Quotes about defendant
page 8

“The Czech people has never had any sensitivity to current affairs. They were always prepared to defend the stale and unviable. In the Middle Ages, they wanted to reform the moribund Western Gothic with the Hussite movement. In the Great War, they lapsed into a primitive Slavophile doctrine and then they began to throw in their lot with morally putrid Western democracy.”

Emanuel Moravec (1893–1945) Czech military officer, writer, and politician

Moravec, Emanuel (1941). "Das Ende der Benesch-Republik. Die tschechoslowakische Krise 1938".

War, People, Age, Democracy

“I Thaddeus Kosciuszko being just in my departure from America do hereby declare and direct that should I make no other testamentary disposition of my property in the United States I hereby authorise my friend Thomas Jefferson to employ the whole thereof in purchasing Negroes from among his own or any others and giving them liberty in my name, in giving them an education in trades or otherwise and in having them instructed for their new condition in the duties of morality which may make them good neighbours, good fathers or mothers, husbands or wives and in their duties as citizens teaching them to be defenders of their liberty and Country and of the good order of society and in whatsoever may make them happy and useful and I make the said Thomas Jefferson my executor of this.”

Tadeusz Kościuszko (1746–1817) Polish and American military leader

T. Kosciuszko, 5th day of May 1798. (See The Papers of Thomas Jefferson, vol. 30, Princeton 2004, p. 332-333). Note: Thomas Jefferson never did carry out this request.
Version of 5 May 1798

Education, Departure, Country, Happiness

“It is my purpose nowhere in these remarks to make personal reproaches; I entertain no ill-will toward any human being, nor any brute, that I know of, not even the skunk across the way to which I referred. Least of all would I reproach the South. I honor her courage and fidelity. Even in a bad, a wicked cause, she shows a united front. All her sons are faithful to the cause of human bondage, because it is their cause. But the North - the poor, timid, mercenary, driveling North - has no such united defenders of her cause, although it is the cause of human liberty. None of the bright lights of the nation shine upon her section. Even her own great men have turned her accusers. She is the victim of low ambition - an ambition which prefers self to country, personal aggrandizement to the high cause of human liberty. She is offered up a sacrifice to propitiate southern tyranny - to conciliate southern treason.”

Thaddeus Stevens (1792–1868) American politician

June 10, 1850 in a speech before Congress on the Fugitive Slave Act. Page 123, Vol. 1, Palmer http://web.archive.org/web/20131209113445/http://thaddeusstevenssociety.com/Quotes.html. In Selected Papers of Thaddeus Stevens 1850s

Men, Faith, Way, Courage

“I'm not in favour of the army, I'm in favour of replacing it with armed workers' brigades to defend the factories.”

Ken Livingstone (1945) Mayor of London between 2000 and 2008

Quoted in Conservative Party Election Broadcast, 19 May 1987
Source: http://www.politicsresources.net/area/uk/pebs/con87.htm

“The plaintiff cannot dive into the secret recesses of his (the defendant's) heart.”

John Romilly, 1st Baron Romilly (1802–1874) English Whig politician and judge

In Re Ward (1862), 31 Beav. 7.

Secret, Heart

“Undoubtedly one of the most important provisions in the preparation for national defense is a proper and sound selective service act. Such a law ought to give authority for a very broad mobilization of all the resources of the country, both persons and materials. I can see some difficulties in the application of the principle, for it is the payment of a higher price that stimulates an increased production, but whenever it can be done without economic dislocation such limits ought to be established in time of war as would prevent so far as possible all kinds of profiteering. There is little defense which can be made of a system which puts some men in the ranks on very small pay and leaves others undisturbed to reap very large profits. Even the income tax, which recaptured for the benefit of the National Treasury alone about 75 per cent of such profits, while local governments took part of the remainder, is not a complete answer. The laying of taxes is, of course, in itself a conscription of whatever is necessary of the wealth of the country for national defense, but taxation does not meet the full requirements of the situation. In the advent of war, power should be lodged somewhere for the stabilization of prices as far as that might be possible in justice to the country and its defenders.”

Calvin Coolidge (1872–1933) American politician, 30th president of the United States (in office from 1923 to 1929)

1920s, Toleration and Liberalism (1925)

Men, War, Justice, Law

“The preamble to the Regulation says that women were employed wholesale to entice and take away the wives or female children for purposes of prostitution, and it was common practice among husbands and fathers to desert their families and children. Public conscience there was none, and in the absence of conscience it was futile to expect moral indignation against the social wrongs. Indeed the Brahmins were engaged in defending every wrong for the simple reason that they lived on them. They defended Untouchability which condemned millions to the lot of the helot. They defended caste, they defended female child marriage and they defended enforced widowhood—the two great props of the Caste system. They defended the burning of widows, and they defended the social system of graded inequality with its rule of hypergamy which led the Rajputs to kill in their thousands the daughters that were born to them. What shames! What wrongs! Can such a Society show its face before civilized nations? Can such a society hope to survive?”

Mahadev Govind Ranade (1842–1901) Indian scholar, social reformer and author

In support of the Regulation (VII of 1819) to put a stop to this moral degeneracy such were the questions which Ranade asked. He concluded that on only one condition it could be saved—namely, rigorous social reform. Quoted in Ranade Gandhi & Jinnah
At his 100th Anniversary lecture delivered in 1943 on Ranade, Gandhi & Jinnah by Dr. Ambedkar

Women, Marriage, Children, Family

“A government that compromises its competence to defend and protect the interests of the persons living under its jurisdiction betrays its raison d’être and loses its democratic legitimacy”

Alfred de Zayas (1947) American United Nations official

Report of the Independent Expert on the promotion of a democratic and equitable international order on the adverse impacts of free trade and investment agreements on a democratic and equitable international order http://www.ohchr.org/EN/Issues/IntOrder/Pages/Reports.aspx. 2015, Report submitted to the UN General Assembly

Personality

“The Christian who will sit with sealed lips when his Master is assailed, when religion is attacked, when wickedness is broached and defended, when truth is denounced, is a denier of his Lord, as guilty as Simon Peter in Pilate's hall.”

