Quotes of the Day – Archives

  • It is better to prevent crimes than to punish them. – Cesare Beccaria, philosopher and politician (15 Mar 1738-1794)
  • Fear is a disease that eats away at logic and makes man inhuman.
    – Marian Anderson, singer (27 Feb 1897-1993)
  • We should not be simply fighting evil in the name of good, but struggling against the certainties of people who claim always to know where good and evil are to be found. – Tzvetan Todorov, philosopher (1 Mar 1939-2017)
  • Bad officials are elected by good citizens who do not vote. – George Jean Nathan, author and editor (14 Feb 1882-1958)
  • May none but honest and wise men ever rule under this roof (White House). – John Adams, 2nd US President, and the first one to live in the White House (30 Oct 1735-1826)
  • There is one tradition in America I am proud to inherit. It is our first freedom and the truest expression of our Americanism: the ability to dissent without fear. It is our right to utter the words, “I disagree.” We must feel at liberty to speak those words to our neighbors, our clergy, our educators, our news media, our lawmakers and, above all, to the one among us we elect President. – Natalie Merchant, musician and poet (b. 26 Oct 1963)
  • A strong nation, like a strong person, can afford to be gentle, firm, thoughtful, and restrained. It can afford to extend a helping hand to others. It is a weak nation, like a weak person, that must behave with bluster and boasting and rashness and other signs of insecurity. – Jimmy Carter, 39th US President, Nobel laureate (b. 1 Oct 1924)
  • The unrestricted competition so commonly advocated does not leave us the survival of the fittest. The unscrupulous succeed best in accumulating wealth. – Rutherford B. Hayes, 19th US president (4 Oct 1822-1893)
  • I think everybody who has a brain should get involved in politics. Working within. Not criticizing it from the outside. Become an active participant, no matter how feeble you think the effort is. – Cass Elliot, singer (19 Sep 1941-1974)
  • Elitism is the slur directed at merit by mediocrity. – Sydney J. Harris, journalist (14 Sep 1917-1986)
  • There is nothing more frightful than ignorance in action. – Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, poet, dramatist, novelist, and philosopher (28 Aug 1749-1832)
  • The door of a bigoted mind opens outwards so that the only result of the pressure of facts upon it is to close it more snugly. – Ogden Nash, poet (19 Aug 1902-1971)
  • It has always seemed strange to me that in our endless discussions about education so little stress is laid on the pleasure of becoming an educated person, the enormous interest it adds to life. To be able to be caught up into the world of thought — that is to be educated. – Edith Hamilton, educator and writer (12 Aug 1867-1963)
  • We’ve all got both light and dark inside us. What matters is the part we choose to act on. That’s who we really are. – J.K. Rowling, author (b. 31 Jul 1965)
  • The only index by which to judge a government or a way of life is by the quality of the people it acts upon. No matter how noble the objectives of a government, if it blurs decency and kindness, cheapens human life, and breeds ill will and suspicion — it is an evil government. – Eric Hoffer, philosopher and author (25 Jul 1902-1983)
  • The ultimate sense of security will be when we come to recognize that we are all part of one human race. Our primary allegiance is to the human race and not to one particular color or border. I think the sooner we renounce the sanctity of these many identities and try to identify ourselves with the human race the sooner we will get a better world and a safer world. – Mohamed ElBaradei, diplomat, Nobel laureate (b. 17 Jun 1942)
  • It is the people who scream the loudest about America and Freedom who seem to be the most intolerant for a differing point of view. – Rosanne Cash, singer-songwriter and author (b. 24 May 1955)
  • Man can be the most affectionate and altruistic of creatures, yet he’s potentially more vicious than any other. He is the only one who can be persuaded to hate millions of his own kind whom he has never seen and to kill as many as he can lay his hands on in the name of his tribe or his God. – Benjamin Spock, pediatrician and author (2 May 1903-1998)
  • A man must be excessively stupid, as well as uncharitable, who believes there is no virtue but on his own side. – Joseph Addison, essayist and poet (1 May 1672-1719)
  • A conservative is one who admires radicals centuries after they’re dead. – Leo Rosten, author (11 Apr 1908-1997)
  • I shall allow no man to belittle my soul by making me hate him. – Booker T. Washington, reformer, educator, and author (5 Apr 1856-1915)
  • We live in a world in which we need to share responsibility. It’s easy to say “It’s not my child, not my community, not my world, not my problem.” Then there are those who see the need and respond. I consider those people my heroes. – Fred Rogers, television host, songwriter, and author (20 Mar 1928-2003)
  • Unthinking respect for authority is the greatest enemy of truth. – Albert Einstein, physicist, Nobel laureate (14 Mar 1879-1955)
  • The struggle to see things as they are is perhaps the fundamental driver of Western civilization. There is a long but direct line from Aristotle and Archimedes to Locke, Hume, Mill, and Darwin, and from there through Orwell and Churchill to Martin Luther King writing his “Letter from Birmingham City Jail”. It is the agreement that objective reality exists, that people of goodwill can perceive it, and that other people will change their views when presented with the facts of the matter. – Thomas E. Ricks, journalist and author (b. 1955)
