A great war leaves the country with three armies - an army of cripples, an army of mourners, and an army of thieves.
- German proverb

You're not supposed to be so blind with patriotism that you can't face reality. Wrong is wrong, no matter who says it.
- Malcolm X

Many a bum show has been saved by the flag.
- George M. Cohan

No matter that patriotism is too often the refuge of scoundrels. Dissent, rebellion, and all-around hell-raising remain the true duty of patriots.
- Barbara Ehrenreich

Nationalism is our form of incest, is our idolatry, is our insanity. "Patriotism" is its cult. It should hardly be necessary to say, that by "patriotism" I mean that attitude which puts the own nation above humanity, above the principles of truth and justice; not the loving interest in one's own nation, which is the concern with the nation's spiritual as much as with its material welfare - never with its power over other nations. Just as love for one individual which excludes the love for others is not love, love for one's country which is not part of one's love for humanity is not love, but idolatrous worship.
- Erich Fromm

How much longer are we going to think it necessary to be "American" before (or in contradistinction to) being cultivated, being enlightened, being humane, and having the same intellectual discipline as other civilized countries?
- Edith Wharton

Hatred - the anger of the weak.
- Alphonse Daudet, writer (1840-1897)

In America, anybody can be president. That's one of the risks you take.
- Adlai Stevenson, statesman (1900-1965)

Love is like war; easy to begin but very hard to stop.
- H.L. Mencken, writer, editor, and critic (1880-1956)

The trouble with the world is that the stupid are cocksure and the intelligent are full of doubt.
- Bertrand Russell, sphilosopher, mathematician, and author (1872-1970)

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 (1921-2004)

When nations grow old, the arts grow cold and commerce settles on every tree.
- William Blake, poet, engraver, and painter (1757-1827)

Labor to keep alive in your breast that little spark of celestial fire called conscience.
- George Washington, 1st US president (1732-1799)

Youth is the first victim of war - the first fruit of peace. It takes 20 years or more of peace to make a man; it takes only 20 seconds of war to destroy him.
- Boudewijn I, King of Belgium (1934-1993)

If we make peaceful revolution impossible, we make violent revolution inevitable.
- John F. Kennedy, 35th US president (1917-1963)

What you do speaks so loud that I cannot hear what you say.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson, writer and philosopher (1803- 1882)

The tax which will be paid for the purpose of education is not more than the thousandth part of what will be paid to kings, priests and nobles who will rise up among us if we leave the people in ignorance.
- Thomas Jefferson, third U.S. president, architect and author (1743- 1826)

Seven blunders of the world that lead to violence: wealth without work, pleasure without conscience, knowledge without character, commerce without morality, science without humanity, worship without sacrifice, politics without principle.
- Mahatma Gandhi (1869- 1948)

There are no passengers on spaceship earth. We are all crew.
- Marshall McLuhan (1911- 1980)

Power is not revealed by striking hard or often, but by striking true.
- Honore de Balzac (1799- 1850)

I am not one of those who believe that a great army is the means of maintaining peace, because if you build up a great profession those who form parts of it want to exercise their profession.
- Woodrow Wilson, 28th US president, Nobel laureate (1856-1924)

How far you go in life depends on your being tender with the young, compassionate with the aged, sympathetic with the striving and tolerant of the weak and strong. Because someday in life you will have been all of these.
- George Washington Carver (1864?- 1943)

As scarce as truth is, the supply has always been in excess of the demand.
- Josh Billings

I may disagree with what you have to say, but I shall defend, to the death, your right to say it.
- Voltaire (1694- 1778)

The means by which we live have outdistanced the ends for which we live. Our scientific power has outrun our spiritual power. We have guided missiles and misguided men.
- Martin Luther King, Jr., civil- rights leader (1929- 1968)

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

It is curious that physical courage should be so common in the world and moral courage so rare.
- Mark Twain, author and humorist (1835- 1910)

Hot lead can be almost as effective coming from a linotype as from a firearm.
- John O'Hara, journalist (1905- 1970)

It is not what we do, but also what we do not do, for which we are accountable.
- Moliere, actor and playwright (1622- 1673)

If you must play, decide on three things at the start: the rules of the game, the stakes, and the quitting time.
- Chinese Proverb

The hottest places in hell are reserved for those who, in time of great moral crisis, maintain their neutrality.
- Dante Alighieri, poet (1265- 1321)

