Quotes about spending
page 12

Mike Tyson photo
Taylor Swift photo
Patrick Pearse photo

“O faithful!
Moulded in one womb,
We have stood together all the years,
All the glad years and all the sorrowful years,
Own brothers: through good repute and ill,
In direst peril true to me,
Leaving all things for me, spending yourself
In the hard service that I taught to you,
Of all the men that I have known on earth,
You only have been my familiar friend,
Nor needed I another.”

Patrick Pearse (1879–1916) Irish revolutionary, shot by the British Army in 1916

"To My Brother", poem by P. H. Pearse, written in Arbour Hill Detention Barracks, 1st May, 1916. Published by The Office of Public Works, Dublin.
Pearse did not know that his brother William, was also to be executed.

Dylan Moran photo
David Rockefeller photo
Peter Greenaway photo

“You could spend a lifetime reading in here.”

Peter Greenaway (1942) British film director

The Cook, The Thief, His Wife, and Her Lover

“The first time you see Winston Churchill you see all his faults, and the rest of your life you spend discovering his virtues.”

Lady Lytton, in Christopher Hassall, Edward Marsh. http://www.explore-parliament.net/nssMovies/05/0558/0558_.htm.
Hudson Review, The, Summer 2002 by Allen, Brooke, - More than the sum of his parts: The enigma of Winston Churchill http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa4021/is_/ai_n9129028.

George Moore (novelist) photo

“The hours I spend with you I look upon as sort of a perfumed garden, a dim twilight, and a fountain singing to it… you and you alone make me feel that I am alive… Other men it is said have seen angels, but I have seen thee and thou art enough.”

George Moore (novelist) (1852–1933) Irish novelist, short-story writer, poet, art critic, memoirist and dramatist

Letter to Lady Emerald Cunard, quoted in The Everything Wedding Vows Book : Anything and Everything You Could Possibly Say at the Altar, and then Some. (2001) by Janet Anastasio and Michelle Bevilacqua, p. 97.

Peter Greenaway photo
Phil Brooks photo

“Look at you people. Look at what's become of the mighty United Kingdom. This land used to be filled with kings and knights and noblemen. You used to rule half the planet, and now you're just as sad and pathetic as the Americans. You can pretend you're not, you can pretend you don't spend your days tucked away in some little pub downing your pints of ale; you can pretend you don't spend every single night filling your lungs and those around you with carcinogens and poisons from your fancy cigarettes and trendy cigars; you can pretend you don't knowingly stuff chewing tobacco in your mouth in one of the most disgusting habits I've ever seen in my life—something that will give you cancer inside of two years. You people are weak-minded. You have no heart, your spirit is broken. You're practically decomposing right before my very eyes as I talk to you, and the only thing you can do is boo or wave a crooked little finger at me and accuse me of being preachy. You people need somebody as righteous as myself to preach to you the proper way to live. You should all aspire to be as great as I am. Do I think I'm better than you? Absolutely, and it's not that hard because my mind is clear; my body, free of poison. Look at me—I am perfect in every way. My strength comes from within, and I don't need a crutch to get through my everyday life like you people, and I certainly don't need a crooked official like Scott Armstrong to fight my battles for me. I filed a formal complaint with the Board of Directors; and as far as tonight goes, I will beat R-Truth just like I'll beat him at Survivor Series, and just like I can easily beat up everybody here in this arena today. Because I am the Choice of a New Generation, and R-Truth's gonna come out here and ask you people, "What's Up?"”

Phil Brooks (1978) American professional wrestler and mixed martial artist

I'll answer that little riddle for you right now. I tell you "what's up" Straight-edge—that is what's up. No narcotics, no drugs, no alcohol, no cigarettes, no prescription medication, and that, you sad, sad people, can save your entire pathetic country and the entire world.
November 13, 2009
Friday Night SmackDown

Sam Harris photo
Tom Stoppard photo
George Mason photo

“I determined to spend the Remainder of my Days in privacy and Retirement with my Children, from whose Society alone I could expect Comfort.”

