Broadcast from the Cabinet Rooms at 10 Downing Street (3 September 1939)
Prime Minister
Context: This morning the British Ambassador in Berlin handed the German Government a final note, stating that, unless we heard from them by 11 o'clock that they were prepared at once to withdraw their troops from Poland, a state of war would exist between us. I have to tell you now that no such undertaking has been received and that consequently this country is at war with Germany. … It is evil things that we will be fighting against— brute force, bad faith, injustice, oppression and persecution— and against them I am certain that the right will prevail.
“In doing good, we are generally cold, and languid, and sluggish; and of all things afraid of being too much in the right. But the works of malice and injustice are quite in another style. They are finished with a bold, masterly hand; touched as they are with the spirit of those vehement passions that call forth all our energies, whenever we oppress and persecute.”
Speech at Bristol Previous to the Election http://books.google.com/books?id=DAAUAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA435&dq=%22we+are+generally+cold,+and+languid,+and+sluggish%22&hl=en&sa=X&ei=D4TSUuXqDYrekQe6uoH4Cw&ved=0CFAQ6AEwBQ#v=onepage&q=%22we%20are%20generally%20cold%2C%20and%20languid%2C%20and%20sluggish%22&f=false (6 September 1780)
1780s
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Edmund Burke 270
Anglo-Irish statesman 1729–1797Related quotes
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1950s, Give Us the Ballot (1957)
Context: This is no day for the rabble-rouser, whether he be Negro or white. We must realize that we are grappling with the most weighty social problem of this nation, and in grappling with such a complex problem there is no place for misguided emotionalism. We must work passionately and unrelentingly for the goal of freedom, but we must be sure that our hands are clean in the struggle. We must never struggle with falsehood, hate, or malice. We must never become bitter. I know how we feel sometime. There is the danger that those of us who have been forced so long to stand amid the tragic midnight of oppression—those of us who have been trampled over, those of us who have been kicked about—there is the danger that we will become bitter. But if we will become bitter and indulge in hate campaigns, the new order which is emerging will be nothing but a duplication of the old order.
http://www.vanityfair.com/online/daily/2009/03/louis-ck-starvation-can-be-character-building