Reading makes a full man, meditation a profound man, discourse a clear man.
- Benjamin Franklin

The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, and wiser people so full of doubts.
- Bertrand Russell, Philosopher, mathematician, and writer

Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from religious conviction.
- Blaise Pascal, philosopher and mathematician (1623- 1662)

If the only tool you have is a hammer, you tend to see every problem as a nail.
- Abraham Maslow

Until lions have their historians, tales of the hunt shall always glorify the hunter.
- African proverb

In nature there are neither rewards nor punishments; there are consequences.
- Robert Green Ingersoll, lawyer and orator (1833- 1899)

Even if you're on the right track, you'll get run over if you just sit there.
- Arthur Godfrey

I believe there are more instances of the abridgment of the rights of the people by the gradual and silent encroachments of those in power than by violent and sudden usurpations.
- James Madison, fourth US president (1751- 1836)

It is easy to be brave from a safe distance.
- Aesop

One more such victory and we are lost.
- Phyrrhus, on beating the Romans at the Battle of the Asculum

In violence, we forget who we are.
- Mary McCarthy

The death of democracy is not likely to be an assassination from ambush. It will be a slow extinction from apathy, indifference, and undernourishment.
- Robert Maynard Hutchins, educator (1899- 1977)

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.
- Theodore Roosevelt, 26th US President (1858- 1919)

This is the devilish thing about foreign affairs: they are foreign and will not always conform to our whim.
- James Reston, journalist (1909- 1995)

The most important political office is that of private citizen.
- Louis Brandeis, lawyer, judge, and writer (1856- 1941)

Politics, n. Strife of interests masquerading as a contest of principles.
- Ambrose Bierce, writer (1842- 1914)

After two years in Washington, I often long for the realism and sincerity of Hollywood.
- Fred Thompson, US senator, lawyer, writer, and actor (1942 - )

The fetters imposed on liberty at home have ever been forged out of the weapons provided for defence against real, pretended, or imaginary dangers from abroad.
- James Madison, 4th US president (1751- 1836)

They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.
- Benjamin Franklin

A patriot must always be ready to defend his country against its government.
- Edward Abbey, naturalist and author (1927- 1989)

America is not anything if it consists of each of us. It is something only if it consists of all of us.
- Woodrow Wilson, 28th President of the United States (1913-1921)

The deterioration of every government begins with the decay of the principles on which it was founded.
- C.L. De Montesquieu

If you think education is expensive, try ignorance.
- Derek Bok

The aim of an argument or discussion should not be victory, but progress.
- Joseph Joubert, essayist (1754-1824)

Absolute faith corrupts as absolutely as absolute power.
- Eric Hoffer, philosopher and author (1902-1983)

There is enormous institutional resistance to change in this country. You cannot expect people with great privileges taken at the expense of ordinary working people to surrender them lightly.
- Vermont Gov. Howard Dean, M.D., February 18, 2004

The penalty that good men pay for not being interested in politics is to be governed by men worse than themselves.
- Plato, philosopher (427-347 BCE)

A union of government and religion tends to destroy government and degrade religion.
- Supreme Court Justice Hugo Black (Engel v. Vitale, 1962)

Unthinking respect for authority is the greatest enemy of truth.
- Albert Einstein, physicist, Nobel laureate (1879-1955)

America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter, and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves.
- Abraham Lincoln, 16th U.S. President (1809-1865)

As nightfall does not come at once, neither does oppression. In both instances there is a twilight when everything remains seemingly unchanged. And it is in such twilight that we all must be most aware of change in the air - however slight - lest we become unwitting victims of the darkness.
- William O. Douglas, judge (1898-1980)

I distrust those people who know so well what God wants them to do because I notice it always coincides with their own desires.
- Susan B Anthony, reformer and suffragist (1820-1906)

Our elections are free, it's in the results where eventually we pay.
- Bill Stern, sports announcer (1907-1971)

All political parties die at last of swallowing their own lies.
- John Arbuthnot, writer and physician (1667-1735)

Patriotism is supporting your country all the time and the government when it deserves it.
- Mark Twain, author and humorist (1835-1910

Puritanism: The haunting fear that someone, somewhere may be happy.
- H.L. Mencken, writer, editor, and critic (1880-1956)

Information is the currency of democracy.
- Thomas Jefferson, third U.S. president, architect and author (1743-1826)