Theodore L. Cuyler (1822–1909) American minister

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 189.

Truth, Religion

“As leader of our nation, it is my sacred responsibility to defend democracy and the nation's interests. Let me assure you all that in my responsibility, I will not fail. My commitment, and that of my government, to the welfare, safety and security of the people is unshakable. Our nation has great potential, and already we have begun to realize our dream of a better and fairer Fiji. Let us not deny ourselves this golden opportunity of moving towards a better and brighter tomorrow.”

Timoci Bavadra (1934–1989) Fijian politician

Radio broadcast, 24 April 1987 (excerpts)

People, Dreams, Democracy

“It occurred to him that what had appeared perfectly impossible before, namely that he had not spent his life as he should have done, might after all be true. It occurred to him that his scarcely perceptible attempts to struggle against what was considered good by the most highly placed people, those scarcely noticeable impulses which he had immediately suppressed, might have been the real thing, and all the rest false. And his professional duties and the whole arrangement of his life and of his family, and all his social and official interests, might all have been false. He tried to defend all those things to himself and suddenly felt the weakness of what he was defending.”

Leo Tolstoy The Death of Ivan Ilyich

Source: The Death of Ivan Ilyich (1886), Ch. XI

Life, People, Family, Appearance

“So many people seem to spend their lives trying to appear normal, predictable and consistent to themselves and those that surround them. They just end up bored with themselves, bereft of any depth of inner resources, suffocated by the inhibitions that defend their own monolithic identities.”

Peter J. Carroll (1953) British occultist

Source: PsyberMagick (1995), p. 13

People, Appearance

“I would feel no hesitation in saying that it is the responsibility of a decent human being to give assistance to a child who is being attacked by a rabid dog, but I would not intend this to imply that in all imaginable circumstances one must, necessarily, act in accordance with this general responsibility. One can easily concoct imaginary situations in which it would be inadvisable, even immoral to do so […] [I will not defend] the assumption that it is reprehensible for a powerful nation to invade a weak and tiny neighbor in order to impose on it an "acceptable" government […] just as I would not take the trouble to justify my belief that one should assist a child being attacked by a rabid dog.”

Noam Chomsky (1928) american linguist, philosopher and activist

The Responsibility of Intellectuals: Arthur Dorfman, reply by Noam Chomsky http://www.nybooks.com/articles/12104, New York Review of Books, April 20, 1967. Quotes 1960s-1980s, 1960s

Dogs, Feeling, Imagination

“The Helsinki Treaty confirms yet again the principle of freedom of conscience. However, a stern and relentless struggle will have to be carried on if the contents of this treaty are to be given reality. In the Soviet Union today many thousands of people are persecuted because of their convictions, both by judicial and by non-judicial organs, for the sake of their religious beliefs and for their desire to bring their children up in the spirit of religion, for reading and disseminating - often only to a few acquaintances - literature which is unwelcome to the State, but which in accordance with ordinary democratic practice is absolutely legitimate, e. g. religious literature, and for attempts to leave the country. On the moral plane the persecution of persons who have defended other victims of unjust treatment, who have worked to publish and in particular to distribute information regarding the persecution and trials of persons with deviant opinions, and of conditions in places of internment, is particularly important.”

Andrei Sakharov (1921–1989) Soviet nuclear physicist and human rights activist

Nobel Peace Prize Speech (1975)

Children, People, Religion, Literature

“Beneath my breath I continued my conversation with God. As usual, He did not trouble Himself to defend His Works to me. My fault for being a woman.”

Glen Cook book Water Sleeps

Source: Water Sleeps (1999), Chapter 84 (p. 302)

God

“Judy: [to Byrd] Put him outside.
Byrd: Put who outside?
Judy: [points to defendant] Him.
Byrd: Him?
Judy: Him.
Defendant: [muttering under his breath as he is escorted out of court] Oh, man. The story of my life.
Judy: [to plaintiff] Mr. Britton's fifteen minutes of fame is over.”

Judith Sheindlin (1942) American lawyer, judge, television personality, and author

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CLQ3fw-7_hA&feature=bf_next&list=UUNOaQAKNIBe0AHquR9ttP0g&lf=plcp
Dialogue

Life

“Punk:"I should be main eventing this year's WrestleMania. I should be defending my championship in the main event of this year's WM. And I'm noooot. Not because of anything I did or didn't do. I'm not in the main event of WrestleMania because of you…. you screwed me. You did. You did. And in screwing me, you only screwed yourselves. Because if I cannot be in the main event of WrestleMania I see no reason in being at WM. I see no purpose, no point. […]I'm going to beat the Undertaker at WrestleMania. […] You like your streak. You like those numbers 20-0. So bad. Yet you roll your eyes when I mention a 434 day title reign? […] You steal from me, I steal from you. […]I've got a new number for you. 20-1. […]At WrestleMania I beat the streak. Deal with it."”

Phil Brooks (1978) American professional wrestler and mixed martial artist

March 4, 2013
WWE Raw

“I want to defend fracking under the right circumstances… I want to defend this stuff. And you know, I'm already at odds with the most organized and wildest [of the environmental movement]. They come to my rallies and they yell at me and, you know, all the rest of it. They say, 'Will you promise never to take any fossil fuels out of the earth ever again?”

