Humanists at Barefoot Bay

It has been for some time a generally received opinion, that a military man is not to inquire whether a war be just or unjust; he is to execute his orders. All princes who are disposed to become tyrants must probably approve of this opinion, and be willing to establish it; but is it not a dangerous one, since, on that principle, if the tyrant commands his army to attack and destroy, not only an unoffending neighbor nation, but even his own subjects, the army is bound to obey? A negro slave, in our colonies, being commanded by his master to rob or murder a neighbor, or do any other immoral act, may refuse, and the magistrate will protect him in his refusal. The slavery then of a soldier is worse than that of a negro! . . . . Benjamin Franklin to Benjamin Vaughan, 14 March 1785 (B 11:18-9)

The truth in incontrovertible. Malice may attack it; ignorance may deride it. But in the end--There it is. . . . Winston Churchill

Now all my lies are proved untrue
And I must face the men I slew.
What tale shall serve me here among
Mine angry and defrauded young?"
Epitaphs of War, Rudyard Kipling, 1865-1936

"Live your life that the fear of death can never enter your heart. Trouble no one about his religion. Respect others in their views and demand that they respect yours. Love your life, perfect your life, beautify all things in your life. Seek to make your life long and of service to your people. Prepare a noble death song for the day when you go over the great divide.

"Always give a word or sign of salute when meeting or passing a friend, or even a stranger, if in a lonely place. Show respect to all people, but grovel to none. When you rise in the morning, give thanks for the light, for your life, for your strength. Give thanks for your food and for the joy of living. If you see no reason to give thanks, the fault lies in yourself.

"Abuse no one and no thing, for abuse turns the wise ones to fools and robs the spirit of its vision. When your time comes to die, be not like those whose hearts are filled with fear of death, so that when their time comes they weep and pray for a little more time to live their lives over again in a different way. Sing your death song, and die like a hero going home." by: Tecumseh -(1768-1813) Shawnee Chief

Envy is the precursor to hate. . . . Samuel Adams

The first step in a fascist movement is the combination under an energetic leader of a number of men who possess more than the average share of leisure, brutality, and stupidity. The next step is to fascinate fools and muzzle the intelligent, by emotional excitement on the one hand and terrorism on the other. . . . Bertrand Russell: Freedom, Harcourt Brace, 1940

Most of the greatest evils that man has inflicted upon man have come through people feeling quite certain about something which, in fact, was false. . . . Bertrand Russell

It's not a matter of what is true that counts but a matter of what is perceived to be true. . . . Henry Kissinger

The nationalist not only does not disapprove of atrocities committed by his own side, but he has a remarkable capacity for not even hearing about them. . . . George Orwell

Political language. . . is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind. . . . George Orwell

Our government has kept us in a perpetual state of fear - kept us in a continuous stampede of patriotic fervour - with the cry of grave national emergency. Always, there has been some terrible evil at home, or some monstrous foreign power that was going to gobble us up if we did not blindly rally behind it. . . . General Douglas MacArthur (1880-1964) WWII Supreme Allied Commander of the Southwest Pacific, Supreme United Nations Commander 1957 - Source: Whan, ed. "A Soldier Speaks: Public Papers and Speeches of General of the Army Douglas MacArthur," (1965); Nation, August 17, 1957

We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security. . . . Dwight David Eisenhower, 34th president of the United States, 1890-1969

We cannot be both the world's leading champion of peace and the world's leading supplier of the weapons of war. . . . Jimmy Carter

Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also a prison. . . . Henry David Thoreau

In time of war the loudest patriots are the greatest profiteers. . . . August Bebel:

A democracy which makes or even effectively prepares for modern, scientific war must necessarily cease to be democratic. No country can be really well prepared for modern war unless it is governed by a tyrant, at the head of a highly trained and perfectly obedient bureaucracy. . . . Aldous Huxley

"Four sorrows ... are certain to be visited on the United States. Their cumulative effect guarantees that the U.S. will cease to resemble the country outlined in the Constitution of 1787.

First, there will be a state of perpetual war, leading to more terrorism against Americans wherever they may be and a spreading reliance on nuclear weapons among smaller nations as they try to ward off the imperial juggernaut.

Second is a loss of democracy and Constitutional rights as the presidency eclipses Congress and is itself transformed from a co-equal 'executive branch' of government into a military junta.

Third is the replacement of truth by propaganda, disinformation, and the glorification of war, power, and the military legions.

Lastly, there is bankruptcy, as the United States pours its economic resources into ever more grandiose military projects and shortchanges the education, health, and safety of its citizens." Chalmers Johnson, Sorrows of Empire

A time will come when a politician who has willfully made war and promoted international dissension will be as sure of the dock and much surer of the noose than a private homicide. It is not reasonable that those who gamble with men's lives should not stake their own. . . . H.G. Wells

We can't solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them. . . . Albert Einstein

It is extremely dangerous to exercise the constitutional right of free speech in a country fighting to make democracy safe in the world.....

These are the gentry who are today wrapped up in the American flag, who shout their claim from the housetops that they are the only patriots, and who have their magnifying glasses in hand, scanning the country for evidence of disloyalty, eager to apply the brand of treason to the men who dare to even whisper their opposition to Junker rule in the United Sates. No wonder Sam Johnson declared that "patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrel." He must have had this Wall Street gentry in mind, or at least their prototypes, for in every age it has been the tyrant, the oppressor and the exploiter who has wrapped himself in the cloak of patriotism, or religion, or both to deceive and overawe the people.....

Every solitary one of these aristocratic conspirators and would-be murderers claims to be an arch-patriot; every one of them insists that the war is being waged to make the world safe for democracy. What humbug! What rot! What false pretense! These autocrats, these tyrants, these red- handed robbers and murderers, the "patriots," while the men who have the courage to stand face to face with them, speak the truth, and fight for their exploited victims-they are the disloyalists and traitors. If this be true, I want to take my place side by side with the traitors in this fight. . . . Eugene V. Debs - The Canton, Ohio, Anti-War Speech. June 16, 1918

He who joyfully marches to music in rank and file has already earned my contempt. He has been given a large brain by mistake, science for him the spinal cord would fully suffice. This disgrace to civilization should be done away with at once. Heroism at command, senseless brutality, deplorable love-of-country stance, how violently I hate all this, how despicable an ignorable war is; I would rather be torn to shreds than be a part of so base an action! It is my conviction that killing under the cloak of war is nothing but an act of murder. . . . Albert Einstein

Either man is obsolete or war is. War is the ultimate tool of politics. Political leaders look out only for their own side. Politicians are always realistically maneuvering for the next election. They are obsolete as fundamental problem-solvers. . . . R. Buckminster Fuller

The goal of a good society is to structure social relations and institutions so that cooperative and generous impulses are rewarded, while antisocial ones are discouraged. The problem with capitalism is that it best rewards the worst part of us: ruthless, competitive, conniving, opportunistic, acquisitive drives, giving little reward and often much punishment -- or at least much handicap -- to honesty, compassion, fair play, many forms of hard work, love of justice, and a concern for those in need. . . . Michael Parenti

Search for the truth is the noblest occupation of man; its publication is a duty. . . . Anne Louise Germaine de Stael - (1766-1817) French author

Free inquiry requires that we tolerate diversity of opinion and that we respect the right of individuals to express their beliefs, however unpopular they may be, without social or legal prohibition or fear of success. . . . Paul Kurtz "A Secular Humanist Declaration," in On The Barricades, 1989

Freethinkers are those who are willing to use their minds without prejudice and without fearing to understand things that clash with their customs, privileges, or beliefs. This state of mind is not common, but it is essential for right thinking; where it is absent, discussion is apt to become worse than useless. . . . Leo Nikolaevich Tolstoi - (1828-1910) Russian writer Source: On Life and Essays on Religion

Those in power need checks and restraints lest they come to identify the common good for their own tastes and desires, and their continuation in office as essential to the preservation of the nation. . . . Justice William O. Douglas (1898-1980), U. S. Supreme Court Justice Source: We, The Judges, 1956

The trade of governing has always been monopolized by the most ignorant and the most rascally individuals of mankind. . . . Thomas Paine - (1737-1809)

I love quotations because it is a joy to find thoughts one might have, beautifully expressed with much authority by someone recognizably wiser than oneself. . . . Marlene Dietrich

Believe those who are seeking the truth; doubt those who find it. . . . Andre Gide

We thought, because we had power, we had wisdom. . . . Stephen Vincent Benét

Every outcry against the oppression of some people by other people, or against what is morally hideous is the affirmation of the principle that a human being as such is not to be violated. A human being is not to be handled as a tool but is to be respected and revered. . . . Felix Adler: An Ethical Philosophy of Life

The unique personality which is the real life in me, I can not gain unless I search for the real life, the spiritual quality, in others. I am myself spiritually dead unless I reach out to the fine quality dormant in others. For it is only with the god enthroned in the innermost shrine of the other, that the god hidden in me, will consent to appear. . . . Felix Adler: An Ethical Philosophy of Life

They have always taught and trained you to believe it to be your patriotic duty to go to war and to have yourselves slaughtered at their command. But in all the history of the world you, the people, have never had a voice in declaring war. . . . Eugene Debs

There are those who believe that you just legislate to make the well-to-do prosperous, that their prosperity will leak through on those below. The Democratic idea has been that if you legislate to make the masses prosperous their prosperity will find its way up and through every class that rests upon it. . . . William Jennings Bryan at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago in 1896

The doorstep to the temple of wisdom is a knowledge of our own ignorance. . . . Benjamin Franklin

The greatest of fault, I should say, is to be conscious of none. . . . Robert Carlyle (1795 - 1881)

I never submitted the whole system of my opinions to the creed of any party of men whatever, in religion, in philosophy, in politics or in anything else, where I was capable of thinking for myself. Such an addiction is the last degradation of a free and moral agent. If I could not go to Heaven but with a party, I would not go there at all. . . . Thomas Jefferson - (1743-1826), US Founding Father, drafted the Declaration of Independence, 3rd US President

Each of us must learn to work not just for oneself, one's own family or nation, but for the benefit of all humankind. Universal responsibility is the key to human survival. It is the best foundation for world peace. . . . H. H. the Dalai Lama

We kind o' thought Christ went agin war an' pillage. . . . James Russell Lowell

The feudal barons of the Middle Ages, the economic predecessors of the capitalists of our day, declared all wars. And their miserable serfs fought all the battles. The poor, ignorant serfs had been taught to revere their masters; to believe that when their masters declared war upon one another, it was their patriotic duty to fall upon one another and to cut one another's throats for the profit and glory of the lords and barons who held them in contempt. And that is war in a nutshell. . . . Eugene Debs, June 6, 1918. The speech was given to about 1,200 people and was later used against Debs to make the case that he had violated the espionage Act. The judge sentenced Debs to ten years in prison.

