All Quotes

"Weeping shades of indigo"

"Liar, lawyer, mirror; for you, what's the difference? Kangaroo be stoned; he's guilty as the government"

"It seems beyond the comprehension of people that someone can be born to draw comic strips, but I think I was. My ambition from earliest memory was to produce a daily comic strip."

"A cartoonist is someone who has to draw the same thing day after day without repeating himself."

"I never give my work to somebody else and say, "What do you think about that?" I just don't trust anybody. If I think it's funny, or if I think it's silly, I send it in anyway because I'm just trying to please myself. I never try to please a certain audience. I think that's disastrous. There's no way in the world you can anticipate what your reader is going to like or dislike."

"If I were a better artist, I'd be a painter, and if I were a better writer, I'd write books — but I'm not, so I draw cartoons!"

"I just draw what I think is funny, and I hope other people think it is funny, too."

"The most grievous error committed by Venezuela in making her start on the political stage was, as none can deny, her fatal adoption of the system of tolerance—a system long condemned as weak and inadequate by every man of common sense, yet tenaciously maintained with an unparalleled blindness to the very end."

"Venezuelans! An army of brothers, sent by the Supreme Congress of New Granada, has come to liberate you, and is now amongst you after having expelled the oppressors from the provinces of Mérida and Trujillo. We have been sent to destroy the Spaniards, to protect Americans and to re-establish the republican governments which made up the Venezuelan Confederation. The states which we have liberated are once again ruled by their old constitutions and leaders, and they fully enjoy their liberty and independence. Our sole mission is to break the chains of servitude which still oppress some of our peoples. We have no intention of passing laws or exercising power, even though the laws of war might authorize us to do so."

"Flee the country where a lone man holds all power: It is a nation of slaves. - Speech spoken in Caracas on 1814, January 2nd."

"We have been ruled more by deceit than by force, and we have been degraded more by vice than by superstition. Slavery is the daughter of darkness: an ignorant people is a blind instrument of its own destruction. Ambition and intrigue abuses the credulity and experience of men lacking all political, economic, and civic knowledge; they adopt pure illusion as reality; they take license for liberty, treachery for patriotism, and vengeance for justice. If a people, perverted by their training, succeed in achieving their liberty, they will soon lose it, for it would be of no avail to endeavor to explain to them that happiness consists in the practice of virtue; that the rule of law is more powerful than the rule of tyrants, because, as the laws are more inflexible, every one should submit to their beneficent austerity; that proper morals, and not force, are the bases of law; and that to practice justice is to practice liberty."

"Let the entire system of government be strengthened, and let the balance of power be drawn up in such a manner that it will be permanent and incapable of decay because of its own tenuity. Precisely because no form of government is so weak as the democratic, its framework must be firmer, and its institutions must be studied to determine their degree of stability … unless this is done, we will have to reckon with an ungovernable, tumultuous, and anarchic society, not with a social order where happiness, peace, and justice prevail."

"Let us give to our republic a fourth power with authority over the youth, the hearts of men, public spirit, habits, and republican morality. Let us establish this Areopagus to watch over the education of the children, to supervise national education, to purify whatever may be corrupt in the republic, to denounce ingratitude, coldness in the country's service, egotism, sloth, idleness, and to pass judgment upon the first signs of corruption and pernicious example."

"The continuation of authority in the same person has frequently proved the undoing of democratic governments. Repeated elections are essential to the system of popular governments, because there is nothing so dangerous as to suffer Power to be vested for a long time in one citizen. The people become accustomed to obeying him, and he becomes accustomed to commanding, hence the origin of usurpation and tyranny."

"A perverted people, should it attaint its liberty, is bound to lose this very soon, because it would be useless to try to impress upon such people that happiness lies in the practice of righteousness; that the reign of law is more powerful than the reign of tyrants, who are more inflexible, and all ought to submit to the wholesome severity of the law; that good morals, and not force, are the pillars of the law and that the exercise of justice is the exercise of liberty."

"Liberty, says Rousseau, is a succulent food, but difficult to digest. Our feeble fellow citizens will have to strengthen their mind much before they will be ready to assimilate such wholesome nourishment."

