George Orwell (1903–1950) English author and journalist
"As I Please" column in The Tribune (15 November 1946)<sup> http://alexpeak.com/twr/oocp/</sup> <br class="br">"As I Please" (1943–1947)
George Orwell (1903–1950) English author and journalist
"As I Please" column in The Tribune (15 November 1946)<sup> http://alexpeak.com/twr/oocp/</sup> <br class="br">"As I Please" (1943–1947)
Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex (1984) a member of the British royal family
Regarding his desire to be deployed in the Iraq War. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/4248234.stm (2005).
Qasem Soleimani (1957–2020) Iranian senior military officer
Dexter Filkins (30 September 2013). "The Shadow Commander" http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2013/09/30/130930fa_fact_filkins?currentPage=all. The New Yorker.
Kim Jong-un (1984) 3rd Supreme Leader of North Korea
April 15th 2012 speech in Kim Il-Sung Square, https://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/16/world/asia/kim-jong-un-north-korean-leader-talks-of-military-superiority-in-first-public-speech.html
George Orwell (1903–1950) English author and journalist
As I Please column in The Tribune (18 August 1944), http://alexpeak.com/twr/dwall/ <br class="br">"As I Please" (1943–1947)
Václav Havel (1936–2011) playwright, essayist, poet, dissident and 1st President of the Czech Republic
New Year's Address to the Nation (1990)
Frederick II of Prussia (1712–1786) king of Prussia
1777; quoted by Bert L. Vallée, Alcohol in the Western World, Scientific American, Vol. 278, No. 6 (June), 1998, pp. 80-85
George Orwell (1903–1950) English author and journalist
"Freedom of the Park", Tribune (7 December 1945)
Idi Amin (1925–2003) third president of Uganda
Quoted in Morrow's International Dictionary of Contemporary Quotations, 1982, Jonathon Green.
Attributed
John Diefenbaker (1895–1979) 13th Prime Minister of Canada
July 1, 1960. From the Canadian Bill of Rights.
Josip Broz Tito (1892–1980) Yugoslav revolutionary and statesman
Jasper Ridley, Tito: A Biography (Constable and Company Ltd., 1994), p. 128.
Other
Erich Fromm (1900–1980) German social psychologist and psychoanalyst
Jewish Newsletter [New York] (19 May 1959); quoted in Prophets in Babylon (1980) by Marion Woolfson, p. 13
George Orwell (1903–1950) English author and journalist
"As I Please," Tribune (9 June 1944)<sup> http://alexpeak.com/twr/tpithoa/</sup> <br class="br">"As I Please" (1943–1947)
Joachim Peiper (1915–1976) SS officer
Letter to Willis Everett, July 4, 1946. Parker, Hitler's Warrior, chapter 14, citing Everett Papers in note 5.
“Love your Country next to God, your honour, and most of all yourself.”
Andrés Bonifacio (1863–1897) Filipino nationalist and revolutionary
Inscription, UST Library, Manila, Philippines, 1 September 2013.
James Watt (1736–1819) British engineer
Attributed to James Watt in: Joel Mokyr, The lever of riches: Technological creativity and economic progress. Oxford University Press, 1992. p, 245
Émile Durkheim (1858–1917) French sociologist (1858-1917)
Source: Rules of Sociological Method, 1895, p. 3
Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919) American politician, 26th president of the United States
Address in Memphis, Tennessee (25 October 1905) http://www.trsite.org/content/pages/speaking-loudly <br class="br">1900s
Nathan Bedford Forrest (1821–1877) Confederate Army general
1870s, Speech before the Pole-Bearers Association (1875)
Elizabeth I of England (1533–1603) Queen regnant of England and Ireland from 17 November 1558 until 1603
The Golden Speech (1601)
Paul Robeson (1898–1976) American singer and actor
"’I Love Above All, Russia,’ Robeson Says," Afro-American, (25 June 1949), p. 7
Miriam Makeba (1932–2008) South African singer and civil rights activist
As quoted in Nkrumah, Gamal (1–7 November 2001)
Al-Ahram Weekly interview (2001)
Xi Jinping (1953) General Secretary of the Communist Party of China and paramount leader of China
As quoted in "Xi, Obama vow to step up cooperation" http://english.cntv.cn/program/newsupdate/20130608/104235.shtml in cctv.com English (8 June 2013). <br class="br">2010s
Johnny Cash (1932–2003) American singer-songwriter
From "Ragged Old Flag" on The Great Lost Performance
William Pitt the Younger (1759–1806) British politician
"The War Speeches of William Pitt", Oxford University Press, 1915, p. 16
Speech in the House of Commons, 17 February 1792, introducing the Budget. His prediction was a vain hope.
