Marriage teaches you loyalty, forbearance, self-restraint, meekness, and a great many other things you wouldn’t need if you had stayed single.

[Source unknown]

Well yes, these quotes do explain a few things …

Here’s all you need to know about men and women: women are crazy, men are stupid. And the main reason women are crazy is that men are stupid.
[George Carlin]

You never know what is enough, until you know what is more than enough.
[William Blake, Proverbs of Hell]

Historically, the claim of consensus has been the first refuge of scoundrels; it is a way to avoid debate by claiming that the matter is already settled.
[Michael Crichton, Caltech Michelin Lecture, 17 January 2003]

I believe that it is better to tell the truth than a lie. I believe it is better to be free than to be a slave. And I believe it is better to know than to be ignorant. The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary. The most dangerous man to any government is the man who is able to think things out … without regard to the prevailing superstitions and taboos. Almost inevitably he comes to the conclusion that the government he lives under is dishonest, insane, intolerable.
[HL Mencken]

Warm-heartedness reinforces our self-confidence – giving us not a blind confidence, but a sense of confidence based on reason. When you have that you can act transparently, with nothing to hide! Likewise, if you are honest, the community will trust you. Trust brings friendship, as a result of which you can always feel happy. Whether you look to the right or the left, you will always be able to smile.
[Dalai Lama]

If you can’t get rid of the skeleton in your closet you’d best take it out and teach it to dance.
[George Bernard Shaw]

A few more quotes which I come across recently and which amused or otherwise hit me over the head.

Now that there is a hosepipe ban, does that mean colonic irrigation is now illegal?
[Thoughts of Angel]

The word “politics” is derived from the word “poly”, meaning “many”, and the word “ticks”, meaning “blood sucking parasites”
[Thoughts of Angel]

It’s discouraging to think how many people are shocked by honesty … And how few by deceit.
[Noel Coward]

If Tyranny and Oppression come to this land, it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy. In Republics, the great danger is, that the majority may not sufficiently respect the rights of the minority. It will be of little avail to the people that the laws are made by men of their own choice if the laws be so voluminous that they cannot be read, or so incoherent that they cannot be understood. Liberty may be endangered by the abuse of liberty, but also by the abuse of power.
[James Madison]

A government big enough to give you everything you want, is strong enough to take everything you have. I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies. The will of the people is the only legitimate foundation of any government, and to protect its free expression should be our first object. When the government fears the people, there is liberty. When the people fear the government, there is tyranny.
[Thomas Jefferson]

There is no expedient to which a man will not go to avoid the labor of thinking.
[Thomas A Edison]

He has all the virtues I dislike and none of the vices I admire.
[Sir Winston Churchill]

Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.
[Benjamin Franklin, 1759]

Whatever you are, be a good one.
[Abraham Lincoln]

A person with a new idea is a crank until the idea succeeds.
[Mark Twain]

When trouble arises and things look bad, there is always one individual who perceives a solution and is willing to take command. Very often, that individual is crazy.
[Sigmund Freud]

You will never have all the information you need to make a decision. If you did, it would be a foregone conclusion, not a decision.

David Mahoney

Several recently noticed quotes on various aspects of humanity.

One cannot usefully legislate against an attitude or a belief, but one can legislate against criminal behaviour that might result from an attitude or a belief … It is the duty of governments to protect their citizens from harm. It is not government’s task to protect its citizens’ sensitivities, however justifiable and acute, from peacefully expressed views, however bizarre.
[William Saunderson-Meyer at Thought Leader]

When asked What thing about humanity surprises you the most?, the Dalai Lama answered: Man … Because he sacrifices his health in order to make money. Then he sacrifices money to recuperate his health. And then he is so anxious about the future that he does not enjoy the present; the result being that he does not live in the present or the future; he lives as if he is never going to die, and then dies having never really lived.”
[Dalai Lama quoted on Only Dead Fish]

To be human is to have a human body. To be ashamed of one’s body is to be ashamed of being human … Nudity is the default setting for all of us. It’s wrong to let ourselves be bullied or shamed into taking the action of hiding behind clothing. A society in which individuals are free to be as dressed or undressed as they wish would be my ideal.
[“Naked Andy” at iNAKED]

For a nation which has an almost evil reputation for bustle, bustle, bustle, and rush, rush, rush, we spend an enormous amount of time standing around in line in front of windows, just waiting.
[Robert Benchley]

We are all a little weird and life’s a little weird, and when we find someone whose weirdness is compatible with ours, we join up with them and fall in mutual weirdness and call it love.
[Dr Seuss]