A Few Fave Quotations

[snot]

They always say time changes things, but you actually have to change them yourself.
– Andy Warhol, The Philosophy of Andy Warhol (1977).

" . . . Napoleon . . . said that it wasn't necessary to completely suppress the news; it was sufficient to delay the news until it no longer mattered."
-- attributed by PRWatch to Martin A. Lee & Norman Solomon, Unreliable Sources: A Guide to Detecting Bias in News Media (New York: Lyle Stuart, 1991), p. xvii.

Why of course the people don't want war. Why should some poor slob on a farm want to risk his life in a war when the best he can get out of it is to come back to his farm in one piece? . . . But, after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. . . . All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the peacemakers for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger.
– Hermann Goering, per Nuremberg Diary (Farrar, Straus & Co 1947), by Gustave Gilbert

In all history, there is no instance of a country having benefited from prolonged warfare.
– Sun Tzu, The Art of War, ca. 500 B.C.

Civil disobedience is not our problem. Our problem is civil obedience. Our problem is that people all over the world have obeyed the dictates of leaders . . . . and millions have been killed because of this obedience . . . .
– Howard Zinn, Failure to Quit (South End Press, 2002; originally published 1993)

Every time we witness an injustice and do not act, we train our character to be passive in its presence and thereby eventually lose all ability to defend ourselves and those we love.
– Julian Assange, IQ.ORG, "Witnessing," Wed 03 Jan 2007

Human history becomes more and more a race between education and catastrophe.
– H.G. Wells, The Outline of History, vol. 2, chapter 41, p. 594 (1921)

He who controls the present, controls the past. He who controls the past, controls the future.
– George Orwell, 1984 (1949)

The past is never dead. It's not even past.
– William Faulkner, Requiem for a Nun, Act I, scene iii (1951)

A modern economic system demands mass production of students who are not educated and have been rendered incapable of thinking.
– U.N.E.F. Strasbourg, On the Poverty of Student Life (1966).

Cui bono (To whose benefit?)
– attributed by Marcus Tullius Cicero to Lucius Cassius Longina Ravilla, ca. 125 B.C.

The higher the buildings, the lower the morals.
– Noel Coward (1899-1973) (numerous sites attribute this to Coward, but I've found none that provides a more precise citation)

It's class warfare, {and} my class is winning, but they shouldn't be.
– Warren Buffet, CNN Interview, May 25 2005, suggesting we need to raise taxes on the rich.

In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: you must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself.
– James Madison, Independent Journal, Wednesday, February 6, 1788, The Federalist

{W}e forgot that the question is NOT, how do we get good people into power. The question is, how do we limit the damage the powerful can do to us?
– Chris Hedges, "The Failure of the Liberal Class in the United States," address to the Poverty Scholars Program, April 10, 2010.

Once is happenstance. Twice is coincidence. Three times is Enemy Action.
– Ian Fleming in Goldfinger (1959), as spoken by James Bond's eponymous adversary

HECATE: And you all know, security
Is mortals' chiefest enemy.
– W. Shakespeare, Macbeth (ca. 1606), Act II, scene v, MIT's Moby Ed.

Only puny secrets need protection. Big discoveries are protected by public
incredulity. – attributed to Marshall McLuhan, http://www.marshallmcluhan.com/poster.html

I consider it completely unimportant who . . . will vote, or how; but what is extraordinarily important is this: who will count the votes, and how.
– Joseph Stalin (1878-1953), per the Memoirs of Stalin's Secretary

It was too late to prevent the great Fall, but it was still possible, at least, to cut short the intermediate period of chaos.
– Isaac Asimov, Second Foundation, P. 87 (ed. Bantam June, 2004; first published 1953)

All that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing.
– Edmund Burke (1729-1797)

Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.
– Margaret Mead (1901-1978)

The opposite of good is not evil; it's apathy.
– Cindy Sheehan in her speech to the Veterans for Peace on August 5, 2005, just before she began her first vigil outside of Pres. G.W. Bush's ranch in Crawford, TX; see vimeo; see also HuffPo.

The revolution is not an apple that falls when it is ripe. You have to make it fall.
– Che Guevara, Intercontinental Press (Vol. 3 January - April 1965); also in Che Guevara speaks: Selected Speeches and Writings (1967).

Let’s do something, while we have the chance! It’s not every day that we are needed. . . . Let us make the most of it before it is too late!
– Samuel Beckett, Waiting for Godot (1949)

Nothing is inevitable, except defeat for those who give up without a fight.
-- "Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea" (1961), script by Irwin Allen & Charles Bennett

[snot]

1. P.S.: I've got links for many of these quotations; let me know if you'd like any in particular.

It's just kind of a pain to insert them all here.

[calimary]

3. No worries. I LOVE good quotes. I have a collection of them.

One of my all-time favorites is from Adolf Hitler:

"What luck for the leaders that men do not think."

More shatteringly relevant today than ever before.

[gateley]

5. These are all SO GOOD! And the ones that people have added are great, too. Thanks!!

[struggle4progress]

2. The most potent weapon of the oppressor is the mind of the oppressed -- Steven Biko

[gateley]

4. A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step - Lao Tzu.

[SharonAnn]

6. And a couple of my favorites

A man who carries a cat by the tail learns something he can learn in no other way.
Mark Twain

"I am surrounded by priests who repeat incessantly that their kingdom is not of this world, and yet they lay their hands on everything they can get."
Napoleon Bonaparte

They always say time changes things, but you actually have to change them yourself.
– Andy Warhol, The Philosophy of Andy Warhol (1977).

"Nearly all great men are bad men. Power is poison....The danger is not that a particular class is unfit to govern; every class is unfit to govern."
- Lord Acton

Conservatism is the moralistic belief that other people have too much freedom. ~Autonomy

I'm tired of hearing it said that democracy doesn't work. Of course it doesn't work. We are supposed to work it.
Alexander Woollcott

“He can compress the most words into the smallest idea of any man I know.”
Abraham Lincoln

"Every advantage gained by the people has been gained in defiance of government, never by its aid or as a gift."
- Monty Miller (1916)

"Those who choose the lesser evil forget quickly they chose evil."
- Hannah Arendt

The words of Franklin Delano Roosevelt come to mind: "We have always known that heedless self-interest was bad morals; we know now that it is bad economics."

Lighthouses are more helpful then churches.
-Benjamin Franklin

"Tyranny is always better organized than freedom." Charles Peguy

"There are two things which cannot be attacked in front: ignorance and narrow-mindedness. They can only be shaken by the simple development of the contrary qualities. They will not bear discussion." — Lord Acton

"Nobody makes a greater mistake than he who does nothing because he could only do a little." — Edmund Burke

As Gandhi used to say: ‘God never occurs to you in person but always in action.’