Episode 033: YOU CAN QUOTE ME - I Ain't Don Quixote

In this episode of The Jeremiah Gunn Show, Jeremiah Gunn opens with program branding, a mission statement, and a disclaimer about past factual mix-ups while emphasizing that his broader arguments remain unchanged. He frames the show as a forum for “reasoned discussion” inspired by a “prove me wrong” approach, then pivots into commentary on political division, historical parallels, and what he describes as an ongoing cultural and constitutional conflict.

Gunn argues that civic disengagement allows harmful outcomes, referencing examples from U.S. history including the Civil War, World Wars, and political movements. He cites multiple quotations and historical figures—such as Viktor Frankl, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, and Thomas Sowell—to support themes about moral responsibility, choosing sides, and the importance of understanding “the cause of things.” The episode emphasizes the role of “prophets” as warning voices and encourages listeners—especially younger audiences—to become informed and engaged.

The second half shifts into a discussion of quotations and aphorisms as tools for wisdom. Gunn references classic quote collections, discusses figures like George Bernard Shaw, Benjamin Franklin, and Mark Twain, and shares personal anecdotes about using quotes in conversations. He closes by reading several inspirational quotes attributed to U.S. presidents and John Wooden, reinforcing a message about personal responsibility, truth, and acting within one’s ability.

Key Themes

• “Prove me wrong” debate philosophy
• Cultural and political conflict framed as a values battle
• Historical analogies (Civil War, WWII, civic responsibility)
• Prophets, warnings, and moral decision-making
• The importance of quotations and aphorisms in understanding life
• Inspirational closing quotes about action and personal responsibility

Notable Quotes Highlighted

• “People don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care.”
• “There are only two races: the decent and the indecent.” (attributed to Viktor Frankl)
• “Do what you can with what you have where you are.” — Theodore Roosevelt
• “Don’t let what you cannot do interfere with what you can do.” — John Wooden

Episode Takeaway
Jeremiah Gunn positions the show as a warning-driven commentary encouraging listeners to engage intellectually, learn from historical examples, and apply timeless quotations as guidance for navigating modern cultural and political challenges.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:42

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for listening. Thank you for joining us. Welcome, welcome. This is the Jeremiah Gunn Show. This is the Jeremiah Gunn Show. The undocumented expert, kind of the Chuck Norris of Philosophy of Reasoned Discussion. And uh come let us reason together. Let's let's let's hear you. Let us hear you. This is your your time. Uh to prove me wrong. That's what this program's dedicated to Charlie Kirk. And that's what he always said. Just prove me wrong. I think that's what he named as tours, the prove me wrong tour. Didn't happen much. Watch some of the videos. Uh professors didn't come out. They just sent the s their sheeple students out, and they couldn't do it, despite the hubris, despite everything. So anyway.

SPEAKER_02 1:36

The Jeremiah Gunn Show Experience.

SPEAKER_01 1:40

Train all day. Study all life.

