And I quote...

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"A fool and his money are soon elected."

--Will Rogers

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This post reminded me of a passage from a Theodore Dalrymple column. The column itself deals with the subject of collectivism vs. individualism, and he briefly notes the demise of eccentricity in Britain:

"The British are sadly changed from Hayek's description of them. A sense of irony is the first victim of utopian dreams. The British tolerance of eccentricity has also evaporated; uniformity is what they want now, and are prepared informally to impose. They tolerate no deviation in taste or appearance from themselves: and certainly in the lower reaches of society, people who are markedly different, either in appearance because of the vagaries of nature, or in behavior because of an unusual taste they may have, especially for cultivation, meet with merciless ridicule, bullying, and even physical attack. It is as if people believed that uniformity of appearance, taste, and behavior were a justification of their own lives, and any deviation an implied reproach or even a declaration of hostility. A young patient of mine, who disliked the noise, the vulgarity, and the undertone of violence of the nightclubs where her classmates spent their Friday and Saturday nights, was derided and mocked into conformity: it was too hard to hold out. The pressure to conform to the canons of popular taste—or rather lack of taste—has never been stronger. Those without interest in soccer hardly dare mention it in public, for fear of being considered enemies of the people. A dispiriting uniformity of character, deeply shallow, has settled over a land once richer in eccentrics than any other. No more Edward Lears for us: we prefer notoriety to oddity now."

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[lester1/2jr]

Justin Martyr from "The Apology of Tertullian"

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"Here in Britain, of course, it's 'Thank f**k We Got Those Weird Jesus Bastards on the Boat Day'."

---Warren Ellis

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The Four Ages of Man

He with body waged a fight,
But body won; it walks upright.
Then he struggled with the heart;
Innocence and peace depart.

Then he struggled with the mind;
His proud heart he left behind.
Now his wars on God begin;
At stroke of midnight God shall win.

--W.B. Yeats

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"...each man kills the thing he loves
  By each let this be heard,
Some do it with a bitter look,
  Some with a flattering word,
The coward does it with a kiss,
  The brave man with a sword..."

----Oscar Wilde
From The Ballad of the Reading Gaol

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