Mitsumasa Yonai (1880–1948) Prime Minister of Japan
Quoted in "Japanese Hurl Veiled Threat", Los Angeles Times (February 11, 1940).
Interview by Michael Lerner in Tikkun, April 5, 1999 http://www.chomsky.info/interviews/19990405.htm. <br class="br">Quotes 1990s, 1995-1999 <br class="br">Context: The United States is not going in there to save the oppressed. If we wanted to save the oppressed we could have supported the nonviolent movement instead of selling them out at Dayton. Any kind of turbulence in the Balkans is a threat to the interests of rich, privileged, powerful people. Therefore, any turbulence in the Balkans is called a crisis. The same circumstances would not be a crisis were they to occur in Sierra Leone, or Central America, or even Turkey. But in Europe, the heartland of American economic interests, any threat in the Balkans has the possibility of spilling over.
Mitsumasa Yonai (1880–1948) Prime Minister of Japan
Quoted in "Japanese Hurl Veiled Threat", Los Angeles Times (February 11, 1940).
“The United States has the power to destroy the world, but not the power to save it alone.”
Margaret Mead (1901–1978) American anthropologist
As quoted in Quotations for Our Time (1977), by Laurence J. Peter, p. 509
1970s
Fidel Castro (1926–2016) former First Secretary of the Communist Party and President of Cuba
The Second Declaration of Havana (1962)
“Nobody's going to elect me president of the United States.”
Michael Bloomberg (1942) American businessman and politician, former mayor of New York City
http://politics.nytimes.com/election-guide/2008/crucialdates/
Presidential Prospects
John F. Kennedy (1917–1963) 35th president of the United States of America
1961, Inaugural Address
Context: So let us begin anew — remembering on both sides that civility is not a sign of weakness, and sincerity is always subject to proof. Let us never negotiate out of fear. But let us never fear to negotiate.
Let both sides explore what problems unite us instead of belaboring those problems which divide us. [... ] Let both sides seek to invoke the wonders of science instead of its terrors. Together let us explore the stars, conquer the deserts, eradicate disease, tap the ocean depths, and encourage the arts and commerce.
Let both sides unite to heed in all corners of the earth the command of Isaiah — to "undo the heavy burdens … and to let the oppressed go free."
Ilana Mercer South African writer
“Economic Apocalypse Now,” http://www.ilanamercer.com/phprunner/public_article_list_view.php?editid1=603 WorldNetDaily.com, June 3, 2011. <br class="br">2010s, 2011
Woodrow Wilson (1856–1924) American politician, 28th president of the United States (in office from 1913 to 1921)
Section XII: “The Liberation of a People's Vital Energies”, p. 286 http://books.google.com/books?id=MW8SAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA286&dq=%22If+there+are+men+in+this+country%22 <br class="br">1910s, The New Freedom (1913) <br class="br">Context: If there are men in this country big enough to own the government of the United States, they are going to own it; what we have to determine now is whether we are big enough, whether we are men enough, whether we are free enough, to take possession again of the government which is our own.
Louie Gohmert (1953) American politician
Speech to the United States House of Representatives (July 2015)