Quote

In the Middle Ages people took potions for their ailments. In the 19th century they took snake oil. Citizens of today's shiny, technological age are too modern for that. They take antioxidants and extract of cactus instead.

Charles Krauthammer

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Charles Krauthammer
Age: 68 †
Born: 1950
Born: March 13
Died: 2018
Died: June 21
Columnist
Journalist
Physician
Psychiatrist
Pundit
Writer
New York City
New York
Middle
Technological
Potions
Age
Ages
Antioxidants
Today
Oil
Cactus
Citizens
Ailments
Take
Took
Extract
People
Instead
Shiny
Century
Snake
Modern
Snakes

More quotes by Charles Krauthammer

Image
If you subsidize apples, you get more apples if you subsidize unemployment, you get more of it.
Charles Krauthammer
Image
Courage is not a quality one normally associates with mathematicians. Yet it should apply to people who work in their attics in secret for seven years without cease on a problem that has eluded the greatest mathematical minds since first proposed in 1637.
Charles Krauthammer
Image
I am not religious. I do not believe that personhood is conferred upon conception. But I also do not believe that a human embryo is the moral equivalent of a hangnail and deserves no more respect than an appendix.
Charles Krauthammer
Image
A three-year diet of rubber chicken and occasional crow.
Charles Krauthammer
Image
Torture is an impermissible evil. Except under two circumstances. The first is the ticking time bomb. An innocent's life is at stake. The bad guy you have captured possesses information that could save this life. He refuses to divulge. In such a case, the choice is easy.
Charles Krauthammer
Image
I don't mind going into a liberal lion's den. That's where you test yourself.
Charles Krauthammer
Image
Don't touch my junk, you airport security goon - my package belongs to no one but me, and do you really think I'm a Nigerian nut job preparing for my 72-virgin orgy by blowing my johnson to kingdom come?
Charles Krauthammer
Image
I think the editorial page of the Washington Post is the best in the country. I think the editorials - considering it's a liberal town, liberal constituency and from the liberal tradition - I think it's the best editorial page around. It's quite balanced.
Charles Krauthammer
Image
I'm not a global warming believer. I'm not a global warming denier. I'm a global warming agnostic who believes instinctively that it can't be very good to pump lots of CO2 into the atmosphere but is equally convinced that those who presume to know exactly where that leads are talking through their hats.
Charles Krauthammer
Image
After endless days of commuting on the freeway to an antiseptic, sealed-window office, there is a great urge to backpack in the woods and build a fire.
Charles Krauthammer
Image
Ted Cruz is a patriot. He believes in what he does. He's done marvels in mobilizing conservatives, mobilizing Americans concerned about the direction of the ever-expanding entitlement state under Obama, and particularly the threat it is to freedom. I disagree with his tactics, but I agree entirely with his objectives.
Charles Krauthammer
Image
Every new president flatters himself that he, kinder and gentler, is beginning the world anew. Yet, when Barack Obama in his inaugural address reached out to Muslims by saying, 'To the Muslim world, we seek a new way forward, based on mutual interest and mutual respect,' his formulation was needlessly defensive and apologetic.
Charles Krauthammer
Image
Truman left in the middle of an unpopular war, a war of choice. Truman didn't have to go into South Korea. And he was reviled and ridiculed for the stalemate that resulted. Now, he's seen as one of the great presidents of the 20th century.
Charles Krauthammer
Image
Middleness is the very enemy of the bold.
Charles Krauthammer
Image
Two decades ago, however, socialism and communism died rudely, then were buried forever by the empirical demonstration of the superiority of market capitalism everywhere from Thatcher's England to Deng's China, where just the partial abolition of socialism lifted more people out of poverty more rapidly than ever in human history.
Charles Krauthammer
Image
When under attack, no country is obligated to collect permission slips from allies to strike back.
Charles Krauthammer
Image
After the Soviet collapse, Marxism is a relic, a pathetic anachronism reduced to its last redoubts: North Korea, Cuba, and the English departments of the more expensive American universities.
Charles Krauthammer
Image
When a party is in opposition, it opposes. That's its job. But when it comes to power, it must govern. Easy rhetoric is over, the press of reality becomes irresistible. By necessity, it adopts some of the policies it had once denounced. And a new national consensus is born.
Charles Krauthammer
Image
If Obama has his way, the change that is coming is a new America: fair, leveled and social democratic. Obama didn't get elected to warranty your muffler. He's here to warranty your life.
Charles Krauthammer
Image
Great leaders are willing to retire unloved and unpopular as the price for great exertion.
Charles Krauthammer