“Madam, I have come from a country where people are hanged if they talk.”
Leonhard Euler (1707–1783) Swiss mathematician
In Berlin, to the Queen Mother of Prussia, on his lack of conversation in his meeting with her, on his return from Russia; as quoted in Science in Russian Culture : A History to 1860 (1963) Alexander Vucinich
Variant: Madame... I have come from a country where one can be hanged for what one says.
Andrea Dworkin (1946–2005) Feminist writer
"Take no prisoners" http://www.guardian.co.uk/weekend/story/0,3605,220099,00.html, interview by Linda Grant, The Guardian (13 May 2000). <br class="br">About
Joseph Goebbels (1897–1945) Nazi politician and Propaganda Minister
On National-Socialism, Bolshevism & Democracy (September 10, 1938) http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/joseph-goebbels-on-national-socialism-bolshevism-and-democracy <br class="br">1930s
Antonin Scalia (1936–2016) former Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States
Board of County Commissioners, Wabaunsee County, Kansas, v. Umbehr, 518 U.S. 668 http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?court=US&vol=000&invol=U20028&friend=oyez, No. 94-1654 (1996, dissenting); decided June 28, 1996. <br class="br">1990s
George Orwell (1903–1950) English author and journalist
As I Please (17 February 1947) http://www.telelib.com/authors/O/OrwellGeorge/essay/tribune/AsIPlease19470214.html <br class="br">"As I Please" (1943–1947)
Rabindranath Tagore (1861–1941) Bengali polymath
From the letter to Hemantabala Sarkar, written on 16the October, 1933, quoted in Bengali weekly `Swastika', 21-6-1999 http://hindusamhati.blogspot.com/2013/05/thoughts-of-rabindranath-tagore-on.html
Julian Assange (1971) Australian editor, activist, publisher and journalist
[Mark, Tran, http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/feb/12/iceland-haven-freedom-speech-wikileaks?KeepThis=true&TB_iframe=true&height=600&width=990, Iceland plans future as global haven for freedom of speech, The Guardian, February 12, 2010, 2010-06-17]
Jan Tinbergen (1903–1994) Dutch economist
Source: Shaping the world economy, 1962, p. 3 : Lead in paragraph "introducing the book"
Andrew Jackson (1767–1845) American general and politician, 7th president of the United States
Response to request from a church organization of New York, on refusing to proclaim a national day of fasting and prayer, in relation to an outbreak of cholera. Correspondence 4:447 (1832); quoted in A Subaltern's Furlough : Descriptive of Scenes in Various Parts of the United States, Upper and Lower Canada, New Brunswick and Nova Scotia during the Summer and Autumn of 1832 (1833) by Edward Thomas Coke, Ch. 9, p. 145 http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/r?ammem/lhbtn:@field(DOCID+@lit(lhbtn0265adiv14)) <br class="br">1830s <br class="br">Context: While I concur with the Synod in the efficacy of prayer, and in the hope that our country may be preserved from the attacks of pestilence "and that the judgments now abroad in the earth may be sanctified to the nations," I am constrained to decline the designation of any period or mode as proper for the public manifestation of this reliance. I could not do otherwise without transcending the limits prescribed by the Constitution for the President and without feeling that I might in some degree disturb the security which religion nowadays enjoys in this country in its complete separation from the political concerns of the General Government.
