Quotes about homeland
page 35

Sri Aurobindo photo

“What the Divine wants is for man to embody Him here, in the individual and in the collectivity… to realise God in life. The old system of yoga could not harmonise or unify Spirit and life; it dismissed the world as Maya or a transient play of God. The result has been a diminution of life-power and the decline of India. The Gita says, utsideyur ime loka na kuryam karma cedaham ["These peoples would crumble to pieces if I did not do actions," 3.24]. Truly 'these peoples' of India have gone to ruin. What kind of spiritual perfection is it if a few Sannyasins, Bairagis and Saddhus attain realisation and liberation, if a few Bhaktas dance in a frenzy of love, god-intoxication and Ananda, and an entire race, devoid of life, devoid of intelligence, sinks to the depths of extreme tamas?… But now the time has come to take hold of the substance instead of extending the shadow. We have to awaken the true soul of India and in its image fashion all works…. I believe that the main cause of India's weakness is not subjection, nor poverty, nor a lack of spirituality or Dharma, but a diminution of thought-power, the spread of ignorance in the motherland of Knowledge. Everywhere I see an inability or unwillingness to think… incapacity of thought or 'thought-phobia'…. The mediaeval period was a night, a time of victory for the man of ignorance; the modern world is a time of victory for the man of knowledge. It is the one who can fathom and learn the truth of the world by thinking more, searching more, labouring more, who will gain more Shakti. Look at Europe, and you will see two things: a wide limitless sea of thought and the play of a huge and rapid, yet disciplined force. The whole Shakti of Europe lies there. It is by virtue of this Shakti that she has been able to swallow the world, like our Tapaswins of old, whose might held even the gods of the universe in awe, suspense and subjection. People say that Europe is rushing into the jaws of destruction. I do not think so. All these revolutions, all these upsettings are the initial stages of a new creation….. We, however, are not worshippers of Shakti; we are worshippers of the easy way…. Our civilisation has become ossified, our Dharma a bigotry of externals, our spirituality a faint glimmer of light or a momentary wave of intoxication. So long as this state of things lasts, any permanent resurgence of India is impossible…. We have abandoned the sadhana of Shakti and so the Shakti has abandoned us…. You say what is needed is emotional excitement, to fill the country with enthusiasm. We did all that in the political field during the Swadeshi period; but all we did now lies in the dust…. Therefore I no longer wish to make emotional excitement, feeling and mental enthusiasm the base. I want to make a vast and heroic equality the foundation of my yoga; in all the activities of the being, of the adhar [vessel] based on that equality, I want a complete, firm and unshakable Shakti; over that ocean of Shakti I want the vast radiation of the sun of Knowledge and in that luminous vastness an established ecstasy of infinite love and bliss and oneness. I do not want tens of thousands of disciples; it will be enough if I can get as instruments of God a hundred complete men free from petty egoism. I have no faith in the customary trade of guru. I do not want to be a guru. What I want is that a few, awakened at my touch or at that of another, will manifest from within their sleeping divinity and realise the divine life. It is such men who will raise this country.”

Sri Aurobindo (1872–1950) Indian nationalist, freedom fighter, philosopher, yogi, guru and poet

April, 1920, Letter to Barin Ghose, Sri Aurobindo's brother, Translated from Bengali
India's Rebirth

Alexandra Kollontai photo
Annette Lu photo
Robert B. Laughlin photo
Leonid Feodorov photo
Richard D. Ryder photo

“In consequence of the great fear which fell upon Jaipál, who confessed he had seen death before the appointed time, he sent a deputation to the Amír soliciting peace, on the promise of his paying down a sum of money, and offering to obey any order he might receive respecting his elephants and his country. The Amir Subuktigín consented on account of mercy he felt towards those who were his vassals, or for some other reason which seemed expedient to him. But the Sultán Yamínu-d daula Mahmúd addressed the messengers in a harsh voice, and refused to abstain from battle, until he should obtain a complete victory suited to his zeal for the honour of Islám and the Musulmáns, and one which he was confident God would grant to his arms. So they returned, and Jaipál being in great alarm, again sent the most humble supplications that the battle might cease saying, "You have seen the impetuosity of the Hindus and their indifference to death, whenever any calamity befalls them, as at this moment. If therefore, you refuse to grant peace in the hope of obtaining plunder, tribute, elephants and prisoners, then there is no alternative for us but to mount the horse of stern determination, destroy our property, take out the eyes of our elephants, cast our children into fire, and rush out on each other with sword and spear, so that all that will be left to you to conquer and seize is stones and dirt, dead bodies, and scattered bones."”