SPEAKER_00 1:45

Podcast each morning. Hey, welcome aboard. Glad to have you. Thank you for joining us. Um this is uh I want to explain what we're doing here. Uh we are going to I, we, uh my pronouns are we the people. And this is our mission statement. We coalesce the vapors of human experience, gleaning the wise to summarize, and open eyes to vaporize, and cauterize the metastasized, supersized lies most don't even realize from the Lord of the Flies, but we keep our eyes on the prize and never compromise. We cogitate, contemplate, and communicate. Those are the ways and means. That's a little dedication, sort of, to Mr. Jesse Jesse Jackson, Revenue Jesse Jackass Jackson, who passed away recently and invited the three horsemen of the Jackass party to uh the horse's ass, the jackasses of the that's the symbol for their party to speak at his funeral. And his son had to get up, Jesse Jackson Jr., and say, sorry about that. Sorry about those three stooges we brought in here, which was uh blah, blah, blah, B-U-Y-E-D-I-N, and and her ass. Um Kami Lala. Anyway, um, a little quick this show is dedicated to Charlie Kirk, the great prophet, hero, patron saint of America. God bless him. Anyway, I want to make a quick disclaimer on, I want to make some corrections. You know, I'm not like a newspaper that uh prints it on page Z14 or something. But yeah, I I've I've made a few mistakes. Uh I was talking about I think this happens I think this happens with advancing years. I think that that RAM and that CPU get a little bit a little bit scratchy sometimes, and things you get crosstalk. But uh so I'll give you a couple of examples because I don't I don't want anybody to play fact-checker and say, well, he's wrong. He was wrong about this. Okay. So just to give you a couple of examples, I may have attributed a quotation to someone versus you know, missed them by someone else, two French philosophers or whatever. But I was talking about the Texas legislature and how the Democrats down there would play games of leaving. You know, you have to have a quorum to get anything done. So instead of doing their job, they would go uh, you know, a bunch of pranksters uh fooling around with your money. They'd fly to somewhere else and make sure that they can't get anything done. It's like the word filibuster. Uh you look I love etymology. I love looking up words and finding out where they came from. It really helps you understand them. Anyway, filibuster comes from pirate. Filibuster comes from pirates. So uh the thieves, the left, they come only to rob and steal, uh, rob, kill, and destroy. That's what the wisdom literature says. So watch out for these thieves. Yeah. Um what what's what's a filibuster? I mean, they were the Democrat Party was just about ready to they I understand it was settled, but they just recently, but they were going to make sure that TSA didn't get paid to do some sort of a uh demonstration about ICE, which is supposed to be an 80-20 issue on immigration, despite all demographics, all races. And they were playing the the Jim Crow card, which is their card. Jim Crow was a Democrat, always was, always will be. They're playing games with that because they don't want the slaves off the plantation. So I understand they just settled. But anyway, these these uh Democrat legislators in Texas became famous for they would leave and go to somewhere, go to Oklahoma, drink a bunch of beer on your dollars, and uh just like they were gonna let TSA go without pay and go on spring break. That's what they think about you. That's what they think about the federal employees. I thought they were in love with the federal government. I thought they were in love with it. You know, don't touch the Department of Education. You know? All these unelected people, but under the plantation, Uncle Sam's plantation, the Democrat Party. So anyway. So these guys would go to Oklahoma, and I think I said Ohio instead of Oklahoma. I've read a couple books about Ohio. They're utterly fascinating, I'll share with you, and Oklahoma. So um I get you know, they they across, but that doesn't make the point wrong. I think I mentioned Nixon when I should have said Kennedy. You know, that kind of stuff, where it doesn't really make any difference to the point, but I'm it was pretty obvious what I was going with the context. And um I might have said Maine instead of Maryland or vice versa, which you know starts with M, and you know, you're you're sometimes you got to hit control alt-delete up there. I've heard Dennis Prager and others do this. Chick Kern was the greatest basketball broadcaster in history, and he would he would do that. He'd run names together towards the end of his career. I guess it's something that happens when the when the hard drive and the CPU get to be um an older vintage. So anyway, uh I'm the fact-checker. Uh-that's all I ever do is fact-check. So if you're gonna fact-check me, go ahead. But uh I just want to let you know uh up front, total disclosure. I I know I I say things wrong, but the overall point is it's kind of like people say about the the Bible, especially the New Testament. Oh, it's so self- it's so contradictory, it just contradicts itself all the time. So, you know, wrong, wrong oh. Anyway, this is uh Dr. No, K-N-O-W, and I'm broadcasting on the Common Sense Network, the ISI system, part of the ISI system, Common Sense Network, and um you know, Radio Free America. Um I wanna w we're at war. The civil war is still going. Revolution is being fought all over again. They're trying to destroy the Constitution. We need to get it we need to get it back. And we need to know our enemy. Um You don't think we're at war? I I've got a f a few podcasts, you know, part one, two, three, or four of them dedicated to that. But but it should be uh intuitively obvious to even the most casual observer. We're at war. Same party, Democrats, same issue, they want to keep the plantation going. They kept it going for a hundred years after the Civil War. With all the stuff, all the games they played. And Democrats in the White House. Only one, really. Think about that. Only one. The one that took over. There was only one Democrat he took over and uh f uh be because uh Lincoln had to have him there, otherwise the Democrats would have a fit. So he undid everything that Lincoln and Grant did after a Democrat actor shot