[Y]our national greatness, swelling vanity; your denunciation of tyrants, brass-fronted impudence; your shouts of liberty and equality, hollow mockery; your prayers and hymns, your sermons and thanksgivings, with all your religious parade and solemnity, are, to Him, mere bombast, fraud, deception, impiety, and hypocrisy -- a thin veil to cover up crimes which would disgrace a nation of savages. . . . Frederick Douglass - 1818 - 1895

We have enough religion to make us hate, but not enough to make us love one another. . . . Jonathan Swift, Irish author and foremost prose satirist, 1667-1745

Propaganda is persuading people to make up their minds while withholding some of the facts from them. . . . Harold Evans

If they do it, it's terrorism, if we do it, it's fighting for freedom. . . . Anthony Quainton, U.S. Ambassador to Nicaragua, 1984: Source: Off the record response of the Ambassador to a group of concerned U.S. citizens when asked to explain the difference between U.S. government actions in Nicaragua and the violence it condemns as terrorism elsewhere in the world.

It is in the nature of imperialism that citizens of the imperial power are always among the last to know--or care--about circumstances in the colonies. . . . Bertrand Russell

The president has adopted a policy of 'anticipatory self-defense' that is alarmingly similar to the policy that imperial Japan employed at Pearl Harbor, on a date which, as an earlier American president said it would, lives in infamy. . . . Franklin D. Roosevelt was right, but today it is we Americans who live in infamy. . . . Arthur Schlesinger.

I am tired and sick of war. Its glory is all moonshine. It is only those who have neither fired a shot nor heard the shrieks and groans of the wounded who cry aloud for blood, more vengeance, more desolation. Some of these young men think that war is all glory but let me say war is all hell. . . . William Tecumseh Sherman.

. . . . if it is a Miracle, any sort of evidence will answer, but if it is a Fact, proof is necessary. . . . Mark Twain - [Samuel Langhorne Clemens] (1835-1910)

It is forbidden to kill; therefore all murderers are punished unless they kill in large numbers and to the sound of trumpets. . . . Voltaire

I will never apologize for the United States of America - I don't care what the facts are. . . . President George Bush

If you had only known the man you were trying to kill, you would have risked your life to save his. . . . Harry Pope, WW2 , Pacific USS LSM 41, 1944 - Occupied Japan, 1950

Patriotism is your conviction that this country is superior to all other countries because you were born in it. . . . George Bernard Shaw

Heroism on command, senseless violence, and all the loathsome nonsense that goes by the name of patriotism -- how passionately I hate them! . . . Stephen Decatur

The West won the world not by the superiority of its ideas or values or religion but rather by its superiority in applying organized violence. Westerners often forget this fact, non-Westerners never do. . . . Samuel P. Huntington

The way to get things done is not to mind who gets the credit for doing them. . . . Benjamin Jowett (1817-1893), British theologian and classicist

The only security for the American people today, or for any people, is to be found through the control of force rather than the use of force. . . . Norman Cousins: American essayist and editor, long associated with the Saturday Review, 1912-1990

The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, and wiser people so full of doubts. . . . Bertrand Russell, philosopher, mathematician, author, Nobel laureate (1872-1970)

Justice is as strictly due between neighbor nations as between neighbor citizens. A highwayman is as much a robber when he plunders in a gang as when single; and a nation that makes an unjust war is only a great gang. . . . Benjamin Franklin to Benjamin Vaughan, 14 March 1785 (B 11:16-7)

I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use. . . . Galileo Galilei

Most of the greatest evils that man has inflicted upon man have come through people feeling quite certain about something which, in fact, was false. . . . Bertrand Russell

The soul of our country needs to be awakened . . .When leaders act contrary to conscience, we must act contrary to leaders. . . . Veterans Fast for Life

People have not been horrified by war to a sufficient extent ... War will exist until that distant day when the conscientious objector enjoys the same reputation and prestige as the warrior does today. . . . John Fitzgerald Kennedy

I was a bombadier in WW 2. When you are up 30,000 feet you do not hear the screams or smell the blood or see those without limbs or eyes. It was not til I read Hersey's Hiroshima that I realized what bomber pilots do. . . . Howard Zinn

Patriotism is your conviction that this country is superior to all others because you were born in it. . . . George Bernard Shaw

Heroism on command, senseless violence, and all the loathsome nonsense that goes by the name of patriotism - how passionately I hate them! . . . . Stephen Decatur

It's not a matter of what is true that counts but a matter of what is perceived to be true. . . . Henry Kissinger

Most of the greatest evils that man has inflicted upon man have come through people feeling quite certain about something which, in fact, was false. . . . Bertrand Russell

"There never was a good war," said Franklin. There have indeed been many wars in which a good man must take part, and take part with grave gladness to die if need be, a willing sacrifice, thankful to give life for what is dearer than life, and happy that even by death in war he is serving the cause of peace. But if a war be undertaken for the most righteous end, before the resources of peace have been tried and proved vain to secure it, that war has no defense, it is a national crime. . . . Charles Eliot Norton

Man is the only animal that deals in that atrocity of atrocities, War. He is the only one that gathers his brethren about him and goes forth in cold blood and calm pulse to exterminate his kind. He is the only animal that for sordid wages will march out....and help to slaughter strangers of his own species who have done him no harm and with whom he has no quarrel.... And in the intervals between campaigns he washes the blood off his hands and works for "the universal brotherhood of man" --- with his mouth. . . . Mark Twain

Patriots always talk of dying for their country and never of killing for their country. . . . Bertrand Russell, attributed

I'm fed up to the ears with old men dreaming up wars for young men to die in. . . . George McGovern

The ability and inclination to use physical strength is no indication of bravery or tenacity to life. The greatest cowards are often the greatest bullies. Nothing is cheaper and more common than physical bravery. . . . Clarence Darrow, Resist Not Evil

Torture - "If the Americans are doing it, and they're not accountable, then who's going to come to your rescue?" . . . . Moazzam Begg, Detainee #558 in Guantanamo Bay.

I suspected I was just part of a racket at the time. Now I am sure of it. Like all members of the military profession I never had an original thought until I left the service. My mental faculties remained in suspended animation while I obeyed the orders of the higher- ups. This is typical with everyone in the military service. . . . General Smedley Butler. USMC (Ret.)

One of the great attractions to patriotism, it fulfills our worst wishes. In the person of a nation we are able, vicariously, to bully and cheat while feeling we're profoundly virtuous. . . . Aldous Huxley

A nation is a society united by a delusion about its ancestry and a common fear of its neighbors. . . . W. R. Inge

Patriotism is fierce as a fever, pitiless as the grave, blind as a stone and as irrational as a headless hen. . . . Ambrose Bierce

Patriotism is a religion, the egg from which wars are hatched. . . . Guy de Maupassant

Patriotism is a menace to liberty. . . . Emma Goldman

When buying and selling are controlled by legislation, the first things to be bought and sold are legislators. . . . P J O'Rourke - (1947- ) US humorist, journalist, & political commentator

To initiate a war of aggression, therefore, is not only an international crime; it is the supreme international crime differing only from other war crimes in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole: Nuremburg War Tribunal regarding wars of aggression

If we'd been born where they were born and taught what they were taught, we would believe what they believe. . . . A sign inside a church in Northern Ireland, explaining the origin of intolerance and hate

Capitalism will never fail because socialism will always be there to bail it out. . . . Ralph Nader

We're not a democracy. It's a terrible misunderstanding and a slander to the idea of democracy to call us that. In reality, we're a plutocracy: a government by the wealthy. . . . Ramsey Clark, former U.S. Attorney General

The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy: that is the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness. . . . John Kenneth Galbraith

When a man has so far corrupted and prostituted the chastity of his mind, as to suscribe his professional belief to things he does not believe; he has prepared himself for the commission of every other crime. . . . Thomas Paine "The Age of Reason"

Apathy is the glove into which evil slips its hand. . . . Bodie Thoene

Actions are held to be good or bad, not on their own merits, but according to who does them. There is almost no kind of outrage-----torture, imprisonment without trial, assassination, the bombing of civilians-----which does not change its moral color when it is committed by 'our' side. The nationalist not only does not disapprove of atrocities committed by his own side, he has a remarkable capacity for not even hearing about them. . . . George Orwell

There is no position on which people are so immovable as their religious beliefs. There is no more powerful ally one can claim in a debate than Jesus Christ, or God, or Allah, or whatever one calls this supreme being. But like any powerful weapon, the use of God's name on one's behalf should be used sparingly. The religious factions that are growing throughout our land are not using their religious clout with wisdom. They are trying to force government leaders into following their position 100 percent. If you disagree with these religious groups on a particular moral issue, they complain, they threaten you with a loss of money or votes or both. I'm frankly sick and tired of the political preachers across this country telling me as a citizen that if I want to be a moral person, I must believe in 'A,' 'B,' 'C,' and 'D.' Just who do they think they are? And from where do they presume to claim the right to dictate their moral beliefs to me? And I am even more angry as a legislator who must endure the threats of every religious group who thinks it has some God-granted right to control my vote on every roll call in the Senate. I am warning them today: I will fight them every step of the way if they try to dictate their moral convictions to all Americans in the name of 'conservatism.' . . . Barry Goldwater - (1909-1998) US Senator (R-Arizona) Source: Congressional Record, September 16, 1981

Patriotism means to stand by the country. It does not mean to stand by the president or any other public official save exactly to the degree in which he himself stands by the country. It is patriotic to support him insofar as he efficiently serves the country. It is unpatriotic not to oppose him to the exact extent that by inefficiency or otherwise he fails in his duty to stand by the country. . . . Theodore Roosevelt

The country is headed toward a single and splendid government of an aristocracy founded on banking institutions and monied corporations, and if this tendency continues it will be the end of freedom and democracy, the few will be ruling and riding over the plundered plowman and the beggar. . . . Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826)

In a country well governed poverty is something to be ashamed of. In a country badly governed wealth is something to be ashamed of. . . . Confucius

Democracy [is] when the indigent, and not the men of property, are the rulers. . . . Aristotle

We can easily forgive a child who is afraid of the dark; the real tragedy of life is when men are afraid of the light. . . . Plato

Political language is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind. . . . George Orwell

The nationalist not only does not disapprove of atrocities committed by his own side, but he has a remarkable capacity for not even hearing about them. . . . George Orwell

We can have democracy in this country, or we can have great wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, but we can't have both. . . . Justice Louis D. Brandeis, US Supreme Court Justice (1856-1941)

Those who have the privilege to know, have the duty to act. . . . Albert Einstein

The point of public relations slogans like "Support our troops" is that they don't mean anything... That's the whole point of good propaganda. You want to create a slogan that nobody's going to be against, and everybody's going to be for. Nobody knows what it means, because it doesn't mean anything. Its crucial value is that it diverts your attention from a question that does mean something: Do you support our policy? That's the one you're not allowed to talk about. . . . Noam Chomsky