"When I contemplate this immense reunited country, my soul mounts to that height demanded by the colossal perspective of a picture so wonderful. My imagination takes flight toward future ages and admiringly observes from them the prosperity, the splendor, and the life which will exist within this vast territory. I am carried away; and I seem to behold it in the heart of the universe, stretching along its extensive coasts between two oceans which nature has separated; but which our fatherland has united by long and wide canals. I see it serve as the bond, as the center, as the emporium of the human race. I see it sending to the ends of the earth the treasures of gold and silver which its mountains contain. I see it, through the healing virtue of its plants, dispensing health and life to afflicted men of the Old World. I see it disclosing its precious secrets to the sages who know that the store of knowledge is more valuable than the store of riches which nature has so prodigally bestowed upon us. I see it seated upon the throne of liberty, the scepter of justice in its hand, crowned by glory, showing to the Old World the majesty of the New World."

"{{Citation"

"Unlimited freedom, absolute democracy, are reefs upon which all the republics have come to grief."

"It must never be forgotten that the excellence of a government consists, not in its theoretic perfection, but in the degree to which it is adapted to the nature and character of the people for whom it is set up."

"It is not right to leave everything to the chances and hazards of an election. The masses are more prone to error than those who have been trained and tempered by education."

"The shouts of human-kind on the battlefield, or in the tumult of assemblies are protests to heaven against inconsistent legislators who have thought it possible to experiment with chimerical constitutions without suffering the consequences"

"Absolute democratic government is as much a tyranny as despotism."

"The most accomplished nation in the world, ancient or modern, was unable to resist the violence of the storms inherent in pure theories. If a European country like France, ever sovereign and independent, was not able to support the burden of unrestricted liberty, how can anyone expect Colombia to realize the delirious hallucinations of Robespierre and Marat. Could anyone even dream of such a piece of political moonshine? Legislators, see to it that the inexorable verdict of posterity does not liken you to the monsters of France!"

"We form a small human race, a world apart, surrounded by vast seas, new in the arts and sciences, though in some ways old in the customs of civil society. Our case is the most extraordinary and complex. We are neither Indians nor Europeans, but a species somewhere between the natives and the Spaniards. It is impossible to designate the human family to which we belong. Our people are rather a composite of Africa and America, which is an emancipation from Europe, since even the Spanish peninsula itself ceases to be European, due to its Moorish blood, its institutions, and its character."

"There will be a metamorphosis in the physical life of the inhabitants of America, in which a new caste will be produced, with a mixture of all races, creating the homogeneity of the people"

"To-day we are beginning to realise that the Colombian dictator was above all things a positivist, a realist. He wrote some trenchant things about codes "drawn up by gentle visionaries who, dreaming of republics away up in the clouds, have sought to attain to political perfection by taking it for granted that human nature is indefinitely perfectible". Despite his republican utterances, he was an uncompromising opponent of democracy, which he defined as "a state of things so incapable of resistance that the slightest difficulty is enough to throw it into confusion and bring it to naught"."

"And so Bolivar, being a realist in politics, was always moved to indignation when he saw the States of South America adopting cut and dried constitutions, based on abstract theory, and not created expressly to suit them. What he would have liked to see put into practice was what Latin-American writers have called the Bolivarian theory, that is to say the principle of "sociocratic heredity" on the Comtean or pre-Comtean pattern. He would have desired, taking his cue no doubt from the example of the Antonines at Rome, that, at the head of each of the Republics he had created, there should be a Life-President, who should appoint his own successor. In this manner he thought to combine absolutism and continuity, the apanage of hereditary monarchies, while discarding the hereditary principle."

"Both San Martín‬ and Bolívar have been accused by their enemies of plotting to make themselves kings, but most scholars agree today that there is no basis for either accusation. Bolívar, with his sense of drama, felt that to make himself monarch would mean a refutation of his entire past career. Such an attempt would render him ridiculous at the bar of history, and although he intended to keep political control in his hands, it was the control exercised by the power of a political chief, a kind of super-boss."

"Bolívar, the hero who brought glory to the nation. Bolívar, the military and political genius, the Liberator, the Father of His Country. Today, the main square of almost every city and town in Venezuela is named Plaza Bolívar. And each one has a statue of the Liberator. Some show him standing, some on horseback. In the city named for him, Bolívar City, which is the capital of Bolívar state, there is of course a Plaza Bolívar, with a Bolívar statue: on a high marble pedestal the Liberator appears in the guise of a Roman emperor or senator, his cape wrapped around him to look like a toga, a sword in his right hand, a law scroll in his left. All this fed what became a state religion: Bolívar as civic god. Venezuelan historians refer to it as Bolívar worship."