him. But anyway, here we are with states, the war between the states, the blue states are they happen to be in the north and west and east this time. This war wasn't about geography, it was about values, it was about how you valued the Constitution. So anyway, uh there's a saying, that's what we're gonna talk about today. People don't know how much people don't care how much you know until they know how much you care. People don't care how much you know until they know how much you care. And you'll never know how much I care until you listen to what I know. This isn't about me. This, you know, bullwinkle cartoon for those of you born in the mid-1900s who used to do this professor know it all. No, it's not it's not know-it-all. And and you know, this stuff this stuff isn't like trivia. I I was talking to a lady at work, she says, you know so much trivia. Trivia is like um what what high school did the Brady Bunch go to? You know, that's trivia. But, you know, Frederick Douglass, who he was, what he meant, um the Founding Fathers, the Federalist Papers, Columbus, you know, th that's not trivia. That's not trivia. If you You know the saying, if you forget the past, you're condemned to repeat it. Somebody may have been Mark Twain said uh history doesn't repeat itself, but people sure do. So anyway If if you don't wake up, I'm talking to you young people, I'm not talking to the uh old old ladies of both sexes that have given up. Um because by by the time, you know, i it's not gonna have any impact on me. It might take a long time for America to fall. But they're working on it hard. Our enemies domestic are partnering with our enemies foreign and they're trying to take us down. But by the time you wake up, it will be too late to save. It'll be too late. Um what's going on right now? Th this culture war of over values, it's a culture war, is a holy war. You'll have to choose a side. Choose you this day whom you will serve, says the wisdom literature. Know your enemy. Know your enemy, said Sun Tzu or whatever his name was. The art of war. They gave us the keys to understanding what these battles are and who our enemy is. You don't understand, you know, who they are and what they're doing to you, and if you don't know who you are and whose you are, it's gonna go it's not gonna go well because politicians divide people into two classes, enemies and tools. You're gonna be one or the other. Those in our magnificent revolution who, you know, they didn't want to take a side, a lot of people. Usually it's it's you know, there's this 80-20 bell curve rule of um of philosophy, of of sociology. Uh only about 20% are get involved and are interested. And that's probably two tens fighting against each other. And the 80% that fall in the middle, they want to be left alone. You know, I I heard Kat Timf one night talking on uh on Gutfeld. She just had a baby. So I'm like, I have a job and I have a baby, and I have a uh I have a life, so I can't be Well Yeah, I I had all of those too. And now I got grandchildren. So uh I don't know how that translates to that you can't understand. Because what happened is somebody had just enlightened her, I think Greg Goodfeld, on gerrymandering and what it means, and how some of these blue states only have like two Republicans. Really? And she's like, well, I I can't that's a shock to me. I didn't know. So anyway, there's this sort of disgusting uh uh analogy about the frog in the bot pot of boiling water, and as it gets turned up slowly, if you turn it up slowly enough, they don't even know they're dying, and they don't and they get killed. So, yeah, y we don't want that to be you. But I'm telling you, if you don't get involved, it's gonna involve you. It's gonna take you over, you know? The same thing happened in the Civil War. You know, the people in the revolution, uh, when it was over in the 1780s, and they had a constitutional Congress, and the people who didn't want that system left went to Canada, went to England as they should today. Um you don't think you think you could just sit that one out and the two forces weren't going to have an impact on you? Uh in the Civil War? You think you could just sit that one out and I don't really have a dog in the fight. Don't you think there were people and there were people in the South that were being ruled by these Democrat tyrants that that were being, you know, they were going to be acted upon, whatever color they were. There was a lot of people who did not want it. In fact, West Virginia, a lot of West Virginians and a lot of people in Tennessee, but in West Virginia in particular, the western, northwestern part of Virginia, they did not want, they said we're more with Lincoln than we are with uh with Jefferson Davis, who didn't allow anybody to break out of their new country, their new racist constitution. An enemy country right here on our continent. An enemy belligerent combatant against the Constitution, not against geography, not against color, against the Constitution. They took states that weren't theirs and said F you to the federal government. To to we the people, to us. Those states didn't belong to them. That'll be covered on other shows, but do you think the people live in there? So they so the people in West Virginia said, hey, we're more with Lincoln. So Lincoln uh let them become a state. So they had another state, because all of the Democrat ones dropped out. They dropped out of the of the Union and kept Democrats in the North to uh to sow their um discord and sedition and so forth. So, you know, they said, Hey, Lincoln, you can't do that. They were always accusing him of violating the Constitution. Sound familiar? You can't do that. He said, What do you mean I can't do that? He was an expert on the Constitution, studied it. He was uh self-taught, but uh knew it better than anybody else. And and and they said, You can't do that. He said, Well, you you think that you guys can you think that they can violate the Constitution uh by becoming a whole different country with our states? Uh violate the union? Disunion. It's like a marriage, you know. They they can't they can't take what's not theirs. And he says, and and I can't make a state according to the Constitution? Sorry. That's the kind of leadership it took. Somebody with a clear head, he he followed all of these losers, all Democrats, who didn't care