Wars throughout history have been waged for conquest and plunder.... the working class who fight all the battles, the working class who make the supreme sacrifices, the working class who freely shed their blood and furnish their corpses, have never yet had a voice in either declaring war or making peace. It is the ruling class that invariably does both. They alone declare war and they alone make peace....They are continually talking about their patriotic duty. It is not their but your patriotic duty that they are concerned about. There is a decided difference. Their patriotic duty never takes them to the firing line or chucks them into the trenches. . . . Eugene V. Debs

The care of human life and happiness, and not their destruction, is the first and only object of good government. . . . Thomas Jefferson

To care for anyone else enough to make their problems one's own, is ever the beginning of one's real ethical development. . . . Felix Adler

How far you go in life depends on your being tender with the young, compassionate with the aged, sympathetic with the striving and tolerant of the weak and strong. Because someday in life you will have been all of these. . . . George Washington Carver

Resistance is feasible even for those who are not heroes by nature, and it is an obligation, I believe, for those who fear the consequences and detest the reality of the attempt to impose American hegemony. . . . Noam Chomsky

It's not a matter of what is true that counts but a matter of what is perceived to be true. . . . Henry Kissinger

And so long as they were at war, their power was preserved, but when they had attained empire they fell, for of the arts of peace they knew nothing, and had never engaged in any employment higher than war. . . . Aristotle, Politics

They tell us that we live in a great free republic; that our institutions are democratic; that we are a free and self-governing people. That is too much, even for a joke. ... Wars throughout history have been waged for conquest and plunder... And that is war in a nutshell. The master class has always declared the wars; the subject class has always fought the battles. . . . Eugene Victor Debs

To bring into being an unwanted human being is as antisocial an act as murder. . . . Gore Vidal (1925 - ), author and playwright

Few trends could so thoroughly undermine the very foundations of our free society as the acceptance by corporate officials of a social responsibility other than to make as much money for their stockholders as possible. . . . Neo-liberal economist Milton Friedman - in his 1962 book Capitalism and Freedom

Capitalism is the extraordinary belief that the nastiest of men for the nastiest of motives will somehow work for the benefit of all. . . . John Maynard Keynes

The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy: that is the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness. . . . John Kenneth Galbraith, economist and author

I believe in only one thing: liberty; but I do not believe in liberty enough to want to force it upon anyone. . . . H. L. Mencken

I BELIEVE that God wants me to be president. . . . George W. Bush

I would like to thank Providence and the Almighty for choosing me of all people to be allowed to wage this battle for Germany. . . . Hitler - Berlin March, 1936

God is not on the side of any nation, yet we know He is on the side of justice. Our finest moments [as a nation] have come when we faithfully served the cause of justice for our own citizens, and for the people of other lands. . . . George W. Bush

If we pursue this way, if we are decent, industrious, and honest, if we so loyally and truly fulfill our duty, then it is my conviction that in the future as in the past the Lord God will always help us. . . . Adolf Hitler, at the Harvest Thanksgiving Festival on the Buckeburg held on Oct. 3, 1937

The path of least resistance and least trouble is a mental rut already made. It requires troublesome work to undertake the alternation of old beliefs. Self-conceit often regards it as a sign of weakness to admit that a belief to which we have once committed ourselves is wrong. We get so identified with an idea that it is literally a "pet" notion and we rise to its defense and stop our eyes and ears to anything different. . . . John Dewey

Everything we shut our eyes to, everything we run away from, everything we deny, denigrate or despise, serves to defeat us in the end. What seems nasty, painful, evil, can become a source of beauty, joy, and strength, if faced with an open mind. . . . Henry Miller - (1891-1980) American writer

Read, every day, something no one else is reading. Think, every day, something no one else is thinking. Do, every day, something no one else would be silly enough to do. It is bad for the mind to continually be part of unanimity. . . . Gotthold Ephraim Lessing (1729-1781) German Dramatist

It is part of the general pattern of misguided policy that our country is now geared to an arms economy which was bred in an artificually induced psychosis of war hysteria and nurtured upon an incessant propaganda of fear. . . . General Douglas MacArthur, Speech, May 15, 1951

The feeling of patriotism - It is an immoral feeling because, instead of confessing himself a son of God . . . or even a free man guided by his own reason, each man under the influence of patriotism confesses himself the son of his fatherland and the slave of his government, and commits actions contrary to his reason and conscience. . . . Leo Tolstoy, Patriotism and Government

It is foolish in the extreme not only to resort to force before necessity compels, but especially to madly create the conditions that will lead to this necessity. . . . Benjamin Tucker, Liberty, May 22, 1886

A criminal is a person with predatory instincts who has not sufficient capital to form a corporation. . . . Howard Scott

"If a baseball player slides into home plate and, right before the umpire rules if he is safe or out, the player says to the umpire - 'Here is $1,000.' What would we call that? We would call that a bribe. If a lawyer was arguing a case before a judge and said, 'Your honor before you decide on the guilt or innocence of my client, here is $1,000.' What would we call that? We would call that a bribe.

"But if an industry lobbyist walks into the office of a key legislator and hands her or him a check for $1,000, we call that a campaign contribution. We should call it a bribe." : Janice Fine - Dollars and Sense magazine

I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use. . . . Galileo Galilei

All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident. . . . Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860)

Never think that war, no matter how necessary, nor how justified, is not a crime. . . . Ernest Hemingway

So long as the people do not care to exercise their freedom, those who wish to tyrannize will do so; for tyrants are active and ardent, and will devote themselves in the name of any number of gods, religious and otherwise, to put shackles upon sleeping men. . . . Voltaire

Unthinking respect for authority is the greatest enemy of truth. . . . Albert Einstein

The price of apathy towards public affairs is to be ruled by evil men. . . . Plato

The superstition of the past is the science of the present, the proverb of the future. (Author unknown.)

So let us regard this as settled: what is morally wrong can never be advantageous, even when it enables you to make some gain that you believe to be to your advantage. The mere act of believing that some wrongful course of action constitutes an advantage is pernicious. . . . .Marcus Tullius Cicero (106-43 B.C.)

Allow the President to invade a neighboring nation, whenever he shall deem it necessary to repel an invasion, and you allow him to do so, whenever he may choose to say he deems it necessary for such a purpose -- and you allow him to make war at pleasure. If today, he should choose to say he thinks it necessary to invade Canada, to prevent the British from invading us, how could you stop him? You may say to him, 'I see no probability of the British invading us' but he will say to you, 'Be silent; I see it, if you don't.' . . . . Abraham Lincoln

The worst sin toward our fellow creatures is not to hate them, but to be indifferent to them: that's the essence of inhumanity. . . . George Bernard Shaw

One of the saddest lessons of history is this: If we've been bamboozled long enough, we tend to reject any evidence of the bamboozle. We're no longer interested in finding out the truth. The bamboozle has captured us. It is simply too painful to acknowledge -- even to ourselves -- that we've been so credulous. . . . Carl Sagan

It is curious that physical courage should be so common in the world and moral courage so rare. . . . Mark Twain

Of all forms of tyranny the least attractive and the most vulgar is the tyranny of mere wealth, the tyranny of plutocracy. . . . John Pierpont Morgan

I hope we shall crush in its birth the aristocracy of our moneyed corporations, which dare already to challenge our government to a trial of strength and bid defiance to the laws of our country. . . . Thomas Jefferson

I see in the near future a crisis approaching that unnerves me and causes me to tremble for the safety of my country. As a result of the war, corporations have been enthroned and an era of corruption in high places will follow, and the money power of the country will endeavour to prolong its reign by working upon the prejudices of the people until all wealth is aggregated in a few hands and the Republic is destroyed. . . . Abraham Lincoln

The real truth of the matter is, as you and I know, that a financial element in the large centers has owned the government of the U.S. since the days of Andrew Jackson. . . . Franklin D. Roosevelt

Fascism should more appropriately be called Corporatism because it is a merger of State and corporate power. . . . Benito Mussolini

A standing army is one of the greatest mischiefs that can possibly happen. . . . James Madison: US fourth president, 1751-1836

Actions are held to be good or bad, not on their own merits, but according to who does them. There is almost no kind of outrage-----torture, imprisonment without trial, assassination, the bombing of civilians-----which does not change its moral color when it is committed by 'our' side. ...The nationalist not only does not disapprove of atrocities committed by his own side, he has a remarkable capacity for not even hearing about them. . . . George Orwell

The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundnce of those who have much, it is whether we provide enough for those who have too little. . . . Franklin Delano Roosevelt

Military necessity does not admit of cruelty. . . . President Lincoln, 1863

It is better to suffer wrong than to do it, and happier to be sometimes cheated than not to trust. . . . Samuel Johnson

Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man's character, give him power. . . . Abraham Lincoln

If my soldiers were to begin to think, not one would remain in the ranks. . . . Frederick The Great.

Military justice is to justice what military music is to music. . . . Groucho Marx: American comedian, actor and singer, 1890-1977.

In order to rally people, governments need enemies. They want us to be afraid, to hate, so we will rally behind them. And if they do not have a real enemy, they will invent one in order to mobilize us. . . . Thich Nhat Hanh, Contemporary Vietnamese Buddhist monk, peace activist and writer.

In all history there is no war which was not hatched by the governments, the governments alone, independent of the interests of the people, to whom war is always pernicious even when successful. . . . Leo Nikolaevich Tolstoy : Russian author, 1828-1910

Power always has to be kept in check; power exercised in secret, especially under the cloak of national security, is doubly dangerous. . . . William Proxmire

In questions of power, then, let no more be heard of confidence in man, but bind him down from mischief by the chains of the Constitution. . . . Thomas Jefferson

Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves. . . . William Pitt, Earl of Chatham

If a war be undertaken for the most righteous end, before the resources of peace have been tried and proved vain to secure it, that war has no defense, it is a national crime. . . . Charles Eliot Norton

I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use. . . . Galileo Galilei

Most of the harm in the world is done by good people, and not by accident, lapse, or omission. It is the result of their deliberate actions, long persevered in, which they hold to be motivated by high ideals toward virtuous ends. . . . Isabel Paterson, The God of the Machine

Sit down before fact as a little child, be prepared to give up every preconceived notion, follow humbly wherever and to whatever abysses Nature leads, or you shall learn nothing. . . . Thomas Huxley, letter to Charles Kingsley, 1860

All great truths begin as blasphemies. . . . George Bernard Shaw

I distrust those people who know so well what God wants them to do because I notice it always coincides with their own desires. . . . Susan B Anthony.