Douglas MacArthur (1880–1964) U.S. Army general of the army, field marshal of the Army of the Philippines
Speech to the Michigan legislature, in Lansing, Michigan (15 May 1952), published in General MacArthur Speeches and Reports 1908-1964 (2000) by Edward T. Imparato, p. 206, much of this was used in speeches of 1951, as quoted in The Twenty-year Revolution from Roosevelt to Eisenhower (1954) by Chesly Manly, p. 3, and Total Insecurity : The Myth Of American Omnipotence (2004) by Carol Brightman, p. 182<!--
Context: It is part of the general pattern of misguided policy that our country is now geared to an arms economy which was bred in an artificially induced psychosis of war hysteria and nurtured upon an incessant propaganda of fear. While such an economy may produce a sense of seeming prosperity for the moment, it rests on an illusionary foundation of complete unreliability and renders among our political leaders almost a greater fear of peace than is their fear of war.
Frédéric Chopin (1810–1849) Polish composer
Letter to Camille Pleyel.
Context: My piano has not yet arrived. How did you send it? By Marseilles or by Perpignan? I dream music but I cannot make any because here there are not any pianos... in this respect this is a savage country.
“Fascist was, by definition, a person who happened to have been in jail in a communist country.”
Leszek Kolakowski (1927–2009) Philosopher, historian of ideas
"My Correct Views on Everything" (1974)
Context: When I collect my experiences, I notice that fascist is a person who holds one of the following beliefs (by way of example): 1) That people should wash themselves, rather than go dirty; 2) that freedom of the press in America is preferable to the ownership of the whole press by one ruling party; 3) that people should not be jailed for their opinions. both communist and anti-communist - 4), that racial criteria, in favour of either whites or blacks, are inadvisable in admission to Universities; 5 ) that torture is condemnable, no matter who applies it. (Roughly speaking "fascist" was the same as "liberal".) Fascist was, by definition, a person who happened to have been in jail in a communist country. The refugees from Czechoslovakia in 1968 were sometimes met in Germany by very progressive and absolutely revolutionary leftists with placards saying "fascism will not pass".
George Orwell (1903–1950) English author and journalist
Original (unused) preface http://home.iprimus.com.au/korob/Orwell.html to Animal Farm (1945); as published in George Orwell: Some Materials for a Bibliography (1953) by Ian R. Willison <br class="br">Context: If publishers and editors exert themselves to keep certain topics out of print, it is not because they are frightened of prosecution but because they are frightened of public opinion. In this country intellectual cowardice is the worst enemy a writer or journalist has to face, and that fact does not seem to me to have had the discussion it deserves.
George Orwell (1903–1950) English author and journalist
Preface to the Ukrainian edition http://home.iprimus.com.au/korob/Orwell.html of Animal Farm, as published in The Collected Essays, Journalism, and Letters of George Orwell: As I please, 1943-1945 (1968) <br class="br">Context: In my opinion, nothing has contributed so much to the corruption of the original idea of socialism as the belief that Russia is a socialist country and that every act of its rulers must be excused, if not imitated. And so for the last ten years, I have been convinced that the destruction of the Soviet myth was essential if we wanted a revival of the socialist movement.
Rabindranath Tagore (1861–1941) Bengali polymath
Gitanjali http://www.spiritualbee.com/gitanjali-poems-of-tagore/ (1912) <br class="br">Context: Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high<br>Where knowledge is free<br>Where the world has not been broken up into fragments<br>By narrow domestic walls<br>Where words come out from the depth of truth<br>Where tireless striving stretches its arms towards perfection<br>Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way<br>Into the dreary desert sand of dead habit<br>Where the mind is led forward by thee<br>Into ever-widening thought and action<br>Into that heaven of freedom, my Father, let my country awake.