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

No. I won't promise that. Get a life, you know. Private meeting with the Building Trades Union (9 September 2015), WikiLeaks. Quoted in "Clinton to environmentalists: 'Get a life'" http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/clinton-to-environmentalists-get-a-life/article/2604626 by John Siciliano, Washington Examiner (15 October 2016). Attributed

Life

“Richard the Lion Hearted, who became king of England in 1189, had inherited Aquitaine (western France) from his mother Eleanor and Normandy and Anjou—and England—from his father Henry. As Duke of Normandy and Anjou, Richard was a vassal of the king of France, but he controlled more land in France than did the French king. Although Richard had been an ally of Philip Augustus in the Third Crusade, in 1192 he went to war with the king over his French lands. Richard built Chateau Gaillard (he called it the “cocky castle”) on a cliff above the Seine north of Paris to defend his claims to Normandy. (…) Richard chose an excellent site, in the territory of the archbishop of Rouen, who objected strenuously until Richard paid him a handsome sum for the land. (…) Richard also raised money by selling rights of citizenship to residents of the town.”

Marilyn Stokstad (1929–2016) art historian

Source: Medieval castles (2005), Ch. 2 : The Castle as Fortress : The Castle and Siege Warfare

Money, War, Heart

“Rich and great people can take care of themselves; but the poor and defenceless—the men with small cottages and large families—the men who must work six days every week if they are to live in anything like comfort for a week,—these men want defenders; they want men to maintain their position in Parliament; they want men who will protest against any infringement of their rights.”

John Bright (1811–1889) British Radical and Liberal statesman

Speech at his Durham election (July 1843), quoted in G. M. Trevelyan, The Life of John Bright (London: Constable, 1913), p. 100.
1840s

Men, People, Family

“Libertarians have always battled the age-old scourge of war. They understood that war brought death and destruction on a grand scale, disrupted family and economic life, and put more power in the hands of the ruling class — which might explain why the rulers did not always share the popular sentiment for peace. Free men and women, of course, have often had to defend their own societies against foreign threats; but throughout history, war has usually been the common enemy of peaceful, productive people on all sides of the conflict.”

David Boaz (1953) libertarian, author and editor

"Key Concepts of Libertarianism" (1 January 1999)

Life, Death, Women, Men

“The nonsense about President Obama being a Muslim has got to stop. I rise to defend him from this absurd accusation by pointing out that he is obviously an atheist.”

Ann Coulter (1961) author, political commentator

"Obama Is Not A Muslim" (1 September 2010) http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=38812. 2010

“In representing criminal defendants—especially guilty ones—it is often necessary to take the offensive against the government: to put the government on trial for its misconduct. In law, as in sports, the best defense is often a good offense.”

Alan M. Dershowitz (1938) American lawyer, author

Law, Sport

“I am to talk about Apologetics. Apologetics means of course Defence. The first question is — what do you propose to defend? Christianity, of course…”

Clive Staples Lewis book God in the Dock

"Christian Apologetics" (1945), p. 89
God in the Dock (1970)

Question

“The term 'fundamentalist', which was coined in 1920, derives from the title of a series of tracts - The Fundamentals - published in the United States from 1910 to 1915. It has since been implicitly defined as meaning a person who believes that, since The Bible is the Word of God, every proposition in it must be true; a belief which, notoriously, is taken to commit fundamentalist Christians to defending the historicity of the accounts of the creation of the Universe given in the first two chapters of Genesis. On this understanding a fully believing Christian does not have to be fundamentalist. Instead it is both necessary and sufficient to accept the Apostles' and/or The Nicene Creed. In Islam, however, the situation is altogether different. For, whereas only a very small proportion of all the propositions contained in the Old and New Testaments are presented as statements made directly by God in any of the three persons of the Trinity, The Koran consists entirely and exclusively of what are alleged to be revelations from Allah (God). Therefore, with regard to The Koran, all Muslims must be as such fundamentalists; and anyone denying anything. asserted in The Koran ceases, ipso facto, to be properly accounted a Muslim. Those whom the media call fundamentalists would therefore better be described as revivalists. This conceptual truth not only places a tight limitation upon the possibilities of developmental change within Islam, as opposed to the tacit or open abandonment of one or more of its original particular claims, but also opens up the theoretical possibility of falsifying the Islamic system as a whole by presenting some known fact which is inconsistent with a Koranic assertion.”

Antony Flew (1923–2010) British analytic and evidentialist philosopher

Turning away from Mecca (The Salisbury Review, Spring 1996) quoted from Goel, Sita Ram (editor) (1998). Freedom of expression: Secular theocracy versus liberal democracy. https://web.archive.org/web/20171026023112/http://www.bharatvani.org:80/books/foe/index.htm

God, Truth, Understanding, Universe

“The anti‐Semite has chosen hate because hate is a faith; at the outset he has chosen to devaluate words and reasons. How entirely at ease he feels as a result. How futile and frivolous discussions about the rights of the Jew appear to him. He has placed himself on other ground from the beginning. If out of courtesy he consents for a moment to defend his point of view, he lends himself but does not give himself. He tries simply to project his intuitive certainty onto the plane of discourse. I mentioned awhile back some remarks by anti‐Semites, all of them absurd: "I hate Jews because they make servants insubordinate, because a Jewish furrier robbed me, etc." Never believe that anti‐ Semites are completely unaware of the absurdity of their replies. They know that their remarks are frivolous, open to challenge. But they are amusing themselves, for it is their adversary who is obliged to use words responsibly, since he believes in words. The anti‐Semites have the right to play. They even like to play with discourse for, by giving ridiculous reasons, they discredit the seriousness of their interlocutors. They delight in acting in bad faith, since they seek not to persuade by sound argument but to intimidate and disconcert. If you press them too closely, they will abruptly fall silent, loftily indicating by some phrase that the time for argument is past. It is not that they are afraid of being convinced. They fear only to appear ridiculous or to prejudice by their embarrassment their hope of winning over some third person to their side.”