Men become civilized, not in proportion to their willingness to believe, but in proportion to their readiness to doubt. . . . H L Mencken

Moral certainty is always a sign of cultural inferiority. The more uncivilized the man, the surer he is that he knows precisely what is right and what is wrong. All human progress, even in morals, has been the work of men who have doubted the current moral values, not of men who have whooped them up and tried to enforce them. The truly civilized man is always skeptical and tolerant. . . . H L Mencken

The world is my country, all mankind are my brethren, and to do good is my religion. . . . Thomas Paine

If Tyranny and Oppression come to this land, it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy. . . . James Madison

There is no nonsense so errant that it cannot be made the creed of the vast majority by adequate governmental action. . . . Bertrand Russell

The true civilization is where every man gives to every other every right that he claims for himself. . . . Robert Ingersoll

Collective fear stimulates herd instinct, and tends to produce ferocity toward those who are not regarded as members of the herd. . . . Bertrand Russell

Actions are held to be good or bad, not on their own merits, but according to who does them. There is almost no kind of outrage--torture, imprisonment without trial, assassination, the bombing of civilians--which does not change its moral color when it is committed by 'our' side. The nationalist not only does not disapprove of atrocities committed by his own side, he has a remarkable capacity for not even hearing about them. . . . George Orwell

Cowardice asks the question - is it safe? Expediency asks the question - is it politic? Vanity asks the question - is it popular? But conscience asks the question - is it right? And there comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular; but one must take it because it is right. . . . Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundnce of those who have much, it is whether we provide enough for those who have too little. . . . Franklin Delano Roosevelt

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

Throughout history, it has been the inaction of those who could have acted; the indifference of those who should have known better; the silence of the voice of justice when it mattered most; that has made it possible for evil to triumph. . . . Haile Selassie

We must be prepared to make heroic sacrifices for the cause of peace that we make ungrudgingly for the cause of war. . . . Albert Einstein

Tolerating imperfections is the price of freedom. . . . Dr. Thomas Sowell

I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too much liberty than to those attending too small a degree of it. . . . Thomas Jefferson to Archibald Stuart, 1791

The executive has no right, in any case, to decide the question, whether there is or is not cause for declaring war. . . . James Madison 1751-1836 American Statesman, Fourth President of the US

The greater the state, the more wrong and cruel its patriotism, and the greater is the sum of suffering upon which its power is founded. . . . Leo Tolstoy

It's not right to respond to terrorism by terrorizing other people. And furthermore, it's not going to help. Then you might say, "Yes, it's terrorizing people, but it's worth doing because it will end terrorism." But how much common sense does it take to know that you cannot end terrorism by indiscriminately dropping bombs?

Terrorism has replaced Communism as the rationale for the militarization of the country [America], for military adventures abroad, and for the suppression of civil liberties at home. It serves the same purpose, serving to create hysteria. Howard Zinn - Terrorism and War

Terrorism is the price of empire. If you do not wish to pay the price, you must give up the empire: Patrick J. Buchanan - Where the Right Went Wrong

The soldier does not wish to appear a coward, disloyal, or un-American. The situation has been so defined that he can see himself as patriotic, courageous, and manly only through compliance. . . . Stanley Milgram

Upon the education of the people of this country, the fate of this country depends. . . . Benjamin Disraeli (1804-1881), British Prime Minister

Freedom is the emancipation from the arbitrary rule of other men. . . . Mortimer Adler (1902-2001)

Fear of serious injury cannot alone justify suppression of free speech and assembly. Men feared witches and burned women. It is the function of speech to free men from the bondage of irrational fears. . . . Justice Louis D. Brandeis (1856-1941) US Supreme Court Justice. Source: Whitney v. California, 1927

I'm not upset that you lied to me, I'm upset that from now on I can't believe you. . . . Friedrich Nietzsche

It is easier to believe a lie that one has heard a thousand times than to believe a fact that no one has heard before. . . . Author unknown

Those in possession of absolute power cannot only prophesy and make their prophecies come true, but they can also lie and make their lies come true. . . . Eric Hoffer

Make the lie big, make it simple, keep saying it, and eventually they will believe it. . . . Adolf Hitler

A patriot must always be ready to defend his country against his government. . . . Edward Abbey

A man who has never gone to school may steal from a freight car, but if he has a university education he may steal the whole railroad. . . . Franklin D. Roosevelt
(1882-1945), 32nd US President

An unconditional right to say what one pleases about public affairs is what I consider to be the minimum guarantee of the First Amendment. . . . Justice Hugo L. Black (1886-1971) US Supreme Court Justice. Source: New York Times Company vs. Sullivan, 1964

Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored. . . . Aldous Huxley (1894-1963) Author

I wouldn't go to war again as I have done to protect some lousy investment of the bankers. There are only two things we should fight for. One is the defense of our homes and the other is the Bill of Rights. War for any other reason is simply a racket. . . . Major General Smedley Darling Butler - (1981-1940) Major General USMC, "Old Gimlet Eye'' and "Hell Devil Darling", most highly decorated military men from the pre-World War II era. Source: from a speech in 1933

When even one "American" -- who has done nothing wrong -- is forced by fear to shut his mind and close his mouth, then all Americans are in peril. . . . Harry S. Truman (1884-1972), 33rd US President August 14, 1951 Source: Address at the Dedication of the New Washington Headquarters of the American Legion

Mankind must put an end to war, or war will put an end to mankind...War will exist until that distant day when the conscientious objector enjoys the same reputation and prestige that the warrior does today. . . . John F. Kennedy

Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also a prison. . . . Henry David Thoreau

You can only protect your liberties in this world by protecting the other man's freedom. You can only be free if I am free. . . . Clarence Darrow

The only way to make sure people you agree with can speak is to support the rights of people you don't agree with. . . . Eleanor Holmes Norton

People only see what they are prepared to see. . . . Ralph Waldo Emerson - (1803-1882) American essayist, poet

The opposite of love is not hate, it's indifference. . . . Elie Wiesel - (1928- ) Writer, Nobel Peace Prize winner 1986

It does not require many words to speak the truth. . . . Chief Joseph: (1840-1904) Chief of the Wal-lam-wat-kain (Wallowa) band of Nez Perce Indians

The president has adopted a policy of 'anticipatory self-defense' that is alarmingly similar to the policy that imperial Japan employed at Pearl Harbor, on a date which, as an earlier American president said it would, lives in infamy. Franklin D. Roosevelt was right, but today it is we Americans who live in infamy. . . . Arthur Schlesinger

America did not invent human rights. In a very real sense, it is the other way around. Human rights invented America. . . . Jimmy Carter [American 39th US President (1977-81), Nobel Prize for Peace in 2002, b.1924]

Whatever America hopes to bring to pass in the world must first come to pass in the heart of America. . . . Dwight David Eisenhower [American 34th President (1953-61) 1890-1969]

What makes it so plausible to assume that hypocrisy is the vice of vices is that integrity can indeed exist under the cover of all other vices except this one. Only crime and the criminal, it is true, confront us with the perplexity of radical evil; but only the hypocrite is really rotten to the core. . . . Hannah Arendt - Political philosopher, was born in Hanover, Germany, in 1906

In the beginning of a change the patriot is a scarce man, and brave, and hated and scorned. When his cause succeeds, the timid join him, for then it costs nothing to be a patriot. . . . Mark Twain

A nation which can prefer disgrace to danger is prepared for a master, and deserves one! . . . . Alexander Hamilton

Our government has kept us in a perpetual state of fear - kept us in a continuous stampede of patriotic fervour - with the cry of grave national emergency. Always, there has been some terrible evil at home, or some monstrous foreign power that was going to gobble us up if we did not blindly rally behind it. . . . General Douglas MacArthur - (1880-1964) WWII Supreme Allied Commander of the Southwest Pacific, Supreme United Nations Commander 1957

It is dangerous to be right when the government is wrong. . . . Voltaire - [François Marie Arouet] (1694-1778)

You know your country is dying when you have to make a distinction between what is moral and ethical, and what is legal. . . . John De Armond

To initiate a war of aggression, therefore, is not only an international crime; it is the supreme international crime differing only from other war crimes in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole. . . . Nuremburg War Tribunal regarding wars of aggression

We must make clear to the Germans that the wrong for which their fallen leaders are on trial is not that they lost the war, but that they started it. . . . U.S. Supreme Court Justice Robert Jackson, U.S. representative to the International Conference on Military Trials, Aug. 12, 1945

Wars are seldom caused by spontaneous hatreds between people, for peoples in general are too ignorant of one another to have grievances and too indifferent to what goes on beyond their borders to plan conquests. They must be urged to the slaughter by politicians who know how to alarm them. . . . H.L. Mencken

Free inquiry requires that we tolerate diversity of opinion and that we respect the right of individuals to express their beliefs, however unpopular they may be, without social or legal prohibition or fear of success. . . . Paul Kurtz. Source: "A Secular Humanist Declaration," in On The Barricades, 1989

As nightfall does not come at once, neither does oppression. In both instances, there's a twilight where everything remains seemingly unchanged, and it is in such twilight that we all must be aware of change in the air, however slight, lest we become victims of the darkness. . . . Justice William O. Douglas

The most consistent and ultimately damaging failure of political journalism in America (is that it) has its roots in the clubby/cocktail personal relationships that inevitably develop between politicians and journalists. . . . From "Fear and Loathing On the Campaign Trail '72" by Hunter S. Thompson

I would rather have free a press and no government, than a government and no free press. . . . Thomas Jefferson

What a stupendous, what an incomprehensible machine is man! Who can endure toil, famine, stripes, imprisonment & death itself in vindication of his own liberty, and the next moment ... inflict on his fellow men a bondage, one hour of which is fraught with more misery than ages of that which he rose in rebellion to oppose. . . . Thomas Jefferson

It is indeed probable that more harm and misery have been caused by men determined to use coercion to stamp out a moral evil than by men intent on doing evil. . . . Fredrich August von Hayek - (1899-1992), Nobel Laureate of Economic Sciences 1974 - Source: The Constitution of Liberty (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1972), p. 146.