George Mason (1725–1792) American delegate from Virginia to the U.S. Constitutional Convention

Letter to a member of the Brent family (2 October 1778) http://www.virginia1774.org/ToMrBrent.html

William Henry Harrison photo
Sara Teasdale photo
Billy Corgan photo

“A man spends the first year of his life learning that he ends at his own skin, and the rest of his life learning that he doesn't.”

Saul Gorn (1912–1992) computer scientist

"The Individual and Political Life of Information Systems", in Heilprin, Markuson, and Goodman, ed., Proceedings of the Symposium on Education for Information Science, Warrenton, Virginia, September 7-10, 1965 (Washington, DC: Spartan Books, 1965)

Paul Krugman photo

“The usual and basic Keynesian answer to recessions is a monetary expansion. But Keynes worried that even this might sometimes not be enough, particularly if a recession had been allowed to get out of hand and become a true depression. Once the economy is deeply depressed, households and especially firms may be unwilling to increase spending no matter how much cash they have, they may simply add any monetary expansion to their board. Such a situation, in which monetary policy has become ineffective, has come to be known as a "liquidity trap"; Keynes believed that the British and American economies had entered such a trap by the mid-1930s, and some economists believed that the United States was on the edge of such a tap in 1992.
The Keynesian answer to a liquidity trap is for the government to do what the private sector will not: spend. When monetary expansion is ineffective, fiscal expansion—such as public works programs financed by borrowing—must take its place. Such a fiscal expansion can break the vicious circle of low spending and low incomes, "priming the pump: and getting the economy moving again. But remember that this is not by any means an all-purpose policy recommendation; it is essentially a strategy of desperation, a dangerous drug to be prescribed only when the usual over-the-counter remedy of monetary policy has failed.”

Source: Peddling Prosperity (1994), Ch. 1 : The Attack on Keynes

Donald J. Trump photo
African Spir photo

“To spend for destruction ten times more than for instruction, such is the fashion in our time; and men seriously regard themsleves as rational beings!”

African Spir (1837–1890) Russian philosopher

Source: Words of a Sage : Selected thoughts of African Spir (1937), p. 50.

Oswald Mosley photo
Milton Friedman photo

“Spending by government currently amounts to about 45 percent of national income. By that test, government owns 45 percent of the means of production that produce the national income. The U. S. is now 45 percent socialist.”

Milton Friedman (1912–2006) American economist, statistician, and writer

Article "We Have Socialism, Q.E.D." http://www.sangam.org/taraki/articles/2006/11-25_Friedman_MGR.php?uid=2075 in The New York Times (31 December 1989)

Heather Brooke photo
Chris Hedges photo

“When you spend that long on the outer reaches of empire, you understand the cruelty of empire … and the lies we tell ourselves about what is done in our name.”

Chris Hedges (1956) American journalist

interviewed by Bill Moyers, July 22, 2012 http://www.truthdig.com/avbooth/item/chris_hedges_on_moyers_company_20120722

Barbara W. Tuchman photo

“I'd hate to spend the rest of my life trying to outwit an eighteen-inch fish.”

Harold Geneen (1910–1997) American businessman

" Harold S. Geneen, 87, Dies; Nurtured AT&T http://www.nytimes.com/1997/11/23/business/harold-s-geneen-87-dies-nurtured-itt.html?pagewanted=all" published 23 November 1997 in The New York Times.

Paul Graham photo
David Lloyd George photo
Haruki Murakami photo
Kevin Keegan photo

“Our current financial situation means that if we want to buy, we have to spend.”

Kevin Keegan (1951) English footballer

Collection of Kevin Keegan quotes http://www.mirrorfootball.co.uk/news/Kevin-Keegan-quotes-and-football-wisdom-article42209.html

Jonathan Swift photo

“The reason why so few marriages are happy is because young ladies spend their time in making nets, not in making cages.”

