WIST Quotations

Ivins, Molly -- Essay (1995-12-24), “Look to the Children of the Poor in This Season of Budget-Slashing,” Fort Worth Star-Telegram

Dave — Wed, 22 Apr 2026 16:18:27 +0000

How the American right managed to convince itself that the programs to alleviate poverty are responsible for the consequences of poverty will someday be studied as a notorious mass illusion. In the meantime, real children — kids who get earaches and like Big Bird and are crabby when they aren’t fed and whose eyes widen in wonder when they meet Santa Claus — will pay the price for this pernicious folly.

Molly Ivins (1944-2007) American writer, political columnist [Mary Tyler Ivins]
Essay (1995-12-24), “Look to the Children of the Poor in This Season of Budget-Slashing,” Fort Worth Star-Telegram
(Source)

Collected in You Got to Dance with Them What Brung You (1998).

Roosevelt, Franklin Delano -- Speech (1940-11-01), Campaign Address, Brooklyn Academy of Music, New York

Dave — Thu, 02 Apr 2026 00:29:16 +0000

We understand the philosophy of those who offer resistance, of those who conduct a counter offensive against the American people’s march of social progress. It is not an opposition which comes necessarily from wickedness — it is an opposition that comes from subconscious resistance to any measure that disturbs the position of privilege.
It is an unfortunate human failing that a full pocketbook often groans more loudly than an empty stomach.

Franklin Delano Roosevelt (1882–1945) American lawyer, politician, statesman, US President (1933–1945)
Speech (1940-11-01), Campaign Address, Brooklyn Academy of Music, New York
(Source)

Ivins, Molly -- Essay (1987-09-11), “We the People,” Texas Observer

Dave — Wed, 25 Jun 2025 15:04:32 +0000

What’s really astounding about these brickheads who claim to be in touch with the original intent of the founders is (1) none of them seem to have read what the founders wrote, from Thomas Jefferson’s essays to Jamie Madison’s notes, and (2) you know damn well if they had been alive at the time of the American Revolution, they all would have been Tories.

Molly Ivins (1944-2007) American writer, political columnist [Mary Tyler Ivins]
Essay (1987-09-11), “We the People,” Texas Observer
(Source)

Collected in Molly Ivins Can't Say That, Can She? (1991).

Lowell, Amy -- Tendencies in Modern American Poetry, Preface (1917)

Dave — Thu, 08 Sep 2022 19:30:37 +0000

Conservatives are always with us, they have been opposing change ever since the days of the cave-man. But, fortunately for mankind, they agitate in vain.

Amy Lowell (1874-1925) American poet
Tendencies in Modern American Poetry, Preface (1917)
(Source)

Golden, Harry -- “The Death of Senator McCarthy,” Carolina Israelite (5 May 1957)

Dave — Thu, 25 Aug 2022 15:28:21 +0000

The conservatives nearly always tolerate the demagogue while he is destroying liberals. The conservatives may even know that their turn will come next, but they usually take this calculated risk. “Let him knock their heads together,” they say, “we’ll take care of him in good time.” […] But it never works out the way the conservatives would like to have it, especially if the demagogue knows how to consolidate his position before he finally goes after his early “allies.”

Harry Golden (1902-1981) Austrian-American writer and newspaper publisher [b. Herschel Goldhirsch]
“The Death of Senator McCarthy,” Carolina Israelite (5 May 1957)
(Source)

Reprinted in Only in America (1958).

Mill, John Stuart -- On Liberty, ch. 2 “Of the Liberty of Thought and Discussion” (1859)

Dave — Fri, 25 May 2012 16:30:44 +0000

In politics, again, it is almost a commonplace, that a party of order or stability, and a party of progress or reform, are both necessary elements of a healthy state of political life. […] Each of these modes of thinking derives its utility from the deficiencies of the other; but it is in a great measure the opposition of the other that keeps each within the limits of reason and sanity.

John Stuart Mill (1806-1873) English philosopher and economist
On Liberty, ch. 2 “Of the Liberty of Thought and Discussion” (1859)
(Source)