Sabuktigin (942–997) Founder of the Ghaznavid Empire

Elliot and Dowson, History of India as told by its own Historians, Volume II, pp. 20-21. Translation of Tarikh-i-Yamini of al-Utbi.

Fali Sam Nariman photo
Andrei Sakharov photo
Clive Barker photo
Jorge Luis Borges photo

“Well, he wrote a book -- well, maybe here I'm being political -- he wrote a book about the tyrants of South America, and then he had several stanzas against the United States. Now he knows that that's rubbish. And he had not a word against Perón. Because he had a law suit in Buenos Aires, that was explained to me afterwards, and he didn't care to risk anything. And so, when he was supposed to be writing at the top of his voice, full of noble indignation, he had not a word to say against Perón. And he was married to an Argentine lady, he knew that many of his friends had been sent to jail. He knew all about the state of our country, but not a word against him. At the same time, he was speaking against the United States, knowing the whole thing was a lie, no? But, of course, that doesn't mean anything against his poetry. Neruda is a very fine poet, a great poet in fact. And when they gave Miguel de Asturias the Nobel Prize, I said that it should have been given to Neruda! Now when I was in Chile, and we were on different political sides, I think he did the best thing to do. He went on a holiday during the three or four days I was there so there was no occasion for our meeting. But I think he was acting politely, no? Because he knew that people would be playing him up against me, no? I mean, I was an Argentine, poet, he was a Chilean poet, he's on the side of the Communists, I'm against them. So I felt he was behaving very wisely in avoiding a meeting that would have been quite uncomfortable for both of us.”

Jorge Luis Borges (1899–1986) Argentine short-story writer, essayist, poet and translator, and a key figure in Spanish language literature

Page 96.
Conversations with Jorge Luis Borges (1968)

Mitt Romney photo
David Rittenhouse photo
Fritz Sauckel photo
Ibrahim of Ghazna photo
Jimmy Carter photo

“If you don't want your tax dollars to help the poor, then stop saying that you want a country based on Christian values. Because you don't.”

Jimmy Carter (1924) American politician, 39th president of the United States (in office from 1977 to 1981)

The correct attribution http://www.snopes.com/politics/quotes/carterpoor.asp is comedian John Fugelsang, on the TV program Viewpoint (29 May 2013)
Misattributed

W. H. Auden photo
Czeslaw Milosz photo

“For a country without a past is nothing, a word
That, hardly spoken, loses its meaning,
A perishable wall destroyed by flame,
An echo of animal emotions.”

Czeslaw Milosz (1911–2004) Polish, poet, diplomat, prosaist, writer, and translator

"A Legend" (1949), trans. Czesŀaw Miŀosz and Robert Hass
Daylight (1953)

Francis Escudero photo
Howard Dean photo
Donald J. Trump photo
François Bernier photo
Mark Sanford photo

“I think it would be much better for the country and for (Clinton) personally (to resign). I come from the business side. If you had a chairman or president in the business world facing these allegations, he'd be gone.”

Mark Sanford (1960) 115th Governor of South Carolina

On the Clinton sex scandal; reported in Robert Behre " Sanford fallout seen as severe, with long-lasting effects http://www.postandcourier.com/news/2009/jun/25/publictrust87241/", The Post and Courier (Sept. 12, 1998).

Joe Biden photo

“When we kicked — along with France, we kicked Hezbollah out of Lebanon, I said and Barack said, "Move NATO forces in there. Fill the vacuum, because if you don’t know — if you don’t, Hezbollah will control it." Now what’s happened? Hezbollah is a legitimate part of the government in the country immediately to the north of Israel.”

Joe Biden (1942) 47th Vice President of the United States (in office from 2009 to 2017)

Biden-Palin Vice Presidential debates http://elections.nytimes.com/2008/president/debates/transcripts/vice-presidential-debate.html, October 2, 2008
2000s

Garry Kasparov photo
Ernesto Che Guevara photo
Hillary Clinton photo

“Every generation of Americans has come together to make our country freer, fairer, and stronger. None of us ever have or can do it alone.”