about the Constitution or slavery. So the the decision was forced on the people that lived there, the people in the South that did not want to participate in this breakup, that didn't want to be rebels, so forth, that didn't uh that didn't really even want slavery, but you know, they not everybody down there owns slaves. So anyway, don't you think that stuff happened to them? Don't you think in World War I and World War II that Germans and all of Europe had things happen to them that was not of their choosing? Because they didn't participate, they didn't correct it. World War II, that that's another show, but it could have been stopped with a memorandum at one point. Think about that. But things happen to people. There's a uh a proverb of uh I can't remember what country it's from, but the the sheep who depend on the shepherd to protect them from the wolf, they get eaten by the shepherd. But first he sh he shears them. He fleeces them, he takes their coat away and sells it for his own profit. So there's a quote, you know, some of the people in SCOTUS, the ones that weren't Democrats, or the ones that were Americans first and Democrats second, very few. But he said, those who won, I'm talking to you young men in this war. You're in you're in you're in the army now. You're in the either on the Union or you're a Confederate. Anyway, he said, those who won our independence valued liberty as an end and as a means. They believed liberty to be the secret of happiness and courage to be the secret of liberty. Those who won our independence valued liberty as an end and as a means. They believed liberty to be the secret of happiness and courage to be the secret of liberty. So uh happiness, the pursuit of happiness. That's the foundational document. Declaration of independence. So if you're interested in happiness, you're not gonna have it if if you don't do your part, if you don't participate. Um I love quotes. That's what this show is gonna be about. But um Viktor Frankel was a uh a white guy, a Jew, who was a psychologist, a research psych psychologist, and he he was put into uh Auschwitz, I think. Or Birkenau or one of them, um, one of the death camps, because he did not he he didn't go along with the with uh uh Germany's Hitler. And I call it I don't call it Hitler's Germany. Uh he didn't he didn't just fall out of the sky and all of a sudden he was in charge. He was elected. He was elected just like the ones we elect. Uh he cheated. He shouldn't have been elected. You you couldn't be Austrian and be the Chancellor of Germany, but he worked his way around that. He played games just like the Democrats are doing today with with with the the intent of the spirit spirit and intent and letter of the law. Play games with all of it for their own personal gain. So so it it was Germany's Hitler, not Hitler's Germany. He couldn't have done one thing. Um I'm never surprised when a uh a sicko, a sick devil like Hitler comes along or Joe Biden. But I am I am surprised that millions of people uh fall at their feet. That's the problem. That's the danger. So uh so so I I uh I I forgot where I was going with that quote, but that's that that is the problem. So we talk about prophets, not people. This is a Jeremiah Gunn show, in case you missed it. This Jeremiah Gunn show on Common Sense CSN, the Common Sense Network, part of the ISI system. America, Radio Free America, Radio Free America. Radio code just means broadcast. It's not it's not old. I'm but broadcasting from behind enemy lines. So I'm gonna talk about prophets, not people. Like uh like Charlie Kirk. A prophet is somebody that's gonna tell you what's gonna go wrong if if then else. Oh yeah, Victor Frankel. Sorry, thank you. Thank you, brain, for clicking back here. Random search, random access. So Victor Frankel said um yeah, yeah, he said he said there's there's only two races, decent and indecent. Okay. And and another guy that was thrown in prison with him, he uh Bonhoeffer, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Lutheran pastor who stood up and actually participated in uh plot to execute Hitler, and he wound up tortured and hanged at uh at Auschwitz uh not long before the war ended. But um He said he said if you're gonna get on this has to do with prophets talking about what's gonna happen to you if If like in computer language, if then else it's a given. If then else, something else will happen. Okay, so if then, so uh he said if you if you're in on a train, if you get on a train that's going the wrong direction, sound familiar? If you get on a train that's going the wrong direction, it does no good to run up the aisle in the opposite direction. I ain't gonna chelt. It's not gonna help. So people in Germany who woke up too late woke up to the worst possible nightmare, and they inflicted it on the whole world, both one and two, both World War I and II. And everything they teach in school will be wrong. So these were prophets, Brandeis, um Frankel, uh Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Anyway. So Jeremiah was a prophet. Jeremiah Gunn. Jeremiah Gunn, that's the Jeremiah Gunn show. He was a prophet, and the name became his name became synonymous with warning. That's what prophets do. They warn. It's no fun. It's no fun. People will say, oh, I want some joy. I want joy. You're just a doom scroller. Where's the joy? Well, I want joy too. I want joy too, but I I'd rather save I'd rather save people by pointing out the obvious. Have I become your enemy because I've told you the truth? That's what Paul wrote to the people in a particular town that he was trying to help. Did I become your enemy because I've told you the truth? It shouldn't work that way. Thomas Sowell is one of our greatest national treasures. He said, if you if you want to help somebody, you tell them what they need to hear. You tell them the truth about what they need to hear. If you want to help yourself, then you tell them what they want to hear. So Jeremiah was a prophet. The name became synonymous with a warning. Um if you send a message out or a give a message, it's called a Jeremiah. And uh yeah, it wasn't fun for him. A lot of prophets didn't even want to do it. It's scary. It's dangerous. I'm behind enemy lines. So are you if you're in a blue, no matter who, war between the states, where they don't have to listen to the federal government.

