Quotes to review from time to time

[911pcars]

These are quotes from history that are as true today as they were then. We can learn from those who were both wiser and probably right. It's surprising that a few words can say so much.

I guess you know where I stand.
Sherwood

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Before the war is ended, the war party assumes the divine right to denounce and silence all opposition to war as unpatriotic and cowardly. ~Senator Robert M. La Follette

Wars are inevitable...as long as we believe that wars are inevitable. The moment we don't believe it anymore it is not inevitable. ~Lydia Sicher

I guess every generation is doomed to fight its war...suffer the loss of the same old illusions, and learn the same old lessons on its own. ~Phillip Caputo

Guard against the impostures of pretended patriotism. ~George Washington

Patriotism means to stand by the country. It does not mean to stand by the president or any other public official... ~Theodore Roosevelt

War creates peace like hate creates love. ~David L. Wilson

Never believe any war will be smooth and easy, or that anyone who embarks on the strange voyage can measure the tides and hurricanes he will encounter. ~Sir Winston Churchill

The life of the nation is secure only while the nation is honest, truthful, and virtuous. ~Frederick Douglass

It is far easier to make war than peace. ~Georges Clemenceau

The belief in the possibility of a short decisive war appears to be one of the most ancient and dangerous of human illusions. ~Robert Lynd

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

The dangerous patriot...drifts into chauvinism and exhibits blind enthusiasm for military actions. ~Colonel James A. Donovan, Marine Corps

Our country is now geared to an arms economy bred in an artificually induced psychosis of war hysteria and an incessant propaganda of fear. ~General Douglas MacArthur

A state of war only serves as an excuse for domestic tyranny. ~Alexander Solzhenitsyn

Any man who has once proclaimed violence as his method is inevitably forced to take the lie as his principle. ~Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

Look at you in war...There has never been a just one, never an honorable one, on the part of the instigator of the war. ~Mark Twain

In order to rally people, governments need enemies. They want us to be afraid, to hate, so we will rally behind them. ~Thich Nhat Hanh, Vietnamese Buddhist monk

Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent. ~Issac Asimov

...Violence as a way of gaining power...is being camouflaged under the guise of tradition, national honor [and] national security... ~Alfred Adler

It is always easier to fight for one’s principles than to live up to them. ~Alfred Adler

We will not learn how to live together in peace by killing each other's children. ~Jimmy Carter

I hope our wisdom will grow with our power, and teach us, that the less we use our power the greater it will be. ~Thomas Jefferson

The dangerous patriot...is a defender of militarism and its ideals of war and glory.
~Colonel James A. Donovan, Marine Corps

...Uncalled-for aggression arouses the hatred of the civilian population... ~Jean-Paul Sartre

We must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. ~Dwight D. Eisenhower

A patriot must always be ready to defend his country against his government. ~Edward Abbey

War remains the decisive human failure. ~John Kenneth Galbraith

Unthinking respect for authority is the greatest enemy of truth. ~Albert Einstein

Today the real test of power is not capacity to make war but capacity to prevent it. ~Anne O'Hare McCormick

We thought, because we had power, we had wisdom. ~Stephen Vincent Benét

History teaches that war begins when governments believe the price of aggression is cheap. ~Ronald Reagan

Right is right, even if everyone is against it, and wrong is wrong, even if everyone is for it. ~William Penn

May we never confuse honest dissent with disloyal subversion. ~Dwight D. Eisenhower

We first fought...in the name of religion, then Communism, and now in the name of drugs and terrorism. Our excuses for global domination always change. ~Serj Tankian

People do not make wars; governments do. ~Ronald Reagan

To announce that there must be no criticism of the president...is morally treasonable to the American public. ~Theodore Roosevelt

When the people fear their government, there is tyranny; when the government fears the people, there is liberty. ~Thomas Jefferson

If Tyranny and Oppression come to this land, it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy. ~James Madison

Political language ... is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind. ~George Orwell

The Department of Defense is the behemoth...With an annual budget larger than the gross domestic product of Russia, it is an empire. ~The 9/11 Commission Report

A man who says that no patriot should attack the war until it is over...is saying no good son should warn his mother of a cliff until she has fallen. ~G. K. Chesterton

Every war when it comes, or before it comes, is represented not as a war but as an act of self-defense against a homicidal maniac. ~George Orwell

Criticism in a time of war is essential to the maintenance of any kind of democratic government. ~Sen. Robert Taft, (R) Ohio

In times of peace, the war party insists on making preparation for war. As soon as prepared for, it insists on making war. ~Senator Robert M. La Follette

Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. ~Voltaire

The evils of government are directly proportional to the tolerance of the people. ~Frank Kent

Emphasis on military prowess is an indication of philosophical poverty. ~Henk Middelraad

I love America more than any other country in the world and, exactly for this reason, I insist on the right to criticize her perpetually. ~James Baldwin

Most wars are started by well-fed people with time on their hands to dream up half-baked ideologies or grandiose ambitions... ~Thomas Sowell

The means of defense against foreign danger historically have become the instruments of tyranny at home. ~James Madison

All men having power ought to be mistrusted. ~James Madison

The people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders...tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the peacemakers for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. ~Herman Goering

Governments have never learned anything from history, or acted on principles deducted from it. ~Friedrich Hebbel, German poet and dramatist

We Americans have no commission from God to police the world. ~Benjamin Harrison

We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security. ~Dwight D. Eisenhower

I'm afraid, based on my own experience, that fascism will come to America in the name of national security. ~Jim Garrison

We must get away from the idea that America is to be the leader of the world in everything. ~Francis John McConnell

Peace is not absence of conflict, it is the ability to handle conflict by peaceful means. ~Ronald Reagan

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 a purpose—and you allow him to make war at pleasure. ~Abraham Lincoln

and finally.....
Our enemies...never stop thinking about new ways to harm our country and our people, and neither do we. ~George W. Bush

[Jim Richards]

Worth reflecting on, that is, if one has the mental capacity for reflection.