Hillary Clinton (1947) American politician, senator, Secretary of State, First Lady

Presidential campaign (April 12, 2015 – 2016), (July 28, 2016)

Lewis Pugh photo

“Never, ever did I think that there would be a debate in this arid country about which was more important – gas or water. We can survive without gas. We cannot live without water.”

Lewis Pugh (1969) Environmental campaigner, maritime lawyer and endurance swimmer

Speaking & Features, Standing Up To Goliath

Fali Sam Nariman photo

“violate the human rights of others', is impractical and fraught with grave consequences as it puts an almost impossible burden on the lawyer of pre-judging guilt; and (more important) it precludes the person charged with infringing the human rights of another (such as one accused of murder) the right to be defended by a 'lawyer of his choice”

Fali Sam Nariman (1929) Indian politician

in my country, a guaranteed constitutional right.”
On his view on representing lawyers as human rights activists on accepting briefs of clients
Fali S. Nariman, ‘Before Memory Fades: An Autobiography

Sam Manekshaw photo

“One thing remains the same, your task and your duty. You are required to ensure the security of this country against any offence. What is that means for you? That means, that you should have to fight, a fight to win. There is no roof for losers, if you loose don't come back.”

Sam Manekshaw (1914–2008) First Field marshal of the Indian Army

During Speech at Passing Out Parade of Indian Military Academy A Soldier's Duty http://worldofdefense.blogspot.in/2011/05/soldiers-duty-field-marshal-sam.html

Gore Vidal photo
Dylan Moran photo
Monier Monier-Williams photo
Peter Kropotkin photo
Roy Jenkins photo
Sarah Palin photo

“This is Reagan country, and perhaps it was destiny that the man who went to California's Eureka College would become so woven within and interlinked to the Golden State.”

Sarah Palin (1964) American politician

Speaking at a fundraiser at California State University - Stanislaus on June 25, 2010, she mistakenly assumed that Eureka College was in California, when it is, in fact, in Eureka, Illinois. https://archive.is/20130628212450/www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/ct-talk-sarah-palin-eureka-college-0720100630,0,4918561.story
2010

Aron Ra photo
Desmond Tutu photo
Harry Truman photo
Jeremy Corbyn photo
Samuel Vince photo

“What we mean by the laws of nature, are those laws which are deduced from that series of events, which, by divine appointment, follow each other in the moral and physical world; the former of which we shall here have occasion principally to consider, the present question altogether, respecting the moral government of God — a consideration which our author has entirely neglected, in his estimation of the credibility of miracles. Examining the question therefore upon this principle, it is manifest, that the extraordinary nature of the fact is no ground for disbelief, provided such a fact, in, a moral point of view, was, from the condition of man, become necessary; for in that case, the Deky, by dispensing his assistance in proportion to our wants, acted upon the same principle as in his more 'ordinary operations. For however ' opposite the physical effects may be, if their moral tendency be the same, they form a part of the jmoral law. Now in those actions which are called miracles, the Deity is directed by the same moral principle as in his usual dispensations; and therefore being influenced by the same motive to accomplish the same end, the laws of God's moral government are not violated, such laws being established by the motives and the ends produced, and not by the means employed. To prove therefore the moral laws to be the same in those actions called miraculous, as in common events, it is not the actions thetnselves which are to be considered, but the principles by which they were directed, and their consequences, for if these be the same, the Deity acts by the same laws. And here, moral analogy will be found to confirm the truth of the miracles recorded in scripture. But as the moral government of God is directed by motives which lie beyond the reach of human investigation, we have no principles by which we can judge concerning the probability of the happening of any new event which respects the moral world; we cannot therefore pronounce any extraordinary event of that nature to be a violation of the moral law of God's dispensations; but we can nevertheless judge of its agreement with that law, so far as it has fallen under our observation. But our author leaves out the consideration of God's moral government, and reasons simply -on the facts which arc said to have nappened, without any reference to an end; we will therefore examine how far his conclusions are just upon this principle.
He defines miracles to be "a violation of the laws of nature;" he undoubtedly means the physical laws, as no part of his reasoning has any reference to them in a moral point of view. Now these laws must be deduced, either from his own view of events only, or from that, and testimony jojntly; and if testimony beallowed on one part, it ought also to be admitted on the other, granting that there is no impossibility in the fact attested. But the laws by which the Deity governs the universe can, at best, only be inferred from the whole series of his dispensations from the beginning of the world; testimony must therefore necessarily be admitted in establishing these laws. Now our author, in deducing the laws of nature, rejects all well authenticated miraculous events, granted to be possible, and therefore not altogether incredible and to be rejected without examination, and thence establishes a law to prove against their credibility; but the proof of a position ought to proceed upon principles which are totally independent of any supposition of its being either true or falser. His conclusion therefore is not deduced by just reasoning from acknowledged principles, but it is a necessary consequence of his own arbitrary supposition. "Tis a miracle," says he, "that a dead man should come to life, because that has never been observed in any age or country." Now, testimony, confirmed by every proof which can tend to establish a true matter of fact, asserts that such an event; has happened. But our author argues against the credibility of this, because it is contrary to the laws of nature; and in establishing these laws, he rejects all such extraordinary facts, although they are authenticated by all the evidence which such facts can possibly admit of; taking thereby into consideration, events of that kind only which have fallen within the sphere of his own observations, as if the whole series of God's dispensations were necessarily included in the course of a few years. But who shall thus circumscribe the operations of divine power and infinite wisdom, and say, "Hitherto shall thou go, and no further."”