The US-led invasion of Iraq was an illegal act that contravened the UN charter. . . . UN Chief Kofi Annan , September 2004. Source: BBC

To initiate a war of aggresion.. is not only an international crime, it is the supreme international crime, differing only from other war crimes in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole. . . . Nuremberg Tribunal

The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State. . . . Joseph Goebbels was born in 1897 and died in 1945. Goebbels was Hitler's Minister of Propaganda

Nothing doth more hurt in a state than that cunning men pass for wise. . . . Sir Francis Bacon

It would be some time before I fully realized that the United States sees little need for diplomacy. Power is enough. Only the weak rely on diplomacy ... The Roman Empire had no need for diplomacy. Nor does the United States. . . . Boutros Boutros-Ghali

We should never forget that everything Adolf Hitler did in Germany was "legal" and everything the Hungarian freedom fighters did in Hungary was "illegal.". . . Martin Luther King, Jr., "Letter from Birmingham Jail," Why We Can't Wait, 1963

I would like to thank Providence and the Almighty for choosing me of all people to be allowed to wage this battle for Germany. . . . Hitler - Berlin, March, 1936

I believe that God wants me to be president. . . . George W. Bush

The most shocking fact about war is that its victims and its instruments are individual human beings, and that these individual beings are condemned by the monstrous conventions of politics to murder or be murdered in quarrels not their own. . . . Aldous Huxley - English novelist and critic, 1894-1963

The trade of governing has always been monopolized by the most ignorant and the most rascally individuals of mankind. . . . Thomas Paine, 1737-1809

Men in authority will always think that criticism of their policies is dangerous. They will always equate their policies with patriotism, and find criticism subversive. . . . Henry Steele Commager (1902-1998) Historian and author. Source: Freedom and Order, 1966

America is a nation founded on the principle that all human life is sacred ..... Destroying human life in the hopes of saving human life is not ethical. . . . George W Bush on the occasion of vetoing Congressional bill on stem cell research, June 20, 2007

Military justice is to justice what military music is to music. . . . Groucho Marx: American comedian, actor and singer, 1890-1977

Power always has to be kept in check; power exercised in secret, especially under the cloak of national security, is doubly dangerous. . . . William Proxmire

I have named the destroyers of nations: comfort, plenty, and security -- out of which grow a bored and slothful cynicism, in which rebellion against the world as it is, and myself as I am, are submerged in listless self-satisfaction. . . . John Steinbeck: American novelist, Nobel Prize for Literature for 1962, 1902-1968

We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security. . . . Dwight David Eisenhower: 34th president of the United States, 1890-1969

Dogma demands authority, rather than intelligent thought, as the source of opinion; it requires persecution of heretics and hostility to unbelievers; it asks of its disciples that they should inhibit natural kindliness in favor of systematic hatred. . . . Bertrand Russell, Unpopular essays

Most of the greatest evils that man has inflicted upon man have come through people feeling quite certain about something which, in fact, was false. . . . Bertrand Russell

I destroy my enemies when I make them my friends. . . . Abraham Lincoln

The belief in the possibility of a short decisive war appears to be one of the most ancient and dangerous of human illusions. . . . Robert Lynd (1879-1949), Anglo- Irish essayist, journalist

The world is a dangerous place to live, not because of the people who are evil, but because of the people who don't do anything about it. . . . Albert Einstein

Until lions have their historians, tales of the hunt shall always glorify the hunter. . . . African proverb

Recognition of the inherent dignity and of the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family is the foundation of freedom, justice and peace in the world: Preamble, Universal Declaration of Human Rights

The moment a man claims a right to control the will of a fellow being by physical force, he is at heart a slaveholder. . . . Henry C. Wright, The Liberator, 7 April 1837

You have not converted a man because you have silenced him. . . . John Morley - (1838-1923) - Source: Critical Miscellanies

And so, to the end of history, murder shall breed murder, always in the name of right and honor and peace. . . . George Bernard Shaw - Irish playwright "Caesar and Cleopatra"

The welfare of the people in particular has always been the alibi of tyrants, and it provides the further advantage of giving the servants of tyranny a good conscience. . . . Albert Camus, French novelist, essayist, and playwright. 1957 Nobel Prize for Literature. 1913-1960

The means of defense against foreign danger historically have become the instruments of tyranny at home. . . . James Madison, US fourth president, 1751-1836

If my soldiers were to begin to think, not one would remain in the ranks. . . . Frederick The Great

Power always has to be kept in check; power exercised in secret, especially under the cloak of national security, is doubly dangerous. . . . William Proxmire

The only security for the American people today, or for any people, is to be found through the control of force rather than the use of force. . . . Norman Cousins, American essayist and editor, long associated with the Saturday Review, 1912-1990

In all history there is no war which was not hatched by the governments, the governments alone, independent of the interests of the people, to whom war is always pernicious even when successful . . . . Leo Nikolaevich Tolstoy, Russian author, 1828-1910

The natural progress of things is for liberty to yield and government to gain ground. . . . Thomas Jefferson, 3rd US president, principal author of the Declaration of Independence, 1743-1826

Half a truth is often a great lie. . . . Benjamin Franklin

The most brilliant propagandist technique will yield no success unless one fundamental principle is borne in mind constantly...it must confine itself to a few points and repeat them over and over. . . . Joseph Goebbels, Nazi Propaganda Minister

Believe nothing merely because you have been told it. Do not believe what your teacher tells you merely out of respect for the teacher. But whatsoever, after due examination and analysis, you find to be kind, conducive to the good, the benefit, the welfare of all beings -- that doctrine believe and cling to, and take it as your guide. . . . . Buddha [Gautama Siddharta] (563 - 483 BC)

I believe there is an important distinction to be made between religion and spirituality. Religion I take to be concerned with belief in the claims to salvation of one faith tradition or another--an aspect of which is acceptance of some form of metaphysical or philosophical reality, including perhaps an idea of heaven or hell. Connected with this are religious teachings or dogma, ritual, prayers and so on. Spirituality I take to be concerned with those qualities of the human spirit--such as love and compassion, patience, tolerance, forgiveness, contentment, a sense of responsibility, a sense of harmony, which bring happiness to both self and others. . . . Dalai Lama

Liberty has never come from the government. Liberty has always come from the subjects of government. The history of liberty is the history of resistance. The history of liberty is a history of the limitation of governmental power, not the increase of it. . . . Woodrow Wilson

Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from religious conviction. . . . Blaise Pascal

In war, too, the discretionary power of the Executive is extended. Its influence in dealing out offices, honors, and emoluments is multiplied; and all the means of seducing the minds, are added to those of subduing the force of the people.

The same malignant aspect in republicanism may be traced in the inequality of fortunes, and the opportunities of fraud, growing out of a state of war, and in the degeneracy of manners and morals, engendered by both. No nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare. . . . James Madison, April 20, 1795

Big money and big business, corporations and commerce, are again the undisputed overlords of politics and government. The White House, the Congress and, increasingly, the judiciary, reflect their interests. We appear to have a government run by remote control from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the National Association of Manufacturers and the American Petroleum Institute. To hell with everyone else. . . . Bill Moyers - PBS Commentator

Blessed is the man who, having nothing to say, abstains from giving us worthy evidence of the fact. . . . George Eliot

Our only hope today lies in our ability to recapture the revolutionary spirit and go into a sometimes hostile world declaring eternal hostility to poverty, racism, and militarism. . . . Martin Luther King, Jr.

When a whole nation is roaring patriotism at the top of its voice, I am fain to explore the cleanness of its hands and purity of its heart. . . . Ralph Waldo Emerson

The pioneers of a warless world are the youth that refuse military service. . . . Albert Einstein

To initiate a war of aggresion. . . is not only an international crime, it is the supreme international crime, differing only from other war crimes in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole. . . . Nuremberg Tribunal

It's important to realize that whenever you give power to politicians or bureaucrats, it will be used for what they want, not for what you want. . . . Harry Browne, writer, politician, investment analyst

Of all tyrannies, a tyranny exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their consciences. . . . C. S. Lewis (1898-1963), British Novelist

The privacy and dignity of our citizens [are] being whittled away by sometimes imperceptible steps. Taken individually, each step may be of little consequence. But when viewed as a whole, there begins to emerge a society quite unlike any we have seen -- a society in which government may intrude into the secret regions of a [person's] life. . . . Justice William O. Douglas - (1898-1980), U. S. Supreme Court Justice Source: Osborne v. United States

The trouble with the world is that the stupid are cocksure and the intelligent are full of doubt. . . . Bertrand Russell (Click here to see more of Bertrand Russell's quotations.)

It bothers me that the executive branch is taking the amazing position that just on the president's say-so, any American citizen can be picked up, not just in Afghanistan, but at O'Hare Airport or on the streets of any city in this country, and locked up without access to a lawyer or court just because the government says he's connected somehow with the Taliban or Al Qaeda. That's not the American way. It's not the constitutional way. . . . Laurence Tribe - Carl M. Loeb University Professor and Professor of Constitutional Law, Harvard University - Source: interview on ABC's Nightline

The power of the Executive to cast a man into prison without formulating any charge known to the law, and particularly to deny him the judgment of his peers, is in the highest degree odious and is the foundation of all totalitarian government whether Nazi or Communist. . . . Sir Winston Churchill - (1874-1965) Prime Minister of England - November 21, 1943

. . . never allow the public to cool off; never admit a fault or wrong; never concede that there may be some good in your enemy; never leave room for alternatives; never accept blame; concentrate on one enemy at a time and blame him for everything that goes wrong; people will believe a big lie sooner than a little one; and if you repeat it frequently enough people will sooner or later believe it. . . . Joseph Goebbels, Nazi chief of propaganda

Today the world faces a single man armed with weapons of mass destruction, manifesting an aggressive, bullying attitude, who may well plunge the world into chaos and bloodshed if he miscalculates. This person, belligerent, arrogant, and sure of himself, truly is the most dangerous person on Earth. The problem is that his name is George W. Bush, and he is our president. . . . Jack M. Balkin, Knight Professor of Constitutional Law and the First Amendment, Yale Law School, September 22, 2002

The greatest country, the richest country, is not that which has the most capitalists, monopolists, immense grabbings, vast fortunes, with its sad, sad soil of extreme, degrading, damning poverty, but the land in which there are the most homesteads, freeholds-where wealth does not show such contrasts high and low, where all men have enough-a modest living-and no man is made possessor beyond the sane and beautiful necessities. . . . Walt Whitman (1819-1892)

A State divided into a small number of rich and a large number of poor will always develop a government manipulated by the rich to protect the amenities represented by their property. . . . Harold Laski (1930)

Of all the enemies to public liberty, war is, perhaps, the most to be dreaded because it comprises and develops the germ of every other. War is the parent of armies; from these proceed debts and taxes. And armies, and debts, and taxes are the known instruments for bringing the many under the domination of the few. "In war, too, the discretionary power of the Executive is extended. Its influence in dealing out offices, honors, and emoluments is multiplied; and all the means of seducing the minds, are added to those of subduing the force of the people. "The same malignant aspect in republicanism may be traced in the inequality of fortunes, and the opportunities of fraud, growing out of a state of war. and in the degeneracy of manners and morals, engendered by both. No nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare. . . . James Madison, April 20, 1795

To initiate a war of aggression, therefore, is not only an international crime; it is the supreme international crime differing only from other war crimes in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole. . . . Nuremburg War Tribunal regarding wars of aggression

A Society that is in its higher circles and middle levels widely believed to be a network of smart rackets does not produce men with an inner moral sense; a society that is merely expedient does not produce men of conscience. A society that narrows the meaning of "success" to the big money and in its terms condemns failure as the chief vice, raising money to the plane of absolute value, will produce the sharp operator and the shady deal. Blessed are the cynical, for only they have what it takes to succeed. . . . The Power Elite by C. Wright Mills

