Notable Quotable #35

Nov 18, 2022

“Nothing is so firmly believed as that which we least know.”

- Michel de Montaigne, The Complete Essays

“He must be very ignorant for he answers every question he is asked.”

- Voltaire

“It doesn’t actually make any difference whether the President is Republican or Democrat. The genius of the American ruling class is that it has been able to make the people think that they have had something to do with the electing of presidents for 200 years when they’ve had absolutely nothing to say about the candidates or the policies or the way the country is run. A very small group control just about everything.”

- Gore Vidal

“Only a virtuous people are capable of freedom. As nations become corrupt and vicious, they have more need of masters.”

- Benjamin Franklin

“The truth is like salt. Men want to taste a little, but too much makes everyone sick.”

- Joe Abercrombie, The Heroes

“I hate war as only a soldier who has lived it can, only as one who has seen its brutality, its futility, its stupidity.” -

President Dwight Eisenhower

“Putting aside all the fancy words and academic doubletalk, the basic reason for having a military is to do two jobs --to kill people and to destroy.”

- General Thomas S. Power

“Military glory – that attractive rainbow, that rises in showers of blood – that serpent's eye, that charms to destroy.”

- President Abraham Lincoln

“No nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare.”

- President James Madison

“Our country is now geared to an arms econo my bred in an artificially induced psychosis of war hysteria and an incessant propaganda of fear.”

- General Douglas MacArthur

“We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security.”

- President Dwight Eisenhower

“The evils of government are directly proportional to the tolerance of the people.”

- Frank Kent

"Nothing doth more hurt in a state than that cunning men pass for wise."

- Sir Francis Bacon

"Making and endorsing war requires a secret love of death, and a fearful desire to embrace annihilation. Creating peace requires compassion, putting ourselves in the other person's place, and all of their suffering and all of their hopes and to act from our heart's capacity to love, not fear."

- Dennis Kucinich

"Dr. King didn't get famous giving a speech that said, "I have a complaint." It's time for us to start dreaming again and invite the country to dream with us. We don't have any "throw away" species, nations, or children. We must birth a global green economy strong enough to lift people out of poverty."

- Van Jones

"We kill at every step, not only in wars, riots, and executions. We kill when we close our eyes to poverty, suffering, and shame. In the same way all disrespect for life, all hard-heartedness, all indifference, all contempt is nothing else than killing. "

- Hermann Hesse, German poet and novelist

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

- Plato