Samuel Vince (1749–1821) British mathematician, astronomer and physicist

Before he rejected circumstances of this kind in establishing the laws of nature, he should, at least, have shewn, that we have not all that evidence for them which we might "have had" upon supposition that they were true ; he should also have shewn, in a moral point of view, that the events were inconsistent with the ordinary operations of Providence ; and that there was no end to justify the means. Whereas, on the contrary, there is all the evidence for them which a real matter of fact can possibly have ; they are perfectly consistent with all the moral dispensations of Providence and at the same time that the resurrection of Jesus Christ is most unexceptionably attested, we discover a moral intention in the miracle, which very satisfactorily accounts for that exertion of divine power?
Source: The Credibility of Christianity Vindicated, p. 48; As quoted in " Book review http://books.google.nl/books?id=52tAAQAAMAAJ&pg=PA259," in The British Critic, Volume 12 (1798). F. and C. Rivington. p. 259-261

Thomas Friedman photo
Alex Salmond photo
Mariano Rajoy photo

“Spain is a great country which make things and have Spanish people.”

Mariano Rajoy (1955) Spanish politician

17 May, 2015
As President, 2015
Source: Huffington Post http://www.huffingtonpost.es/2015/05/17/rajoy-espana-tiene-espanoles_n_7300938.html

Joseph Massad photo
Ernst Gombrich photo
Rand Paul photo
John Gray photo
John McCain photo

“The issue of economics is not something I’ve understood as well as I should. I’ve got Greenspan’s book…. I've never been involved in Wall Street, I've never been involved in the financial stuff, the financial workings of the country, so I'd like to have somebody intimately familiar with it.”

John McCain (1936–2018) politician from the United States

Referring to a potential Vice President, 18 December 2007 http://www.newsweek.com/id/103730/page/3 http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/14/opinion/14krugman.html?_r=3&hp&oref=slogin&oref=login&oref=slogin
2000s, 2007

Osama bin Laden photo

“As for it's results, they have been, by the grace of Allah, positive and enormous, and have, by all standards, exceeded all expectations. This is due to many factors, chief among them, that we have found it difficult to deal with the Bush administration in light of the resemblance it bears to the regimes in our countries, half of which are ruled by the military and the other half which are ruled by the sons of kings and presidents.
Our experience with them is lengthy, and both types are replete with those who are characterised by pride, arrogance, greed and misappropriation of wealth. This resemblance began after the visits of Bush Sr to the region.
At a time when some of our compatriots were dazzled by America and hoping that these visits would have an effect on our countries, all of a sudden he was affected by those monarchies and military regimes, and became envious of their remaining decades in their positions, to embezzle the public wealth of the nation without supervision or accounting.
So he took dictatorship and suppression of freedoms to his son and they named it the Patriot Act, under the pretence of fighting terrorism. In addition, Bush sanctioned the installing of sons as state governors, and didn't forget to import expertise in election fraud from the region's presidents to Florida to be made use of in moments of difficulty.”