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

Thoughts on Various Subjects from Miscellanies (1711-1726)

Frederick II of Prussia photo
Michele Simon photo
Witter Bynner photo

“I am a miser of my memories of you
And will not spend them.”

Witter Bynner (1881–1968) American author

Coins, in The Beloved Stranger: Two Books of Song & a Divertisement for the Unknown Lover, 1919.

Leon R. Kass photo

“I have discovered in the Hebrew Bible teachings of righteousness, humaneness, and human dignity—at the source of my parents' teachings of mentschlichkeit—undreamt of in my prior philosophizing. In the idea that human beings are equally God-like, equally created in the image of the divine, I have seen the core principle of a humanistic and democratic politics, respectful of each and every human being, and a necessary correction to the uninstructed human penchant for worshiping brute nature or venerating mighty or clever men. In the Sabbath injunction to desist regularly from work and the flux of getting and spending, I have discovered an invitation to each human being, no matter how lowly, to step outside of time, in imitatio Dei, to contemplate the beauty of the world and to feel gratitude for its—and our—existence. In the injunction to honor your father and your mother, I have seen the foundation of a dignified family life, for each of us the nursery of our humanization and the first vehicle of cultural transmission. I have satisfied myself that there is no conflict between the Bible, rightly read, and modern science, and that the account of creation in the first chapter of Genesis offers "not words of information but words of appreciation," as Abraham Joshua Heschel put it: "not a description of how the world came into being but a song about the glory of the world's having come into being"—the recognition of which glory, I would add, is ample proof of the text's claim that we human beings stand highest among the creatures. And thanks to my Biblical studies, I have been moved to new attitudes of gratitude, awe, and attention. For just as the world as created is a world summoned into existence under command, so to be a human being in that world—to be a mentsch—is to live in search of our ­summons. It is to recognize that we are here not by choice or on account of merit, but as an undeserved gift from powers not at our disposal. It is to feel the need to justify that gift, to make something out of our indebtedness for the opportunity of existence. It is to stand in the world not only in awe of its and our existence but under an obligation to answer a call to a worthy life, a life that does honor to the special powers and possibilities—the divine-likeness—with which our otherwise animal existence has been, no thanks to us, endowed.”

Leon R. Kass (1939) American academic

Looking for an Honest Man (2009)

Arthur Schopenhauer photo

“Childish and altogether ludicrous is what you yourself are and all philosophers; and if a grown-up man like me spends fifteen minutes with fools of this kind, it is merely a way of passing the time. I've now got more important things to do. Goodbye!”

"Thrasymachus", in "On the Indestructibility of our Essential Being by Death, in Essays and Aphorisms (1970) as translated by R. J. Hollingdale, p. 76
Parerga and Paralipomena (1851), Aphorisms on the Wisdom of Life

Eliezer Yudkowsky photo
Russell L. Ackoff photo
Indra Nooyi photo
Peter Damian photo

“Any cleric or monk who seduces young men or boys, or who is apprehended in kissing or in any shameful situation, shall be publicly flogged and shall lose his clerical tonsure. Thus shorn, he shall be disgraced by spitting in his face, bound in iron chains, wasted by six months of close confinement, and for three days each week put on barley bread given him toward evening. Following this period, he shall spend a further six months living in a small segregated courtyard in custody of a spiritual elder, kept busy with manual labor and prayer, subjected to vigils and prayers, forced to walk at all times in the company of two spiritual brothers, never again allowed to associate with young men.”

Peter Damian (1007–1072) reformist monk

Letter 31:38. To Pope Leo IX, A.D. 1049.
The Fathers of the Church, Medieval Continuation, Peter Damian: Letters 31-60, Owen J. Blum, tr., Catholic University of America Press, ISBN 081320707X ISBN 9780813207070, vol. 2, p. 29. http://books.google.com/books?id=3PkYNcU0k94C&pg=PA29&dq=%22Any+cleric+or+monk+who+seduces%22&hl=en&ei=lrZHTP3EHcL78Aac2uDWBA&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CCgQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=%22Any%20cleric%20or%20monk%20who%20seduces%22&f=false

“An adult male human that attempts to mate frequently but spends most of its time alone.”