George Orwell book England Your England
The Lion and the Unicorn (1941), Part I: England Your England
"The Lion and the Unicorn" (1941)
Context: England is perhaps the only great country whose intellectuals are ashamed of their own nationality. In left-wing circles it is always felt that there is something slightly disgraceful in being an Englishman and that it is a duty to snigger at every English institution, from horse racing to suet puddings. It is a strange fact, but it is unquestionably true that almost any English intellectual would feel more ashamed of standing to attention during God save the King than of stealing from a poor box.
Malcolm X (1925–1965) American human rights activist
The Ballot or the Bullet (1964), Speech in Cleveland, Ohio (April 3, 1964)
Context: We need to expand the civil-rights struggle to a higher level—to the level of human rights. Whenever you are in a civil-rights struggle, whether you know it or not, you are confining yourself to the jurisdiction of Uncle Sam. No one from the outside world can speak out in your behalf as long as your struggle is a civil-rights struggle. Civil rights comes within the domestic affairs of this country. All of our African brothers and our Asian brothers and our Latin-American brothers cannot open their mouths and interfere in the domestic affairs of the United States. And as long as it’s civil rights, this comes under the jurisdiction of Uncle Sam. But the United Nations has what’s known as the charter of human rights; it has a committee that deals in human rights. You may wonder why all of the atrocities that have been committed in Africa and in Hungary and in Asia, and in Latin America are brought before the UN, and the Negro problem is never brought before the UN. This is part of the conspiracy. This old, tricky blue eyed liberal who is supposed to be your and my friend, supposed to be in our corner, supposed to be subsidizing our struggle, and supposed to be acting in the capacity of an adviser, never tells you anything about human rights. They keep you wrapped up in civil rights. And you spend so much time barking up the civil-rights tree, you don’t even know there’s a human-rights tree on the same floor.
George Orwell (1903–1950) English author and journalist
"No, Not One," The Adelphi (October 1941)
See his later thoughts on this statement below from "As I Please," Tribune (8 December 1944)
George Orwell book England Your England
The Lion and the Unicorn (1941), Part I: England Your England
"The Lion and the Unicorn" (1941)
Context: One cannot see the modern world as it is unless one recognizes the overwhelming strength of patriotism, national loyalty. In certain circumstances it can break down, at certain levels of civilization it does not exist, but as a positive force there is nothing to set beside it. Christianity and international Socialism are as weak as straw in comparison with it. Hitler and Mussolini rose to power in their own countries very largely because they could grasp this fact and their opponents could not.
Thomas Robert Malthus Principles of Political Economy
Book II, Chapter I, On the Progress of Wealth, Section VIII, p. 382-383
Principles of Political Economy (Second Edition 1836)
Context: Every exchange which takes place in a country, effects a distribution of its produce better adapted to the wants of society....
If two districts, one of which possessed a rich copper mine, and the other a rich tin mine, had always been separated by an impassable river or mountain, there can be no doubt that an opening of a communication, a greater demand would take place, and a greater price be given for both the tin and the copper; and this greater price of both metals, though it might be only temporary, would alone go a great way towards furnishing the additional capital wanted to supply the additional demand; and the capitals of both districts, and the products of both mines, would be increased both in quantity and value to a degree which could not have taken place without the this new distribution of the produce, or some equivalent to it.
Ludwig von Mises book Socialism
Socialism (1922), Epilogue (1947)
Context: It is, they say, not Russia that plans aggression but, on the contrary, the decaying capitalist democracies. Russia wants merely to defend its own independence. This is an old and well-tried method of justifying aggression. Louis XIV and Napoleon I, Wilhelm II and Hitler were the most peace-loving of all men. When they invaded foreign countries, they did so only in just self-defence. Russia was as much menaced by Estonia or Latvia as Germany was by Luxemburg or Denmark.
Fukuzawa Yukichi (1835–1901) Japanese author, writer, teacher, translator, entrepreneur and journalist who founded Keio University
Gakumon no Susume [An Encouragement of Learning] (1872–1876).
Context: Each individual man and each individual country, according to the principles of natural reason, is free from bondage. Consequently, if there is some threat that might infringe upon a country’s freedom, then that country should not hesitate even to take up arms against all the countries of the world.