Osama bin Laden (1957–2011) founder of al-Qaeda

Full transcript of bin Ladin's speech http://www.aljazeera.com/archive/2004/11/200849163336457223.html Aljazeera, (01 Nov 2004)
2000s, 2004

John Reed (novelist) photo
Clarence Thomas photo
Donald J. Trump photo

“You're going to have a deportation force, and you're going to do it humanely and you're going to bring the country -- and, frankly, the people, because you have some excellent, wonderful people, some fantastic people hat have been here for a long period of time. Don't forget, Mika, that you have millions of people that are waiting in line to come into this country and they're waiting to come in legally. And I always say the wall, we're going to build the wall. It's going to be a real deal. It's going to be a real wall. There was a picture in one of the magazines where they had a wall this tall and they were taking drugs over the wall. They built a ramp over the wall and the truck was going up and down. They were using it like a highway; the wall is like a highway. It's not going to happen. It's going to be a Trump wall. It's going to be a real wall. And it's going to stop people and it's going to be good. But your friend Thomas Friedman called me and said, hah, there should be a big door. I said going to be a big door. I love the expression. There's going to be a big beautiful nice door. People are going to come in and they're going to come in legally. But we have no choice. Otherwise, we don't have a country. We don't even know how many people. We don't know if it's 8 million or if it's 20 million. We have no idea how many people are in our country. And then you see what happened with Kate in San Francisco. You see what happens with all of the things going on, all of the tremendous crime going on. It costs us $200 billion a year for illegal immigration right now. $200 billion a year, maybe $250, maybe $300. They don't even know. We're going to stop it. We're going to run it properly and we're going to stop it.”

Donald J. Trump (1946) 45th President of the United States of America

On his immigration plan (2015 November 11)
2010s, 2015

Kurt Schuschnigg photo
Thomas Chandler Haliburton photo

“Everything has altered its dimensions, except the world we live in. The more we know of that, the smaller it seems. Time and distance have been abridged, remote countries have become accessible, and the antipodes are upon visiting terms. There is a reunion of the human race; and the family resemblance now that we begin to think alike, dress alike, and live alike, is very striking. The South Sea Islanders, and the inhabitants of China, import their fashions from Paris, and their fabrics from Manchester, while Rome and London supply missionaries to the ‘ends of the earth,’ to bring its inhabitants into ‘one fold, under one Shepherd.’ Who shall write a book of travels now? Livingstone has exhausted the subject. What field is there left for a future Munchausen? The far West and the far East have shaken hands and pirouetted together, and it is a matter of indifference whether you go to the moors in Scotland to shoot grouse, to South America to ride and alligator, or to Indian jungles to shoot tigers-there are the same facilities for reaching all, and steam will take you to either with the equal ease and rapidity. We have already talked with New York; and as soon as our speaking-trumpet is mended shall converse again. ‘To waft a sigh from Indus to the pole,’ is no longer a poetic phrase, but a plain matter of fact of daily occurrence. Men breakfast at home, and go fifty miles to their counting-houses, and when their work is done, return to dinner. They don’t go from London to the seaside, by way of change, once a year; but they live on the coast, and go to the city daily. The grand tour of our forefathers consisted in visiting the principle cities of Europe. It was a great effort, occupied a vast deal of time, cost a large sum of money, and was oftener attended with danger than advantage. It comprised what was then called, the world: whoever had performed it was said to have ‘seen the world,’ and all that it contained. The Grand Tour now means a voyage round the globe, and he who has not made it has seen nothing.”

Thomas Chandler Haliburton (1796–1865) Canadian-British politician, judge, and author

The Season-Ticket, An Evening at Cork 1860 p. 1-2.

James Bryce, 1st Viscount Bryce photo
Phil Ochs photo

“So do your duty, boys, and join with pride
Serve your country in her suicide
Find the flags so you can wave goodbye
But just before the end even treason might be worth a try
This country is too young to die
I declare the war is over
It's over, it's over.”

Phil Ochs (1940–1976) American protest singer and songwriter

"The War Is Over" http://web.cecs.pdx.edu/~trent/ochs/lyrics/war-is-over.html from Tape from California (1968)
Lyrics

Jeremiah O'Donovan Rossa photo

“It is in that English Parliament the chains for Ireland are forged, and any Irish patriot who goes into that forge to free Ireland will soon find himself welded into the agency of his country’s subjection to England.”

