Speech to the St. David's Day Banquet in Cardiff (1 March 1927), quoted in Our Inheritance (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1938), pp. 46-47.
1927
Context: ... that chauvinistic spirit which so often has been the curse of modern Europe. The best way in which you can develop a true national feeling and put your own country in the pride of place which belongs to her is to do it in communion with other nations and with the sole object of improving the world at large. It is not from disillusionment we have suffered since the War; we are taking a more sober view both of ourselves and of the world... Nationalism can take on some very ugly shapes. It looks as if as many crimes will be committed in its name as in the name of Religion or of Liberty. Indeed the source of the trouble is that Nationalists are apt to assume the garments of Religion... Love of one's country has been perverted into hatred of our neighbour's country by the preaching of lop-sided intellectuals, who themselves generally manage to escape the martyrdom they provide for others.
“O Liberty, how many crimes are committed in thy name!”
On being led to her execution, sometimes stated to have been directed at a specific statue of Liberty, in Memoirs, Appendix; reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919), and in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922); used by Thomas Babington Macaulay, Essay on Mirabeau.
Variants:
O liberté, comme on t'a jouée!
O Liberty, how thou hast been played with!
As quoted in Letters Containing a Sketch of the Politics of France (1795) by Helen Maria Williams, Vol. 1, p. 201 http://books.google.de/books?id=FTkuAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA201
Original
O Liberté, que de crimes on commet en ton nom!
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Marie-Jeanne Roland de la Platière 2
French revolutionary 1754–1793Related quotes
“Oh words, what crimes are committed in your name!”
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Written in his Journal, 2nd Jan 1799, referring to the recent 1798 Rebellion. Quoted from Vol I, p. 205, of O'Neill Daunt, W. J., Personal Recollections of the Late Daniel O'Connell, M.P., 2 Vols, London, 1848.
§ IV
1910s, At the Feet of the Master (1911)
Context: Superstition is another mighty evil, and has caused much terrible cruelty. The man who is a slave to it despises others who are wiser, tries to force them to do as he does. Think of the awful slaughter produced by the superstition that animals should be sacrificed, and by the still more cruel superstition that man needs flesh for food. Think of the treatment which superstition has meted out to the depressed classes in our beloved India, and see in that how this evil quality can breed heartless cruelty even among those who know the duty of brotherhood. Many crimes have men committed in the name of the God of Love, moved by this nightmare of superstition; be very careful therefore that no slightest trace of it remains in you.
St. 9
Rugby Chapel (1867)
Friday Sermon in Qom, Iran: America Will Not be Able to Stay Here http://www.memritv.org/clip_transcript/en/233.htm August 2004.
Democracy in Iraq
“Dire lust of gold! how mighty thy controll
To bend to crime man's impotence of soul!”
Book III, lines 74–75
The Æneis (1817)