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  fortune index  all fortunes 
  
 |  |  | #9871 |  | The income tax has made more liars out of the American people than golf has.  Even when you make a tax form out on the level, you don't know
 when it's through if you are a crook or a martyr.
 -- Will Rogers
 
 |  |  |  | #9872 |  | The inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of blessings; the inherent virtue of socialism is the equal sharing of misery.
 -- Churchill
 
 |  |  |  | #9873 |  | The introduction of a new kind of music must be shunned as imperiling the whole state, for styles of music are never disturbed without affecting
 the most important political institutions. ...  The new style, gradually
 gaining a lodgement, quitely insinuates itself into manners and customs,
 and from it ... goes on to attack laws and constitutions, displaying the
 utmost impudence, until it ends by overturning everything.
 -- Plato, "Republic", 370 B.C.
 
 |  |  |  | #9874 |  | The IRS spends God knows how much of your tax money on these toll-free information hot lines staffed by IRS employees, whose idea of a dynamite tax
 tip is that you should print neatly.  If you ask them a real tax question,
 such as how you can cheat, they're useless.
 
 So, for guidance, you want to look to big business.  Big business never pays
 a nickel in taxes, according to Ralph Nader, who represents a big consumer
 organization that never pays a nickel in taxes...
 -- Dave Barry, "Sweating Out Taxes"
 
 |  |  |  | #9875 |  | The law will never make men free; it is men who have got to make the law free. -- Henry David Thoreau
 
 |  |  |  | #9876 |  | The Least Successful Executions History has furnished us with two executioners worthy of attention.
 The first performed in Sydney in Australia.  In 1803 three attempts were
 made to hang a Mr. Joseph Samuels.  On the first two of these the rope
 snapped, while on the third Mr. Samuels just hung there peacefully until he
 and everyone else got bored.  Since he had proved unsusceptible to capital
 punishment, he was reprieved.
 The most important British executioner was Mr. James Berry who
 tried three times in 1885 to hang Mr. John Lee at Exeter Jail, but on each
 occasion failed to get the trap door open.
 In recognition of this achievement, the Home Secretary commuted
 Lee's sentence to "life" imprisonment.  He was released in 1917, emigrated
 to America and lived until 1933.
 -- Stephen Pile, "The Book of Heroic Failures"
 
 |  |  |  | #9877 |  | The Least Successful Police Dogs America has a very strong candidate in "La Dur", a fearsome looking
 schnauzer hound, who was retired from the Orlando police force in Florida
 in 1978.  He consistently refused to do anything which might ruffle or
 offend the criminal classes.
 His handling officer, Rick Grim, had to admit: "He just won't go up
 and bite them.  I got sick and tired of doing that dog's work for him."
 The British contenders in this category, however, took things a
 stage further.  "Laddie" and "Boy" were trained as detector dogs for drug
 raids.  Their employment was terminated following a raid in the Midlands in
 1967.
 While the investigating officer questioned two suspects, they
 patted and stroked the dogs who eventually fell asleep in front of the
 fire.  When the officer moved to arrest the suspects, one dog growled at
 him while the other leapt up and bit his thigh.
 -- Stephen Pile, "The Book of Heroic Failures"
 
 |  |  |  | #9878 |  | The less a statesman amounts to, the more he loves the flag. -- Kin Hubbard
 
 |  |  |  | #9879 |  | The lion and the calf shall lie down together but the calf won't get much sleep. -- Woody Allen
 
 |  |  |  | #9880 |  | "The Lord gave us farmers two strong hands so we could grab as much as we could with both of them."
 -- Joseph Heller, "Catch-22"
 
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