Ambrose's Antidote: CHILDHOOD

CHILDHOOD, n. The period of human life intermediate between the idiocy of infancy and the folly of youth -- two removes from the sin of manhood and three from the remorse of age.

daily dose of w

You know, I hear people say, well, civil war this, civil war that. The Iraqi people decided against civil war when they went to the ballot box.

George W Bush
Prairie Chapel Ranch
Crawford, Texas
7 August 2006

Ambrose's Antidote: CERBERUS

CERBERUS, n. The watch-dog of Hades, whose duty it was to guard the entrance -- against whom or what does not clearly appear; everybody, sooner or later, had to go there, and nobody wanted to carry off the entrance. Cerberus is known to have had three heads, and some of the poets have credited him with as many as a hundred. Professor Graybill, whose clerky erudition and profound knowledge of Greek give his opinion great weight, has averaged all the estimates, and makes
the number twenty-seven -- a judgment that would be entirely conclusive is Professor Graybill had known (a) something about dogs,and (b) something about arithmetic.

daily dose of w

I want you to know that farmers are not going to be secondary thoughts to a Bush administration. They will be in the forethought of our thinking.

GWB
10 Aug 2000
Salinas, California

Ambrose's Antidote: CENTAUR

CENTAUR, n. One of a race of persons who lived before the division of labor had been carried to such a pitch of differentiation, and who followed the primitive economic maxim, "Every man his own horse." The best of the lot was Chiron, who to the wisdom and virtues of the horse added the fleetness of man. The scripture story of the head of John the Baptist on a charger shows that pagan myths have somewhat sophisticated sacred history.

daily dose of w

There is a lot of speculation and I guess there is going to continue to be a lot of speculation until the speculation ends.

GWB
October 18, 1998
The Texas governor commenting on the possibility of his running for the presidency. Reported by the Austin American-Statesman

Ambrose's Antidote: CEMETERY

CEMETERY, n. An isolated suburban spot where mourners match lies, poets write at a target and stone-cutters spell for a wager. The inscriptions following will serve to illustrate the success attained in these Olympian games:

      His virtues were so conspicuous that his enemies, unable to
  overlook them, denied them, and his friends, to whose loose lives
  they were a rebuke, represented them as vices.  They are here
  commemorated by his family, who shared them.
      In the earth we here prepare a
      Place to lay our little Clara.

Thomas M. and Mary Frazer

      P.S. -- Gabriel will raise her.

daily dose of w

There's not going to be enough people in the system to take advantage of people like me.

GWB
9 Jun 2000
Referring to a possible Social Security crisis. Wilton, Connecticut.

Ambrose's Antidote: CAVILER

CAVILER, n. A critic of our own work.

daily dose of w

Do not subscribe---I mean, you know, you cannot subscribe those views to me...

GWB
13 Feb 2000
Comment made on NBC's Meet the Press. Mr. Bush was referring to whether or not he agreed with the views espoused by the chancellor of Bob Jones University.

Ambrose's Antidote: CAT

CAT, n. A soft, indestructible automaton provided by nature to be kicked when things go wrong in the domestic circle.

  This is a dog,
      This is a cat.
  This is a frog,
      This is a rat.
  Run, dog, mew, cat.
  Jump, frog, gnaw, rat.

Elevenson

daily dose of w

I am mindful not only of preserving executive powers for myself, but for predecessors as well.

GWB
29 Jan 2001
Washington, D.C.

Ambrose's Antidote: CARTESIAN

CARTESIAN, adj. Relating to Descartes, a famous philosopher, author of the celebrated dictum, Cogito ergo sum -- whereby he was pleased to suppose he demonstrated the reality of human existence. The dictum might be improved, however, thus: Cogito cogito ergo cogito sum -- "I think that I think, therefore I think that I am;" as close an approach to certainty as any philosopher has yet made.

daily dose of w

They just got a different tool to use than we do: They kill innocent lives to achieve objectives. That's what they do. And they're good. They get on the TV screens and they get people to ask questions about, well, you know, this, that or the other. I mean, they're able to kind of say to people: Don't come and bother us, because we will kill you.

GWB
28 July 2006
Joint news conference with Tony Blair.
East Room of the White House
Washington D. C.