Frying countries

Govern a great country as you would fry a small fish: do not poke at it too much.
-- Lao Tzu

Animal Spirits!

Most, probably, of our decisions to do something positive, the full consequences of which will be drawn out over many days to come, can only be taken as the result of animal spirits - a spontaneous urge to action rather than inaction, and not as the outcome of a weighted average of quantitative benefits multiplied by quantitative probabilities.

-- Keynes, The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money

Libertas

LIBERTATEM QUAM PEPERERE MAIORES DIGNE STUDEAT SERVARE POSTERITAS
Posterity should strive to preserve the freedom that the ancestors won.
-- Hamburg Town Hall inscription

Marriage

N.C.: Non ce la faccio, ogni volta che apro bocca dico una nuova bugia.
M.C.: Smettila di piagnucolare, basta, si chiama matrimonio.
N.C.: I can't take it anymore, every time I open my mouth I tell a new lie.
M.C.: Stop whining, enough, this is what they call marriage.
-- Frasier

The other way around

Creativity is the sudden cessation of stupidity
-- Edwin Land