Jean Paul Sartre (1905–1980) French existentialist philosopher, playwright, novelist, screenwriter, political activist, biographer, and …

Pages 13-14
(1945)

Hate, Fear, Faith, Hope

“Fitz-Roy's temper was a most unfortunate one. It was usually worst in the early morning, and with his eagle eye he could generally detect something amiss about the ship, and was then unsparing in his blame. He was very kind to me, but was a man very difficult to live with on the intimate terms which necessarily followed from our messing by ourselves in the same cabin. We had several quarrels; for instance, early in the voyage at Bahia, in Brazil, he defended and praised slavery, which I abominated, and told me that he had just visited a great slave-owner, who had called up many of his slaves and asked them whether they were happy, and whether they wished to be free, and all answered "No." I then asked him, perhaps with a sneer, whether he thought that the answer of slaves in the presence of their master was worth anything? This made him excessively angry, and he said that as I doubted his word we could not live any longer together. I thought that I should have been compelled to leave the ship; but as soon as the news spread, which it did quickly, as the captain sent for the first lieutenant to assuage his anger by abusing me, I was deeply gratified by receiving an invitation from all the gun-room officers to mess with them. But after a few hours Fitz-Roy showed his usual magnanimity by sending an officer to me with an apology and a request that I would continue to live with him.”

Charles Darwin (1809–1882) British naturalist, author of "On the origin of species, by means of natural selection"

volume I, chapter II: "Autobiography", pages 60-61 http://darwin-online.org.uk/content/frameset?pageseq=78&itemID=F1452.1&viewtype=image The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin (1887)

Anger, Happiness

“Samuelson's textbook has delivered a great deal of economic wisdom. For many economists, the positive side of the balance sheet has outweighed the negative. Indeed, his defenders might ask: Might the United States and the West have suffered another Great Depression if Samuelson had not emphasized the need for "automatic stabilizers"? Did not Samuelson's heralding of the "mixed" economy curb the appetite of third world countries for national socialism?
We will never know, of course, but it is humbling to speculate on whether alterations in principles textbooks might have led to a different U. S. economy.”

Mark Skousen (1947) American economist, investment analyst, newsletter editor, college professor and author

Mark Skousen, "The Perseverance of Paul Samuelson's Economics", The Journal of Economic Perspectives, Vol. 11, No. 2 (Spring, 1997)

Wisdom, World, Suffering, Country

“Judy: Listen to me very carefully, sir. I don't want you to give me the Dumb Routine. Do you know what I'm talking about? If you're dumb, I'll know you're dumb. If you give me the dumb routine, I know it's a dumb routine.
Defendant: Yes, ma'am.
Judy: I know the difference, Mr. Carey. Do you understand that?
Defendant: [grinning] Yes, ma'am.
Judy: Okay, very good. Now we understand each other, sir. Believe me, by the time this is over you're not gonna be smiling.”

Judith Sheindlin (1942) American lawyer, judge, television personality, and author

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EbksKFlc9H4&feature=channel_video_title
Dialogue

Smile, Understanding, Time

“I do not want to go into its physical reasons: the construction of the human body is different from that of carnivorous animals. But man's intelligence is such that it can be utilised to defend any-thing he does, whether right or wrong.”

Morarji Desai (1896–1995) Former Indian Finance Minister, Freedom Fighters, Former prime minister

19th World Vegetarian Congress 1967

Intelligence, Animals

“I shall make it quite plain that if there is to be an enquiry, it will have to begin with Lord Salisbury's administration, or at any rate with Arthur Balfour's. … I don't defend the system, but I have done merely what other Prime Ministers have done, and I am going to make it clear that if I am going down, I am going to bring the temple down with me. I am not going to be sacrificed by people and the descendants of people who have been engaged in carrying on precisely the same system.”

David Lloyd George (1863–1945) Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

On his sale of honours, quoted in Lord Riddell's diary entry (8 July 1922), J. M. McEwen (ed.), The Riddell Diaries 1908-1923 (London: The Athlone Press, 1986), p. 371.
Prime Minister

People

“It is plain, of course, that any proof of this depends upon the validity of the doctrine of a priori cognition; only by our proved possession of such cognition can there be any evidence that we are self-active realities. It is in this reference noteworthy, therefore, that Lange, as defender of agnosticism, sees he cannot afford to admit the theory upon which alone cognition strictly a priori can be established.”

George Holmes Howison (1834–1916) American philosopher

Source: The Limits of Evolution, and Other Essays, Illustrating the Metaphysical Theory of Personal Ideaalism (1905), Later German Philosophy, p.175

Reality, Dependency

“[Somali maritime violence] is a response to greedy Western nations, who invade and exploit Somalia's water resources illegally. It is not a piracy, it is self defence. It is defending the Somalia children's food.”

Muammar Gaddafi (1942–2011) Libyan revolutionary, politician and political theorist

Remarks at African Union headquarters, quoted in Daily Nation (5 February 2009) " Gaddafi defends Somali pirates http://www.nation.co.ke/News/africa/-/1066/525348/-/13rtrgiz/-/index.html" by Argaw Ahine

Children, Food, Water

“Three hundred men hastened forth, wearing gold torques, defending the land – and there was slaughter. Though they were slain they slew, and they shall be honoured to the end of the world; and of all us kinsmen who went, alas, but for one man none escaped.”

