“Morale was deteriorating and it was all Yossarian's fault. The country was in peril; he was jeopardizing his traditional rights of freedom and independence by daring to exercise them.”

—  Joseph Heller , book Catch-22

Source: Catch-22 (1961)

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "Morale was deteriorating and it was all Yossarian's fault. The country was in peril; he was jeopardizing his traditiona…" by Joseph Heller?
Joseph Heller photo
Joseph Heller 132
American author 1923–1999

Related quotes

Joseph Heller photo
Maximilien Robespierre photo
Pricasso photo

“This is a free country. A free society throws up these kinds of people, who exercise their freedom in unusual ways. And if this is how he wants to do it, I must accept his constitutional right to do so.”

Pricasso (1949) Australian painter

Mayor of Capetown Helen Zille — cited in: [Cape Argus staff, Artist uses a different stroke on Zille portrait, Cape Argus, South Africa, 7 May 2008, 3, Independent Online]
About

Ulysses S. Grant photo

“I would protect the law-abiding citizen, whether of native or foreign birth, wherever his rights are jeopardized or the flag of our country floats.”

Ulysses S. Grant (1822–1885) 18th President of the United States

1860s, First Inaugural Address (1869)
Context: In regard to foreign policy, I would deal with nations as equitable law requires individuals to deal with each other, and I would protect the law-abiding citizen, whether of native or foreign birth, wherever his rights are jeopardized or the flag of our country floats. I would respect the rights of all nations, demanding equal respect for our own. If others depart from this rule in their dealings with us, we may be compelled to follow their precedent.

Alvin Plantinga photo
Harry V. Jaffa photo

“A Moral Reckoning is, among its other faults, a 352-page exercise in intellectual bad manners. Reading it is like listening for three days to Nikita Khrushchev banging his shoe.”

Mark Riebling (1963) American writer

Jesus, Jews and the Shoah: A Moral Reckoning by Daniel Jonah Goldhagen (2003)

Buckminster Fuller photo

“All of humanity is in peril of extinction if each one of us does not dare, now and henceforth, always to tell only the truth, and all the truth, and to do so promptly — right now.”

Buckminster Fuller (1895–1983) American architect, systems theorist, author, designer, inventor and futurist

From 1980s onwards, Critical Path (1981)

William Cullen Bryant photo

“To say that he who holds unpopular opinions must hold them at the peril of his life, and that, if he expresses them in public, he has only himself to blame if they who disagree with him should rise and put him to death, is to strike at all rights, all liberties, all protection of the laws, and to justify and extenuate all crimes.”

William Cullen Bryant (1794–1878) American romantic poet and journalist

Editorial written in remembrance of Elijah Parish Lovejoy, Presbyterian minister, journalist, newspaper editor and abolitionist, who was murdered by a pro-slavery mob in Alton, Illinois during their attack on his warehouse to destroy his press and abolitionist materials.

Context: The right to discuss freely and openly, by speech, by the pen, by the press, all political questions, and to examine and animadvert upon all political institutions, is a right so clear and certain, so interwoven with our other liberties, so necessary, in fact to their existence, that without it we must fall at once into depression or anarchy. To say that he who holds unpopular opinions must hold them at the peril of his life, and that, if he expresses them in public, he has only himself to blame if they who disagree with him should rise and put him to death, is to strike at all rights, all liberties, all protection of the laws, and to justify and extenuate all crimes.

Noam Chomsky photo

“[The "liberal media"] love to be denounced from the right, and the right loves to denounce them, because that makes them look like courageous defenders of freedom and independence while, in fact, they are imposing all of the presuppositions of the propaganda system.”

Noam Chomsky (1928) american linguist, philosopher and activist

Interview by Ira Shorr, February 11, 1996 http://www.chomsky.info/interviews/19960211.htm
Quotes 1990s, 1995-1999

Related topics