Related:

• LIGHTHOUSE, n. A tall building on the seashore in which the government maintains a lamp and the friend of a politician.
  -- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary...
• What is a church? Our honest sexton tells, 'Tis a tall building, with a tower and bells. -- Crabbe
• You are the only person in this building who knows what he's doing.
  .. -- Toilet graffiti in government building...
• If you think of yourselves as helpless and ineffectual, it is certain that you will create a despotic government to be your master.
  The wise despot, therefore, maintains among his subjects a popular sense that they are helpless and ineffectual....
• I have but one lamp by which my feet are guided, and that is the lamp of experience.
  I know no way of judging of the future but by the past....
• A closed mouth maintains a happy mind.
• A politician is an animal which can sit on a fence and yet keep both ears to the ground.
  -- H. L. Mencke...
• Thus, when the lamp that lighted The traveller at first goes out, He feels awhile benighted, And looks around in fear and doubt.
  But soon, the prospect clearing, By cloudless starlight on he treads, And thinks no lamp so cheering As that light which Heaven sheds....
• There is a lamp shining nearby.