“The person who either acquires, or succeeds to a great fortune, does not necessarily acquire or succeed to any political power, either civil or military. His fortune may, perhaps, afford him the means of acquiring both, but the mere possession of that fortune does not necessarily convey to him either. The power which that possession immediately and directly conveys to him, is the power of purchasing.” – Adam Smith, An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, Vol. One
“The real price of every thing, what every thing really costs to the man who wants to acquire it, is the toil and trouble of acquiring it.” – Adam Smith, An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, Vol. One
“Presidential elections in the United States are the dash for the cash. News outlets large and small suddenly open up their wallets and shovel out money for words, photos, video, anything that grabs eyes and ears. TOTAL COVERAGE! If you’re a freelancer, presidential elections are a gift from the news gods because it means a few months of steady paychecks, a fattened Rolodex, maybe a staff gig with juicy benefits or a sweetheart book deal.” – Dominic Gwinn, “2024 From The Back Of Dom’s Van,” December 31, 2024, Wonkette (emphasis in original)
“Life isn’t about waiting for the storm to pass. . . . It’s about learning to dance in the rain.” – Vivian Greene
“Man has almost constant occasion for the help of his brethren, and it is in vain for him to expect it from their benevolence only. He will be more likely to prevail if he can interest their self-love in his favour, and show them that it is for their own advantage to do for him what he requires of them. Whoever offers to another a bargain of any kind, proposes to do this. Give me that which I want, and you shall have this which you want, is the meaning of every such offer; and it is in this manner that we obtain from one another the far greater part of those good offices which we stand in need of. It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker, that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest. We address ourselves, not to their humanity but to their self-love, and never talk to them of our own necessities but of their advantages. Nobody but a beggar chuses to depend chiefly upon the benevolence of his fellow-citizens.” – Adam Smith, An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, Vol. One
“America’s a hustle.” – Noelle Valdivia, “Bliss,” The Penguin
“During the first two years after the German attack in 1941 the urgency of Soviet needs had been so great, the threat of Soviet collapse so imminent and foreboding for the Allied cause, that almost any effort or sacrifice seemed justified in order to deliver supplies. This sense of urgency died hard even under the changed conditions of the last half of the war when victory over Germany and Japan seemed assured. The postwar implications of thus helping to strengthen the Soviet position in Europe and Asia were either not foreseen or ignored.” – Robert W. Coakley and Richard M. Leighton, “Aid to the USSR in the Later War Years,” Global Logistics and Strategy: 1943-1945
“In the postwar period the United States was to be forced to resort to new devices to maintain a going British economy and to bolster British military strength, starting with a loan in 1946 and progressing through the Marshall Plan and the Mutual Security Program. A forthright approach to the problem in 1945 might have saved much lost time and have been more economical in the end. Certainly the restrictive attitude of the JCS [Joint Chiefs of Staff] played some part in preventing such a forthright approach to a situation in which Presidential direction was uncertain and a practical policy vacuum existed. It seems evident that both Roosevelt and Truman, the latter perhaps belatedly after Potsdam, saw the need for helping the British in their postwar economic adjustment, but Roosevelt’s hand was faltering in the last six months of his life and he did not take the necessary steps either to lay down a clear policy for the executive branch to follow or to secure the legislative authority that would have made the course of his successor easier. Without legislative authority, Truman felt his hands were tied, and lend-lease was allowed to lapse without any real consideration of how it might be used as an effective instrument of U.S. policy in promoting postwar adjustments—just as it had been used during hostilities as an extremely effective means for fighting a coalition war.” – Robert W. Coakley and Richard M. Leighton, “The End of the Common Pool,” Global Logistics and Strategy: 1943-1945
“The British did not have quite the same respect for the ‘scientific’ calculation of requirements that the Americans at least professed to have, and regarded the end result as merely an educated guess. It is at least possible that American insistence that the British determine their requirements far in advance was also conditioned less by their confidence in anybody’s ability to do so than by their desire to keep production plans stable and not allow them to be continually disrupted by British demands for bits and pieces.” – Robert W. Coakley and Richard M. Leighton, “Lend-Lease and the Common Pool,” Global Logistics and Strategy: 1943-1945
“Dog wants only a dry hole. Wants only tasty bone. Wants the cockles off him. All else is luxury.” – Leon Rooke, Shakespeare’s Dog
“There’s much to be said for looting the past.” – Leon Rooke, Shakespeare’s Dog
“Dog’s curse comes announced by wind and wind says, ‘The maggots shall eat you all. One way or another maggot shall rule the world.’ Dog is loose in the memory or he’d rise up and demand a higher shelf for his life and invent sweet myths to explain it all. Once upon a time, two ticks in the Garden, one saying to the other, What this place needs is a dog. . . .” – Leon Rooke, Shakespeare’s Dog
“You owe no one nothing, least of all yourself. What’s life anyway, but a hill of beans? Don’t feel bad.” – Leon Rooke, Shakespeare’s Dog
“The framework of plans for the final massive assault against Japan had been started in 1943 and 1944; the military machine for executing them was in existence and needed only to be moved into position. Schooled in the necessity of preparing for every contingency, fearful that public pressures might lead to the premature dismantling of the military machine, and, for the most part, unaware of the new technological revolution brewing in the laboratories and on the testing grounds, American military staffs continued to work at completing the structure around the framework of plans until the very moment that the mushroom cloud over Hiroshima presented startling evidence of the arrival of a new age in warfare.” – Robert W. Coakley and Richard M. Leighton, “Logistics of a One-Front War,” Global Logistics and Strategy: 1943-1945
