combat man isn't the same clean-cut lad because you don't fight a kraut by Marquess of Queensberry rules. You shoot him in the back, you blow him apart with mines, you kill or maim him the quickest and most effective way you can with the least danger to yourself. He does the same to you.
He tricks you and cheats you, and if you don't beat him at his own game you don't live to appreciate your own nobleness.
But you don't become a killer. No normal man who has smelled and associated with death ever wants to see any more of it. In fact, the only men who are even going to want to bloody noses in a fist fight after this war will be those who want people to think they were tough combat men, when they weren't. The surest way to become a pacifist is to join the infantry. <!-- p. 12 - 14

“If Libya wants to carry out terrorist acts, they hire Carlos the Jackal or something. The United States hires terrorist states.”

Noam Chomsky (1928) american linguist, philosopher and activist

Talk titled "Distorted Morality" at Harvard University, February 2002 http://www.chomsky.info/talks/200202--02.htm. <br class="br">Quotes 2000s, 2002 <br class="br">Context: Remember, the U. S. is a powerful state, it's not like Libya. If Libya wants to carry out terrorist acts, they hire Carlos the Jackal or something. The United States hires terrorist states.

“If you want to kill an intellectual, don't blow his brains out, hire him as a clerk.”

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