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"A conservative is a liberal who has been mugged."
[Attributed to] P.J. O'Rourke
Writer, Humorist, Ex-Radical
"A liberal is a conservative who has been arrested."
Tom Wolfe
Journalist, Novelist
"If you're not turned on by politics, politics will turn on you."
Ralph Nader
Consumer Affairs Advocate, Lawyer, Green Party Presidential Candidate (1992, 1996, 2000)
"When the President (of the United States) mentions your name in anger, you know the sh*t has hit the fan!"
Ice-T (pseudonym of Tracey Morrow)
Rap artist (Body Count), Producer, Actor
(Commenting on the controvercy over his recording "Cop Killer")
"The problem is not cop killers...it's killer cops."
Tom Morello
Rock guitarist (Rage Against the Machine)
(Commenting on the controvercy over Ice-T's recording "Cop Killer")
"Paradise is exactly like where you are right now...only much, much better."
Laurie Anderson
Musician, Composer, Performance artist
"The years go fast...There is much joy and beauty awaiting in undreamed ecstasies, do not wait too long, do not delay too much...It is the only way worth living."
---
"If I can't dance, I don't want to be part of your revolution."
Emma Goldman
Renegade
"No one can make you feel inferior without your consent."
Eleanor Roosevelt
Humanitarian
"Dignity is something we give each other."
Kurt Vonnegut
Author
"I will choose what enters me, what becomes flesh of my flesh. Without choice, no politics, no ethics lives. I am not your cornfield, not your uranium mine, not your calf for fattening, not your cow for milking. You may not use me as your factory. Priests and legislators do not hold shares in my womb or my mind. This is my body. If I give it to you, I want it back. My life is a non-negotiable demand."
Marge Piercy
"You shall say, 'Christ sayest this', 'The Apostles sayest this', but what doth thou say?"
The Rev. George Fox
Founder of the Quaker sect of Christianity
"Feminism encourages women to leave their husbands, kill their children, practice witchcraft, destroy capitalism and become lesbians."
The Rev. Dr. Pat Robertson
Founder of the Christian Coalition
(Speaking at the 1992 Republican (Party) National Convention)
"I have never been able to find out precisely what feminism is: I only know that people call me a feminist whenever I express sentiments that differentiate me from a doormat."
Rebeca West, 1913
"Feminism is the radical notion that women are people."
Cheris Kramare & Paula Treichler
"The confrontation was not created by the police. The confrontation was created by the people who charged the police. Gentlemen, let's get the thing straight, once and for all. The policeman isn't there to create disorder, the policeman is there to preserve disorder!"
Mayor Richard Daley of Chicago, Illinois, USA
(Commenting on allegations of police brutality against protestors at the 1968 Democratic Party National Convention)
"We've got a saying here in the Fire Department, 'You can't fix stupid.' "
Capt. Duane Greer
St. Louis (Missouri) Fire Department
"The irony is not lost upon us."
Capt. Steven LaSky
Clark County (Nevada) Fire Department
(Commenting on a fire that destroyed a Las Vegas fire station while the crew was answering a call)
"Be with wise men and become wise. Be with evil men and become evil."
The Bible; Proverbs 13:20
"The Church says the Earth is flat, but I know that it is round, for I have seen the shadow on the Moon. And I have more faith in a shadow, than in the Church."
Ferdinand Magellan
Explorer
"UFO's Are Real! The Air Force Doesn't Exist!"
Bumper sticker seen on a pick-up truck in rural Nevada
"Imagination is more important than knowledge."
Albert Einstein
Theoretical Physicist
"When I give food the poor, they call me a saint. When I ask why the poor have no food, they call me a Communist."
Dom Helder Camara
Dominican priest
"The truth has always been dangerous to the rule of the rogue, the exploiter, the robber. So the truth must be ruthlessly supressed."
Eugene Victor Debs
Labor Organizer, Socialist, War Protester
"In constitutional states, liberty is compensation for heavy taxes; in dictatorships, the subsititue is light taxes."
Baron de Montesquieu
"A nation or civilization that continues to produce soft-minded men purchases its own spritual death on the installment plan."
The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
Human rights activist, Nobel Peace Prize recipient
"How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world."
Anne Frank
Nazi Holocaust Victim
(From her diaries, found after WW2)
"The journey of a thousand miles begins with the first step."
Lao Tse
Pholosopher
"You cannot simultaneously prevent and prepare for war."
Albert Einstein
Theoretical Physicist
"All that we are, all that our civilization has accomplished, has arisen from the past. Whoever we are, wherever we live, we are part of an historical process that far outspans our own generation. For the first time in history, we who live today have the power to bring all civilization to an end."
