“At the present moment in world history nearly every nation must choose between alternative ways of life. The choice is too often not a free one.”
Speech to a joint session of the US Congress (12 March 1947), outlining what became known as The Truman Doctrine
Context: At the present moment in world history nearly every nation must choose between alternative ways of life. The choice is too often not a free one.
One way of life is based upon the will of the majority, and is distinguished by free institutions, representative government, free elections, guarantees of individual liberty, freedom of speech and religion, and freedom from political oppression.
The second way of life is based upon the will of a minority forcibly imposed upon the majority. It relies upon terror and oppression, a controlled press and radio; fixed elections, and the suppression of personal freedoms.
I believe that it must be the policy of the United States to support free peoples who are resisting attempted subjugation by armed minorities or by outside pressures.
I believe that we must assist free peoples to work out their own destinies in their own way.
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Harry Truman 119
American politician, 33rd president of the United States (i… 1884–1972Related quotes
First broadcast as Prime Minister, on 11 June 1964 http://lbsim.ac.in/about-shastriji.aspx?mpgid=2&pgid1=10&pgidtrail=11
Source: Wings of Fire, p. 106.
“In life you must often choose between getting a job done or getting credit for it.”
As quoted in "Some Szilardisms on War, Fame, Peace", LIFE magazine, Vol. 51, no. 9 (1 September 1961), p. 79
Context: In life you must often choose between getting a job done or getting credit for it. In science, the most important thing is not the ideas you have but the decision which ones you choose to pursue. If you have an idea and are not doing anything with it, why spoil someone else's fun by publishing it?
“At any given moment the choice to be happy is present — we just have to choose to be happy.”
Source: Life, the Truth, and Being Free (2010), p. 19
“One must, in one's life, make a choice between boredom and suffering.”
Letter to Claude Hochet (Summer 1800), quoted in J. Christopher Herold, Mistress to an Age: A Life of Madame de Staël (New York: Grove Press, 1958), p. 223
Herold comments: "Her decision was emphatically in favor of suffering, which after all was a pleasure compared to boredom." (p. 224)
The actual quotation is from a letter from Mme de Staël to Claude Hochet dated October 1, 1800 : «Il faut choisir dans la vie entre l’ennui et le tourment : je donne l’un et l’hiver l’autre» (Germaine de Staël, Correspondance générale. Tome IV. Première partie. Du directoire au Consulat. 1er décembre 1796-15 décembre 1800, texte établi et présenté par Béatrice W. Jasinski, Paris, Chez Jean-Jacques Pauvert, 1976, xii/337 p., p. 326).
1963 edition, p. 680
Human Action (1949)
New Year Message as Conservative candidate for Dartford (29 December 1950) http://www.margaretthatcher.org/document/100896
1950s
Presidential campaign (April 12, 2015 – 2016), Speech on fighting ISIS (November 20, 2015)
“Welt muss mehr denn je diese Botschaft hören,” Giessener Allgemeine Zeitung, Giessen, Germany, April 12, 2005.
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