OK, Worry a little

“Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves.� -William Pitt   

“I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too much liberty than to those attending too small a degree of it.â€? – Thomas Jefferson

“A people that values its privileges above its principles soon loses both.â€? – Dwight D. Eisenhower

“The basis of our governments being the opinion of the people, the very first object should be to keep that right; and were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers, or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter.â€? – Thomas Jefferson

“I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones.â€? – Albert Einstein

“If a victory is told in detail, one can no longer distinguish it from a defeat.â€? – Jean-Paul Sartre

“You can no more win a war than you can win an earthquake.â€? – Jeannette Rankin

“Why of course the people don’t want war…. But after all it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy, and it’s always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy or a fascist 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 tell them they’re being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country.â€? – Hermann Goering

“There are no warlike peoples, just warlike leaders.â€? – Ralph Bunche

“It is war that wastes a nation’s wealth, chokes its industries, kills its flower, narrows its sympathies, condemns it to be governed by adventurers, and leaves the puny, deformed, and unmanly to breed the next generation.â€? – George Santayana (If Santayana was still around, he’d have to add “rich cowardsâ€? to his list of progenitors.)

“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

“Human beings are perhaps never more frightening than when they are convinced beyond doubt that they are right.â€? – Laurens Van der Post

“Patriotism is your conviction that this country is superior to all other countries because you were born in it.â€? – George Bernard Shaw

“Distrust all in whom the impulse to punish is powerful.â€? – Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche

“Avoid clean people who have a dirty stare.â€? – Malcolm De Chazal

“I distrust those people who know so well what God wants them to do, because I notice it always coincides with their own desires.â€? – Susan B Anthony

“Virtue cannot separate itself from reality without becoming a principle of evil.â€? – Albert Camus

“Virtue is more to be feared than vice, because its excesses are not subject to the regulation of conscience.â€? – Adam Smith

“We have enough religion to make us hate, but not enough to make us love one another.â€? – Jonathan Swift

“The urge to save humanity is almost always a false front for the urge to rule.â€? – H.L.Mencken

“A closed mind is like a closed book: just a block of wood.â€? – Chinese Proverb

“Beware the man of one book.â€? – St. Thomas Aquinas

“Politics is supposed to be the second oldest profession. I have come to realize that it bears a very close resemblance to the first.â€? – Ronald Reagan

“In politics stupidity is not a handicap.â€? – Napoleon I Bonaparte

“Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge.â€? – Charles Darwin

“We hang the petty thieves and appoint the great ones to public office.â€? – Aesop

“One of the penalties for refusing to participate in politics is that you end up being governed by your inferiors� – Plato

“The mind of the bigot is like the pupil of the eye; the more light you pour upon it, the more it will contract.â€? – Oliver Wendell Holmes

“To announce that there must be no criticism of the president, or that we are to stand by the president right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public.â€? – Theodore Roosevelt

“The Right thinks that our country already has a moral identity, and hopes to keep that identity intact. It fears economic and political change, and therefore easily becomes the pawn of the rich and powerful – the people whose selfish interests are served by forestalling such change.� – Richard Rorty

“[F]ear never creates; it petrifies.� – Gustavo Gutierrez (I’ve never understood how “good enough� is better than “better.�)

“As democracy is perfected, the office of president represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart’s desire at last and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron.â€? – H.L. Mencken

“Giving money and power to government is like giving whiskey and car keys to teenage boys.� – P.J. O’Rourke

“When nations grow old, the arts grow cold and commerce settles on every tree.â€? – William Blake

“Moral indignation is in most cases two percent moral, forty-eight percent indignation, and fifty percent envy.” – Vittorio De Sica
 

“Moral indignation is jealousy with a halo.” – H. G. Wells

 

“Secrecy, being an instrument of conspiracy, ought never to be the system of a regular government.” – Jeremy Bentham
 

“He who fights against monsters should see to it that he does not become a monster in the process.” – Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche
 

“Politics have no relation to morals.â€? – Niccolo Machiavelli
 

“Convictions are more dangerous enemies of truth than lies.â€? – Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche

 

It ain’t what you don’t know that gets you into trouble. It’s what you know for sure that just ain’t so. – Mark Twain
 

 

“I had grown tired of standing in the lean and lonely front line facing the greatest enemy that ever confronted man – public opinion.” – Clarence Seward Darrow
 

“The power to command frequently causes failure to think.” – Barbara Tuchman

 

Necessity is not a fact; it’s an interpretation. – Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche
 

“The world has achieved brilliance without conscience. Ours is a world of nuclear giants and ethical infants.” – Omar Bradley

 

“The power of the Executive to cast a man into prison without formulating any charge known to the law, and particularly to deny him the judgement of his peers, is in the highest degree odious and is the foundation of all totalitarian government whether Nazi or Communist.” – Winston Churchill

 

“The despotism of custom is everywhere the standing hindrance to human advancement.” – John Stuart Mill
 

“Every person takes the limits of their own field of vision for the limits of the world.” – Arthur Schopenhauer

 

We must not confuse dissent with disloyalty. When the loyal opposition dies, I think the soul of America dies with it. – Edward R. Murrow
 

“Our republic and its press will rise and fall together” – Joseph Pulitzer
 

“One wanders to the left, another to the right. Both are equally in error, but, are seduced by different delusions.” – Horace

 

“Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities.� – Voltaire
 

Everything has been said before, but since nobody listens we have to keep going back and beginning all over again – Andre Gide

“It is impossible to reason someone out of something that he did not reason himself into in the first place.” – Jonathan Swift
 

“People who fight fire with fire usually end up with ashes.” – Abigail Van Buren (1918-2002) [Dear Abby] American Journalist, Columnist

 

War is sweet to those who have not experienced it. – Erasmus
 

It is the common fate of the indolent to see their rights become a prey to the active. The condition upon which God hath given liberty to man is eternal vigilance; which condition if he break, servitude is at once the consequence of his crime and the punishment of his guilt. – John Philpot Curran