Aneirin book Y Gododdin

Stanza B8, p. 101.
Y Gododdin

Men, World

“I have always thought it highly injurious to the public that different rules should prevail in the different Courts on the same mercantile case. My opinion has been uniform on that subject. It sometimes indeed happens that in questions of real property Courts of law find themselves fettered with rules, from which they cannot depart, because they are fixed and established rules1; though equity may interpose, not to contradict, but to correct, the strict and rigid rules of law. But in mercantile questions no distinction ought to prevail. The mercantile law of this country is founded on principles of equity; and when once a rule is established in that Court as a rule of property, it ought to be adopted in a Court of law. For this reason Courts of law of late years have said that, even where the action is founded on a tort, they would discover some mode of defeating the plaintiff, unless his action were also founded on equity; and that though the property might on legal grounds be with the plaintiff, if there were any claim or charge by the defendant, they would not consider the retaining of the goods as a conversion.”

Sir Francis Buller, 1st Baronet (1746–1800) British judge

Tooke v. Hollingworth (1793), 5 T. R. 229.

Law, Question, Country

“I am no longer Chelsea coach and I do not have to defend them any more, so I think it is correct if I say Drogba is a diver.”

José Mourinho (1963) Portuguese association football player and manager

http://www.insideworldsoccer.com/2008/10/drogba-is-diver-says-mourinho.html 2008

Thinking

“I have long recognized the theory and aesthetic of such comprehensive display: show everything and incite wonder by sheer variety. But I had never realized how powerfully the decor of a cabinet museum can promote this goal until I saw the Dublin [Natural History Museum] fixtures redone right. […] The exuberance is all of one piece—organic and architectural. I write this essay to offer my warmest congratulations to the Dublin Museum for choosing preservation—a decision not only scientifically right, but also ethically sound and decidedly courageous. The avant-garde is not an exclusive locus of courage; a principled stand within a reconstituted rear unit may call down just as much ridicule and demand equal fortitude. Crowds do not always rush off in admirable or defendable directions.”

Stephen Jay Gould book Dinosaur in a Haystack

"Cabinet Museums: Alive, Alive, O!", p. 244
Dinosaur in a Haystack (1995)

History, Courage, Nature, Decision

“Whereas civil rulers, not having their duty to the people duly before them, may attempt to tyrannize, and as the military forces which must be occasionally raised to defend our country, might pervert their power to the injury of their fellow citizens, the people are confirmed by the article in their right to keep and bear their private arms.”

Tench Coxe (1755–1824) American economist

"Remarks on the First Part of the Amendments to the Federal Constitution," under the pseudonym "A Pennsylvanian" in the Philadelphia Federal Gazette, June 18, 1789, p. 2 col. 1. As quoted in the Federal Gazette, June 18, 1789, A friend of James Madison, writing in support of the Madison's first draft of the Bill of Rights.

People, Country

“Animals in the wild lead lives of compulsion and necessity within an unforgiving social hierarchy in an environment where the supply of fear is high and the supply of food is low and where territory must constantly be defended and parasites forever endured.”

Yann Martel book Life of Pi

Source: Life of Pi (2001), Chapter 4, p. 17

Fear, Food, Animals

“The enemy is radical Islam. You can't get around it. And not only will I name the enemy, I will do whatever it takes to defend America from these haters of mankind.”

Rand Paul (1963) American politician, ophthalmologist, and United States Senator from Kentucky

2015-04-07
Rand Paul announces presidential bid with promises of 'liberty and limited government'
Paul
Lewis
Guardian
http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/apr/07/rand-paul-announces-2016-presidential-bid-website
2015-04-08
2010s

“We shall not flag or fail. We shall go on to the end, we shall fight in France, we shall fight on the seas and oceans, we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air, we shall defend our Island, whatever the cost may be, we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender, and even if, which I do not for a moment believe, this Island or a large part of it were subjugated and starving, then our Empire beyond the seas, armed and guarded by the British Fleet, would carry on the struggle, until, in God's good time, the New World, with all its power and might, steps forth to the rescue and the liberation of the Old.”

Winston S. Churchill book The Second World War

Speech in the House of Commons (4 June 1940).
The Second World War (1939–1945)

God, World, Confidence, Time

“Did not Nietzsche too warn of that “life-destroying enlightenment” that touches on our life-supporting self-delusions? Can we afford to shake up the “basic fictions” of privacy, personality, and identity? Be that as it may, in this question both old and new conservatives have come to the hard decision to take the “stance” of defending, against all the demands of reflection, their “unavoidable lies for living,” without which self-preservation would not be possible. That they are aided in this by the general fear of self-experience, which competes with curiosity about self-experience, does not have to be expressly emphasized. Thus the theater of respectable, closed egos goes on everywhere, even where the means have long been available to secure better knowledge. Crosswise to all political fronts, it is the “ego” in society that offers the most resolute resistance against the decisive enlightenment. Scarcely anyone will put up with radical self-reflection on this point, not even many of those who regard themselves as enlighteners.”

Peter Sloterdijk (1947) German philosopher

Source: Kritik der zynischen Vernunft [Critique of Cynical Reason] (1983), p. 60

Life, Fear, Question, Support

“Mr Murray would be well advised to direct his attacks towards the Tory Government, who have been devastating our industry and smashing down British industry as a whole. I would remind Mr Murray that the TUC at Congress two years ago voted for extra-Parliamentary action – and in essence political strike action – when it decided to oppose Government laws against the miners…I believe that the miners will recognise, sooner or later, that they will have to stand and defend this industry, their jobs, dignity and self-respect.”

Arthur Scargill (1938) British trade unionist

Speech in Perth (1 July 1983), quoted in Paul Routledge, "Scargill rejects Murray call on political strikes", The Times (2 July 1983), p. 1

Law

“Over decades that seem but a moment in time, lines of scarlet figures shuttled among the sorghum stalks to weave a vast human tapestry. They killed, they looted, and they defended their country in a valiant, stirring ballet that makes us unfilial descendants who now occupy the land pale by comparison.”

