The 30 Best John Hawkins Quotes

I have been reading John’s work and tweets for a long, long time and making notes on my favorite quotes from his writing. I asked him what he thought about me making a best of quotes list from him and he said he liked the idea, as long as he could suggest a few of them to me. He did, although I did most of these!

He also said it would be fun to release it on his birthday. Since that is today, here it is! Thank you for all the great work, John!

30) “I think you should pay for your own mortgage, birth control, and college loans. It's not because I'm conservative, it's because I'm an adult.”

29) “Whether a person is on the wielding or receiving end of the ax makes a lot of difference.”

28) “A rule without a way to enforce it is merely a wish.”

27) “Whenever rioters, looters, and thugs go up against civilized people, I'm with the civilized people.”

26) “Just about anything could conceivably be called hate speech, which is again, why liberals want to be the ones deciding what’s “hate speech” and what isn’t.”

25) "People are what they are for a reason, and rarely does love, a good talking-to, a reluctant trip to a counselor, or the gift of a book change them.” – 101 Things All Young Adults Should Know

24) “Gridlock doesn't stop the government from saving us, it saves us from the government.”

23) “The merit of an idea and the charisma of the people pushing it are often completely unrelated concepts.”

22) “Rarely is success an accident, but when it is, rarely does it last.” – 101 Things All Young Adults Should Know

21) “When people can't deal with the major issues in their life, they often become obsessive about minutiae as a distraction.”

20) “Change is not always for the better and progress is only a positive if you’re going in the right direction.”

19) “Life is a matter of having what you want and paying the price for it. The problem with politics is they leave off the last half of that.”

18) "Sometimes we get so caught up in appearing smart that we become afraid to ask the questions that will actually make us smart.” – 101 Things All Young Adults Should Know

17) “If you spend money you don't have to get what you want, the time will come when you don't have money for the things you need.”

16) “There are a number of sins you should avoid exactly BECAUSE they're a lot of fun.”

15) “‘I love you,’ ‘I was wrong,’ and ‘I apologize’ are powerful words. They can save marriages, deepen friendships, and change lives. Don't be afraid to use them.” – 101 Things All Young Adults Should Know

14) “Liberals are always instinctively aware that their ideas are incredibly unpopular, so they always want to take some already popular, loved vehicle and reimagine it to trick people into buying their ideas. It's like putting a razor blade in Halloween candy.”

13) “Accepting that you create most of the problems in your own life is the first step towards real freedom.”

12) “Unless you understand both sides of the argument, you don’t understand the argument.”

11) “When someone gets a person to do something morally shameful they don't get mad at him, they get mad at the people who won't go along with it.”

10) “You get what you value and you lose what you take for granted.”

9) “If someone couldn't tell what your priorities are by watching you for a week, maybe you're fooling yourself about your priorities.”

8) “At a certain point, it makes sense to stop trying to be the exception to the rule and just adhere to the damn rule.”

7) “Trying to persuade people who are content in their mediocrity that they can have a better life will only agitate them.”

6) “Liberals don’t want to have debates about right and wrong, good and evil, or even whether a policy works or not, they want every debate to be about whether you’re a bad person for saying something they don’t like.”

5) “I used to love the saying, 'If you build a better mousetrap, the world will beat a path to your door.' It sounds great, right? The only problem is that, as it turns out, it’s not even remotely true. Worse yet, it encourages people to passively wait for someone else to give them a break. Most people who do that will grow old waiting for someone to come along and recognize their genius.” – 101 Things All Young Adults Should Know

4) “At its most basic level, liberalism is nothing more than childlike emotionalism applied to adult issues.”

3) “There's no need to take revenge on mediocre people. Their mediocrity is their own punishment.”

2) “Gratitude is the most fleeting of human emotions.”

1) “When a lion wants to go somewhere, he doesn't worry about how many hyenas are in the way.”

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