Few are willing to brave the disapproval of their fellows, the censure of the colleagues, the wrath of their society. Moral courage is a rarer commodity than bravery in battle or great intelligence. Yet it is the one essential, vital quality for those who seek to change a world that yields most painfully to change. Each time a person stands up for an idea, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, (s)he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope, and crossing each other from a million different centers of energy and daring, those ripples build a current that can sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression and resistance. . . . Robert F. Kennedy

Through clever and constant application of propaganda, people can be made to see paradise as hell, and also the other way round, to consider the most wretched sort of life as paradise. . . . Adolf Hitler - German Chancellor, leader of the Nazi party

Laws just or unjust may govern men's actions. Tyrannies may restrain or regulate their words. The machinery of propaganda may pack their minds with falsehood and deny them truth for many generations of time. But the soul of man thus held in trance or frozen in a long night can be awakened by a spark coming from God knows where and in a moment the whole structure of lies and oppression is on trial for its life. . . . Sir Winston Churchill

For the great majority of mankind are satisfied with appearances, as though they were realities, and are often more influenced by the things that seem than by those that are. . . . Niccolo Machiavelli - (1469-1527) Italian Statesman and Political Philosopher - Source: Discourses, 1513-1517

The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy: that is the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness. . . . John Kenneth Galbraith

Of all forms of tyranny the least attractive and the most vulgar is the tyranny of mere wealth, the tyranny of plutocracy. . . . John Pierpont Morgan

Believe nothing just because a so-called wise person said it. Believe nothing just because a belief is generally held. Believe nothing just because it is said in ancient books. Believe nothing just because it is said to be of divine origin. Believe nothing just because someone else believes it. Believe only what you yourself test and judge to be true. . . . Buddha - Hindu Prince Gautama Siddharta

Name me an emperor who was ever struck by a cannonball. . . . Charles V

Only a free and unrestrained press can effectively expose deception in government. And paramount among the responsibilities of a free press is the duty to prevent any part of the government from deceiving the people. . . . Hugo L. Black, Associate Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court

The necessity of the times, more than ever, calls for our utmost circumspection, deliberation, fortitude, and perseverance. Let us remember that `if we suffer tamely a lawless attack upon our liberty, we encourage it, and involve others in our doom.' It is a very serious consideration...that millions yet unborn may be the miserable sharers of the event. . . . Samuel Adams, speech in Boston, 1771

The day will come when the account of the birth of Christ . . . will be classed with the fable of Minerva springing from the brow of Jupiter. . . . Thomas Jefferson

I cannot conceive otherwise than that He, the Infinite Father, expects or requires no worship or praise from us, but that He is even infinitely above it. . . . Benjamin Franklin

What is it the New Testament teaches us? To believe that the Almighty committed debauchery with a woman engaged to be married; and the belief of this debauchery is called faith. . . . Thomas Paine

As men's prayers are a disease of the will, so are their creeds a disease of the intellect. . . . Ralph Waldo Emerson

If a man would follow, today, the teachings of the Old Testament, he would be a criminal. If he would strictly follow the teachings of the New, he'd be insane. . . . Robert Ingersoll

Religion: A daughter of Hope and Fear explaining to Ignorance the nature of the Unknowable.
Bible: A collection of fantastic legends without any scientific support . . . . full of historical mistakes and contradictions. . . . Ambrose Bierce

(The bible) has noble poetry in it . . . and some good morals and a wealth of obscenity, and upwards of a thousand lies. . . . Mark Twain

In the long run nothing can withstand reason and experience, and the contradiction religion offers to both is only too palpable. . . . Sigmund Freud

Creeds must become intellectually honest. At present there is not a single credible established religion in the world. . . . George Bernard Shaw

Whoever undertakes to set himself up as a judge of Truth and Knowledge is shipwrecked by the laughter of the gods. . . . Albert Einstein

The worshipper is the father of the gods. Faith may be defined as an illogical belief in the occurrence of the improbable. . . . H. L. Mencken

God and Satan alike are essentially human figures, the one a projection of ourselves, the other of our enemies. . . . Bertrand Russell

It seems to me that it's insulting to human beings to imply that only a system of rewards and punishments can keep you a decent human being . . . I have a conscience. It doesn't depend on religion. . . . Isaac Asimov

Skeptical scrutiny is the means, in both science and religion, by which deep thoughts can be winnowed from deep nonsense. . . . Carl Sagan

In every country and every age, the priest has been hostile to Liberty. . . .Thomas Jefferson

I still say a church steeple with a lightning rod on top shows a lack of confidence. . . . Doug MacLeod

A Sunday school is a prison in which children do penance for the evil conscience of their parents. . . . H. L. Mencken

We must respect the other fellow's religion, but only in the sense and to the extent that we respect his theory that his wife is beautiful and his children smart. . . . H. L. Mencken

I respect faith, but doubt is what gives you an education. . . . Wilson Mizner

I don’t know if God exists, but it would be better for His reputation if He didn't. . . . Jules Renard

The Churches must learn humility as well as teach it. . . . George Bernard Shaw

It is always right that a man should be able to render a reason for the faith that is within him. . . . Sydney Smith

If you talk to God, you are praying; if God talks to you, you have schizophrenia. . . . Thomas Szasz

I admire the serene assurance of those who have religious faith. It is wonderful to observe the calm confidence of a Christian with four aces. . . . Mark Twain

Often it does seem a pity that Noah and his party did not miss the boat. . . . Mark Twain

The first clergyman was the first rascal who met the first fool. . . . Voltaire

I sometimes think that God, in creating man, overestimated His ability. . . . Oscar Wilde

Hope, like faith, is nothing if it is not courageous; it is nothing if it is not ridiculous. . . . Thornton Wilder

The Church is an organism that grows best in an alien society. . . . C. Stacey Woods

I read the book of Job last night - I don't think God comes out well in it. . . . Virginia Woolf

All the sweetness of religion is conveyed to the world by the hands of story-tellers and image-makers. Without their fictions the truths of religion would for the multitude be neither intelligible nor even apprehensible. . . . George Bernard Shaw

Among politicians, the esteem of religion is profitable, the principles of it are troublesome. . . . Benjamin Whichcote

And what is religion, you might ask. It's a technology of living. . . . Toni Cade Bambara

Democracy is also a form of religion. It is the worship of jackals by jackasses. . . . H. L. Mencken

I do benefits for all religions. I'd hate to blow the hereafter on a technicality. . . . Bob Hope

I have heard with admiring submission the experience of the lady who declared that the sense of being perfectly well dressed gives a feeling of inward tranquility which religion is powerless to bestow. . . . Ralph Waldo Emerson

I want nothing to do with any religion concerned with keeping the masses satisfied to live in hunger, filth, and ignorance. . . . Jawaharlal Nehru

When it's a question of money, everybody is of the same religion. . . . Voltaire

In the name of peace, we kill each other. In the name of religion, we kill each other. So we decided to laugh at that. . . . Nabil Sawaiha

If I had to choose a religion, the sun as the universal giver of life would be my god. . . . Napoleon Bonaparte

Difference of religion breeds more quarrels than difference of politics. . . . Wendell Phillips

My religion consists of a humble admiration of the illimitable superior spirit who reveals himself in the slight details we are able to perceive with our frail and feeble mind. . . . Albert Einstein

It was the experience of mystery - even if mixed with fear - that engendered religion. . . . Albert Einstein

Each religion, by the help of more or less myth which it takes more or less seriously, proposes some method of fortifying the human soul and enabling it to make its peace with its destiny. . . . George Santayana

Nothing in biology makes sense except in light of evolution. . . . Theodosius Dobzhansky

Science may have come a long way, but as far as religion is concerned, we are first cousins to the Kung tribesmen of the Kalahari Desert. Except for the garments, their deep religious trances might just as well be happening at a revival meeting or in the congregation of a fundamentalist TV preacher . . . . As we move further from the life of ignorance and superstition in which religion has its roots, we seem to need it more and more . . . . Why has religion become a force just when we'd have thought it would be losing ground to secularism?. . . . Phil Donahue

Nonbelievers are protected by the religion clauses of the Constitution not because secular humanism is a religion, which it is not, but because when the government acts on the basis of religion it discriminates against those who do not "believe" in the governmentally favored manner. . . . Norman Dorsen

I've long stopped worrying about who invented whom -- God man or man God. . . . Fyodor Dostoevsky

Beyond the grave they will find nothing but death. But we shall keep the secret, and for their happiness we shall allure them with the reward of heaven and eternity. . . . Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Life should be lived so vividly and so intensely that thoughts of another life, or of a longer life, are not necessary. . . . Marjory Stoneham Douglas

Christianity has sufficient inner strength to survive and flourish on its own. It does not need state subsidies, nor state privileges, nor state prestige. The more it obtains state support, the greater it curtails human freedom. . . . William O. Douglas

The liberties of none are safe unless the liberties of all are protected. . . . William O. Douglas

During almost 15 centuries has the legal establishment of Christianity been on trial. What have been its fruits? More or less in all places, pride and indolence in the clergy, ignorance and servility in the laity -- in both, superstition, bigotry, and persecution. . . . James Madison

The government of the United States of America is not in any sense founded on the Christian religion. . . . Treaty signed by John Adams

When the missionaries came to Africa they had the Bible and we had the land. They said "Let us pray." We closed our eyes. When we opened them we had the Bible and they had the land. . . . Bishop Desmond Tutu

No religion can long continue to maintain its purity when the church becomes the subservient vassal of the state. . . . Felix Adler

No provision in our Constitution ought to be dearer to man than that which protects the rights of conscience against the enterprises of the civil authority. . . . Thomas Jefferson: American 3rd US President (1801-09).