Mo Yan book Red Sorghum

Red Sorghum: A Novel of China (1986/1987)

Time, Country

“The only substantial contribution was made by an RSS lawyer hailing from Anantnag in Kashmir. “I have studied Islam in depth,” he said, “and found it to be a great religion. I cannot understand anyone placing Islam in the dock.” Ironically enough this defender of Islam was literally the first to be shot dead when the ethnic cleansing started in the Valley in the winter of 1989.”

Sita Ram Goel (1921–2003) Indian activist

Time for Stock-Taking (1997)

Religion, Understanding, Study, Winter

“We shall support vigorously the principle that no country has the right to impose its will or rule on another by force.
We shall continue, in this era of negotiation, to work for the limitation of nuclear arms, and to reduce the danger of confrontation between the great powers.
We shall do our share in defending peace and freedom in the world. But we shall expect others to do their share.
The time has passed when America will make every other nation's conflict our own, or make every other nation's future our responsibility, or presume to tell the people of other nations how to manage their own affairs.”

Richard Nixon (1913–1994) 37th President of the United States of America

1970s, Second Inaugural Address (1973)

People, World, Peace, Support

“So, Americans, then. Self-appointed vigilante defenders of the world, kind of like Superman, if Superman was retarded and only fought crime when he felt like it.”

Ben Croshaw (1983) English video game journalist

3 July 2003
Fully Ramblomatic

World

“The paradigm of competition is a race: by rewarding the winner, we encourage everyone to run faster. When capitalism really works this way, it does a good job; but its defenders are wrong in assuming it always works this way. If the runners forget why the reward is offered and become intent on winning, no matter how, they may find other strategies — such as, attacking other runners. If the runners get into a fist fight, they will all finish late.
Proprietary and secret software is the moral equivalent of runners in a fist fight.”

Richard Stallman (1953) American software freedom activist, short story writer and computer programmer, founder of the GNU project

1980s, GNU Manifesto (1985)

Secret, Way, Fight, Forgetting

“The Department of Foreign Affairs and the Department of Justice should immediately and without delay get in touch with their counterparts and demand the attendance of the four witnesses. Such demand is covered by the Visiting Forces Agreement (VFA) which calls not only for Respect for Law but the obligation to make available the US personnel for investigative or judicial proceedings. As worded in Article V, "US military authorities shall, upon formal notification by the Philippine authorities and without delay, make such personnel available to those authorities in time for any investigative or judicial proceedings." The VFA clearly states that the Philippines has criminal jurisdiction over US soldiers involved in a crime in the country, and it is a matter of invoking it with speed and conviction. The VFA, undoubtedly, is one sided and as such we must always insist and be vigilant with what is accorded us as a matter of sovereign right in that treaty. This is incident calls for the Philippine authorities’ and the Filipinos’ righteous indignation to fight for custody of the suspect and demand for the physical availability of the four American witnesses. We cannot just sit idly by and watch while our laws are being subverted. If we cannot defend, protect nor assist our fellow Filipino right here in our own soil, what chilling message do we get out there to our people and especially to those who are outside Philippine soils? We cannot begrudge the US for acting to protect the interests of its nationals and its interests. Our own officials should also, with the same fervor, do the same. This is why I continue my call for the review of the VFA for clearer, stronger and stricter stipulations which are mutually beneficial to both parties in every step of the way.”

Francis Escudero (1969) Filipino politician

Escudero, F. [Francis]. (2014, December 16). Retrieved from Official Facebook Page of Francis Escudero https://www.facebook.com/senchizescudero/posts/10152798060815610/ 2014, Facebook

People, Justice, Law, Way

“All who are weary and heavy laden; all who suffer under injustice; all who suffer from the outrages of the existing bourgeois society; all who have in them the feeling of the worth of humanity, look to us, turn hopefully to us, as the only party that can bring rescue and deliverance. And if we, the opponents of this unjust world of violence, suddenly reach out the hand of brotherhood to it, conclude alliances with its representatives, invite our comrades to go hand in hand with the enemy whose misdeeds have driven the masses into our camp, what confusion must result in their minds! … It must be that for the hundreds and thousands, for the millions that have sought salvation under our banner, it was all a colossal mistake for them to come to us. If we are not different from the others, then we are not the right ones – the Savior is yet to come; and the Social Democracy was a false Messiah, no better than the other false ones! Just in this fact lies our strength, that we are not like the others, and that we are not only not like the others, and that we are not simply different from the others, but that we are their deadly enemy, who have sworn to storm and demolish the Bastile of Capitalism, whose defenders all those others are. Therefore we are only strong when we are alone. This is not to say that we are to individualise or to isolate ourselves. We have never lacked for company, and we never shall so long as the fight lasts. On the essentially true but literally false phrase about a “single reactionary mass,” the Social Democracy has never believed since it passed from the realm of theory to that of practice. We know that the individual members and divisions of the “single reactionary mass” are in conflict with each other, and we have always used these conflicts for our purposes. We have used opponents against opponents, but have never allowed them to use us.”

Wilhelm Liebknecht (1826–1900) German socialist politician

No Compromise – No Political Trading (1899)

World, Feeling, Democracy, Strong

“Since we are a Christian country, God above all. This history of a secular state doesn't exist, no. The state is Christian and the minority that is against it can leave. Let's make a country for majority! The minority must bow to the majority. Law must exist to defend the majority! The minority suits itself [to the law] or just disappears.”

Jair Bolsonaro (1955) Brazilian president elect

At Campina Grande Airport https://theintercept.com/2018/09/25/ideias-nazifascistas-bolsonarismo/ on 8 February 2018. Brazil presidential candidate Bolsonaro's most controversial quotes https://www.yahoo.com/news/brazil-presidential-candidate-bolsonaros-most-controversial-quotes-012652084.html. Yahoo!, 29 September 2018.

