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...you will do more harm than good by attempting to supplant old dogmas and customs with new dogmas. It will be the same in the end except that the old is less militant, less dangerous than a new order imposed by enthusiasts.

Gore Vidal

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Gore Vidal
Age: 86 †
Born: 1925
Born: October 3
Died: 2012
Died: July 31
Actor
Essayist
Journalist
Literary Critic
Non-Fiction Writer
Novelist
Opinion Journalist
Playwright
Politician
Prosaist
West Point
New York
Eugene Luther Gore Vidal
Gor Vidal
Cameron Kay
Eugene Luther Vidal
Edgar Box
Katherine Everard
Eugene Vidal
Order
Imposed
Ends
Attempting
Good
Dogma
Customs
Harm
Supplant
Except
Enthusiasts
Dangerous
Dogmas
Less
Militant

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I'm in favor of any form of sexual relationship that gives pleasure to those involved. And I have never heard a convincing argument to the contrary.
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If you're a critic of the rulers of the United States, you are either demonized, or you are trivialized by the press, and they do a very good job of making you into a non-person or a ridiculous person.
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Envy is the central fact of American life.
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Celebrities are invariably celebrity-mad, just as liars always believe liars.
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What is a political party but a conspiracy?
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I was brought up to believe that what is out-of-doors should stay there and not be encouraged in any way.
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Traitors who prevail are patriots usurpers who succeed are divine emperors.
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Now you have people in Washington who have no interest in the country at all. They're interested in their companies, their corporations grabbing Caspian oil.
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Since nothing is free, to each his price.
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I'm all for bringing back the birch, but only between consenting adults.
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To a born-again atheist like myself, it is clear that each of us has multiple selves, talents, perceptions. But to the Roman Catholic, unity is all.
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To have an interest in both sexes is equally normal. Whether it's practiced or not is something else. Some do. Some don't.
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American laws don't work, but at least the laws of physics might work.
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[Norman Mailer] is against masturbation, he's against homosexuality. He believes that murder is essentially sexual. I think he's rather an anthology of all the darkest American traits.
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The greatest pleasure when I started making money was not buying cars or yachts but finding myself able to have as many freshly typed drafts as possible.
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The word 'radical' derives from the Latin word for root. Therefore, if you want to get to the root of anything you must be radical. It is no accident that the word has now been totally demonized.
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In fact, life itself is a contradiction if only because birth is the direct cause, in every single case, of death
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Persuading the people to vote against their own best interests has been the awesome genius of the American political elite from the beginning.
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I'm not for real revolutions, because they always bring you the opposite of what you want. You very seldom get what you want if you have a violent revolution.
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It makes no difference who you vote for - the two parties are really one party representing four percent of the people.
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