Richard Jeni (1957–2007) American comedian

Referring to "Platypus Man"
Platypus Man

Thomas Robert Malthus photo

“It is not the most pleasant employment to spend eight hours a day in a counting house.”

Book II, Chapter I, On the Progress of Wealth, Section IX, p. 403
Principles of Political Economy (Second Edition 1836)

“It’s not until they tell you you’re going to die soon that you realize how short life is. Time is the most valuable thing in life because it never comes back. And whether you spend it in the arms of a loved one or alone in a prison-cell, life is what you make of it. Dream big.”

Stefán Karl Stefánsson (1975–2018) Icelandic actor

Twitter post (10 March 2018), as quoted in "LazyTown’s Stefan Karl Stefansson confirms ‘inoperable’ cancer has returned" https://metro.co.uk/2018/03/16/lazytowns-stefan-karl-stefansson-confirms-inoperable-cancer-returned-7392066/ (16 March 2018), by Emma Kelly, Metro

Bob Dylan photo

“Oh all the money that in my whole life I did spend
Be it mine right or wrongfully
I let it slip gladly past the hands of my friends
To tie up the time most forcefully”

Bob Dylan (1941) American singer-songwriter, musician, author, and artist

Compare: "Of all the money e'er I had, I spent it in good company. And all the harm e'er I've done, Alas! it was to none but me." The Parting Glass.
Song lyrics, The Times They Are A-Changin' (1964), Restless Farewell

Casey Affleck photo

“When people ask me why I don’t eat meat or any other animal products, I say because they are unhealthy and they are the product of a violent and inhumane industry. Chickens, cows, and pigs in factory farms spend their whole lives in filthy, cramped conditions only to die a prolonged and painful death.”

Casey Affleck (1975) American actor

From a PETA video (6 February 2013) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hSuLrvwLoLA, reported in "Casey Affleck’s ‘Go Vegan’ PSA", in peta2.com http://www.peta2.com/heroes/casey-afflecks-go-vegan-psa/.

Jeremy Corbyn photo
Hillary Clinton photo
Ben Gibbard photo
Nouri al-Maliki photo

“Despite what we are suffering through, we haven't heard from our political partners with any support. They are not partners in facing the crisis, but they are partners in spending the wealth of Iraq.”

Nouri al-Maliki (1950) Prime Minister of Iraq

Source: On Iraq's other political parties, as quoted in "Sunni Militants Advance Toward Large Iraqi Dam" http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/26/world/middleeast/isis-iraq.html (June 2014), The New York Times.

Digby Jephson photo
Stephen Fry photo
Jerome K. Jerome photo
Davey Havok photo
Christie Brinkley photo

“Nutrition has always played a huge role in my life. I became a vegetarian when I was 13 and then got my entire family to become vegetarians. And I have always been active my whole life. I genuinely enjoy sports and I spend time on my total gym.”

Christie Brinkley (1954) American model

“Christie Brinkley Is 'Energized' About 2009”, interview with People (18 January 2009) http://people.com/celebrity/christie-brinkley-is-energized-about-2009/.

Mark Satin photo
Cory Booker photo

“The reality is we have to make sure that we have a military that’s prepared, but right now, we have more military spending than the next 10, 11, 12 countries combined, and we’ve got to start realizing that we can secure and protect ourselves, but also be responsible in the way that we do that," Booker said. And it’s not unpatriotic to say that we’re spending too much money. In fact, to me, that’s the patriotic thing to say.”