God, Law, History, Country

“But in India, and in the countries which Islam has carved out of if, there is still a strong presence of an ideological drive to islamize India, and to make this clear by wresting all kinds of real and symbolical concessions from the Hindus, and by refusing them any concession whatsoever in return. The symbols of humiliation that have been inflicted on the Hindus, are being defended.”

Koenraad Elst (1959) orientalist, writer

1990s, Ayodhya and After: Issues Before Hindu Society (1991)

Strong, Country

“I do not think that, practically or morally, we can defend a policy of saving every distinctive local population of organisms. I can cite a good rationale for the preservation of species, for each species is a unique and separate natural object that, once lost, can never be reconstituted. But subspecies are distinctive local populations of species with broader geographic range. Subspecies are dynamic, interbreedable, and constantly changing: what then are we saving by declaring them all inviolate?”

Stephen Jay Gould book Eight Little Piggies

"The Golden Rule: A Proper Scale for Our Environmental Crisis", p. 43
Eight Little Piggies (1993)

Nature, Thinking, Change

“Judy: [yelling at defendant, who is being sued for bleaching plaintiff's clothes and has just cursed at plaintiff in court] LISTEN TO ME!!! Where do you think you are? You think you're on Springer? [audience laughs] You're NOT! You're NOT! You wanna go to a therapist, go someplace else---
Defendant: No, I don't need a therapist.
Judy: Listen to me!
Defendant: I don't need to see a therapist… [continues trying to talk over Judy]
Judy: Only one person is going to have--only one… judgment for the plaintiff in the amount of $5000! Your counterclaim is dismissed!
Defendant: Excuse me? No! What about my computer? But what about my computer? But what about my computer?
Judy: [getting up to walk off the set] That's all. Your counterclaim is dismissed.
Defendant: …and you just gonna walk away like that? That don't even make no sense! What about my computer, I don't get no chance to say nothin'…
Judy: [over defendant's continued protests] I told you - I told you: it's my playpen, I have the word. Goodbye, go someplace else!”

Judith Sheindlin (1942) American lawyer, judge, television personality, and author

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u1cYWq1bm_Q
Dialogue

Thinking, Sense, Chance, Personality

“One of the most effective forms of industrial or military sabotage limits itself to damage that can never be thoroughly proven—or even proven at all—to be anything deliberate. It is like an invisible political movement; perhaps it isn’t there at all. If a bomb is wired to a car’s ignition, then obviously there is an enemy; if public building or a political headquarters is blown up, then there is a political enemy. But if an accident, or a series of accidents, occurs, if equipment merely fails to function, if it appears faulty, especially in a slow fashion, over a period of natural time, with numerous small failures and misfirings—then the victim, whether a person or a party or a country, can never marshal itself to defend itself.”

Philip K. Dick book A Scanner Darkly

Source: A Scanner Darkly (1977), Chapter 6 (p. 91)

Cars, Fashion, Failure, Nature

“I don't think it's possible to be too aggressive in defending freedom of speech, which is … much, much more sacred than any god, or prophet, or scripture, could or will ever be, from now until the end of time, or for eternity: whichever lasts longer.”

Pat Condell (1949) Stand-up comedian, writer, and Internet personality

"Aggressive Atheism" (28 November 2009) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yjO4duhMRZk 2009

God, Thinking, Freedom, Time

“In our United Kingdom, the main terrorist threat has come from the IRA. Their minds twisted by hatred and fanaticism, they have tried to bomb and murder their way to their objective of tearing more than a million citizens out of the United Kingdom. The truth is that the whole IRA campaign is based on crushing democracy and smashing anyone who doesn't agree with them. To all those who have suffered so much at their hands—to the Northern Ireland policemen and prison officers and their families, to the soldiers, the judges, the civil servants and their families—we offer our deepest admiration and thanks for defending democracy and for facing danger while keeping within the rule of law—unlike the terrorist who skulks in the shadows and shoots to kill…we will never give up the search for more effective ways of defeating the IRA. If the IRA think they can weary us or frighten us, they have made a terrible miscalculation. People sometimes say that it is wrong to use the word never in politics, I disagree, some things are of such fundamental importance that no other word is appropriate. So I say once again today that this Government will never surrender to the IRA. Never.”

Margaret Thatcher (1925–2013) British stateswoman and politician

Speech to Conservative Party Conference (14 October 1988) http://www.margaretthatcher.org/speeches/displaydocument.asp?docid=107352 Third term as Prime Minister

People, Truth, Family, Law

“I am a man who is basically opposed to atrocities or ungentlemanly actions. In 1934, I promulgated a law against vivisection. You can see, therefore, that if I disapprove of the experimentation on animals, how could I possibly be in favor of torturing humans? The prosecution says that I had something to do with the freezing experiments which were performed in the concentration camps under the auspices of the air force. That is pure nonsense! I was much too busy to know about these medical experiments, and if anybody had asked me, I would have disapproved violently. It must have been Himmler who thought up these stupid experiments, although I think he shirked his responsibility by committing suicide. I am not too unhappy about it because I would not particularly enjoy sitting on the same bench with him. The same is true of that drunken Robert Ley, who did us a favor by hanging himself before the trial started. He was not going to be any advantage for us defendants when he took the stand.”

Hermann Göring (1893–1946) German politician and military leader

To Leon Goldensohn (24 May 1946)
The Nuremberg Interviews (2004)

Stupidity, Law, Business, Thinking

“People, especially liberals and psychiatrists, say that the two main causes of crime are mental illness and poverty. Insanity is therefore a defense in the criminal law. If we really believed that poverty caused crime, we would have a "poverty defense" as well, attorneys calling professors of economics to testify in court whether a particular defendant is guilty of theft or not by reason of poverty.”

