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If pressed to pick a political system, I think that some country or other ought to try jury duty as a way of picking its politicians: if your name gets picked, and you can’t come up with a good enough excuse, you’ll have to give up four or five years of your life to helping run the country, which avoids the main problem of politics as I see it, which is that the kind of people you have to choose between and vote for are the kind of people who actually think that they ought to be running things. If you have a country and want to try this as a political system, let me know how it works out.

Neil Gaiman (b. 1960) British fabulist
“Politics, Portugal and No Gumbo-Limbo Trees,” blog entry (17 Nov 2004)
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Added on 22-Nov-21 | Last updated 22-Nov-21
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In a world that operates largely at random, coincidences are to be expected, but any one of them must always be mistrusted.

Rex Stout (1886-1975) American writer
Champagne for One, ch. 5 [Wolfe] (1958)
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Added on 5-Nov-21 | Last updated 5-Nov-21
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Such closet politicians never fail to assign the deepest motives for the most trifling actions; instead of often ascribing the greatest actions to the most trifling causes, in which they would be much seldomer mistaken. They read and write of kings, heroes, and statesmen, as never doing any thing but upon the deepest principles of sound policy. But those who see and observe kings, heroes and statesmen, discover that they have headaches, indigestions, humours, and passions, just like other people; every one of which, in their turns, determine their wills, in defiance of their reason.

Lord Chesterfield (1694-1773) English statesman, wit [Philip Dormer Stanhope]
Letter to his son, #205 (5 Dec 1749)
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Added on 25-Mar-21 | Last updated 13-Oct-22
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It’s a blessing to die for a cause, because you can so easily die for nothing.

Andrew Young (b. 1932) American politician, diplomat, activist
Interview by Peter Ross Range, Playboy (Jul 1977)
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Added on 25-Feb-21 | Last updated 25-Feb-21
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There isn’t a way things should be. There’s just what happens, and what we do.

Terry Pratchett (1948-2015) English author
A Hat Full of Sky [Miss Level] (2004)
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Added on 23-Sep-15 | Last updated 13-Oct-23
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There’s a statistical theory that if you gave a million monkeys typewriters and set them to work, they’d eventually come up with the complete works of Shakespeare. Thanks to the Internet, we now know this isn’t true.

Ian Hart (contemp.) Australian media academic, documentary producer
“Between the Idea and Reality, The Case for Qualitative Research,” ITForum Paper #20 (Mar 1997)
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Added on 1-Feb-04 | Last updated 22-Mar-14
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