Cory Booker (1969) 35th Class 2 senator for New Jersey in U.S. Congress

From Real Time with Bill Maher, as quoted in [Wichert, Bill, Cory Booker says U.S. military spending is greater than the next 10-12 countries combined, https://www.politifact.com/new-jersey/statements/2013/feb/10/cory-booker/cory-booker-says-us-military-spending-greater-next/, PolitiFact, 21 August 2018, February 10th, 2013]
2013

Sienna Guillory photo
Herman Cain photo
Glenn Beck photo

“You cannot take away freedom to protect it, you cannot destroy the free market to save it, and you cannot uphold freedom of speech by silencing those with whom you disagree. To take rights away to defend them or to spend your way out of debt defies common sense.”

Glenn Beck (1964) U.S. talk radio and television host

The Reshaping and Redefining of America
Glenn Beck's Common Sense: The Case Against an Out-of-Control Government, Inspired by Thomas Paine
2009-06-16
Threshold Editions
1439168571
17
2000s, 2009

Madeleine Stowe photo
Joan Rivers photo

“Why do wives have to spend so much time dusting, vacuuming, mopping, making beds, washing dishes, when you just have to do it all again six months later?”

Joan Rivers (1933–2014) American comedian, actress, and television host

As quoted in Enjoy Your Gifted Child (1986), by C. A. Takacs, p. 55

Sam Harris photo
Nigel Cumberland photo

“Life is too short to spend too long at work and also to waste your time while in the workplace.”

Nigel Cumberland (1967) British author and leadership coach

Source: Your Job-Hunt Ltd – Advice from an Award-Winning Asian Headhunter (2003), Successful Recruitment in a Week (2012) https://books.google.ae/books?idp24GkAsgjGEC&printsecfrontcover&dqnigel+cumberland&hlen&saX&ved0ahUKEwjF75Xw0IHNAhULLcAKHazACBMQ6AEIGjAA#vonepage&qnigel%20cumberland&ffalse, Managing Teams in a Week (2013) https://books.google.ae/books?idqZjO9_ov74EC&printsecfrontcover&dqnigel+cumberland&hlen&saX&ved0ahUKEwjF75Xw0IHNAhULLcAKHazACBMQ6AEIIDAB#vonepage&qnigel%20cumberland&ffalse, Secrets of Success at Work – 50 techniques to excel (2014) https://books.google.ae/books?id4S7vAgAAQBAJ&printsecfrontcover&dqnigel+cumberland&hlen&saX&ved0ahUKEwjF75Xw0IHNAhULLcAKHazACBMQ6AEIJjAC#vonepage&qnigel%20cumberland&ffalse, p.36

Sarah McLachlan photo
George W. Bush photo
John D. Carmack photo

“Honestly, I spend very little time thinking about past events, and I certainly don't have them ranked in any way. I look back and think that I have done a lot of good work over the years, but I am much more excited about what the future holds.”

John D. Carmack (1970) American computer programmer, engineer, and businessman

When asked about the highlight of his career, Quoted in "John Carmack Interview, January 2006" http://archive.videogamesdaily.com/features/id_johncarmack_interview_jan05.asp Video Games Daily (2006-01-03)

John Hennigan photo

“You're dying to spend a night with me in the Palace of Wisdom. (to Kelly Kelly)”

John Hennigan (1979) American professional wrestler

The Palace Of Wisdom

Seneca the Younger photo

“Who is everywhere is nowhere. When a person spends all his time in foreign travel, he ends by having many acquaintances, but no friends.”
Nusquam est qui ubique est. Vitam in peregrinatione exigentibus hoc evenit, ut multa hospitia habeant, nullas amicitias.

Seneca the Younger (-4–65 BC) Roman Stoic philosopher, statesman, and dramatist

Source: Epistulae Morales ad Lucilium (Moral Letters to Lucilius), Letter II: On discursiveness in reading, Line 2.

Mata Amritanandamayi photo
John Elkann photo

“As an entrepreneur you have responsibilities in trying to operate well in what you have to do. There is a positive effect if you end up doing that. That’s where I try to spend most of my efforts.”