Andrew Jackson (1767–1845) American general and politician, 7th president of the United States
Excellent Quotations for Home and School Selected for the use of Teachers and Pupils (1890) by Julia B. Hoitt, p. 218.
Context: Every good citizen makes his country's honor his own, and cherishes it not only as precious but as sacred. He is willing to risk his life in its defense and is conscious that he gains protection while he gives it.
“The warriors that fought for their country, and bled,
Have sunk to their rest”
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807–1882) American poet
"The Battle of Lovell's Pond," poem first published in the Portland Gazette (November 17, 1820).
Context: p>The warriors that fought for their country, and bled,
Have sunk to their rest; the damp earth is their bed;
No stone tells the place where their ashes repose,
Nor points out the spot from the graves of their foes.They died in their glory, surrounded by fame,
And Victory's loud trump their death did proclaim;
They are dead; but they live in each Patriot's breast,
And their names are engraven on honor's bright crest.</p
George Orwell book Homage to Catalonia
Homage to Catalonia (1938)
Context: The workers' militias, based on the trade unions and each composed of people of approximately the same political opinions, had the effect of canalizing into one place all the most revolutionary sentiment in the country. I had dropped more or less by chance into the only community of any size in Western Europe where political consciousness and disbelief in capitalism were more normal than their opposites. Up here in Aragón one was among tens of thousands of people, mainly though not entirely of working-class origin, all living at the same level and mingling on terms of equality. In theory it was perfect equality, and even in practice it was not far from it. There is a sense in which it would be true to say that one was experiencing a foretaste of Socialism, by which I mean that the prevailing mental atmosphere was that of Socialism. Many of the normal motives of civilized life--snobbishness, money-grubbing, fear of the boss, etc.--had simply ceased to exist. The ordinary class-division of society had disappeared to an extent that is almost unthinkable in the money-tainted air of England; there was no one there except the peasants and ourselves, and no one owned anyone else as his master. Of course such a state of affairs could not last. It was simply a temporary and local phase in an enormous game that is being played over the whole surface of the earth. But it lasted long enough to have its effect upon anyone who experienced it. However much one cursed at the time, one realized afterwards that one had been in contact with something strange and valuable. One had been in a community where hope was more normal than apathy or cynicism, where the word 'comrade' stood for comradeship and not, as in most countries, for humbug. One had breathed the air of equality. I am well aware that it is now the fashion to deny that Socialism has anything to do with equality. In every country in the world a huge tribe of party-hacks and sleek little professors are busy 'proving' that Socialism means no more than a planned state—capitalism with the grab-motive left intact. But fortunately there also exists a vision of Socialism quite different from this. The thing that attracts ordinary men to Socialism and makes them willing to risk their skins for it, the 'mystique' of Socialism, is the idea of equality; to the vast majority of people Socialism means a classless society, or it means nothing at all. And it was here that those few months in the militia were valuable to me.
Andrew Jackson (1767–1845) American general and politician, 7th president of the United States
In New Orleans, Louisiana, 1814. As quoted in The Life of Andrew Jackson https://web.archive.org/web/20111029143820/http://home.nas.com/lopresti/ps7.htm (1967), by John Spencer Bassett, Archon Books. p. 156-157. <br class="br">1810s <br class="br">Context: As sons of freedom you are now called upon to defend your most inestimable blessing. As Americans, your country looks with confidence on her adopted children, for a valorous support, as a faithful return for the advantages enjoyed under her mild and equitable government.
