Quotes
"The foundation of all mental illness is the unwillingness to experience legitimate suffering." "I love my country too much to be a nationalist." "Most of all we learned about death at an early age when it is common to think of oneself as immortal. Everyone loses that illusion eventually, but in civilian life it is lost in installments over the years. We lost it all at once and, in the span of months, passed from boyhood through manhood to premature middle age. The knowledge of death, of the implacable limits placed on a man's existence, severed us from our youth as irrevocably as a surgeon's scissors had once severed us from the womb. And yet, few of us were past twenty-five. We left Vietnam peculiar creatures, with young shoulders that bore rather old heads." "There is no necessary connection between the desire to lead and the abililty to lead, and even less to the ability to lead somewhere that will be to the advantage of the led. Leadership is more likely to be assumed by the aggressive than by the able, and those who scramble to the top are more often motivated by their own inner torments than by any demand for their guidance." "Representing a profound attitude of fairness between man and man, and more particularly between the individual and government, Due Process is compounded of history, reason, the past course of decisions, and stout confidence in the strength of the democratic faith which we profess." "In these sentiments, Sir, I agree to this Constitution, with all its faults, — if they are such; because I think a general Government necessary for us, and there is no form of government but what may be a blessing to the people, if well administered; and I believe, farther, that this is likely to be well administered for a course of years, and can only end in despotism, as other forms have done before it, when the people shall become so corrupted as to need despotic government, being incapable of any other." “The loud little handful will shout for war. The pulpit will warily and cautiously protest at first…The great mass of the nation will rub its sleepy eyes, and will try to make out why there should be a war, and they will say earnestly and indignantly: ‘It is unjust and dishonorable and there is no need for war.’ Then the few will shout even louder…Before long you will see a curious thing: anti-war speakers will be stoned from the platform, and free speech will be strangled by hordes of furious men who still agree with the speakers but dare not admit it...Next, statesmen will invent cheap lies, putting blame upon the nation that is attacked, and every man will be glad of those conscience-soothing falsities, and will diligently study them, and refuse to examine any refutations of them; and thus he will by and by convince himself that the war is just, and will thank God for the better sleep he enjoys after this process of grotesque self-deception.” "It is curious that physical courage should be so common in the world and moral courage so rare." "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." “Do not fear the enemy, for your enemy can only take your life. It is far better that you fear the media, for they will steal your HONOR. That awful power, the public opinion of a nation, is created in America by a horde of ignorant, self-complacent simpletons who failed at ditching and shoemaking and fetched up in journalism on their way to the poorhouse.” “The citizen who sees his society’s democratic clothes being worn out and does not cry it out, is not a patriot, but a traitor.” “In case you haven’t noticed, we…dehumanize our own soldiers, not because of their religion or race, but because of their low social class. Send ’em anywhere. Make ’em do anything. Piece of cake.” “They wrote in the old days that it is sweet and fitting to die for one’s country. But in modern war, there is nothing sweet nor fitting in your dying. You will die like a dog for no good reason.” “Strike against war, for without you no battles can be fought! Strike against manufacturing shrapnel and gas bombs and all other tools of murder! Strike against preparedness that means death and misery to millions of human beings! Be not dumb, obedient slaves in an army of destruction! Be heroes in an army of construction!” “He who joyfully marches to music in rank and file has already earned my contempt. He has been given a large brain by mistake, since 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 and ignoble 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.” “Peace cannot be achieved through violence, it can only be attained through understanding.” “Great spirits have always found violent opposition from mediocre minds. The latter cannot understand it when a man does not thoughtlessly submit to hereditary prejudices but honestly and courageously uses his intelligence.” “Few are those who see with their own eyes and feel with their own hearts.” “I came to America because of the great, great freedom which I heard existed in this country. I made a mistake in selecting America as a land of freedom, a mistake I cannot repair in the balance of my lifetime.” “I am not only a pacifist but a militant pacifist. I am willing to fight for peace. Nothing will end war unless the people themselves refuse to go to war.” “Such as it is, the press has become the greatest power within the Western World, more powerful than the legislature, the executive and judiciary. One would like to ask: by whom has it been elected, and to whom is it responsible?” “Enlighten the people generally, and tyranny and oppressions of body and mind will vanish like evil spirits at the dawn of day.” “I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies…if the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of currency...the banks and corporations that will grow up around them will deprive the people of all property until their children will wake up homeless on the continent that their fathers conquered.” “Truth will do well enough if left to shift for herself…She has no need of force to procure entrance into the minds of men.”