John Elkann (1976) Italian businessman

"Fiat's John Elkann shares family business views" http://www.fbn-i.org/dec-10/article1.html, FBNenews, 12-15-2010

John Muir photo

“If I were so time-poor as to have only one day to spend in Yosemite I should start at daybreak, say at three o'clock in midsummer, with a pocketful of any sort of dry breakfast stuff, for Glacier Point, Sentinel Dome, the head of Illilouette Fall, Nevada Fall, the top of Liberty Cap, Vernal Fall and the wild boulder-choked River Cañon.”

John Muir (1838–1914) Scottish-born American naturalist and author

The Yosemite http://www.sierraclub.org/john_muir_exhibit/writings/the_yosemite/ (1912), chapter 12: How Best to Spend One's Yosemite Time
Advice for visitors to Yosemite given by John Muir at age 74 years. Compare advice given by the 37-year-old Muir above.
1910s

Ned Kelly photo
Roméo Dallaire photo
Caitlín R. Kiernan photo
Ilana Mercer photo

“A balanced-budget requirement implies is that government has the constitutional right to spend as much as it takes in; that government is permitted to waste however much revenue it can extract from wealth producers, and that the bums must merely bring into balance what was stolen (taxes) with what is squandered (spending).”

Ilana Mercer South African writer

“Rand Paul: Action Hero, Or Political Performance Artist?” http://www.ilanamercer.com/phprunner/public_article_list_view.php?editid1=700 WorldNetDaily.com, March 1, 2013.
2010s, 2013

L. Ron Hubbard photo
Madhuri Dixit photo

“I adore the concept of being in love with one guy and spending the rest of my life with him.”

Madhuri Dixit (1967) Indian actress

Quote, When personality comes first.....

Joanna Newsom photo
Samuel Beckett photo

“Spend the years of learning squandering
Courage for the years of wandering
Through a world politely turning
From the loutishness of learning.”

Samuel Beckett (1906–1989) Irish novelist, playwright, and poet

"Gnome" in Dublin Magazine Vol. 9 (1934), p. 8

Ai Weiwei photo

“I spend very little time just doing '“art as art.'”

Ai Weiwei (1957) Chinese concept artist

Jones, Alice. “ Ten People Who Changed the World: Ai Weiwei, Chinese Artist, Became a Truly Global Force http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/art/features/ten-people-who-changed-the-world-ai-weiwei-chinese-artist-became-a-truly-global-force-6282327.html.” Independent, December 31, 2011.
2010-, 2011

John Gray photo
Ursula K. Le Guin photo
Roy Blunt photo
Karen Handel photo
Aldous Huxley photo

“We may not appreciate the fact; but a fact nevertheless it remains: we are living in a Golden Age, the most gilded Golden Age of human history — not only of past history, but of future history. For, as Sir Charles Darwin and many others before him have pointed out, we are living like drunken sailors, like the irresponsible heirs of a millionaire uncle. At an ever accelerating rate we are now squandering the capital of metallic ores and fossil fuels accumulated in the earth’s crust during hundreds of millions of years. How long can this spending spree go on? Estimates vary. But all are agreed that within a few centuries or at most a few millennia, Man will have run through his capital and will be compelled to live, for the remaining nine thousand nine hundred and seventy or eighty centuries of his career as Homo sapiens, strictly on income. Sir Charles is of the opinion that Man will successfully make the transition from rich ores to poor ores and even sea water, from coal, oil, uranium and thorium to solar energy and alcohol derived from plants. About as much energy as is now available can be derived from the new sources — but with a far greater expense in man hours, a much larger capital investment in machinery. And the same holds true of the raw materials on which industrial civilization depends. By doing a great deal more work than they are doing now, men will contrive to extract the diluted dregs of the planet’s metallic wealth or will fabricate non-metallic substitutes for the elements they have completely used up. In such an event, some human beings will still live fairly well, but not in the style to which we, the squanderers of planetary capital, are accustomed.”