Jeremiah O'Donovan Rossa (1831–1915) Irish Republican Brotherhood member

"Rossa's Recollections 1838 to 1898: Memoirs of an Irish Revolutionary", p. 145-6

Rutherford B. Hayes photo

“It is the desire of the good people of the whole country that sectionalism as a factor in our politics should disappear.”

Rutherford B. Hayes (1822–1893) American politician, 19th President of the United States (in office from 1877 to 1881)

Fourth State of the Union Address (6 December 1880)

Statius photo

“Sweet semblance of the children who have forsaken me, Archemorus, solace of my lost estate and country, pride of my servitude, what guilty gods took your life, my joy, whom but now in parting I left at play, crushing the grasses as you hastened in your forward crawl? Ah, where is your starry face? Where your words unfinished in constricted sounds, and laughs and gurgles that only I could understand? How often would I talk to you of Lemnos and the Argo and lull you to sleep with my long tale of woe!”
O mihi desertae natorum dulcis imago, Archemore, o rerum et patriae solamen ademptae seruitiique decus, qui te, mea gaudia, sontes extinxere dei, modo quem digressa reliqui lascivum et prono uexantem gramina cursu? heu ubi siderei vultus? ubi verba ligatis imperfecta sonis risusque et murmura soli intellecta mihi? quotiens tibi Lemnon et Argo sueta loqui et longa somnum suadere querela!

Source: Thebaid, Book V, Line 608

Neville Chamberlain photo
Antonio Sabàto Jr. photo
James Callaghan photo

“Unilateral disarmament by Britain is opposed to our country's best interests, could begin the unravelling of NATO and therefore jeopardise the stability of Europe.”

James Callaghan (1912–2005) Prime Minister of the United Kingdom; 1976-1979

The Guardian (19 November 1982)
Post-Prime Ministerial

Richard Pipes photo
Elizabeth Cheney photo
Narendra Modi photo
Letitia Elizabeth Landon photo
Edmund Burke photo
Lee Kuan Yew photo

“We have to lock up people, without trial, whether they are communists, whether they are language chauvinists, whether they are religious extremists. If you don't do that, the country would be in ruins”

Lee Kuan Yew (1923–2015) First Prime Minister of Singapore

1986 http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/03/23/us-singapore-leekuanyew-idUSKBN0MI08Y20150323
1980s

Konstantin Chernenko photo
John Kenneth Galbraith photo
Letitia Elizabeth Landon photo
Donald J. Trump photo
Donald J. Trump photo
David Edgar photo

“When I heard I was up for it, obviously I wanted to win. It's really an honour. I love playing for my country.”

David Edgar (1987) Canadian soccer player

After being named Canadian youth soccer player of the year. [February 1, 2007, http://www.cbc.ca/sports/soccer/story/2007/02/01/david-edgar.html, David Edgar wins youth soccer award, Sporting Life, 2007-03-11]

John F. Kennedy photo

“…there is always inequity in life. Some men are killed in a war and some men are wounded, and some men never leave the country, and some men are stationed in the Antarctic and some are stationed in San Francisco. It's very hard in the military or personal life to assure complete equality. Life is unfair.”

John F. Kennedy (1917–1963) 35th president of the United States of America

[http://www.jfklibrary.org/Research/Research-Aids/Ready-Reference/JFK-Quotations.aspx "President's News Conference (107)" (21 March 1962)
1962

Sidney Hillman photo
Tom Kean, Jr. photo

“I do not support a blanket amnesty policy for our country. I believe it would dishonor legal immigrants who came here the right way, and it would only encourage more illegal migration”

Tom Kean, Jr. (1968) Member of the New Jersey General Assembly and State Senate

Speech at Liberty State Park (May 17, 2006); "Amnesty Statement", Tom's Blog" (May 17, 2006) http://tomkean.com/today/index.cfm?e=user.about.blog&messageID=139.

Adolf A. Berle photo
Maureen Dowd photo
Albert Speer photo
Abdul Rahman Arif photo

“I hope there will be stability and security in all parts of Iraq and neighboring Arab countries. I hope there will be national unity in Iraq by forgetting the past and looking for the future.”