  • If there is any fixed star in our constitutional constellation, it is that no official, high or petty, can prescribe what shall be orthodox in politics, nationalism, religion, or other matters of opinion or force citizens to confess by word or act their faith therein. – Robert H. Jackson, US Supreme Court justice (13 Feb 1892-1954)
  • The shepherd always tries to persuade the sheep that their interests and his own are the same. – Stendhal (Marie-Henri Beyle), novelist (23 Jan 1783-1842)
  • If you or your parents are immigrants, know that you are part of a proud American tradition – the infusion of new cultures, talents and ideas, generation after generation, that has made us the greatest country on earth. – Michelle Obama, lawyer, First Lady of the US (b. 17 Jan 1964)
  • A society that presumes a norm of violence and celebrates aggression, whether in the subway, on the football field, or in the conduct of its business, cannot help making celebrities of the people who would destroy it. – Lewis H. Lapham, editor and writer (b. 8 Jan 1935)
  • There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there always has been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that “my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge. – Isaac Asimov, scientist and writer (2 Jan 1920-1992)
  • The only way human beings can win a war is to prevent it. – George Marshall, US Army Chief, Secretary of State, Secretary of Defense, Nobel laureate (31 Dec 1880-1959)
  • The tools of conquest do not necessarily come with bombs, and explosions, and fallout. There are weapons that are simply thoughts, attitudes, prejudices, to be found only in the minds of men. For the record, prejudices can kill and suspicion can destroy; and a thoughtless, frightened search for a scapegoat has a fallout all of its own for the children, and the children yet unborn. – Rod Serling, writer of the science fiction TV series The Twilight Zone (25 Dec 1924-1975)
  • The smart way to keep people passive and obedient is to strictly limit the spectrum of acceptable opinion, but allow very lively debate within that spectrum — even encourage the more critical and dissident views. That gives people the sense that there’s free thinking going on, while all the time the presuppositions of the system are being reinforced by the limits put on the range of the debate. – Noam Chomsky, linguistics professor and political activist (b. 7 Dec 1928)
  • When the power of love overcomes the love of power the world will know peace. – Jimi Hendrix, musician, singer, and songwriter (27 Nov 1942-1970)
  • If I can do no more, let my name stand among those who are willing to bear ridicule and reproach for the truth’s sake, and so earn some right to rejoice when the victory is won. – Louisa May Alcott, writer and reformist (29 Nov 1832-1888)
  •  There is no foreign land; it is the traveller only that is foreign. – Robert Louis Stevenson, novelist, essayist, and poet (13 Nov 1850-1894)
  • We have probed the earth, excavated it, burned it, ripped things from it, buried things in it, chopped down its forests, leveled its hills, muddied its waters, and dirtied its air. That does not fit my definition of a good tenant. If we were here on a month-to-month basis, we would have been evicted long ago. – Rose Bird, Chief Justice of California Supreme Court (2 Nov 1936-1999)
  • Man’s capacity for justice makes democracy possible, but man’s inclination to injustice makes democracy necessary. – Reinhold Niebuhr June 21, 1892 – June 1, 1971
  • The worst thing that can happen in a democracy — as well as in an individual’s life — is to become cynical about the future and lose hope. That is the end, and we cannot let that happen. – Hillary Clinton, secretary of state and senator (b. 26 Oct 1947)
  • True patriotism springs from a belief in the dignity of the individual, freedom and equality not only for Americans but for all people on earth, universal brotherhood and good will, and a constant and earnest striving toward the principles and ideals on which this country was founded. – Eleanor Roosevelt, diplomat, author, and lecturer (11 Oct 1884-1962)
  • As societies grow decadent, the language grows decadent, too. Words are used to disguise, not to illuminate, action: you liberate a city by destroying it. Words are to confuse, so that at election time people will solemnly vote against their own interests. – Gore Vidal, writer (3 Oct 1925-2012)
  • He serves his party best who serves the country best. – Rutherford B. Hayes, 19th US president (4 Oct 1822-1893)
  • You may not be able to change the world, but at least you can embarrass the guilty.
    – Jessica Mitford, author, journalist, and civil rights activist (11 Sep 1917-1996)
  • In a racist society it is not enough to be non-racist. We must be anti-racist. – Angela Davis, activist, author, and professor (b. 26 Jan 1944)
  • Someone needs to explain to me why wanting clean drinking water makes you an activist and why proposing to destroy water with chemical warfare doesn’t make a corporation a terrorist. – Winona LaDuke, activist, environmentalist, economist, and writer (b. 18 Aug 1959)
  • When one tugs at a single thing in nature, he finds it attached to the rest of the world. – John Muir, naturalist, author and environmental author (1838-1914)
  • A competent leader can get efficient service from poor troops, while on the contrary an incapable leader can demoralize the best of troops. – John J. Pershing, a general officer in the United States Army who led the American Expeditionary Forces in World War I. (1860 – 1948)
  • Eminent posts make great men greater, and little men less. – Jean de La Bruyere, essayist and moralist (16 Aug 1645-1696)
  • No amount of belief makes something a fact. – James Randi, magician and skeptic (b. 7 Aug 1928)
     
