Life Without Principle by Henry David Thoreau, The Atlantic Monthly (1863)
►https://en.m.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Atlantic_Monthly/Volume_12/Number_71/Life_Without_Principle
Il y a 158 ans Thoreau, l’auteur de Walden ; or, Life in the Woods, publie son traité sur la vie sans principes. Encore de nos jours son oeuvre marque les esprits Il semble que Jeff Dunham en ait tiré la vanne la plus acerbe de sa conférence initiale avec sa marionette Ahmed the dead terrorist.
The rush to California, for instance, and the attitude, not merely of merchants, but of philosophers and prophets, so called, in relation to it, reflect the greatest disgrace on mankind. That so many are ready to live by luck, and so get the means of commanding the labor of others less lucky, without contributing any value to society! And that is called enterprise! I know of no more startling development of the immorality of trade, and all the common modes of getting a living. The philosophy and poetry and religion of such a mankind are not worth the dust of a puff-ball. The hog that gets his living by rooting, stirring up the soil so, would be ashamed of such company. If I could command the wealth of all the worlds by lifting my finger, I would not pay such a price for it. Even Mahomet knew that God did not make this world in jest. It makes God to be a moneyed gentleman who scatters a handful of pennies in order to see mankind scramble for them. The world’s raffle! A subsistence in the domains of Nature a thing to be raffled for! What a comment, what a satire on our institutions! The conclusion will be, that mankind will hang itself upon a tree. And have all the precepts in all the Bibles taught men only this? and is the last and most admirable invention of the human race only an improved muck-rake? Is this the ground on which Orientals and Occidentals meet? Did God direct us so to get our living, digging where we never planted,—and He would, perchance, reward us with lumps of gold.
▻https://www.quotes.net/mquote/1024500
Achmed the Dead Terrorist:
I would not kill the Jews. No. I would toss a penny between them and watch them fight to the death!
[laughs evilly]
Achmed the Dead Terrorist:
Yes, yes! I did the same thing with two Catholic priests, but I tossed in a small boy! Yes, yes! And the winner had to fight Michael Jackson!
Jeff Dunham:
Achmed, stop doing that! You can’t tell jokes like that!
Achmed the Dead Terrorist:
Why not? I’m killing... so to speak!