Aldous Huxley (1894–1963) English writer

"Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow" in Adonis and the Alphabet (1956); later in Collected Essays (1959), p. 293

John Dos Passos photo
Gloria Estefan photo
John Morley, 1st Viscount Morley of Blackburn photo
Anton Mauve photo

“Our plans were to go to Amsterdam and Laren tomorrow and then spend another day with you... I am very busy again with 7 paintings at the same time, I still have a lot to do before I can go to Laren, going to live there. Now, this week I can say it more confidently, - when we find a suitable location... We are on a leap of eating out therefore this scribbling..”

Anton Mauve (1838–1888) Dutch painter (1838–1888)

translation from original Dutch, Fons Heijnsbroek, 2018
(version in original Dutch / origineel citaat van Anton Mauve, uit zijn brief:) Onze plannen waren, morgen naar Amsterdam en Laren te gaan en daarna nog een dagje bij U door te brengen.. .Ik ben weer verschrikkelijk aan de gang met 7 schilderijen te gelijk, ik heb nog heel wat te doen, voor ik naar Laren kan gaan wonen. Nu van de week kan ik het zekerder zeggen, - als wij een geschikte gelegenheid gevonden hebben.. .Wij staan op sprong van uit eten te gaan daarom dit gekrabbel..
In a letter to Willem Witsen, from The Hague, May? 1885]; original copy from website DBNL https://www.dbnl.org/tekst/wits009brie01_01/wits009brie01_01_0026.php; location of resource: Koninklijke Bibliotheek, Den Haag: no. KB75 C51
1880's

Calvin Coolidge photo

“We have been attempting to relieve ourselves and the other nations from the old theory of competitive armaments. In spite of all the arguments in favor of great military forces, no nation ever had an army large enough to guarantee it against attack in time of peace or to insure its victory in time of war. No nation ever will. Peace and security are more likely to result from fair and honorable dealings, and mutual agreements for a limitation of armaments among nations, than by any attempt at competition in squadrons and battalions. No doubt this country could, if it wished to spend more money, make a better military force, but that is only part of the problem which confronts our Government. The real question is whether spending more money to make a better military force would really make a better country. I would be the last to disparage the military art. It is an honorable and patriotic calling of the highest rank. But I can see no merit in any unnecessary expenditure of money to hire men to build fleets and carry muskets when international relations and agreements permit the turning of such resources into the making of good roads, the building of better homes, the promotion of education, and all the other arts of peace which minister to the advancement of human welfare. Happily, the position of our country is such among the other nations of the world that we have been and shall be warranted in proceeding in this direction.”

Calvin Coolidge (1872–1933) American politician, 30th president of the United States (in office from 1923 to 1929)

1920s, Toleration and Liberalism (1925)

Isaac Asimov photo

“SWA Magazine: Talking about spacecraft, what do you think about the shuttle program?
Asimov: Well, I hope it does get off the ground. And I hope they expand it, because the shuttle program is the gateway to everything else. By means of the shuttle, we will be able to build space stations and power stations, laboratory facilities and habitations, and everything else in space.
SWA Magazine: How about orbital space colonies? Do you see these facilities being built or is the government going to cut back on projects like this?
Asimov: Well, now you've put your finger right on it. In order to have all of these wonderful things in space, we don't have to wait for technology - we've got the technology, and we don't have to wait for the know-how - we've got that too. All we need is the political go-ahead and the economic willingness to spend the money that is necessary. It is a little frustrating to think that if people concentrate on how much it is going to cost they will realize the great amount of profit they will get for their investment. Although they are reluctant to spend a few billions of dollars to get back an infinite quantity of money, the world doesn't mind spending $400 billion every years on arms and armaments, never getting anything back from it except a chance to commit suicide.”

Isaac Asimov (1920–1992) American writer and professor of biochemistry at Boston University, known for his works of science fiction …

An Interview with Isaac Asimov (1979)

Indro Montanelli photo

“Italian husbands, in order to buy their wives a fur coat, spend more than all their European collegues.”

Indro Montanelli (1909–2001) Italian journalist

Controcorrente, 1974-1986.
1950s - 1990s