Tony's Garden

“If the natural tendencies of mankind are so bad that it is not safe to permit people to be free, how is it that the tendencies of these organizers are always good? Do not the legislators and their appointed agents also belong to the human race? Or do they believe that they themselves are made…

“Most of the harm in the world is done by good people, and not by accident, lapse, or omission. It is the result of their deliberate actions, long persevered in, which they hold to be motivated by high ideals toward virtuous ends.” ― Isabel Paterson Birthdays: 1468 Juan del Encina, Spanish author and composer. Pues…

“Neither can his mind be thought to be in tune, whose words do jarre; nor hisreason in frame, whose sentence is preposterous.” ― Ben Jonson Birthdays: 1572 Ben Jonson, English playwright and poet. 1672 Francesco Antonio Bonporti, Italian priest and amateur composer. Concertini Op. 12, No. 6, and Serenata in A-Dur Op.12 No.6 1840 Henri…

“Karl Marx was right, socialism works, it is just that he had the wrong species.” ― Edward O. Wilson Birthdays: 1790 Joseph Daussoigne-Méhul, French composer. Final de la 1ère Symphonie. 1925 Nat Hentoff, American columnist and novelist. MISCELLANY: FOCUSED PROTECTION: The Great Barrington Declaration SCIENCE, ETHICS, AND THE NUREMBERG CODE: Declaration of Canadian Physicians for Science and…

“DON’T HURT PEOPLE, AND don’t take their stuff. That’s it, in a nutshell. Everyone should be free to live their lives as they think best, free from meddling by politicians and government bureaucrats, as long as they don’t hurt other people, or take other people’s stuff.” ― Matt Kibbe Birthdays: 1597 Pieter Jansz Saenredam, Dutch…

“Human beings… are far too prone to generalize from one instance. The technical word for this, interestingly enough, is superstition.” ― Francis Crick Birthdays: 1625 Giovanni Domenico Cassini, Italian-French mathematician, astronomer and engineer. 1671 Tomaso Albinoni, Italian composer. Adagio. 1810 Robert Schumann, German composer and pianist. Träumerei, from Kinderszenen No. 7, and Erstes Grün 1829…

“The state — or, to make matters 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…

“I was not born to amuse the Tsars.” ― Alexander Pushkin Birthdays: 1599 Diego Velázquez, Spanish painter.1625 Domenico Guidi, Italian sculptor.1661 Giacomo Antonio Perti, Italian composer. Dixit Dominus a 8 voci pieno1756 John Trumbull, American painter.1799 Alexander Pushkin, Russian poet, novelist, dramatist and writer of short stories.1844 Konstantin Savitsky, Russian painter.1850 Karl Ferdinand Braun, German…

“I keep six honest serving-men(They taught me all I knew);Their names are What and Why and WhenAnd How and Where and Who.I send them over land and sea,I send them east and west;But after they have worked for me,I give them all a rest.” ― Rudyard Kipling Birthdays: 1646 Elena Cornaro Piscopia, Philosopher and Mathematician.…

“Ultimately, man should not ask what the meaning of his life is, but rather must recognize that it is he who is asked. In a word, each man is questioned by life; and he can only answer to life by answering for his own life; to life he can only respond by being responsible.” ―…