“No people in history have ever survived, who thought they could protect their freedom by making themselves inoffensive to their enemies.”

—  Dean Acheson

Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "No people in history have ever survived, who thought they could protect their freedom by making themselves inoffensive …" by Dean Acheson?
Dean Acheson photo
Dean Acheson 49
Statesman and lawyer 1893–1971

Related quotes

Sören Kierkegaard photo

“People hardly ever make use of the freedom which they have, for example, freedom of thought; instead they demand freedom of speech as compensation.”

Sören Kierkegaard (1813–1855) Danish philosopher and theologian, founder of Existentialism

Source: The Living Thoughts Of Kierkegaard

Will Cuppy photo

“They [the Pilgrim Fathers] believed in freedom of thought for themselves and for all other people who believed exactly as they did.”

Will Cuppy (1884–1949) American writer

The Decline and Fall of Practically Everybody (1950), Part VI: Now We're Getting Somewhere, Miles Standish

“All of them, all except Phineas, constructed at infinite cost to themselves these Maginot Lines against this enemy they thought they saw across the frontier, this enemy who never attacked that way-if he ever attacked at all; if he was indeed the enemy.”

John Knowles book A Separate Peace

Gene, on the enemy.
Source: A Separate Peace (1959), P. 196

Assata Shakur photo

“Nobody in the world, nobody in history, has ever gotten their freedom by appealing to the moral sense of people who oppressing them.”

Assata Shakur (1947) American activist who was a member of the Black Panther Party and Black Liberation Army

Variant: Nobody in the world, nobody in history, has ever gotten their freedom by appealing to the moral sense of the people who were oppressing them.
Source: Assata: An Autobiography

Norman Mailer photo

“Politics quarantines one from history; most of the people who nourish themselves in the political life are in the game not to make history but to be diverted from the history which is being made.”

Norman Mailer (1923–2007) American novelist, journalist, essayist, playwright, film maker, actor and political candidate

Superman Comes to the Supermarket (1960)

Chinua Achebe photo

“It is the storyteller who makes us what we are, who creates history. The storyteller creates the memory that the survivors must have - otherwise their surviving would have no meaning.”

Chinua Achebe (1930–2013) Nigerian novelist, poet, professor, and critic
Harun Yahya photo

“We should show compassion to Christians. They are very inoffensive, they are very dear. Very rarely, they have small churches here and there. There are people who make fun of them and some who attempt to batter them. They are striving to protect their beliefs in Allah and to express their love for Allah under very difficult conditions. You should be very compassionate towards them. Treat them with compassion and love. Our brothers and sisters should protect and watch over them everywhere.”

Harun Yahya (1956) Turkish author

20 April 2013.
A9 TV addresses, 2013

Eric Hoffer photo

“The history of this country was made largely by people who wanted to be left alone. Those who could not thrive when left to themselves never felt at ease in America.”

Eric Hoffer (1898–1983) American philosopher

Source: Reflections on the Human Condition (1973) Section 53

Jacques-Yves Cousteau photo

“For most of history, man has had to fight nature to survive; in this century he is beginning to realize that, in order to survive, he must protect it.”

Jacques-Yves Cousteau (1910–1997) French naval officer, explorer, conservationist, filmmaker, innovator, scientist, photographer, author and …
Clifford D. Simak photo

“He had acted on an impulse, with no thought at all. The girl had asked protection and here she had protection, here nothing in the world ever could get at her.”

Clifford D. Simak book Way Station

Source: Way Station (1963), Ch. 16
Context: He had acted on an impulse, with no thought at all. The girl had asked protection and here she had protection, here nothing in the world ever could get at her. But she was a human being and no human being, other than himself, should have ever crossed the threshold.
But it was done and there was no way to change it. Once across the threshold, there was no way to change it.

Related topics