Felix Greene
(from Let There Be A World)
"I believe that there will ultimately be a clash between the oppressed and those who do the oppressing. I believe that there will be a clash between those who want freedom, justice and equality for everyone, and those who want to continue the system of exploitation. I believe that there will be that kind of clash, but I don't believe it will be based on the color of the skin..."
Malcolm X
Civil Rights Leader (One-Time Black Seperatist)
"Get rid of all that is wrong in your life, both inside and outside."
The Bible; James 1:21
"Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose.
(The more things change, the more they stay the same.)
---
"Si l'on veut abolir la peine de mort en ce cas, que MM, les assassins commencement.
(If we are to abolish the death penalty, I should like to see the first step taken by our friends the murderers.)"
Alphonse Karr
"The greatest disappointment is when you let yourself down."
Jennifer Holzer
Artist
(From her Altruisms series)
"Nothing worth noting."
King George III of England
(Diary entry, 4 July 1776)
"The moment approaches...that is now here...and has passed."
Anonymous
"We are all Clark Kent."
Anonymous
(Grafitti seen in the Men's washroom of the Court Tavern, New Brunswick, New Jersey)
"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."
Benjamin Franklin
(Historical Review of Pennsylvania, 1759)
"In democracy it’s your vote that counts; In feudalism it’s your Count that votes."
Mogens Jallberg
Quotations from Thomas Jefferson
Third U.S. President, Inventor, Author of The Declaration of Independence, and Freethinker
"I never will, by any word or act, bow to the shrine of intolerance, or admit a right of inquiry into the religious opinions of others."
"I have sworn upon the altar of God, eternal hostility against every form of tyrrany over the mind of man. That is why the church opposes me."
(The above quote is on the Jefferson Memorial in Washington, DC, except for the second sentence.)
"Millions of innocent men, women and children, since the introduction of Christianity, have been burnt, tortured, fined, imprisoned; yet we have not advanced one inch towards uniformity. What has been the effect of coercion? To make one half the world fools and the other half hypocrites."
"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and will never be."
Letter to Col. Charles Yancey, 6 January 1816
"...There is a natural aristocracy among men. The grounds of this are virtue and talent. There is also an artificial aristocracy, founded on wealth and birth, without either virtue and talents; for with these; it would belong to the first class."
"Question with boldness even the existence of a God; because if there be one, He must more approve the homage of reason, than that of blind-folded fear."
"In the fevered state of our country, no good can ever result from any attempt to set one of these fiery zealots to rights, either in fact or in principle. They are determined as to the facts that they will believe, and the opinions on which they will act. Get by them, therefore, as you would an angry bull; it is not for a man of sense to dispute the road with such an animal."
"Jesus was all right, but his disciples were thick and ordinary. It's them twisting it that ruins it for me."
John Ono (Winston) Lennon
Rock musician (The Beatles, Plastic Ono Band)
Composer, Artist, Political Activist
Interview in (London) Evening Standard, 4 March 1966
"Religious factions will go on imposing their will on others unless the decent people connected to them recognize that religion has no place in public policy. They must learn to make their views known without trying to make their views the only alternative."
Barry Goldwater
Conservative Politician, Former Arizona Senator and Governor
Speech, 1981
"In Italy, for 30 years under the Borgias, they had warfare, terror, murder and bloodshed. But they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, and the Renaissance. In Switzerland they had brotherly love, 500 years of democracy and peace, and what did that produce? The cuckoo clock!"
Harry Lime (character portrayed by Orson Welles)
(From the film The Third Man)
"People like to own things."
Frank Zappa
Musician, Composer, Iconoclast
(From his autobiography The Real Frank Zappa Book, explaining why he felt Communism was doomed to failure)
"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
Sociologist
"Courage is the price that life exacts for granting peace."
Amelia Earhart
Aviation Pioneer
"The more you can increase fear of drugs and crime, welfare mothers, immigrants and aliens, the more you control all the people."
Noam Chomsky
Linguist, Social Critic
"Somebody's got to do something...and it's a damned shame that it has to be us!"
Jerry Garcia
Singer, Composer, Guitarist (The Greatful Dead)
(commenting on the environment)
"We have met the enemy...and he is us!"
Pogo Possum [Comic strip character created by Walt Kelly]
(commenting on pollution)
"You have never lived, till you have almost died. And for those who fight for it, life has a flavor that the protected will never know."
Anonymous
(Graffitti on a sign at a command post at Khe Sanh, Republic of Vietnam)
Quotations from Yogi Berra
Baseball Legend
"You can observe a lot just by watching."