Louis Pasteur (1822–1895) French chemist and microbiologist
As quoted in Louis Pasteur, Free Lance of Science (1960) by René Jules Dubos, Ch. 3 : Pasteur in Action
Trevor Noah (1984) South African comedian
On how his upbringing informs his comedy in “Life’s Work: An Interview with Trevor Noah” https://hbr.org/2018/09/lifes-work-an-interview-with-trevor-noah in Harvard Business Review (September-October, 2018) <br class="br">Personal life
Nathuram Godse (1910–1949) Assassin of Mahatma Gandhi
Nathuram Godse: Why I Assassinated Gandhi (1993)
Benjamin Disraeli (1804–1881) British Conservative politician, writer, aristocrat and Prime Minister
Source: Address to the electors of Buckinghamshire (12 December 1832), quoted in William Flavelle Monypenny and George Earle Buckle, The Life of Benjamin Disraeli, Earl of Beaconsfield. Volume I. 1804–1859 (London: John Murray, 1929), p. 225
George Orwell book England Your England
Part I : England Your England, § III
The Lion and the Unicorn (1941)
Zakir Hussain (politician) (1897–1969) 3rd President of India
When he was offered a ministerial post in the Interim Government before independence and partition of the country, p. 211.
About Zakir Hussain, Quest for Truth (1999)
I. K. Gujral (1919–2012) Indian politician
Lakshman Kadirgamar's observations on Gujral Dictrine as Minister of Foreign Affairs of Sri Lanka, at his Krishna Menon Memorial lecture delivered at Kota, Rajasthan in December 1996 quoted in :Democracy, Sovereignty and Terror: Lakshman Kadirgamar on the Foundations of International Order"
Paul Kruger (1825–1904) President of the South African Republic
On 13 December 1880, when some 6 000 to 8 000 armed SAR citizens were adjured by Kruger to add stones to a cairn, marking their resolution to restore the Transvaal's independence. The Paardekraal Monument of 1890 still marks the spot, though the cairn was removed by British forces in 1901.
William Blum (1933–2018) American author and historian
Killing Hope: US Military and CIA Interventions Since World War II, Chapter 30. Cuba 1959 to 1980s: The unforgivable revolution
Isabel II do Reino Unido (1926–2022) queen of the UK, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand, and head of the Commonwealth of Nations
Address to the UK on the 75th anniversary of VE Day, which occurred during the 2019–20 coronavirus pandemic, 08/05/2020 https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/the-queen-ve-day-speech-read-full-a9506226.html.
Benjamin Disraeli (1804–1881) British Conservative politician, writer, aristocrat and Prime Minister
Source: Election address; letter to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, the Duke of Marlborough (8 March 1880), quoted in The Times (9 March 1880), p. 8
Benjamin Disraeli (1804–1881) British Conservative politician, writer, aristocrat and Prime Minister
Source: Election address; letter to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, the Duke of Marlborough (8 March 1880), quoted in The Times (9 March 1880), p. 8
George Orwell (1903–1950) English author and journalist
Source: "As I Please," Tribune (3 March 1944)
http://alexpeak.com/twr/orwell/quotes/
Benjamin Disraeli (1804–1881) British Conservative politician, writer, aristocrat and Prime Minister
Source: Speech to the National Union of Conservative and Constitutional Associations in Crystal Palace, London (24 June 1872), quoted in Selected Speeches of the Late Right Honourable the Earl of Beaconsfield, Volume II, ed. T. E. Kebbel (1882), pp. 534-535
E.M. Forster (1879–1970) English novelist
This has sometimes been misquoted as: If I had to choose between betraying my country and betraying my friend, I hope I should have the decency to betray my country.
What I Believe (1938)
Source: What I Believe and Other Essays
“So long as you are ready to die for Humanity, the life of your country is immortal.”
Giuseppe Mazzini (1805–1872) Italian patriot, politician and philosopher
On the Duties of Man (1844-58)
Sadhguru book Inner Engineering: A Yogi's Guide to Joy
Source: Inner Engineering: A Yogi's Guide to Joy
“A patriot must always be ready to defend his country against his government.”
Edward Abbey (1927–1989) American author and essayist
A Voice Crying in the Wilderness (Vox Clamantis in Deserto) (1990)
“Where are our Men of abilities? Why do they not come forth to save their Country?”
George Washington (1732–1799) first President of the United States
“In our imaginations we can go anywhere. Travel with me to Redwall in Mossflower country.”