“It does not require a majority to prevail, but rather an irate, tireless minority keen to set brush fires in people’s minds.” “The more individuals capable of watching the world theater calmly and critically, the less danger of monumental mass stupidities – first of all, wars.” “My instinct as an individualist and artist has always warned me most urgently against this capacity of men for becoming drunk on collective suffering, collective pride, collective hatred, and collective honor. When this morbid exaltation becomes perceptible in a room, a hall, a village, a city, or a country, I grow cold and distrustful; a shudder comes over me, for already, while most of my fellow men are still weeping with rapture and enthusiasm, still cheering and venting protestations of brotherhood, I see blood flowing and cities going up in flames.” “The National Government will regard it as its first and foremost duty to revive in the nation the spirit of unity and cooperation. It will preserve and defend those basic principles on which our nation has been built. It regards Christianity as the foundation of our national morality, and the family as the basis of national life.” “In the same way, the Government of the Reich, which regards Christianity as the unshakable foundation of the morals and moral code of the nation ...” “Let us pray in this hour that nothing can divide us, and that God will help us against the Devil! Almighty Lord, bless our fight!” “The great masses of people will more easily fall victims to a big lie than to a small one. Especially if it is repeated over and over.” “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 becomes the greatest enemy of the State.” “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? Naturally, the common people don’t want war: neither in Russia, nor in England, nor for that matter in Germany. That is understood. 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…Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is to tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger.” “It is the duty of the patriot to protect his country from its government.” “Knowledge makes a man unfit to be a slave.” “Speaking the Truth in times of universal deceit is a revolutionary act.” “The honest man must be a perpetual renegade, the life of an honest man a perpetual infidelity. For the man who wishes to remain faithful to truth must make himself perpetually unfaithful to all the continual, successive, indefatigable renascent errors.” “There exists a shadowy Government with its own Air Force, its own Navy, its own fundraising mechanism, and the ability to pursue its own ideas of national interest, free from all checks and balances, and free from the law itself.” “The people can have anything they want. The trouble is, they do not want anything. At least they vote that way on election day.” “Authoritarian government required to speak, is silent…Representative government required to speak, LIES with impunity.” “Few of us can easily surrender our belief that society must somehow make sense. The thought that The State has lost its mind and is punishing so many innocent people is intolerable. And so the evidence has to be internally denied.”
“As long as people believe in absurdities, they will continue to commit atrocities.”
“Praising our leaders, we’re getting in tune with the music played by the madmen.” “Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent.” "The rational is real and the real rational." “Herein lies a riddle: How can a people so gifted by God become so seduced by naked power, so greedy for money, so addicted to violence, so slavish before mediocre and treacherous leadership, so paranoid, deluded, lunatic?” “If the Nuremberg laws were applied, then every post-war American president would have been hanged.” “Let me tell you what happened briefly. There were 114,000 separate aerial sorties in 42 days – one every 30 seconds. Eighty-eight thousand tons of bombs were dropped. Only seven per cent were guided. Ninety-three percent were free-falling bombs that hit where chance, necessity and no free will took them. There were 38 aircraft lost by the US in the slaughter. That number is less than the accidental losses in war games where no live ammunition is even used. No enemy aircraft rose to meet them. When the ground war came…there was no ground war. Name one battle. It wasn’t a battle, it was a slaughter. General Kelly said when the troops finally moved forward that there weren’t many of them left alive to fight. We killed at least 125,000 soldiers and to date 130,000 civilians. We killed as many as we dared.” “The conquest of the earth, which mostly means the taking it away from those who have a different complexion or slightly flatter noses than ourselves, is not a pretty thing when you look into it too much.”
“When a whole nation is roaring Patriotism at the top of its voice, I am fain to explore the cleanness of its hands and the purity of its heart.” “What difference does it make to the dead, the orphans and the homeless, whether the mad destruction is wrought under the name of totalitarianism or in the holy name of liberty and democracy?"
“The most violent element in society is ignorance.” “Conceit, arrogance and egotism are the essentials of patriotism…Patriotism assumes that our globe is divided into little spots, each one surrounded by an iron gate. Those who had the fortune of being born on some particular spot, consider themselves better, nobler, grander, more intelligent than the living beings inhabiting any other spot. It is, therefore, the duty of everyone living on that chosen spot to fight, kill, and die in the attempt to impose his superiority upon all others”.
“If they turn on their radars we're going to blow up their goddamn SAMs [surface-to- air missiles]. They know we own their country. We own their airspace…We dictate the way they live and talk. And that’s what’s great about America right now. It’s a good thing, especially when there’s a lot of oil out there we need.” “The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.” “Weapons are tools of violence; all decent men detest them.” “People never lie so much as after a hunt, during a war or before an election.” “Patriotism is the virtue of the vicious.” “The essential American character is hard, isolated, stoic, and a killer.”
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