"In his eventful forty-seven years Bolívar said enough, wrote enough, gave enough speeches, corresponded widely enough, and changed his thinking often enough, that today you can find material in the vast Bolivarian catalog to support virtually any ideology, position, or cause. Bolívar ruled as a dictator—so Venezuelan dictators held him up as an example of how the country needed to be ruled by a firm hand. Bolívar said that elections were essential—so democrats embraced him. Bolívar warned that elections would lead to anarchy—so conservatives revered him. Outside Venezuela, both Mussolini and Franco saw Bolívar as a fascist precursor. Marx called him “the dastardly, most miserable, and meanest of blackguards.” Cuban communists honored him. Chávez hailed Bolívar as a socialist. Chávez once ordered Bolívar’s remains, entombed in the National Pantheon in Caracas, to be exhumed. He then commissioned a computer-generated portrait of the Liberator, based on digital projections from the great man’s skull. It looked a lot like the portraits of Bolívar painted by his contemporaries, but Chávez said that for the first time, modern Venezuelans were seeing Bolívar’s “true face.” This was a quaint notion. The true face of Bolívar is what you want it to be. He was a democrat. He was an autocrat. He was an egalitarian. He was an elitist. He was an abolitionist. He was a slaveholder. He was a cruel tyrant. He was a tolerant humanist. In fact, he was all those things at one time or another."

"In school, we may have learned that Simón Bolívar proposed expansion into northeastern Colombia in his quest for regional unification. What we may not have learned is that he blithely suggested that “the savages who live there would be civilized and our possessions increased,” using what we call today explicitly settler colonial terms, Indigenous peoples there perceived Colombian intruders as “Spanish” throughout the 19th century, and the return of Catholic missions at the end of the century followed the logic of state-sponsored religious “Hispanicization.”"

"We must not pursue science for ends independent of science. It must be pursued for its own sake, and must lead to its own results."

"The English constitution was excellent until removed by foreign writers into the domain of theory, when in direct contradiction with its nature and origin it came to be admired as a common representative government."

"There is a wide divergence, an irreconcilable disagreement, between the political notions of the modern world and that which is essentially the system of the Catholic Church. It manifests itself particularly in their contradictory views of liberty, and of the functions of the civil power. The Catholic notion, defining liberty not as the power of doing what we like, but the right of being able to do what we ought, denies that general interests can supersede individual rights. It condemns, therefore, the theory of the ancient as well as of the modern state. It is founded on the divine origin and nature of authority. According to the prevailing doctrine, which derives power from the people, and deposits it ultimately in their hands, the state is omnipotent over the individual, whose only remnant of freedom is then the participation in the exercise of supreme power; while the general will is binding on him.† Christian liberty is lost where this system prevails: whether in the form of the utmost diffusion of power, as in America, or of the utmost concentration of power, as in France; whether, that is to say, it is exercised by the majority, or by the delegate of the majority,—it is always a delusive freedom, founded on a servitude more or less disguised. In one form and under one pretext or another, the state has been absolute on the Continent of Europe for the last 300 years. In the sixteenth century absolutism was founded on religious zeal, and was expressed in the formula cujus regio, illius religio. In the seventeenth century it assumed the garb of legitimacy and divine right, and the king was believed when he said, "L'état c'est moi." In the eighteenth century arbitrary government found a new and stronger basis in the theory of the public good, of the greatest happiness of the greatest number, and justified every act of tyranny by the maxim, the king is the first servant of the state. All these principles of despotism are incompatible with the Catholic ideas, and with the system by which the Pope, on pain of being in contradiction with himself, and with the spirit and practice of the Church, is compelled to govern. They are condemned by the traditions, and by the moral obligations, of the Court of Rome, whose system is one of charity and of liberty, and which knows no public consideration which is superior to the salvation of souls."

"There are two things which cannot be attacked in front: ignorance and narrow-mindedness. They can only be shaken by the simple development of the contrary qualities. They will not bear discussion."

"Every thing secret degenerates, even the administration of justice; nothing is safe that does not show how it can bear discussion and publicity."

"Director James Cameron’s continuation of Ridley Scott’s Alien is long on brawn and short on brains. Too many Marines, too much noise, and too many acres of heavy hardware clutter up the scenery."

"[Aliens is] a sequel that exceeds its predecessor in the reach of its appeal while giving Weaver new emotional dimensions to explore."

"[L]ittle touches make Aliens much more fun than the run of the science-fiction genre. And its creatures are much more ingeniously mean than the gremlins of two summers ago."

"The original Alien was a haunted-house movie, brilliantly transposed to outer space. Claustrophobia was its primary tool of terror, and it featured a gross out unparalleled in movie history. Aliens writer James Cameron had the good sense to try to make a different kind of movie. Aliens resembles less its predecessor than The Terminator."