SPEAKER_02 24:26

Wow.

SPEAKER_00 24:29

So gun is an Irish word. It means war. We're we're in it. We're in it. We gotta win it. Or sin it. Sin is uh a word that comes from the Shakespearean 1600 uh King James era, and it means if it's from archery, it means to miss the mark. It means to miss the mark, and people kind of play that down. Yeah, if you're shooting at a a hay bale target like Robin Hood movie, and you miss, it it's not that big of a deal, even in a tournament, unless it's for your life, like William Tellerson. If you're shooting at a grizzly bear that's coming at you, and you better not miss. You gotta win. Lincoln said we shall nobly save or meanly lose the last best hope for mankind on earth. You don't think America is? Have you watched the news at all for the last ten minutes, let alone ten days? Oh, I mean the IOC another n thing in the news, the IOC just had a uh uh a thing where they just decided that they're not gonna let men be in women's sports. And of course the UN came out against it. It's wrong. It's anti-science.

unknown 25:43

What?

SPEAKER_00 25:45

But they're gonna actually use a cheek swab. They're not gonna do anything else, hormones or whatever. They're looking for that Y chromosome that science once told us distinguished a man from a woman. And they said it's not safe. They talked about things like punching, punching sports. And my wife pointed out that's volleyball now, too. You know, if you think about it. A man is a hundred times some case in some sports he's 12, 15, 20 percent more powerful than a woman. And science used to call it sexual dimorphism, that one of the one of the genders of the species uh is bigger, stronger, more muscle, more bone density, come weight, mass. Come on. You talk about science? So they you know, they they said that a hundred that's like getting punched twice with the same punch. And so why why didn't why did the IOC that's headed by the first woman in in in its history? I think she's from England, uh why did they do that? You don't think that was the Trump effect? You don't think that was Trump telling them how the cows are gonna eat the grass now in NATO? The game is over? Asking them if they would like to help with the Straits of Hormuz for their oil? We don't get it from there. And and no, no, I won't. You know, those of you old enough to remember Henny Penny. Who will help me bake the bread? Who will help me eat the bread, you know? No, no, we're not gonna help. Oh, okay. Well then maybe we don't need to help with NATO anymore. I mean, what do you guys want? What do you want to be when you grow up? So you don't think that the IOC doing that when Trump did an executive order said there's men and women? Period. No pun intended. And never the twain shall meet. So anyway. You know, what we're gonna do today is we're gonna start off with a kind of a news flash, news comment. I just gave you one, and we're gonna go into some quotes. Um There's a guy named Jesse the Jackass Ventura. Uh he was uh governor of Minnesota at one time. Minnesota's got a beautiful track record. I mean, think about it. They got you know, they they back in the day it was HHH, he was um uh LBJ's vice president, Hubert Horatio Humphrey. And he was uh uh he was described as a motormouthed pile of silly putty. You know, he wasn't a leader, he wasn't a man's man, he was nice. That was the main thing. I think Eugene McCarthy came from there. He was so nice. Um my mom was from Minnesota, but and you know, then then before around Jesse Jack, Jackass Ventura, they elected uh Al Franken, and now it's it's just been a race to the bottom. Ilhan Omar, the the mayor of Mogadishu, Minnesota, is Fry. You want fry with that? Yeah. George Floyd, I mean uh what a nightmare. That place is a disaster. And they say he's nice. They used to talk about how about Tampon Tim. He said that uh you might call it socialism, I call it na being neighborly. There's a difference between those two. Einstein? Anyway. I hope you don't mind me calling a a spade a spade, calling it what it is. I mean they they they took their flag on Tim Tampon Tim's watch and they changed it from a pioneer and an Indian, and they change it to uh basically save as of the Somali flag. I it's one thing, it's suicidal empath sympathy. It's one thing to uh to bring in pirates, speaking of filibuster from from from there and have 'em rack up nine billion and and not not assimilate not assimilate. Become an enemy. And then you know, he is he nice? Is he a nice guy? He goes online with with uh he goes on a podcast, says he wants to kick he could kick all of their asses. I don't know who he's talking about. He's talking about Republicans, the ones that Biden Biden called garbage. So anyway, so Jesse uh the jackass ventura, he's uh he says that Trump faked the uh assassination, so that he he has some name for it, cutesie pie name. That I mean that guy should have worn a helmet when he fought, but um he could he said it was fake. Now, um I don't know why they put a microphone in front of a guy like that. That doesn't make any sense. Uh there's a uh uh a meme that says stop making stupid people famous. That guy was dead from the neck up. I was glad when they elected a governor. Uh I mean, uh when they elected as governor a pro wrestler. You're talking about fake. But but at least he was kind of re he was kind of like a uh Fetterman. They were going in a different direction. They were going with an outsider instead of this usual stuff, and they went back, they came back, the dog returns to its vomit again. They got somebody like a tampon tammy and people like that. Anyway, he says fake. So, you know, I was thinking about him. The nerve of that guy. What did he always say? What did he always say all the time? He said he was a SEAL, right? Said he was a SEAL. So I I lived in San Diego, and that's where the south of San Diego, there's a the SEAL training base is there. It's Coronado Island. And um Yeah, they they