Philosophy

I studied philosophy for 9 years in college and I never encountered a better distillation of the essentials of philosophy that what the comedian George Carlin had to offer. From Wikiquote, ThinkExist, Said What?, etc.:

Some people see the glass half full. Others see it half empty. I see a glass that’s twice as big as it needs to be.

I liked his profundity:

One can never know for sure what a deserted area looks like.

I try to keep my personal philosophy simple, so I use Carlin as a guide in all the complex issues:

So I say live and let live. That's my motto. Live and let live. Anyone who can't go along with that, take him outside and shoot the motherfucker. It's a simple philosophy, but it's always worked in our family.

Whenever I get full of myself I think of this:

Think of how stupid the average person is, and realize half of them are stupider than that.

And I keep things in perspective by realizing my tendency to blame others:

You ever notice the first thing someone says when they can't find something is that it was stolen? They say "who stole it?!". It's an ego defense. They can't stand the fact that they might have been stupid enough to have lost something.

I enjoyed how he made fun of people who are fast at finding easy explanations for complex stuff:

Death is caused by swallowing small amounts of saliva over a long period of time.

Think about that. It has to be true because 100% of cases of swallowing saliva lead to death. And as far as I know, nobody has successfully avoided death by failing to swallow saliva. So that makes it an open-and-shut case, saliva kills! (At least if your "science" extends to correlations and can't be bothered to find causes.)

And I am convinced that the following has something to do with cause and effect, or maybe it is just a funny correlation:

Just cause you got the monkey off your back doesn't mean the circus has left town.

I like his take on religion:

Don't give your money to the church. They should be giving their money to you.

And this:

Sun worship is fairly simple. There's no mystery, no miracles, no pageantry, no one asks for money, there are no songs to learn, and we don't have a special building where we all gather once a week to compare clothing. And the best thing about the sun, it never tells me I'm unworthy. Doesn't tell me I'm a bad person who needs to be saved. Hasn't said an unkind word. Treats me fine. So, I worship the sun. But, I don't pray to the sun. Know why? I wouldn't presume on our friendship. It's not polite.

Besides philosophy and religion, I liked his politics:

It's a great country, but it's a strange culture. ... This has got to be the only country in the world that could ever come up with a disease like bulimia; gotta be the only country in the world where some people have no food at all, and other people eat a nourishing meal and puke it up intentionally. This is a country where tobacco kills four hundred thousand people a year, so they ban artificial sweeteners! Because a rat died! You know what I mean? This is a place where gun store owners are given a list of stolen credit cards, but not a list of criminals and maniacs! And now, they're thinking about banning toy guns - and they're gonna keep the fucking real ones!

And this:

They [the Reagan Administration] want to put street criminals in jail to make life safer for the business criminals. They're against street crime, providing that street isn't Wall Street.

And this:

Let me get a sip of water here...you figure this stuff is safe to drink? [audience yells "No"] Actually, I don't care, I drink it anyway. You know why? 'Cause I'm an American and I expect a little cancer in my food and water. I'm a loyal American and I'm not happy unless I let government and industry poison me a little bit every day.

And this:

You know how I define the economic and social classes in this country? The upper class keeps all of the money, pays none of the taxes. The middle class pays all of the taxes, does all of the work. The poor are there... just to scare the shit out of the middle class. Keep 'em showing up at those jobs.

Sadly George Carlin decided to take that call from God and now he's not with us. He should have simply refused the call and replied "There ain't nobody here but us chickens..."