"You’re entering a tight corridor filled with menacing shadows. Is that breathing you hear? Well, don’t run. Clanging metal walkways and staircases always give your position away. You might be playing a first- or third-person shooter - or watching the film “Aliens.” Every science fiction/horror game of the last 20 years - from the granddaddy of them all, Id’s “Doom,” to recent titles such as Electronic Arts’ “Dead Space” series - owes a debt to the first two films in the “Alien” franchise, Ridley Scott’s moody 1979 original and James Cameron’s action-packed 1986 sequel, “Aliens.”"

"Cameron was confident enough to not only dream up a sequel that continued Ripley’s story but also shift it into a different genre. Where Alien was pure horror, Aliens was first and foremost an action thriller; the movie’s tagline, “This time it’s war” was a clear indication that Cameron’s movie was anything but a straight retread."

"In the wake of Aliens, the pop culture impact of the colonial marines – and the look of film in general – was immediate. It’s worth noting that Paul Verhoeven’s adaptation of Starship Troopers, with its military units wearing light armour rather than powerful exoskeletons, was actually closer to Aliens than Heinlein’s book. Aliens impact on videogame design, meanwhile, can be seen everywhere – from the retro alien blasting future soldiers in Contra (1987) to the frat-boy space marines in Gears Of War and a thousand identikit sci-fi shooters. In the absence of more colonial marines adventures on the big screen, videogame designers filled the void."

"It starts with Ripley (Sigourney Weaver) emerging like Sleeping Beauty from more than half a century of interplanetary slumber, which she doubtless needed after her prior ordeal. The planet where it all happened, she learns, has since been colonized by humans, who have broken off contact with Earth—but note the timeline: they did so only after she awoke. Is that a mere plot contrivance, or could it be that the monsters have been waiting for Ripley, to summon her to the fray? She certainly seems more determined and queenly this time around, with a foe to match, plus an android, played by Lance Henriksen, and the result is a formidable acceleration of all the fears that lurked in the first film: the frigidity of Scott’s detached and spooky manner is replaced by the relentlessness of a racing heart. Action thrillers assail but rarely test us; this is the tautest, most provoking, and altogether most draining example ever made."

"It’s a fun film that also demanded you to take it seriously. I think some people missed all that and just wanted to indulge in the ‘bug hunt’ war porn of it all. But beneath its rollercoaster surface, Aliens is a pretty sophisticated genre classic.”"

"Aliens could have used a lot more of what made the first ill-fated voyage such a harrowing experience: creeping horror that is so cold-blooded and unspeakable you scream but nothing comes out.”"

"There ought to be a warning attached to the video release of "Aliens," the sequel to the 1979 sci-fi thriller "Alien." It should read: "Warning. Not To Be Viewed Alone, Nor After 11 p.m. Otherwise, Tranquil Sleep Cannot Be Guaranteed." Because that's how I watched this remarkable thriller -- late at night and alone. I found it, quite simply, terrifying -- one of the scariest movies since "The Exorcist." And one of the best of this type. Translated to video, "Aliens" is not quite as terrifying as it was in theaters, but the suspense, drama and horror are there nonetheless. Sigourney Weaver, that willowy, captivating young star, returns as the sole survivor of the earlier space mission. She's been asleep for 57 years when she's returned to Earth. Why the technology hasn't changed too much in half a century is about the only unanswered question in this otherwise near-perfect thriller."

"The rest of "Aliens" is basically a series of search-and-destroy missions in the bowels of an abandoned structure on a far-off planet. But the way the creatures are stalked, and the slow, me-thodical steps the marines take before suddenly confronting them, make for superb drama. Some-times, even though you know the nature of the enemy, not knowing when or where it will strike is more terrifying. And so it is with this wonderfully filmed thriller. Whereas the original "Alien" was a bit too laid back for my tastes, with its characters spending too much time sipping coffee and waiting to be devoured, skewered and decimated, "Aliens" has no such flaws. It is a continual series of furious encounters with the aliens, who are multiplying rapidly."

"Watching a movie like "Aliens" on home video cannot match the terror from a big screen, at least for me. The security of one's own living room is reassuring, and so is that omnipotent off button on the VCR. But if you make the commitment to watch "Aliens" -- and I think you should -- you will see something quite remarkable. Not only is terror sustained for more than two hours, but also the last 20 minutes -- Weaver's final confrontation with the queen bee of the aliens -- has to to be one of the scariest horror sequences ever filmed."