“Primitive animals will sometimes keep chattering or twitching their muscles even after their heads have been cut off. And that's probably the best analogy today to the president's continuing enunciation of his policies.”

— Josh Marshall , Talking Points Memo

Talking Points Memo (2007-09-14)

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Josh Marshall 7

American journalist 1969

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“There are probably no creatures that require more the protective Divine word against the presumption of man than the animals, which, like man, have sensations and instincts, but whose body and powers are nevertheless subservient to man. In relation to them man so easily forgets that injured animal muscle twitches just like human muscle, that the maltreated nerves of an animal sicken like human nerves, that the animal being is just as sensitive to cuts, blows and beating as man. Thus man becomes the torturer of the animal soul, which has been subjected to him only for the fulfilment of humane and wise purposes; sometimes out of self-interest, at other times in order to satisfy a whim, sometimes out of thoughtlessness—yes, even for the satisfaction of crude satanic desire.”

Samson Raphael Hirsch (1808–1888) Jewish theologian, germany 19th century

Horeb: A Philosophy of Jewish Laws and Observances, translated by Isidor Grunfeld, London: Soncino Press, 1968, vol. II https://books.google.it/books?id=tEIIAAAAIAAJ, p. 292, sec. 415.

“I am just trying to make the best possible case for the animals. That is clearly what I have been put on earth to do. Even after I am gone I will try to continue.”

Ingrid Newkirk (1949) British-American activist

"Mother Nature", The Observer 2003 June 22 http://observer.guardian.co.uk/magazine/story/0,11913,982402,00.html
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“One can cut off the head of an individual, but it is not possible to cut off the head of an economic law.”

Robert Hunter (author) (1874–1942) American sociologist, author, golf course architect

Violence and the Labor Movement (1914)
Context: No one sees more clearly than the socialist that nothing could prove more disastrous to the democratic cause than to have the present class conflict break into a civil war. If such a war becomes necessary, it will be in spite of the organized socialists, who, in every country of the world, not only seek to avoid, but actually condemn, riotous, tempestuous, and violent measures. Such measures do not fit into their philosophy, which sees, as the cause of our present intolerable social wrongs, not the malevolence of individuals or of classes, but the workings of certain economic laws. One can cut off the head of an individual, but it is not possible to cut off the head of an economic law. From the beginning of the modern socialist movement, this has been perfectly clear to the socialist, whose philosophy has taught him that appeals to violence tend, as Engels has pointed out, to obscure the understanding of the real development of things.

p.xi

“Rome cut off the heads of Christians and they continued to reappear one way or another. Something similar happens with Marxists.”

Augusto Pinochet (1915–2006) Former dictator of the republic of Chile

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1990s

“I tell you we will cut off his head with the crown upon it.”

Oliver Cromwell (1599–1658) English military and political leader

To Algernon Sidney, one of the judges at the trial of Charles I (December 1648)

“If he that would summon a Parliament be of the Signoria, let his head be cut off”

Girolamo Savonarola (1452–1498) Italian Dominican friar and preacher

Sermon of July 28, 1495, which historian Ludwig Pastor calls Savonarola's "sermon against the tumultuous assemblies, misnamed parliaments, which the Medici encouraged to serve their own ends", as quoted in History of the Popes (1898) by Ludwig Pastor, vol. 5, p. 209. http://books.google.com/books?id=MZ4YAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA209&dq=%22let+his+head+be+cut+off%22+savonarola&hl=en&sa=X&ei=H-ElT-DWOLGpsAKxqP2MAg&ved=0CDsQ6AEwAg#v=onepage&q=%22let%20his%20head%20be%20cut%20off%22%20savonarola&f=false
Context: If he that would summon a Parliament be of the Signoria, let his head be cut off; if he be not of it, let him be proclaimed a rebel and all his goods confiscated; … should the Signoria seek to call a Parliament … all may cut them to pieces without sin.