"A nickle ain't worth a dime anymore"
"Nobody goes there anymore; it's too crowded."
(Commenting on a popular night club)
"You mean right now?"
(When asked what time it was)
"The future ain't what it used to be."
"When you see a fork in the road, take it!"
(Instructions he gives to visitors to his house. The road forks and both paths end at his front door.)
"We grew up founding our dreams on the infinite promise of American advertising."
"It was impossible to get a conversation going, everybody was talking too much."
"If the world were perfect, it wouldn't be."
"One can never consent to creep when one feels the impulse to soar."
Helen Keller
Blind-Deaf Writer
"What is written without effort is in general read without pleasure."
Samuel Johnson
Writer, Essayist
"The only two things you can truly depend upon are gravity and greed."
Jack Palance
Actor
"Wealth is not the faux money or the baubles that it will buy, it is having enough food, water, energy and freedom to ensure that your progeny will survive the ignorance of the fools that run the world."
Jerry Scovel (on the mailing list RunningOnEmpty2)
"If I fail, they [the film industry] write me off as another statistic. If I succeed, they pay me a million bucks to fly out to Hollywood and fart."
George A. Romero
Independent film-maker
"Hollywood is a place where they'll pay a million dolars for a kiss, and fifty cents for your soul."
Marilyn Monroe (Norma Jean Mortensen Doughtery Dimaggio Miller)
Actress, Cultural Icon
"Nations that are barren of liberties are also barren of groceries."
K.L. Billingsley
Conservative writer and commentator
"Nobility is a graceful ornament to the civil order. It is the Corinthian capital of a polished society."
Edmund Burke
Irish philosopher and statesman
(From Reflections on the Revolution in France,1790)
"The only unnatural sex act is that which you cannot perform."
Alfred Kinsey
Sexologist
"One is always considered mad when one perfects something that others cannot grasp."
Edward D. Wood, Jr.
Film-maker ("Plan 9 From Outer Space")
"Action may not always bring happiness, but there is not happiness without action."
Benjamin Disraeli
British Primie Minister
"When I was in prison, I was wrapped up in all those deep books - that Tolstoy crap. People shouldn't read that stuff. When we read those books, what purpose does it serve in this day and time?"
Mike Tyson
Heavyweight boxing champion, Convicted rapist
"They first came for the Communists and I didn't speak up - because I wasn't a Communist. Then they came for the Jews and I didn't speak up - because I wasn't a Jew. Then they came for the trade unionists and I didn't speak up - because I wasn't a trade unionist. Then they came for the Catholics and I didn't speak up - because I was a Protestant. Then they came for me - and by that time, no one was left to speak up."
Pastor Martin Niemoeller
Nazi Holocaust Victim
"False is the idea of utility that...would take fire from men because it burns, and water because one may drown in it... The laws that forbid the carrying of arms are of such a nature. (They) disarm only those who are neither inclined nor determined to commit crimes."
Cesare Beccaria (1735-1794)
Italian nobleman, Criminologist, Penal reformer
"I can die anytime I want. I wish I could do the same with life."
Henry Rollins
Rock vocalist & musician (Black Flag, Rollins Band)
Poet, Author, Monologist, Publisher
(From See A Grown Man Cry)
"Civilization is nothing else but the attempt to reduce force to being the last resort."
José Ortega y Gasset
Spanish essayist and philosopher
"Each morning we must hold out the chalice of our being to recieve, to carry, and give back."
Dag Hammarskjöld
United Nations Chairman
"At times our own light goes out and is rekindled by a spark from another person. Each of us has cause to think with deep gratitude of those who have lighted the flame within us."
Albert Schweitzer
Scientist, Humanitarian
"We recieve fragments of holiness, glimpes of certainty, brief moments of insight. Let us gather them up for the prescious gifts they are and, renewed by their grace, move boldly into the unknown."
Sara Moores Campbell
"Take courage, friends. The way is often hard, the path is never clear, and the stakes are very high. Take courage. For deep down, there is another truth: you are not alone."
Wayne B. Arnason
"I shall take my voice wherever there are those who want to hear the melody of freedom or the words that might inspire hope and courage in the face of fear. My weapons are peaceful, for it is only by peace that peace can be attained. The song of freedom must prevail."
Paul Robeson
Operatic Singer, Actor, Civil Rights Activist
"My heart is moved by all I cannot save: So much has been destroyed. I have to cast my lot with those who, age after age, perversely, with no extraordinary power, reconstitute the world."
Adrienne Rich
"I am only one...but still I am one. I cannot do everything...but still I can do something. And because I cannot do everything...I will not refuse to do the something I can do."