He is not strong and powerful who throweth people down; but he is strong who witholdeth himself from anger. . . . Muhammad

Do not say, that if the people do good to us, we will do good to them; and if the people oppress us, we will oppress them; but determine that if people do you good, you will do good to them; and if they oppress you, you will not oppress them. . . . Muhammad

In order to get power and retain it, it is necessary to love power; but love of power is not connected with goodness but with qualities that are the opposite of goodness, such as pride, cunning and cruelty. . . . Leo Nikolaevich Tolstoi - (1828-1910) Russian writer

A tyrant... is always stirring up some war or other, in order that the people may require a leader. . . . Plato - (429-347 BC) - Source: The Republic

Every collectivist revolution rides in on a Trojan horse of 'emergency'. It was the tactic of Lenin, Hitler, and Mussolini. In the collectivist sweep over a dozen minor countries of Europe, it was the cry of men striving to get on horseback. And 'emergency' became the justification of the subsequent steps. This technique of creating emergency is the greatest achievement that demagoguery attains. . . . Herbert Hoover - (1874-1964), 31st US President

What experience and history teach is this -- that people and governments never have learned anything from history, or acted on principles deduced from it. . . . Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel - (1770-1831) German philosopher

Youth is the first victim of war; the first fruit of peace. It takes 20 years or more of peace to make a man; it takes only 20 seconds of war to destroy him. . . . King Baudouin I: King of Belgium

Today's human rights violations are the causes of tomorrow's conflicts. . . . Mary Robinson: United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (Retired)

Misunderstanding arising from ignorance breeds fear, and fear remains the greatest enemy of peace. . . . Lester B. Pearson

Cowardice asks the question: is it safe? Expediency asks the question: is it politic? Vanity asks the question: is it popular? But conscience asks the question: is it right? And there comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular- but one must take it simply because it is right. . . . Martin Luther King Jr. 1929-1968

Today the real test of power is not capacity to make war but capacity to prevent it. . . . Anne O'Hare McCormick: First woman to win a Pulitzer Prize in journalism for her work as a foreign correspondent.

There is almost no kind of outrage-----torture, imprisonment without trial, assassination, the bombing of civilians-----which does not change its moral color when it is committed by 'our' side. . The nationalist not only does not disapprove of atrocities committed by his own side, he has a remarkable capacity for not even hearing about them. . . . George Orwell

As long as I have any choice in the matter, I shall live only in a country where civil liberty, tolerance and equality of all citizens before the law prevail. . . . Albert Einstein, upon leaving Germany in 1933

The pure and simple truth is rarely pure and never simple. . . . Oscar Wilde

First get your facts; then you can distort them at your leisure. . . . Mark Twain

There are three kinds of lies: lies, damn lies, and statistics. . . . Benjamin Disraeli

Can any reasonable man be well disposed toward a government which makes war and carnage the only means of supporting itself? . . . . Alexander Hamilton (1757-1804) Source: at the US Constitutional Convention

We should be careful to get out of an experience only the wisdom that is in it--and stop there; lest we be like the cat that sits down on a hot stove-lid. She will never sit down on a hot stove-lid again--and that is well; but also she will never sit down on a cold one anymore. . . . Mark Twain

Not everything that counts can be counted, and not everything that can be counted counts. . . . Anonymous (tacked to Einstein's board)

We see the world as 'we' are, not as 'it' is, because it is the 'I' behind the 'eye' that does the seeing. . . . Anais Nin

All our knowledge has its origins in our perceptions. . . . Leonardo da Vinci

There is only one corner of the universe you can be certain of improving, and that's your own self. . . . Aldous Huxley

Whatever happiness is in the world has arisen from a wish for the welfare of others; whatever misery there is has arisen from indulging selfishness. . . . Buddhist Proverb

Labor to keep alive in your breast that little spark of celestial fire, called conscience. . . . George Washington

There are two ways to look at life. One is as though nothing is a miracle; the other is as though everything is. . . . Albert Einstein

Truth does not become more true by virtue of the fact that the entire world agrees with it, nor less so even if the whole world disagrees with it. . . . Maimonides

To be wronged is nothing unless you continue to remember it. . . . Confucius

Nothing in life is to be feared. It is only to be understood. . . . Marie Curie

If there is any kindness I can show, or any good thing I can do to any fellow human being, let me do it now, and not defer or neglect it, as I shall not pass this way again. . . . William Penn

A coward is incapable of exhibiting love; it is the prerogative of the brave. . . . Mohandas Gandhi

The place to improve the world is first in one's own heart and head and hands. . . . Robert M. Pirsig

If there is any kindness I can show, or any good thing I can do to any fellow human being, let me do it now, and not defer or neglect it, as I shall not pass this way again. . . . William Penn

It is through not understanding, not penetrating four things that we have run so erratically, wandered on so long in this round of existence, both you and I. What are the four? Goodness, concentration, wisdom, and liberation. When these four things are understood and penetrated, craving for superficial existence is rooted out and that which leads to continued return to the same conditions is ended. There is no more constant journeying. . . . Digha Nikaya

The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams. . . . Eleanor Roosevelt

It pays to know the enemy -- not least because at some time you may have the opportunity to turn him into a friend. . . . Margaret Thatcher

A man is a success if he gets up in the morning and gets to bed at night, and in between he does what he wants to do. . . . Bob Dylan

Old age, to the unlearned, is winter; to the learned, it’s harvest time. . . . Yiddish saying

The greatest use of life is to spend it for something that will outlast it. . . . William James

How boundless and free is the sky of Awareness!
How bright the full moon of wisdom!
Truly, is anything missing now?
Nirvana is right here, before our eyes; this very place is the Lotus Land; this very body, the Buddha. . . . Hakuin Zenji, Song of Zazen

Our dilemma is that we hate change and love it at the same time; what we really want is for things to remain the same but get better. . . . Sydney J. Harris

On the basis of the belief that all human beings share the same divine nature, we have a very strong ground, a very powerful reason, to believe that it is possible for each of us to develop a genuine sense of equanimity toward all beings. . . . Dalai Lama,

The very purpose of our life is happiness, the very motion of our lives is toward happiness. . . . Dalai Lama

If you want to lift yourself up, lift up someone else. . . . Booker T. Washington

If you want others to be happy, practice compassion. If you want to be happy, practice compassion. . . . Dalai Lama

There are two kinds of people: those who do the work, and those who take the credit. Try to be in the first group; there is less competition there. . . . Indira Gandhi

The way you overcome shyness is to become so wrapped up in something that you forget to be afraid. . . . Lady Bird Johnson

Since the old days, it is said that "anger is the fire in one's mind that burns away all of one's virtuous deeds." Anger should be absolutely surrendered. . . . Jae Woong Kim, "Polishing the Diamond"

If you want to make peace, you don't talk to your friends. You talk to your enemies. . . . MosheDayan

As free human beings we can use our unique intelligence to try to understand ourselves and our world. But if we are prevented from using our creative potential, we are deprived of one of the basic characteristics of a human being. . . . Dalai Lama

Ideas are a dime a dozen. People who implement them are priceless. . . . Mary Kay Ash

Those who do not know how to weep with their whole heart don’t know how to laugh either. . . . Golda Meir

Live in joy,
In love,
Even among those who hate.
Live in joy,
In health,
Even among the afflicted.
Live in joy,
In peace,
Even among the troubled.
Look within.
Be still.
Free from fear and attachment,
Know the sweet joy of the way.”. . . from the Dhammapada

Love and time-those are the only two things in all the world and all of life that cannot be bought, but only spent. . . . Gary Jennings

The foolish man seeks happiness in the distance; the wise grows it under his feet. . . . James Oppenheim

If you want happiness for an hour-take a nap.
If you want happiness for a day-go fishing.
If you want happiness for a month-get married.
If you want happiness for a year-inherit a fortune.
If you want happiness for a lifetime-help others. . . . Chinese Proverb

Even in the case of individuals, there is no possibility to feel happiness through anger. If in a difficult situation one becomes disturbed internally, overwhelmed by mental discomfort, then external things will not help at all. However, if despite external difficulties or problems, internally one’s attitude is of love, warmth, and kindheartedness, then problems can be faced and accepted. . . . Dalai Lama

It is not sufficient for religious people to be involved with prayer. Rather, they are morally obliged to contribute all they can to solving the world’s problems. . . . Dalai Lama

Courtesy is the one coin you can never have too much of or be stingy with. . . . John Wanamaker

The little reed, bending to the force of the wind, soon stood upright again when the storm had passed over. . . . Aesop

View all problems as challenges. Look upon negativities that arise as opportunities to learn and to grow. Don't run from them, condemn yourself, or bury your burden in saintly silence. You have a problem? Great. More grist for the mill. Rejoice, dive in, and investigate. . . . Bhante Henepola Gunaratana, "Mindfulness in Plain English"

We have a choice: to plow new ground or let the weeds grow. . . . Jonathan Westover

Be an opener of doors for such as come after thee, and do not try to make the universe a blind alley. . . . Ralph Waldo Emerson

One man has enthusiasm for 30 minutes, another for 30 days, but it is the man who has it for 30 years who makes a success of his life. . . . Edward B. Butler

People who matter are most aware that everyone else does, too. . . . Malcolm Forbes

We must remain as close to the flowers, the grass, and the butterflies as the child is who is not yet so much taller than they are. . . . Friedrich Nietzsche

Getting to know someone is not a task -- it's an art. . . . Pierce LeBlanc

Wisdom is the reward you get for a lifetime of listening when you'd have preferred to talk. . . . Doug Larson

Most of the important things in the world have been accomplished by people who have kept on trying when there seemed to be no hope at all. . . . Dale Carnegie

I believe in justice and truth, without which there would be no basis for human hope. . . . Dali Lama

Etiquette means behaving yourself a little better than is absolutely essential. . . . Will Cuppy

Spirituality, I take to be concerned with those qualities of the human spirit -- such as love and compassion, patience, a sense of responsibility, a sence of harmony, which bring happiness to both self and others. . . . Dali Lama

If you want to be happy for a year, plant a garden; If you want to be happy for life, plant a tree. . . . English Proverb

Yearn to understand first and to be understood second. . . . Beca Lewis Allen

Wisdom is knowing when to speak your mind and when to mind your speech. . . . Unknown

As a mother watches over her child, willing to risk her own life to protect her only child, so with a boundless heart should one cherish all living beings, suffusing the whole world with unobstructed loving kindness. . . . Metta Sutta

The shoe that fits one person pinches another; there is no recipe for living that suits all cases. . . . Carl Jung

Be curious always! For knowledge will not acquire you: you must acquire it. . . . Sudie Back

One who knows how to show and to accept kindness will be a friend better than any possession. . . . Sophocles

The days are too short even for love; how can there be enough time for quarreling? . . . Margaret Gatty

One of the major aims and purposes of religious practice for the individual is an inner transformation from an undisciplined, untamed, and unfocused state of mind towards one that is disciplined, tamed and balanced. . . . Dalai Lama

Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful committed citizens can change the world; indeed it's the only thing that ever has. . . . Margaret Mead

Happiness is when what you think, what you say, and what you do are in harmony. . . . MahatmaGandhi

When you are aware of your pain and suffering, it helps you to develop your capacity for empathy, the capacity which allows you to relate to other people's feelings and sufferings. This enhances your capacity for compassion towards others. . . . Dalai Lama

The greatest mistake you can make in life is to be continually fearing you will make one. . . . Elbert Hubbard

Treat people as if they were what they ought to be and you help them to become what they are capable of being. . . . Johann Wolfgang vonGoethe

True religion is the life we live, not the creed we profess. . . . J.F. Wright

By devoloping greater tolerance and patience, it will be easier for you to develop your capacity for compassion, and through that, altruism. . . . Dalai Lama