“The argument can certainly be made that the Japanese would hardly have surrendered except in the certain knowledge that the United States had the means, the plans, and the intent to invade, whatever the effects of bombing (atomic and conventional), blockade, and Soviet entry into the war. Legitimate criticism can still be directed at the massive scale on which the final effort against Japan was planned when forces of the Army and Navy and of America’s allies are taken into consideration, at the seeming absorption of the military staffs in preparing for the execution of plans that had generated a momentum of their own, and at their failure to take into consideration in their plans the possibility of Japan’s collapse, or to even begin a downward adjustment of force requirements until that collapse was a certainty.” – Robert W. Coakley and Richard M. Leighton, “Logistics of a One-Front War,” Global Logistics and Strategy: 1943-1945
“On 6 August 1945 an American B-29 dropped one atomic bomb on Hiroshima. On 8 August the Soviet Union declared war on Japan and its Far Eastern armies began their march into Manchuria. On 9 August another atomic bomb fell on Nagasaki. On 15 August a Japanese Government that had long before concluded that the war was lost made known its intention to surrender. On 2 September the surrender was consummated in ceremonies aboard the U.S.S. Missouri. The war against Japan thus came to its end in a manner radically different from that which the military planning staffs had envisaged. The elaborate plans and preparations for invasion of Japan had no ultimate utility.” – Robert W. Coakley and Richard M. Leighton, “Logistics of a One-Front War,” Global Logistics and Strategy: 1943-1945
“On many Pacific islands supplies were to deteriorate in open storage until 1950 when the United States was to find a new and unexpected use for them in the Korean War. A naval historian, commenting on the roll-up of naval supplies in the South Pacific, has summed up the effort of the Army just as fittingly: ‘The logic of rolling forward rear bases was impeccable. In the case of personnel its urgency could not be denied. But to set up a cross current against the normal flow of supply and support proved to be extremely difficult, if not impracticable. Much of the usable material was in fact moved forward. The rest remained in the South Pacific to be locally disposed of or to stand as a monument to the unsparing waste of war and the greater importance of time over cost.’ The ‘greater importance of time over cost’ might indeed be designated as the most important factor in logistics in World War II.” – Robert W. Coakley and Richard M. Leighton, “Logistics of a One-Front War,” Global Logistics and Strategy: 1943-1945
“Politicians are not the most remarkable men in the world for probity and punctuality. Ambassadors from different nations are still less so.” – Adam Smith, Lectures on Justice, Police, Revenue and Arms
“Whenever commerce is introduced into any country probity and punctuality always accompany it.” – Adam Smith, Lectures on Justice, Police, Revenue and Arms
“After howl comes nothing, comes bleached bones, then dust’s mortification, then petrification, final bitter democracy.” – Leon Rooke, Shakespeare’s Dog
“I won, I won, and all for what? Void, void, I thought, that’s all there is. Howl and only more howl comes back, it doomed to die like thunder on a summer plain, with no span of time so meaningfully shallow, so empty, so wretched pure in its silence as that one clapping down after thunder ceases—you won, oh you won, you’ve scattered the devils, but where’s the logic, where’s victory’s afterglow? Void, void, the true kingdom, void only and no other.” – Leon Rooke, Shakespeare’s Dog
“We are dealing with distances half way around the world. We are dealing in personnel by the million. We are dealing with supply in millions of tons. A mass of detail and delicate timing is involved.” – General Brehon B. Somervell, USA, Commanding General, Army Service Forces, May 15, 1945 (as quoted by Robert W. Coakley and Richard M. Leighton, “Logistics of a One-Front War,” Global Logistics and Strategy: 1943-1945)
“That final victory over Japan was assured, there was no longer any doubt in U.S. councils. Timing was the vital question. American staffs, reflecting the temper of American public opinion, were impatient. Their impatience, nevertheless, did not permit them to underestimate Japanese ability to resist. To the Army staff, at least, mass invasion seemed the quickest way, indeed the only way, in which Japanese capitulation could be assured. It was also undoubtedly the costliest way both in human lives and resources.” – Robert W. Coakley and Richard M. Leighton, “The Pacific in Transition,” Global Logistics and Strategy: 1943-1945
“Hold on to affection’s smallish stuff . . . for otherwise it is all hell in a bucket.” – Leon Rooke, Shakespeare’s Dog
“Spiders will amaze me, for they are more shiftless than you may think. You will never see one spider running with another, or having fellowship of any sort, either with its own kind or another, and this is true for all varieties of them, of which there are more than there are grains of sand in our Guild Pit. Nor do the webbers have any vestige of humor. They are colder in their dispositions than a white-eyed turnip. They are of two sets, shortsighted and longsighted, I’ve noted, and it’s the former I’d sooner avoid. But I hate all spiders. I hate them for their webs primarily and for where they put them, but more that they will always go for my nose, then give a squeak before I can throttle them. But they make good comfrey for dog’s bad breath.” – Leon Rooke, Shakespeare’s Dog
“Soul is an airy-fairy thing, with a cock-a-doodle-do for what you may think of it.” – Leon Rooke, Shakespeare’s Dog
“In the natural hierarchy of medicine, first came physician, then surgeon, then tooth-drawer, tinker, horse-leech, sow-gelder, and conjuror.” – Leon Rooke, Shakespeare’s Dog
“The man who sees everything is more blessed than cursed.” – Tony Gilroy, “Rix Road,” Andor
“Surprise from above is never as shocking as one from below.” – Dan Gilroy, “The Axe Forgets,” Andor
“Without empathy for others, we cannot see ourselves.” – Timothy Snyder, “Class War or Culture War?”, Thinking about…, December 19, 2024