Brian Jacques (1939–2011) British fiction writer known for Redwall animal fantasy novels
Bertrand Russell (1872–1970) logician, one of the first analytic philosophers and political activist
Jimmy Carter book A Call to Action: Women, Religion, Violence, and Power
Source: A Call to Action: Women, Religion, Violence, and Power
“The United States is not only the strongest, but also the most terrified country.”
Leon Trotsky (1879–1940) Marxist revolutionary from Russia
George Washington (1732–1799) first President of the United States
Statement as he put on his glasses before delivering his response to the first Newburgh Address http://www.earlyamerica.com/milestone-events/newburgh-address/ (15 March 1783), quoted in a letter https://democraticthinker.wordpress.com/2010/01/08/newburgh-crisis-viwashingtons-newburgh-address/ from General David Cobb http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Cobb_(Massachusetts) to Colonel Timothy Pickering http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timothy_Pickering (25 November 1825) <br class="br">1780s, The Newburgh Address (1783)
William T. Sherman (1820–1891) American General, businessman, educator, and author.
1860s, 1864, Letter to the City of Atlanta (September 1864)
Source: Memoirs of General W.T. Sherman
Context: You cannot qualify war in harsher terms than I will. War is cruelty, and you cannot refine it; and those who brought war into our country deserve all the curses and maledictions a people can pour out. I know I had no hand in making this war, and I know I will make more sacrifices today than any of you to secure peace. But you cannot have peace and a division of our country. If the United States submits to a division now, it will not stop
Context: You cannot qualify war in harsher terms than I will. War is cruelty, and you cannot refine it; and those who brought war into our country deserve all the curses and maledictions a people can pour out. I know I had no hand in making this war, and I know I will make more sacrifices today than any of you to secure peace. But you cannot have peace and a division of our country. If the United States submits to a division now, it will not stop, but will go on until we reap the fate of Mexico, which is eternal war. The United States does and must assert its authority, wherever it once had power; for, if it relaxes one bit to pressure, it is gone, and I believe that such is the national feeling.
Jimmy Carter (1924) American politician, 39th president of the United States (in office from 1977 to 1981)
Source: Beyond the White House: Waging Peace, Fighting Disease, Building Hope
Werner Herzog (1942) German film director, producer, screenwriter, actor and opera director
Herzog on Herzog (2002)
“If you want to know a country, read its writers.”
Aminatta Forna (1964) Aminatta Forna, British author of ''The Devil that Danced on the Water'', ''Ancestor Stones'' and ''The Memory o…
Jimmy Carter (1924) American politician, 39th president of the United States (in office from 1977 to 1981)
“Patriotism is supporting your country all the time and your government when it deserves it.”
Mark Twain (1835–1910) American author and humorist
Part VI: "Two Fragments from a Suppressed Book Called 'Glances at History' or 'Outlines of History' ".
Papers of the Adams Family (1939)
Variant: Loyalty to country ALWAYS. Loyalty to government, when it deserves it.
Context: In a monarchy, the king and his family are the country; in a republic it is the common voice of the people. Each of you, for himself, by himself and on his own responsibility, must speak. And it is a solemn and weighty responsibility, and not lightly to be flung aside at the bullying of pulpit, press, government, or the empty catch-phrases of politicians. Each must for himself alone decide what is right and what is wrong, and which course is patriotic and which isn't. You cannot shirk this and be a man. To decide it against your convictions is to be an unqualified and inexcusable traitor, both to yourself and to your country, let men label you as they may. If you alone of all the nation shall decide one way, and that way be the right way according to your convictions of the right, you have done your duty by yourself and by your country — hold up your head! You have nothing to be ashamed of.
Only when a republic's life is in danger should a man uphold his government when it is in the wrong. There is no other time.
This Republic's life is not in peril. The nation has sold its honor for a phrase. It has swung itself loose from its safe anchorage and is drifting, its helm is in pirate hands.
“Patriots always talk of dying for their country, and never of killing for their country.”
Bertrand Russell (1872–1970) logician, one of the first analytic philosophers and political activist
Has Man a Future? (1962), p. 78
1960s