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Quotes
Find out just what the people will submit to and you have found out the exact amount of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them; and these will continue until they are resisted with either words or blows, or with both. The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they
oppress.
Frederick Douglass |
| I think that people want peace so much that one of these days government had better get out of their way and let them have
it.
Dwight Eisenhower |
| A time comes when silence is betrayal. Men do not easily assume the task of opposing their government's policy, especially in time of war.
We must speak with all the humility that is appropriate to our limited vision, but we must speak. For we are deeply in need of a new way beyond the darkness so close around us....
We are called upon to speak for the weak, for the voiceless, for the victims of our nation, for those it calls enemy, for no document from human hands can make these humans any less our brothers.
Rev Dr Martin Luther
King
Jr
at the Riverside Church in New York City, 1967 |
They that give up essential liberty
to obtain a little
temporary safety
deserve neither liberty nor safety.
Benjamin Franklin
Historical Review of Pennsylvania, 1759
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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 |
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One of the most
influential figures
in modern social and political activism,
considered
these traits to be
the most spiritually perilous to humanity.
Wealth without Work
Pleasure without Conscience
Science without Humanity
Knowledge without Character
Politics without Principle
Commerce without Morality
Worship without Sacrifice
Mohandas Karamachand Gandhi
Asked what he thought about western civilization, his response was..
"I think it would be a good idea." |
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The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are
always so certain of themselves, but wiser people so full of
doubts.
Bertrand Russell |
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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 purpose, and you
allow him to make war at pleasure. Study to see if you can fix any
limit to his power in this respect, after having given him so much as
you propose. If to-day 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."
The provision of the Constitution
giving the war making power to Congress was dictated, as I understand
it, by the following reasons: kings had always been involving and
impoverishing their people in wars, pretending generally, if not
always, that the good of the people was the object. This our
convention understood to be the most oppressive of all kingly
oppressions, and they resolved to so frame the Constitution that no
one man should hold the power of bringing this oppression upon us. But
your view destroys the whole matter, and places our President where
kings have always stood.
Representative Abraham Lincoln
The preceding excerpt is from a letter
written by Abraham Lincoln to his friend William Herndon dated 15
February 1848 concerning Lincoln's position on the commencement and
prosecution of the war against Mexico. This passage was quoted
by Senator Robert Byrd in fall 2002 in an address to the United States
Senate. |
| Peace cannot be achieved through violence, it can only be attained
through understanding
We can't solve problems
by using the same kind of thinking we used
when we created them.
You cannot simultaneously prevent and prepare for war.
I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought,
but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones.
When he died on April 18, 1955
he left a piece of writing
ending in an unfinished sentence.
These were his last words:
In essence, the conflict that exists today is no more than an
old-style struggle for power, once again presented to mankind in
semireligious trappings. The difference is that, this time, the
development of atomic power has imbued the struggle with a ghostly
character; for both parties know and admit that, should the quarrel
deteriorate into actual war, mankind is doomed. Despite this
knowledge, statesmen in responsible positions on both sides continue
to employ the well-known technique of seeking to intimidate and
demoralize the opponent by marshaling superior military strength. They
do so even though such a policy entails the risk of war and doom. Not
one statesman in a position of responsibility has dared to pursue the
only course that holds out any promise of peace, the course of
supranational security, since for a statesman to follow such a course
would be tantamount to political suicide. Political passions, once
they have been fanned into flame, exact their victims ... Citater
fra...
Albert Einstein |
| If you want peace, work for justice.
Pope Paul VI |
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