Abdul Rahman Arif (1916–2007) President and Prime Minister of Iraq

As quoted in anon (August 25, 2007), Abdel-Rahman Aref, 91, Former Iraqi President, Is Dead http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/25/world/middleeast/25aref.html?ref=world, The New York Times.

“At its heart, the libertarian message is an American message. We love our country, we care for our neighbors, and we want everyone to be happy, healthy and prosperous. We want people to be free to raise their children in peace. We’re only different because we’re not afraid to stand by the principles upon which our nation was founded. We’re only different because we believe, as our Founding Fathers did, that individual initiative and creativity, and voluntary cooperation and mutual assistance among people is best way to solve any problem or overcome any difficulty we face.”

R. Lee Wrights (1958–2017) American gubernatorial candidate

" Libertarians Can Make a Difference by Being Different http://www.libertyforall.net/?p=7323," Liberty For All (8 February 2012, retrieved 25 February 2012).
Republished http://www.independentpoliticalreport.com/2012/02/lee-wrights-libertarians-can-make-a-difference-by-being-different/ by Independent Political Report (18 February 2012).
2012

Samuel R. Delany photo
A. P. Herbert photo
Albert Einstein photo
Lloyd Kenyon, 1st Baron Kenyon photo
George William Curtis photo

“For what do we now see in the country? We see a man who, as Senator of the United States, voted to tamper with the public mails for the benefit of slavery, sitting in the President's chair. Two days after he is seated we see a judge rising in the place of John Jay — who said, 'Slaves, though held by the laws of men, are free by the laws of God' — to declare that a seventh of the population not only have no original rights as men, but no legal rights as citizens. We see every great office of State held by ministers of slavery; our foreign ambassadors not the representatives of our distinctive principle, but the eager advocates of the bitter anomaly in our system, so that the world sneers as it listens and laughs at liberty. We see the majority of every important committee of each house of Congress carefully devoted to slavery. We see throughout the vast ramification of the Federal system every little postmaster in every little town professing loyalty to slavery or sadly holding his tongue as the price of his salary, which is taxed to propagate the faith. We see every small Custom-House officer expected to carry primary meetings in his pocket and to insult at Fourth-of-July dinners men who quote the Declaration of Independence. We see the slave-trade in fact, though not yet in law, reopened — the slave-law of Virginia contesting the freedom of the soil of New York We see slave-holders in South Carolina and Louisiana enacting laws to imprison and sell the free citizens of other States. Yes, and on the way to these results, at once symptoms and causes, we have seen the public mails robbed — the right of petition denied — the appeal to the public conscience made by the abolitionists in 1833 and onward derided and denounced, and their very name become a byword and a hissing. We have seen free speech in public and in private suppressed, and a Senator of the United States struck down in his place for defending liberty. We have heard Mr. Edward Everett, succeeding brave John Hancock and grand old Samuel Adams as governor of the freest State in history, say in his inaugural address in 1836 that all discussion of the subject which tends to excite insurrection among the slaves, as if all discussion of it would not be so construed, 'has been held by highly respectable legal authorities an offence against the peace of the commonwealth, which may be prosecuted as a misdemeanor at common law'. We have heard Daniel Webster, who had once declared that the future of the slave was 'a widespread prospect of suffering, anguish, and death', now declaring it to be 'an affair of high morals' to drive back into that doom any innocent victim appealing to God and man, and flying for life and liberty. We have heard clergymen in their pulpits preaching implicit obedience to the powers that be, whether they are of God or the Devil — insisting that God's tribute should be paid to Caesar, and, by sneering at the scruples of the private conscience, denouncing every mother of Judea who saved her child from the sword of Herod's soldiers.”

George William Curtis (1824–1892) American writer

1850s, The Present Aspect of the Slavery Question (1859)

John Derbyshire photo
A. P. J. Abdul Kalam photo

“I am really overwhelmed. Everywhere both in Internet and in other media, I have been asked for a message. I was thinking what message I can give to the people of the country at this juncture.”

A. P. J. Abdul Kalam (1931–2015) 11th President of India, scientist and science administrator

Source: Rediff.com News, June 13, 2002 ([http://www.rediff.com/news/2002/jun/13prez2.htm online): Kalam responding to the announcement of his candidature by Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee