Here are 29 newly collected quotes – all legit as far as I know.
If you want peace, work for justice. Pope Paul VI
All the worst pleasures are purely spiritual: the pleasure of putting other people in the wrong, of bossing and patronizing and spoiling sport, and back-biting, the pleasures of power, of hatred. C. S. Lewis
Bullies – political bullies, economic bullies and religious bullies – cannot be appeased; they have to be opposed with a stubbornness to match their own. This is never easy; these guys don’t fight fair. Bill Moyers
In the eyes of empire builders men are not men but instruments. Napoleon Bonaparte
The first sign of corruption in a society that is still alive is that the end justifies the means. Georges Bernanos
The First Amendment neither inculcates religion nor inoculates against it. Americans could be loyal to the Constitution without being hostile to God, or they could pay no heed to God without fear of being mugged by an official God Squad. It has been a remarkable arrangement that guaranteed “soul freedom.” Bill Moyers
The propagandist’s purpose is to make one set of people forget that certain other sets of people are human. Aldous Huxley
Few men have virtue to withstand the highest bidder. George Washington
Democrats are … compromising the strongest thing going for them – the case for a moral economy and the moral argument for the secular checks and balances that have made America a safe haven for the cause of conscience. Bill Moyers
When we talk about love we have to become mature or we will become sentimental. Basically love means … being responsible, responsibility to our family, toward our civilization, and now by the pressures of history, toward the universe of humankind. Reinhold Niebuhr
People do not make wars, governments do – and no mother would ever willingly sacrifice her sons for territorial gain, for economic advantage, for ideology. A people free to choose will always choose peace. Ronald Reagan, Moscow, May 31,1988
I have never had a feeling, politically, that did not spring from … the Declaration of Independence … that all should have an equal chance. This is the sentiment embodied in the Declaration of Independence … I would rather be assassinated on this spot than surrender it. Abraham Lincoln
I have not placed reading before praying because I regard it more important, but because, in order to pray aright, we must understand what we are praying for. Angelina Grimke
The enemy aggressor is always pursuing a course of larceny, murder, rapine and barbarism. We are always moving forward with high mission, a destiny imposed by the Deity to regenerate our victims while incidentally capturing their markets, to civilize savage and senile and paranoid peoples while blundering accidentally into their oil wells. John Flynn, 1944
A centralised democracy may be as tyrannical as an absolute monarch; and if the vigour of the nation is to continue unimpaired, each individual, each family, each district, must preserve as far as possible its independence, its self-completeness, its powers and its privilege to manage its own affairs and think its own thoughts. James Anthony Froude
Democracy must be something more than two wolves and a sheep voting on what to have for dinner. James Bovard
Until we go through it ourselves, until our people cower in the shelters of New York, Washington, Chicago, Los Angeles and elsewhere while the buildings collapse overhead and burst into flames, and dead bodies hurtle about and, when it is over for the day or the night, emerge in the rubble to find some of their dear ones mangled, their homes gone, their hospitals, churches, schools demolished – only after that gruesome experience will we realize what we are inflicting on the people of Indochina… William Shirer
I hated my part in the charade of murder and horror. My efforts were contributing to the deaths, to the burning alive of children – especially the children. The photographs of young Vietnamese children burned by napalm destroyed me. Ralph McGehee (former CIA intelligence analyst)
There is no flag large enough to cover the shame of killing innocent people for a purpose which is unattainable. Howard Zinn
You’re not to be so blind with patriotism that you can’t face reality. Wrong is wrong, no matter who does it or says it. Malcolm X
We think sometimes that poverty is only being hungry, naked and homeless. The poverty of being unwanted, unloved and uncared for is the greatest poverty. Mother Teresa of Calcutta
If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State. Joseph Goebbels (Hitler’s Minister of Propaganda)
I am not bound to win, but I am bound to be true. I am not bound to succeed, but I am bound to live by the light that I have. I must stand with anybody that stands right, stand with him while he is right, and part with him when he goes wrong. Abraham Lincoln
I’m willing to say things that are not popular but ordinary people know are right. Howard Dean
Each man must for himself alone decide what is right and what is wrong, which course is patriotic and which isn’t. You cannot shirk this and be a man. To decide against your conviction is to be an unqualified and excusable traitor, both to yourself and to your country, let them label you as they may. Mark Twain
Only a free and unrestrained press can effectively expose deception in government. And paramount among the responsibilities of a free press is the duty to prevent any part of the government from deceiving the people. Hugo L. Black
The cry has been that when war is declared, all opposition should therefore be hushed. A sentiment more unworthy of a free country could hardly be propagated. If the doctrine be admitted, rulers have only to declare war and they are screened at once from scrutiny. William Ellery Channing
As one student put it: “I used to think courage was telling strangers what to believe and how to behave. Now, I believe courage is living close enough so people see who I truly am and how I truly need Jesus.” YouthSpecialties
Given that the Woodwards of today dance on their hind legs begging officialdom for “access”, news without official blessing doesn’t stand a chance … There is no chance that the Managing Editor of the Washington Post, Bob Woodward, would today run Deep Throat’s story of the Watergate break-in. Greg Palast
Perhaps the Scrutinator could give us specific examples of cynicism and/or paranoia in the above quotes?
“The First Amendment neither inculcates religion nor inoculates against it. Americans could be loyal to the Constitution without being hostile to God, or they could pay no heed to God without fear of being mugged by an official God Squad” –Bill Moyers.
Ugh! The cynicism! The paranoia!
That’s funny. Reading your reply, Scrutinator, gave me a keen sentiment of déjà -vu for I was just taking a rest from my (already second) vivid discussion with a Mr. Bob Badour at http://www.parapundit.com/, dealing with immigration, poverty and the clash of civilizations. Take a look (here/old and here/actual), you’ll like it; they are talking exactly like you:
1. I’m off topic, because, God forbid, market fundamentalism and the hidden knout of economic liberalism cum imperialism has not anything to do with the poor devolution of global peace and social order – or with a majority of mankind meanwhile positively disliking what America represents;
2. I’m a poet strayed into scientific discussions, and
3. I am twisting words, not paying enough attention, because I try to find out what premises are taken for granted by people who pass deprecatory judgments on what I take to be the socially validated wisdom of Gospel ethics. And – of course –
4. they disagree completely. Well, the latter fact, at least, doesn’t bother me now any more than it reinforces me. And this is not due to any cynicism of mine.
Thanks, nevertheless, for your frank outspokenness.
I’m just taking your wrong presumption at face value. Of these two Rushes, I’ve been less in touch with Limbaugh.
I’m under no illusion that identifying paranoia to the paranoid will heal it. I’m just giving some food for thought to the objective observer. Your presumption that my opinions are given my by Limbaugh I present as further evidence of cynicism (and perhaps paranoia).
MB: …only one sacred, but archaic message…
You weren’t paying very close attention. (I won’t go further off topic than that.) Though I disagree with everything you say, I commend you for your poetic metaphors.