Edward Everett Hale
"When are we going to learn that controlling something does not take it out of the minds of people?"
Rosko (Bill Mercer)
Disc Jockey, Announcer
(During his on-air resignation from radio station WOR-FM, New York City, 2 October 1967)
"The burden of originality is one that most people don't want to accept. They'd rather sit in front of the TV and let that tell them what they're supposed to like, what they're supposed to buy, and what they're supposed to laugh at. You have Beavis and Butt-head telling you what music you're allowed to like and not like, and you've got sitcoms that have canned laughter that lets you know when to laugh if you're too stupid to know when the joke is--people are too lazy and too stupid to think for themselves because America has raised them like that."
Marilyn Manson (pseudonym of Brian Warner)
Rock star, Composer, Artist, Social Critic
"Strange, but I feel the world we live in demands us that we be turned out in a pattern which resembles, in fact, a facsimile of itself. And those of us who roll with the punches, who grin, who dare to wear foolish clown faces, who defy the system - well; we do it, and bully for us!
"And the reason I think is that (and I say this with some sadness) those up-tight, locked in people who resent and despise us, who fear us and are bewildered by us, will one day come to realize that we possess rare and magical secrets, and more - love.
"Therefore, I am beginning to think that a few, (I hope many) are wondering if maybe there might be value to a firefly, or an instant-long roman candle.
"Keep the faith."
Frank (Frances Albert) Sinatra
Entertainer, Singer, Actor
(In a letter to his daughter, Nancy)
"This machine kills fascists."
Woody Guthrie
Folksinger, Political Activist, American Balladier
(Inscription on his guitar)
"This instrument surrounds hate and forces it to surrender."
Pete Seeger
Folksinger, Musicologist, Poltical Activist, Amercian Balladier
(Inscription on his banjo)
"Arm the homeless."
Tom Morello
Rock singer & guitarist (Rage Against the Machine)
Political Activist, American Balladier in-the-making
(Inscription on his guitar)
"Blood shed for lies stains us all."
Eric Blumrich
Political blogger, Website designer
"Telling lies to the young is wrong. Proving to them that lies are true are wrong. Telling them that God's in His Heaven and all's well with the world is wrong. The young are people. The young know what you mean. Tell them that the difficulties can't be counted, and let them see with clarity these present times."
Yevestushenko
"The great end in religious instruction is not to stamp our minds upon the young, but to stir up their own; not to make them see with our eyes, but to look inquiringly and steadily with their own; not to give them a definate amount of knowledge, but to inspire a fervent love of truth; not to form an outward regularity, but to touch inward springs; not to bind by ineradicable prejudices to our particular sect or peculiar notions, but to prepare them for impartial, conscientious judging of whatever subjects may be offered to their decision; not to burden the memory, but to quicken and strengthen the power of thought; not to impose religion upon them in the form of arbitrary rules, but to awaken the conscience, the moral discernment. In a word, the great end is to awaken the soul, to excite and cherish the spiritual life."
William Ellery Channing
"Remember this as long as you live: Whenever you meet up with anyone who is trying to cause trouble between people - anyone who tries to tell you that a man can't be a good citizen because he is a Catholic or a Jew, a Protestant or what you will - you can be sure he's a rotten citizen himself and an inhuman being. Don't ever forget that!"
Superman from the UNITY HOUSE series on the "Superman" radio show, late
1940's
"Go your ways, knowing not the answers to all things, yet seeking always the answer to one more thing than you know."
John W. Brigham
"No person or group can build a bonfire big enough to dispel the endless night that has fallen on our world, but each seeker's lantern creates a very real island of light in this vast ocean of darkness."
Undientified pirate radio broadcaster, Tangerine Radio, 1985
"Those who do not remember the past are condemned to repeat it."
George Satayana
Philsopher
"History doesn't always repeat itself. Sometimes, it rhymes."
[Attributed to] Mark Twain (pseudonym of Samuel Clemens)
Writer, Novelist, Essayist, Social Critic
"All revolutions devour their children."
Ernst Röhm
Leader of the Nazi "brownshirts"
(Imprisoned and murdered for being a suspect in a plot to assassinate Hitler.)
"Love without courage and wisdom is sentimentality.
Courage without love and wisdom is foolhardiness.
Wisdom without love and courage is cowardice.
Therefore one with love, courage, and wisdom is one in a million who moves the world, as with Jesus, Buddah and Ghandi."
Ammon Hennacy (1893-1970), Catholic, Anarchist, Pacifist, Draft Resister (WW1 & 2), Author of "The One-Man Revolution"
" 'Wilt thou?' said the winged minute."
George Meredith
(From Beauchamp's Career)