  • Of all the preposterous assumptions of humanity over humanity, nothing exceeds most of the criticisms made on the habits of the poor by the well-housed, well-warmed, and well-fed. – Herman Melville, novelist and poet (1 Aug 1819-1891)
  • We must dissent from the fear, the hatred, and the mistrust. We must dissent from a nation that buried its head in the sand waiting in vain for the needs of its poor, its elderly, and its sick to disappear and just blow away. We must dissent from a government that has left its young without jobs, education, or hope. We must dissent from the poverty of vision and timeless absence of moral leadership. We must dissent, because America can do better, because America has no choice but to do better.  – Thurgood Marshall, US Supreme Court Justice (1908-1993)
  • I’m fed up to the ears with old men dreaming up wars for young men to die in. – George McGovern, senator and author (19 Jul 1922-2012)
  • There are a thousand hacking at the branches of evil to one who is striking at the root. – Henry David Thoreau, naturalist and author (12 Jul 1817-1862)
  • Patriotism means to stand by the country. It does not mean to stand by the President or any other public official save exactly to the degree in which he himself stands by the country. It is patriotic to support him in so far as he efficiently serves the country. It is unpatriotic not to oppose him to the exact extent that by inefficiency or otherwise he fails in his duty to stand by the country. In either event it is unpatriotic not to tell the truth – whether about the President or about anyone else. – Theodore Roosevelt, 26th US president (1858-1919)
  • Our society must make it right and possible for old people not to fear the young or be deserted by them, for the test of a civilization is the way that it cares for its helpless members. – Pearl S. Buck, Nobelist novelist (26 Jun 1892-1973)
  • I don’t believe that the big men, the politicians and the capitalists alone are guilty of the war. Oh, no, the little man is just as keen, otherwise the people of the world would have risen in revolt long ago! There is an urge and rage in people to destroy, to kill, to murder, and until all mankind, without exception, undergoes a great change, wars will be waged, everything that has been built up, cultivated and grown, will be destroyed and disfigured, after which mankind will have to begin all over again. – Anne Frank, Holocaust diarist (12 Jun 1929-1945)
  • We are not afraid to entrust the American people with unpleasant facts, foreign ideas, alien philosophies, and competitive values. For a nation that is afraid to let its people judge the truth and falsehood in an open market is a nation that is afraid of its people. – John F. Kennedy, 35th US president (29 May 1917-1963)
  • The moral test of government is how that government treats those who are in the dawn of life, the children; those who are in the twilight of life, the elderly; and those who are in the shadows of life — the sick, the needy and the handicapped. – Hubert Horatio Humphrey, US Vice President (1911-1978)
  • “As a general truth, communities prosper and flourish, or droop and decline, in just the degree that they practise or neglect to practise the primary duties of justice and humanity.” – William Henry Seward, Secretary of State, Governor, and Senator (16 May 1801-1872)
  • “If they can get you asking the wrong questions, they don’t have to worry about the answers.” – Thomas Pynchon, novelist (b. 8 May 1937)
  • President, n. The leading figure in a small group of men of whom – and of whom only – it is positively known that immense numbers of their countrymen did not want any of them for president. – Ambrose Bierce, author and editor (1842-1914)
  •  I dream of a world where the truth is what shapes people’s politics, rather than politics shaping what people think is true. – Neil deGrasse Tyson, Astrophysicist, author and science communicator (1958- )
  • Perhaps travel cannot prevent bigotry, but by demonstrating that all peoples cry, laugh, eat, worry, and die, it can introduce the idea that if we try and understand each other, we may even become friends. – Maya Angelou, poet (4 Apr 1928-2014
  • The absurd does not liberate; it binds. – Albert Camus, French author and philosopher (1913-1960)
  • Did you know that the worldwide food shortage that threatens up to five hundred million children could be alleviated at the cost of only one day, only ONE day, of modern warfare. – Peter Ustinov, actor, writer and director (16 Apr 1921-2004)
  • Many people consider the things government does for them to be social progress but they regard the things government does for others as socialism. – Earl Warren, jurist (1891-1974)
  • All religions united with government are more or less inimical to liberty. All, separated from government, are compatible with liberty. – Henry Clay, statesman and orator (12 Apr 1777-1852)
  • It would indeed be ironic if, in the name of national defense, we would sanction the subversion of one of those liberties which make the defense of our nation worthwhile. – Earl Warren, jurist (1891-1974)
  • Tis the time’s plague when madmen lead the blind.
    – William Shakespeare, poet and dramatist (1564-1616)
  • Listen to the wind, it talks.  Listen to the silence, it speaks.  Listen to your heart, it knows. – Native American proverb

