Thread: Quotes

"Propaganda is to Democracy as violence is to a dictatorship" - Noam Chomsky

"Islam, as we keep hearing, is a religion of peace. And if you dare to criticize or make light of it, may you rest in peace." - James Taranto

"Lighthouses are more helpful than churches"
Benjamin Franklin.

Hitler is lured into the German Worker's Party by a speech called, "By What Means Shall Capitalism Be Destroyed," putting aside the Nazi Party platform of 1920, which Adolph Hitler co-writes, which includes socialized medicine, universal health care, universal education, guaranteed wages, appropriation of the wealth of the rich, an "Anti- Wal Mart" plank essentially, where they go after big department stores, putting aside all of the obvious economic similarities, there is also the populism. --Jonah Goldberg

Let thy speech be better than silence, or be silent.
— Dionysius I of Syracuse

"If you can't convince 'em, confuse 'em"
Harry S Truman

"Volumes can be and have been written about the issue of freedom versus dictatorship, but, in essence, it comes down to a single question: do you consider it moral to treat men as sacrificial animals and to rule them by physical force?" -- Ayn Rand- (1905-1982) Author



"Stability and peace in our land will not come from the barrel of a gun, because peace without justice is an impossibility." -- Bishop Desmond Tutu - (1931- ) Nobel Prize for Peace 1984



"The greater the importance to safeguarding the community from incitements to the overthrow of our institutions by force and violence, the more imperative is the need to preserve the constitutional rights of free speech, free press and free assembly in order to maintain the opportunity for free political discussion." -- Justice Charles Evans Hughes - (1862-1948) Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court Source: DeJonge v. Oregon, 1937


.

Naked force has settled more issues in history than any other factor. The contrary opinion 'violence never solves anything' is wishful thinking at its worst. People who forget that always pay...They pay with their lives and their freedom. -- Starship Troopers

"Starship Troopers!?! People who quote Starship Troopers are worthy of derision. Particularly as they've clearly missed the underlying satire of the film" - A. Nonymous

^
Rope-A-Doped again! Heh

The point is, ladies and gentlemen, that: Greed, for lack of a better word, is good. Greed is right; greed works. Greed clarifies, cuts through, and captures the essence of the evolutionary spirit. Greed, in all of its forms, greed for life, for money, for love, knowledge — has marked the upward surge of mankind and greed, you mark my words — will save not only Teldar Paper but that other malfunctioning corporation called the USA.
Gordon Gekko

" The law does not pretend to punish everything that is dishonest.That would seriously interfere with business."
Clarence Seward Darrow.

The state has, in order to control us, introduced division into our thinking, so that we come to distrust others and look to the state for protection! But the roots of our individualism remind us that what we are is inseparable from the source from which all others derive; that coercive practices that threaten our neighbor also threaten us.: -Butler Shaffer



In India when we meet and part we often say, "Namaste," which means: I honor the place in you where the entire universe resides; I honor the place in you of love, of light, of truth, of peace. I honor the place within you where if you are in that place in you and I am in that place in me, there is only one of us ... "Namaste." ... : Ram Dass



Peace was not made for the sake of justice, but justice for the sake of peace: Martin Luther (1483-1546)



Past the seeker as he prayed came the crippled and the beggar and the beaten. And seeing them...he cried, "Great God, how is it that a loving creator can see such things and yet do nothing about them?"...God said, "I did do something. I made you." : Sufi Teaching



I submit that an individual who breaks a law that conscience tells him is unjust, and who willingly accepts the penalty of imprisonment in order to arouse the conscience of the community over its injustice, is in reality expressing the highest respect for law: Martin Luther King Jr., "Letter From Birmingham Jail", 4.16.63



We cannot have peace if we are only concerned with peace. War is not an accident. It is the logical outcome of a certain way of life. If we want to attack war, we have to attack that way of life: A. J. Muste

Giving government money and power is like giving car keys and whiskey to a teenage boy" -- P.J. O'Rourke

"You can do more with a kind word and a gun than with just a kind word."
Alphonse Gabriel Capone.

"When I am king, to prevent the confusion of soccer with football, soccer will henceforth be referred to as 'fagball'" - Adam Corolla

"Christians like slaves and soldiers, ask no questions"
Jerry Falwell.

Violence is shrouded in justifying myths that lend it moral legitimacy, and these myths for the most part kept people from recognizing the violence for what it was. The people who burned witches at the stake never for one moment thought of their act as violence; rather they though of it as an act of divinely mandated righteousness. The same can be said of most of the violence we humans have ever committed: Gil Bailie




The problems of this world are so gigantic that some are paralysed by their own uncertainty. Courage and wisdom are needed to reach out above this sense of helplessness. Desire for vengeance against deeds of hatred offers no solution. An eye for an eye makes the world blind. If we wish to choose the other path, we will have to search for ways to break the spiral of animosity. To fight evil one must also recognize one's own responsibility. The values for which we stand must be expressed in the way we think of, and how we deal with, our fellow humans: - From the Christmas Message 2001 of HM Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands



We have grasped the mystery of the atom and rejected the Sermon on the Mount. Ours is a world of nuclear giants and ethical infants. We know more about war than we know about peace, more about killing that we know about living: General Omar Bradley

.

"The only difference between a tax man and a taxidermist is that the taxidermist leaves the skin." -- Mark Twain

"It is good thing for an educated man to read books of quotations."
Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill.

Should we throw another human wave of structural engineers at stabilizing the Leaning Tower of Pisa, or should we just let the damn thing fall over and build a tower that doesn't suck?" - Neal Stephenson

Just think of left wing logic like this. 5 x 8 = 73. Then get really mad about it! Once you can do that, you will be able to understand them. -- Don_cos

You can't get good Chinese takeout in China and Cuban cigars are rationed in Cuba. That's all you need to know about communism." - PJ O'Rourke

Until lions have their historians, tales of the hunt shall always glorify the hunters: African Proverb




We should take care, in inculcating patriotism into our boys and girls, that is a patriotism above the narrow sentiment which usually stops at one's country, and thus inspires jealousy and enmity in dealing with others.... Our patriotism should be of the wider, nobler kind which recognises justice and reasonableness in the claims of others and which lead our country into comradeship with...the other nations of the world. The first step to this end is to develop peace and goodwill within our borders, by training our youth of both sexes to its practice as their habit of life, so that the jealousies of town against town, class against class and sect against sect no longer exist; and then to extend this good feeling beyond our frontiers towards our neighbours: Lord Baden-Powell




In the absence of justice, what is sovereignty but organized robbery? : St. Augustine