“America could carry on a two years' war by the confiscation of the property of disaffected persons, and be made happy by their expulsion. Say not that this is revenge, call it rather the soft resentment of a suffering people, who, having no object in view but the good of all, have staked their own all upon a seemingly doubtful event. Yet it is folly to argue against determined hardness; eloquence may strike the ear, and the language of sorrow draw forth the tear of compassion, but nothing can reach the heart that is steeled with prejudice.”

— Thomas Paine

The Crisis No. I.
1770s, The American Crisis (1776–1783)

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Thomas Paine 262

English and American political activist 1737–1809

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“Eloquence may strike the ear, but the language of poverty strikes the heart; the first may charm like music, but the second alarms like a knell.”

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“Americans no longer argue on the propriety of making all men soldiers, in order that their nation may be an object of terror to the rest of the world. They understand that the happiness of a people is the only rational object of a government, and the only object for which a people, free to choose, can have a government at all.”

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Context: Americans no longer argue on the propriety of making all men soldiers, in order that their nation may be an object of terror to the rest of the world. They understand that the happiness of a people is the only rational object of a government, and the only object for which a people, free to choose, can have a government at all. They have, farther, almost excluded war as a profession, and reduced it from a system of robbery to one of simple defence. In so doing, they ought also to have laid aside all show of military parade, and all ideas of military glory. If they have not done so, it is that their reform in this matter is yet imperfect, and their ideas respecting it are confused.

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William Ewart Gladstone (1809–1898) British Liberal politician and prime minister of the United Kingdom

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“America's battle is yet to fight; and we, sorrowful though nothing doubting, will wish her strength for it.”

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“To Mankind
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Adolf Hitler (1889–1945) Führer and Reich Chancellor of Germany, Leader of the Nazi Party

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1940s

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