  • Since Auschwitz we know what man is capable of. And since Hiroshima we know what is at stake. – Viktor Frankl, author, neurologist and psychiatrist, Holocaust survivor (26 Mar 1905-1997)

  • I had a dollar. I met a man with a dollar. We exchanged dollars, and when we parted we each still had only a dollar.

    I had an idea. I met a man with an idea. We exchanged ideas, and when we parted we each had two ideas.  – Author Unknown

  • No human being is illegal. – Elie Wiesel, writer, Nobel laureate (b. 1928)

  • One of the saddest lessons of history is this: If we’ve been bamboozled long enough, we tend to reject any evidence of the bamboozle. We’re no longer interested in finding out the truth. The bamboozle has captured us. It’s simply too painful to acknowledge, even to ourselves, that we’ve been taken. Once you give a charlatan power over you, you almost never get it back. – Carl Sagan, astronomer and writer (1934-1996)
  • The difference between a broken community and a thriving one is the presence of women who are valued. – Michelle Obama, former First Lady of the United States (1964-)
    • I raise up my voice – not so I can shout but so that those without a voice can be heard…we cannot succeed when half of us are held back. – Malala Yousafzai, Pakistani activist for female education and the youngest-ever Nobel Prize laureate (1997-)

    • First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out– Because I was not a Socialist. Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out– Because I was not a Trade Unionist. Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out– Because I was not a Jew. Then they came for me– and there was no one left to speak for me. -Martin Niemoller, pastor, initial supporter of Hitler, concentration camp survivor (1892 – Mar. 6, 1984)

    • Ignorance is an evil weed, which dictators may cultivate among their dupes, but which no democracy can afford among its citizens. – William Beveridge, economist and social reformer (5 Mar 1879-1963)

    • Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better. It’s not. – Dr. Seuss, author and illustrator (2 Mar 1904-1991)

  • I don’t make jokes. I just watch the government and report the facts. – Will Rogers, humorist, actor & social commentator (1879-1935)
    • A man who lies to himself, and believes his own lies, becomes unable to recognize truth, either in himself or in anyone else, and he ends up losing respect for himself and for others. – Fyodor Dostoevsky, novelist (1821-1881)

    • The people of these United States are the rightful masters of both Congresses and courts, not to overthrow the Constitution, but to overthrow the men who pervert the Constitution. – Abraham Lincoln, 16th US President (12 Feb 1809-1865)

    • The limits of tyrants is prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress. – Frederick Douglass, abolitionist, editor, and orator (1817-1895)

  • It is horrifying that we have to fight our own government to save the environment. – Ansel Adams, photographer (1902-1984)
    • Once or twice in every generation a line is crossed so egregiously that where you stood on the issue will forever define you. – Kara Vallow, artist (b. 1967)

    • If ever the time should come, when vain and aspiring men shall possess the highest seats in government, our country will stand in need of its experienced patriots to prevent its ruin. – Samuel Adams, revolutionary (1722-1803)

    • Remember, tomorrow we are not crowning a king, or bowing down to a dictator. Tomorrow, our new employee starts his temp job. We’re the boss. – Audra McDonald, actress and singer (b. 1970), on Jan 19, 2017

    • Justice will not be served until those who are unaffected are as outraged as those who are. – Benjamin Franklin, statesman, author, and inventor (17 Jan 1706-1790)

  • Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that. We must learn to live together as brothers or perish together as fools. –  Martin Luther King, Jr.,speech while being honored at the Davenport Catholic Interracial Council’s Pacem in Terris Peace and Freedom Award banquet, April 28, 1965
  • Rise above the narrow confines of our individualistic concerns to the broader concerns of all humanity. The individual or nation that feels that it can live in isolation has allowed itself to sleep through a revolution. The geographical togetherness of the modern world makes our very existence dependent on co-existence. We must all learn to live together as brothers or we will all perish together as fools. Because of our involvement in humanity we must be concerned about every human being. – Martin Luther King, Jr., commencement address at Morehouse College, 1959
  • I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word in reality. This is why right temporarily defeated is stronger than evil triumphant. – Martin Luther King, Jr., Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech, 1959
  • A society that presumes a norm of violence and celebrates aggression, whether in the subway, on the football field, or in the conduct of its business, cannot help making celebrities of the people who would destroy it. – Lewis H. Lapham, editor and writer (b. 8 Jan 1935)
    • You must protest 

      It is your diamond duty

      Ah but in such an ugly time the true protest is beauty.

      -Phil Ochs, folksinger (19 Dec 1940-1976)

    • Business!  Mankind was my business.  The common welfare was my business; charity, mercy, forbearance and benevolence were all my business.  The dealings of my trade were but a drop of water in the comprehensive ocean of my business.  Jacob Marley – ” A Christmas Carol” by Charles Dickens

    • It isn’t time to give up, curl up or shut up. It’s time to stand up, act up & speak up. The threat isn’t the hate of some but silence of many. – Sen. Corey Booker

    • Surplus wealth is a sacred trust which its possessor is bound to administer in his lifetime for the good of the community. – Andrew Carnegie, industrialist (25 Nov 1835-1919)

    • The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The second best time is now.– Chinese Proverb 

  • To be hopeful in bad times is not just foolishly romantic. It is based on the fact that human-history is a history not only of cruelty, but also of compassion, sacrifice, courage, kindness. What we choose to emphasize in this complex history will determine our lives. If we see only the worst, it destroys our capacity to do something. … And if we do act, in however a small way, we don’t have to wait for some grand utopian future. The future is an infinite succession of presents, and to live now as we think human beings should live, in defiance of all that is bad around us, is in itself a marvelous victory.  – Howard Zinn, Aug 24, 1922 – Jan 27, 2010