also have this group called BUDS, basic underwater demolition. Um frogmen, they called him sometimes the Navy, but that that was kind of gave birth to the SEALs. But um so there was this expose that a real true journalist. Excuse me a second. Real true journalist was was given an expose on him, on Jesse Ventura. And what he did was he went and interviewed the uh head of the school and about the time he would have been in, and and the and and other people are surrounding him, and they said, We never heard of him. We never saw him come through here. We know who came through here, and it weren't him. So so the best theory was that struck a chord in me because I always suspected something about him. Because he'd always say in his interviews, you know, when you're a seal, you can't quit. You know, seals can't quit. You gotta be tough. What they do is uh you do pull-ups until your skin comes off your hands, but you can't quit when you're a seal. He never said I was a seal. He just let that illusion my I had a boss, a foreman I worked for, and he used to say, It's not what they know, it's what they think they know. Go with it. Keep that image. That's my story, and I'm sticking to it. I was walking through the uh local supermarket, and this guy, this manager, I'd always waved to him, and we had kind of hit it off. He's a nice guy, younger guy. He said, Hey, there's a rumor around here that you were in the NFL. I'm about the size of a lineman. And I said, Well, keep it going. Go ahead. It's fine. And so I started thinking about who would I say I played for? I'd have to pick like the Browns or or the Cardinals or something where nobody could really recall or check. And I'd have to think of who was our QB, and I'd made up a name. I was just gonna have some fun with it and then let them off the hook. But uh you know, when he said, Oh, you you can't quit when you're a seal, uh, okay. But that doesn't mean he was one. That that's sort of like um depends on what the definition of is is. So anyway. I want to talk about quotes for a minute. I I I uh I love I love quotes. I I think aphorisms are, you know, like a penny saved, a penny earned, you know, those are very, very helpful things. They're very, very educational and helpful for us to get through life. They're kind of like um uh like a navigation guide. You know, they used to publish a book called Bartlett's Bartlett's Quotations, and it had all the quotations. This was before the internet, but it was a place you could go, like Rogue's Roger's Thesaurus. And um, you know, um Ben Franklin got on the map by coming up with this poor Richards almanac. You know, penny saved is a penny earned, early to bed, early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise. Those who live on hope. Die fasting, which that's a word for starving. Mark Twain, another national treasure, genius, like like him, like like Ben Franklin. Uh he came up with this idea of Puddin Head Wilson. I've just recently read a book about his travels and so forth, and and he's got the same thing. All of these brilliant aphorisms that just kind of nail it and help you remember. Yeah, at work they called me the walking almanac, along those lines. And um they had uh you know, they would say to me, Man, you we gotta get you out of here and get you teaching history. Some of the brass would say, You should be teaching history. I mean, why are you working here? You know? And um maybe they're trying to get rid of me. I doubt it. But um you know, they they they'd say, you know, you you really should be teaching. So I was talking to this one guy, and uh I was telling him about George Bernard Shaw. And uh philosophically he and I were completely different ends of the spectrum, but he's pretty smart. He's pretty brilliant, pretty brilliant guy. He's he said, for example, um, any government that promises to rob Peter to pay Paul can always count on the support of Paul. And uh yeah, so I was telling him about how uh we were in my office, it was lunchtime or something, and I was writing on the whiteboard. George Bernard Shaw, he played games with with the English. He said the English and the American people, they're they're a people separated by a common language. He was funny. He had that wit, like Mark Twain and and and Franklin, but really Twain. But anyway, he he I was telling him about how you could spell uh George Bernard Shaw said you could spell the the word fish G-H O T I if using the conventions of the way we speak English. And so I drew it out, G-H-O-T-I. The G H is the pff F sound from fish. I mean from enough, from enough. And the i the I is the i sound from the o in women. Women. And the sh sound on the end of fish is the is the T I G-H-O-T-I. It's the T I sound from action. So he kind of said, Yeah, that's funny. You know, he was a really high-end engineer, leader of a department, so on. And he he said, and we put we played basketball together and hung out together and everything. He said, Man, you must have some interesting table discussions with your family there. Everything from Chick Hearn to to George Bernard Shaw to Socrates. That's that's crazy. Anyway, I don't know if you thought it was crazy or not, but that it's interesting. I think that stuff's interesting. And you know, um, my my brother asked me one time, uh, I don't want to hear quotes. You always cite quotes. I don't want to hear quotes. I want to know what you think. And I think I thought, why? Why? Why would you want to know what I think? You know? Um that's not that important, you know, and and by the way, that is what I think. I just found somebody who was able to encapsulate it. Right? Here's a well, I'm not I'm gonna do that next, but uh here's uh uh m my sister would say, she said to me one time, she she was uh she she got it became a real mess, really shipwrecked her life. You know, the wisdom literature says every wise woman builds her home, but the foolish pluck it down with their bare hands. I mean, she just, you know, that's old song, Jesus take the wheel, whatever. She took the wheel and just went off the road. And, you know, some of the family said, you know, uh it's hard to take all she's done to us, but you know, she's got a mental illness or something. Well, I I know, but anyway, she she thought she was so much smarter than all of us, and me in particular, maybe, and she m she mocked me for using quotes, for loving quotes. She said uh what she had done was she had taken my elderly parents' uh credit cards because they felt so sorry for her, and she'd ran up bills on them, didn't pay it back, and forcing the rest of us to pay it back. And uh so she sh one day she was trying to put me down and shook her finger in my face, you know, the finger wagon, and said, um, when all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail. And I I had to be patient, but I came real close to saying, when all you have is someone else's credit card, everything looks like a sale. So, you know, don't mock people that enjoy quotes and things and think that they have a value. Um I think it was Marlena Dietrich. She said, I love quotations because it is a joy to find thoughts one might have beautifully expressed with much authority by someone recognizedly wiser than oneself. Bingo. I love quotations because it is a joy to find thoughts one might have had beautifully expressed with much authority by someone recognizedly wiser than oneself. You know, when Lincoln was uh debating Douglas, the Democrat who wanted slavery, just like they all do, uh don't fall for that switch baloney that they came up with in their institutions, that they own from Head Start to PhD, the government education media attainment complex. The word education means to lead out of a cave, not into one. So, you know, thinking about her quote, Solomon the Wise said that uh a word fitly spoken is like apples of gold and pitchers of silver. So to translate that to modern English, something well said, well formulated, and and making a great point like that. A fine st a fine quote like that. It's like apples of gold on platters of silver. Isn't that beautiful? Aren't apples great? I had one the other night. I was just I just can't try to have one a day. Somebody said if you if you eat uh seven apples, you can keep a doctor away for a week. But anyway, it an apple is just beautiful, especially when it's cold, wet, crisp. Man, there's nothing like it. That's why the wisdom literature uses the word apple so much and other other ancient poetry. So uh Alexander Granville, pretty smart guy, he said, there cannot be mental atrophy in any person who continues to observe, to remember what he observes, and to seek answers for his unceasing hows and whys about things. We're all concerned about keeping the uh what's that called, uh dementia, Alzheimer's at bay. And uh that that quote right there says it all. But to the extent that it it helps you understand life and and be able to share that with people, uh this someone was writing about a very famous great man philosopher, and they said he had a favorite quotation from Virgil that to his family seemed the key to his character. Felix Felix Kipotuit rerum conoseri causas. Felix kipotuit rerum conoseri causis. Fortunate is he who understands the cause of things. It's kind of fun to to figure stuff out, and not just listen to um Sam Harris or Neil de Snake and de Grasse asked Tyson Chicken or you know, or John Jonathan Liebowitz Stewart or Joe Rogan or anybody. You know, who who who who said that those guys know what they're talking about? Bill Maher? I mean, he seems to be waking up a little bit, but come on. So let's let's just we're gonna just go through a couple of quotes here and and and share them and just kind of have some fun with that. There's there's a little book I'm gonna start off with. That uh if I can find it, where'd it go? Oh yeah, here it is. It's it was called It's called this little book I found one time on the discount shelf at Crown or something, a father's book of wisdom. And it's just a bunch of compilations. And the dedication says that their their dad was a salesman or something, and he I don't know, he's in business world, and he he wrote all these quotes on napkins and matchbooks and all that stuff. Thomas Jefferson had a thing called the Common Book. When I met him at uh uh what's the name of that? Williamsburg, Colonial Williamsburg. Um I talked to him for a while after his press conference, and he talked he talked to my boys about you know and my daughter about you should have a common book where you write everything down. That's what this That's what these kids did with these things, and they wrote down all his aphorisms for. Life and rules for life. It's brilliant. There are so many great quote books. When the left touches something, they destroy it. A thief only comes to kill and destroy and steal. And when the left touches anything, they destroy it. So Bartlett's Book of Quotations, that was our famous sort of dictionary, if you will, it's been ruined. They took out Milton and Shakespeare and all these Western civilization formative things and and they put in like stuff from Obama, for example, that he didn't even come up with. Just a speechwriter handed it to him and he said it. They call it one of his quotes. So, you know. So here's here's a here's a few quotes, and then we'll get into that. This one I really like. Um do what you can with what you have where you are. This is called Inspiring Quotes. It's a little compilation. Do what you can with what you have where you are. That was Teddy Roosevelt. Here's another one. One person can make a difference and everyone should try. That's the same guy who said a rising tide lifts all boats in terms of capitalism and trickle down. And he actually took that line from someone else. I think it was Harding, but that was JFK, John F. Kennedy, the uncle of RFK. You know, every time I heard RFK, God bless him, RFK Jr.

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You know, my uncle said this, and my uncle said that.

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I always thought of Ted Kennedy. I'm sorry I couldn't think of Jack because of the shadow that that fool caused. Cast. Anyway, one person can make a difference, and everyone should try. This one says, No dream is too big. These are all presidents, if you didn't get that yet. No dream is too big, no challenge is too great, nothing we want for our future is beyond our reach. That was a guy named uh Donald J. Trump. And then here's the last one here. So the best way to get something done, if you if you if if you hold it dear, I mean hold it near and dear to you that you uh um like to be able to uh oh uh anyway. That guy, your tax dollars are going to a library for him. And uh maybe it'll have the uh the autopen in there. It was just released the other day speaking of news updates about how many millions he got from Ukraine from Barisma for his son and him and his brother James and that whole syndicate. Maybe I'll read that again. Do what you can with what you have where you are. That's uh Teddy Roosevelt. And then here's your your president. So so the best way to get something done if if if if if you hold it near and and dear to you that you uh um like to be able to owe uh anyway. So anyway, let's not end on that sour note. I'll just read one the first one from this little book, The Father's Book of Wisdom. I bought this for all my kids, and I bought it for my son-in-law. I actually bought it for two financial planners that were helping me out with my retirement, and they both had young kids, so I bought them each a copy. Um don't let what you cannot do interfere with what you can do. John Wooden, greatest basketball coach in history, says I. I used to say that to my guys, you know, when I coached, I coached high school basketball for a number of years and and youth sports for 20 years or so. Don't worry about what you can't do. Do what you can. And I had a little motto, think, hustle, do what you can. Don't spend any energy on what you can't do. But you can do a lot. And folks, just just go do it. Uh but do it right. You know, this isn't a battle between right and left. That's what they'd like you to think. And they even redefine left and use the Overton window. This is a battle between this is a war between right and wrong. And how are you going to find the middle or be independent on right and wrong? That you you can't. Well, we'll be just be a little bit wrong. A little bit wrong. Yeah, I when my kids were growing up, I heard a guy give this analogy that he he says, hey, here's some brownies. Oh, cool. They don't have any nuts, but uh they have uh I took some dog dew, just a couple of dog dews, just a couple of pelosis, and I I put them in the brownie mix. So just a little bit. So you don't know what you're gonna get when you when you have that brownie. Um, but yeah, it's just a little bit. It's just a little bit. A little leaven. Leaven's a whole lump. Anyway, thank you for listening. Sorry I ran a little bit long here, a little bit off target, but uh this is kind of new to me. Uh all I want to do is share because I care, I love you, I love the truth, and because of that I love you. Wherever you are on earth, there's only two races, decent and indecent. There are two sexes, but they they have a choice, each of them to be decent or indecent. So the truth will make you free. You'll know the truth, and truth will make you free. No truth, no love, no justice, no peace, no nothing. Thank you so much for listening. I really appreciate it. And uh we'll see you next time. Thank you. Thanks again. Be good.