Tony's Garden

“What is the human purpose in society? It is to exchange one good for another good more desired. Putting it on a personal basis, it is a matter of benefiting yourself by getting something you desire from another person who, at the same time, benefits himself by getting something that he desires from you. The…

“The most important tactic in an argument next to being right is to leave an escape hatch for your opponent so that he can gracefully swing over to your side without an embarrassing loss of face.” ― Stephen Jay Gould 1588 Nicholas Lanier, English composer. No more shall meads (Love’s Constancy) 1645 Romeyn de Hooghe,…

“And when people cease to believe that there is good and evil,Only beauty will call to them and save themSo that they will know how to say: this is true and that is false.” ― Czesław Miłosz 1583 Girolamo Frescobaldi, Italian composer. Toccata per l’elevatione, and Toccata V, and Aria detta la Frescobalda dal Secondo…

“A library is a place where you learn what teachers were afraid to teach you.” ― Alan Dershowitz 1672 Nicolas de Grigny, French organist and composer. Tierce en Taille 1841 Antonín Dvořák, Czech composer. Carnival Overture, and Song to the Moon from Rusalka MISCELLANY: WHICH IS BETTER: STRONG EVIDENCE OR NO EVIDENCE AT ALL? Lead…

“Any alleged ‘right’ of one man, which necessitates the violation of the rights of another, is not and cannot be a right.” ― Ayn Rand 1705 Matthäus Günther, German painter 1726 François-André Danican Philidor, French composer and chess champion. Sinfonia 1 in g minor from l’Art de la Modulation 1740 Johan Tobias Sergel, Swedish sculptor…

“The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.” ― H.L. Mencken 1620 Isabella Leonarda, Italian religious composer. Sonata decima, and Queste ch’a Voi consagro 1633 Sebastian Knupfer, German composer, conductor…

“You’re not going to push ahead when it’s someone else’s mission. It needs to be yours.” ― Peter H. Diamandis 1600 Loreto Vittori, Italian composer and mezzo-soprano singer. Lungi dal mio bel Sole 1694 František Václav Míča, Czech conductor and composer. Bellezza e Decoro, Nel giorno natalizio – 1, and Bellezza e Decoro, Nel giorno…

“There is no worse tyranny than to force a man to pay for what he does not want merely because you think it would be good for him.” ― Robert A. Heinlein, The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress 1622 Jacob Hintze, German composer. Christ lag in Todesbanden 1824 Anton Bruckner, Austrian composer and organist. ‘Locus…

“Government’s view of the economy could be summed up in a few short phrases: If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. And if it stops moving, subsidize it.” ― Ronald Reagan 1568 Adriano Banchieri, Italian organist, composer, poet, and monk. Dialogo, and Fantasia Prima from Fantasie overo canzoni alla Francese a…

“In keeping silent about evil, in burying it so deep within us that no sign of it appears on the surface, we are implanting it, and it will rise up a thousand fold in the future. When we neither punish nor reproach evildoers, we are not simply protecting their trivial old age, we are thereby…