You have to have confidence in your ability, and then be tough enough to follow through. . . . Rosalyn Carter

Fight for your opinions, but do not believe that they contain the whole truth, or the only truth. . . . Charles A. Dana

Laughter is the sun that drives winter from the human face. . . . Victor Hugo

If you would be freed of greed, first you have to leave egotism behind. The best mental exercise for relinquishing egotism is contemplating impermanence. . . . Dogen

First keep the peace within yourself, then you can also bring peace to others. . . . Thomas a Kempis

They always say time changes things, but you actually have to change them yourself. . . . Andy Warhol

Today's world requires us to accept the oneness of humanity. In the past, isolated communities could afford to think of one another as fundamentally separate. Some could even exist in total isolation. But nowadays, whatever happens in one region eventually affects many other areas. Within the context of our interdependence, self-interest clearly lies in considering the interest of others. . . . Dalai Lama

I believe that to meet the challenge of the next century, human beings will have to develop a greater sense of universal responsibility. Each of us must learn to work not just for his or her own self, family or nation, but for the benefit of all mankind. . . . Dalai Lama

When angry, count ten before you speak; if very angry, a hundred. . . . Thomas Jefferson

Ask yourself: Have you been kind today? Make kindness your daily modus operandi and change your world. . . . Annie Lennox

I can't understand why people are frightened of new ideas. I'm frightened of the old ones. . . . John Cage

A love affair with knowledge will never end in heartbreak. . . . Michael Garrett Marino

The basic fact is that humanity survives through kindness, love and compassion. That human beings can develop these qualities is their real blessing. . . . Dalai Lama

For every minute you are angry, you lose sixty seconds of happiness. . . . Ralph Waldo Emerson

The mind is like a parachute. It doesn't work unless it's open. . . . Unknown

When the only tool you own is a hammer, every problem begins to resemble a nail. . . . Abraham Maslow

Whether you believe in God or not does not matter so much, whether you believe in Buddha or not does not matter so much. You must lead a good life. . . . Dalai Lama

I pay no attention whatever to anybody's praise or blame. I simply follow my own feelings. . . . Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

Avoid the crowd. Do your own thinking independently. Be the chess player, not the chess piece. . . . Ralph Charell

Life's most urgent question is: What are you doing for others? . . . Martin Luther King, Jr.

Now there are many, many people in the world, but relatively few with whom we interact, and even fewer who cause us problems. So, when you come across such a chance for practicing patience and tolerance, you should treat it with gratitude. It is rare. Just as having unexpectedly found a treasure in your own house, you should be happy and grateful to your enemy for providing that precious opportunity. . . . Dalai Lama

Wise sayings often fall on barren ground; but a kind word is never thrown away. . . . Sir Arthur Helps

It is in everybody's interest to seek those [actions] that lead to happiness and avoid those which lead to suffering. And because our interests are inextricably linked, we are compelled to accept ethics as the indispensable interface between my desire to be happy and yours. . . . Dalai Lama

Nothing gives one person so much advantage over another as to remain always cool and unruffled under all circumstances. . . . Thomas Jefferson

It is human to think wisely and act in an absurd fashion. . . . Anatole France

Without love we could not survive. Human beings are social creatures, and a concern for each other is the very basis of our life together. . . . Dalai Lama

Humans are social by nature and find meaning in relationships. Humanists long for and strive toward a world of mutual care and concern, free of cruelty and it's consequences, withour resorting to violence. The joning of individuality with interdependence enriches our lives, encourages us to enrich the lives of others, and inspires hope of attaining peace, justice, and opportunity for all. . . . Humanist Manifesto III

The Buddha taught:
Do not pursue the past. Do not lose yourself in the future.
The past no longer is. The future has not yet come.
Looking deeply at life as it is, in the very here and now,
the practitioner dwells in stability and freedom.
We must be diligent today. To wait until tomorrow is too late.
Death comes unexpectedly. How can we bargain with it?
The sage calls a person who knows how to dwell in mindfulness
night and day "one who knows the better way to live alone."
"Bhaddekaratta Sutta," translated by Thich Nhat Hanh from "Teachings of the Buddha," edited

I am not afraid of tomorrow, for I have seen yesterday and I love today. . . . William Allen White

Real love is not based on attachment, but on altruism. In this case, your compassion will remain as a humane response to suffering as long as beings continue to suffer. . . . Dalai Lama

Learning is like a design in water, contemplation like a design on the side of a wall, meditation like a design in stone. . . . Adept Godrakpa, "Hermit of Go Cliffs"

A well-developed sense of humor is the pole that adds balance to your steps as you walk the tightrope of life. . . . William A. Ward

Happiness cannot come from hatred or anger. Nobody can say, "Today I am happy because this morning I was very angry." On the contrary, people feel uneasy and sad and say, "Today I am not happy because I lost my temper this morning." Through kindness, whether at our own level or at the national and international level, through mutual understanding and through mutual respect, we will get peace, we will get happiness, and we will get genuine satisfaction. . . . Dalai Lama

Ethical values are derived from human need and interest as tested by experience. . . . Humanist Manifesto III

Within the framework of the Buddhist Path, reflecting on suffering has tremendous importance because by realizing the nature of suffering, you will develop greater resolve to put an end to the causes of suffering and the unwholesome deeds which lead to suffering. And it will increase your enthusiasm for engaging in the wholesome actions and deeds which lead to happiness and joy. . . . Dalai Lama

Humans are an integral part of nature, the result of unguided evolutionary change. . . . Humanist Manifesto III

General standards of human rights apply to the people of all countries because, regardless of their cultural background, all humans share an inherent yearning for freedom, equality and dignity. Democracy and respect for fundamental human rights are as important to African and Asians as they are to Europeans and Americans. . . . Dalai Lama "Harvard International Review" 1995

Knowledge of the world is derived by observation, experimentation and rational analysis. . . . Humanist Manifesto III

Anger is the real destroyer of our good human qualities; an enemy with a weapon cannot destroy these qualities, but anger can. Anger is the enemy. . . . Dalai Lama

Have patience with all things, but first of all, with yourself. . . . St. Francis DeSales

Always do right. This will gratify some people and astonish the rest. . . . Mark Twain

First a person should put his house together, then his town, then the world. . . . Rabbi Israel Salanter

Never try to teach a pig to sing. It wastes your time and annoys the pig. . . . Mark Twain

The whole world we travel with our thoughts, finding no one anywhere as precious as one's own self. Since each and every person is so precious to themselves, let the self-respecting harm no other being. . . . Samyutta Nikaya

A gentle hand may lead an elephant with a single hair. . . . Persian proverb

If a man is called to be a street sweeper, he should sweep streets even as Michelangelo painted, or Beethoven composed music, or Shakespeare wrote poetry. He should sweep the streets so well that all the hosts of heaven and earth will pause and say, here lived a great street sweeper who did his job well. . . . Martin Luther King

I come from the east, most of you (here) are westerners. If I look at you superficially, we're different, and if I put my emphasis on that level, we grow more distant. If I look at you as my own kind, as human beings like myself, with one nose, two eyes, and so forth, then automatically the distance is gone. We are the same human flesh. I want happiness; you also want happiness. From that mutual recognition, we can build respect and trust of each other. From that can come cooperation and harmony. . . . Dalai Lama

The accumulation of all powers, legislative, executive, and judiciary, in the same hands, whether of one, a few or many, and whether hereditary, self-appointed, or elective, may justly be pronounced the very definition of tyranny. . . . James Madison. Federalist 47

A man who has in mind an apparent advantage and promptly proceeds to dissociate this from the question of what is right shows himself to be mistaken and immoral. Such a standpoint is the parent of assassinations, poisonings, forged wills, thefts, malversations of public money, and the ruinous exploitation of provincials and Roman citizens alike. Another result is passionate desire - desire for excessive wealth, for unendurable tyranny, and ultimately for the despotic seizure of free states. These desires are the most horrible and repulsive things imaginable. The perverted intelligences of men who are animated by such feelings are competent to understand the material rewards, but not the penalties. I do not mean penalties established by law, for these they often escape. I mean the most terrible of all punishments: their own degradation. . . . Marcus Tullius Cicero (106-43 B.C.)

Now those who seek absolute power, even though they seek it to do what they regard as good, are simply demanding the right to enforce their own version of heaven on earth, and let me remind you they are the very ones who always create the most hellish tyranny. . . . Barry Goldwater (1909-1998) US Senator (R-Arizona) Source: Senator Goldwater's Acceptance Speech at the Republican National Convention, 1964.

Nationalism is our form of incest, is our idolatry, is our insanity.
"Patriotism" is its cult. It should hardly be necessary to say, that by "patriotism" I mean that attitude which puts the own nation above humanity, above the principles of truth and justice; not the loving interest in one's own nation, which is the concern with the nation's spiritual as much as with its material welfare--never with its power over other nations.
Just as love for one individual which excludes the love for others is not love, love for one's country which is not part of one's love for humanity is not love, but idolatrous worship. . . . Erich Fromm (1900-1980), U.S. psychologist.

The trust of the innocent is the liar's most useful tool. . . . Stephen King

We Americans have no commission from God to police the world. . . . Benjamin Harrison, address to Congress, 1888.

If the citizens neglect their Duty and place unprincipled men in office, the government will soon be corrupted; laws will be made, not for the public good so much as for selfish or local purposes; corrupt or incompetent men will be appointed to execute the Laws; the public revenues will be squandered on unworthy men; and the rights of the citizen will be violated or disregarded. . . . Noah Webster - (1758-1843) American patriot and scholar, author of the 1806 edition of the dictionary that bears his name, the first dictionary of American English usage.

He therefore is the truest friend to the liberty of his country who tries most to promote its virtue, and who, so far as his power and influence extend, will not suffer a man to be chosen into any office of power and trust who is not a wise and virtuous man. . . . Samuel Adams (1722-1803), was known as the "Father of the American Revolution."

There are some whose only reason for inciting war is to use it as a means to exercise their tyranny over their subjects more easily. For in times of peace the authority of the assembly, the dignity of the magistrates, the force of the laws stand in the way to some extent of the ruler doing what he likes. But once war is declared then the whole business of state is subject to the will of a few . They demand as much money as they like. Why say more?" . . . Erasmus of Rotterdam 1469-1536, Adages IV.i.1

Our country is not the only thing to which we owe our allegiance. It is also owed to justice and to humanity. Patriotism consists not in waving the flag, but in striving that our country shall be righteous as well as strong. . . . James Bryce

The idea of creating systems designed to threaten, coerce, and kill, and to imbue such agencies with principled legitimacy, and not expect them to lead to wars, genocides, and other tyrannical practices, expresses an innocence we can no longer afford to indulge. . . . Butler D. Shaffer, Professor, Southwestern University School of Law June 9, 2003