Thomas Szasz (1920–2012) Hungarian psychiatrist

The Untamed Tongue: A Dissenting Dictionary (1990)

People, Law

“There towers to the sky a monument of four million pairs of human fetters taken from the arms of slaves, and I read on its little headstone this, 'Sacred to the memory of Human Slavery'. For forty years of its infamous life the Democratic Party taught that it was divine; God's institution. They defended it, they stood around it, they followed it to its grave as a mourner. But here it lies, dead by the hand of Abraham Lincoln; dead by the power of the Republican Party, dead by the justice of Almighty God. Don't camp there, young man. That is no place in which to put your young life. Come out, and come over into this camp of liberty, of order, of law, of justice, of freedom, of all that is glorious under these night stars.”

James A. Garfield (1831–1881) American politician, 20th President of the United States (in office in 1881)

1870s, An Appeal to Young Men (1879)

Life, God, Justice, Law

“Thanks to its chokehold on the nation’s culture, liberalism is thus in power whether its politicians are elected or not; it rules over us even though Republicans have prevailed in six out of the nine presidential elections since 1968; even though Republicans presently control all three branches of government; even though the last of the big-name, forthright liberals of the old school (Humphrey, McGovern, Church, Bayhm, Culver, etc.) either died or went down to defeat in the seventies; and even though no Democratic presidential nominee has called himself a "liberal" since Walter Mondale. Liberalism is beyond politics, a tyrant that dominates our lives in countless ways great and small, and which is virtually incapable of being overthrown.Conservatism, on the other hand, is the doctrine of the oppressed majority. Conservatism does not defend some established order of things: It accuses; its rants; it points out hypocrisies and gleefully pounces on contradictions. While liberals use their control of the airwaves, newspapers, and schools to persecute average Americans — to ridicule the pious, flatter the shiftless, and indoctrinate the kids with all sorts of permissive nonsense — the Republicans are the party of the disrespected, the downtrodden, the forgotten. They are always the underdog, always in rebellion against a haughty establishment, always rising up from below.All claims of the right, in other words, advance from victimhood. This is another trick the backlash has picked up from the left. Even though republicans legislate in the interests of society’s most powerful, and even though conservative social critics typically enjoy cushy sinecures at places like the American Enterprise Institute and the Wall Street Journal, they rarely claim to speak on behalf of the wealthy of the winners in the social Darwinist struggle. Just like the leftists of the early twentieth century, they see themselves in revolt against a genteel tradition, rising up against a bankrupt establishment that will tolerate no backtalk.Conservatism, on the other hand, can never be powerful or successful, and backlashers revel in fantasies of their own marginality and persecution.”

Thomas Frank book What's the Matter with Kansas?

Ibid.(pp. 119-120).
What's the Matter with Kansas? (2004)

School, Way, Success

“If the American global strategy is dependent on the ability of nuclear ships to come to New Zealand, then God defend the world.”

David Lange (1942–2005) New Zealand politician and 32nd Prime Minister of New Zealand

Referring to American nuclear policy, alluding to New Zealand's national anthem, God Defend New Zealand.
Source: Heinemann Dictionary of New Zealand Quotations (1988), p. 397.

God, World, Dependency

“It is important that those engaged in terrorism realise that our determination to defend our values and our way of life is greater than their determination to cause death and destruction to innocent people in a desire to impose extremism on the world.”

Tony Blair (1953) former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Trevor Kavanagh, "We shall prevail .. terrorists shall not", The Sun, 8 July 2005, p. 18
7 July 2005, statement from Scotland's Gleneagles Hotel, in response to the terrorist attack on the London Underground.
2000s

Life, Death, People, World

“I know that the conquest of English America is an impossibility. You cannot, I venture to say it, you CANNOT conquer America… As to conquest, therefore, my Lords, I repeat, it is impossible. You may swell every expense, and every effort, still more extravagantly; pile and accumulate every assistance you can buy or borrow; traffic and barter with every little pitiful German Prince, that sells and sends his subjects to the shambles of a foreign country; your efforts are for ever vain and impotent— doubly so from this mercenary aid on which you rely; for it irritates, to an incurable resentment, the minds of your enemies— to overrun them with the sordid sons of rapine and plunder; devoting them and their possessions to the rapacity of hireling cruelty! If I were an American, as I am an Englishman, while a foreign troop was landed in my country, I never would lay down my arms, never! never! never!… I call upon the honour of your Lordships to reverence the dignity of your ancestors, and to maintain your own. I call upon the spirit and humanity of my country to vindicate the national character. I invoke the genius of the constitution. From the tapestry that adorns these walls, the immortal ancestor of this noble Lord frowns with indignation at THE DISGRACE OF HIS COUNTRY! In vain he led your victorious fleets against the boasted Armada of Spain; in vain he defended and established the honour, the liberties, the religion, the Protestant religion of his country, against the arbitrary cruelties of Popery and the Inquisition.”

William Pitt, 1st Earl of Chatham (1708–1778) British politician

Speech in the House of Lords (18 November, 1777), responding to a speech by Henry Howard, 12th Earl of Suffolk, who spoke in favour of the war against the American colonists. Suffolk was a descendant of Howard of Effingham, who led the English navy against the Spanish Armada. Effingham had commissioned a series of tapestries on the defeat of the Armada, and sold them to King James I. Since 1650 they were hung in the House of Lords, where they remained until destroyed by fire in 1834.
William Pitt, The Speeches of the Right Honourable the Earl of Chatham in the Houses of Lords and Commons: With a Biographical Memoir and Introductions and Explanatory Notes to the Speeches (London: Aylott & Jones, 1848), pp. 150-6.

Religion, Effort, Victory, Country

“The relationship between governments and the press has always been recognized as a matter of large importance. Wherever despotism abounds, the sources of public information are the first to be brought under its control. Whereever the cause of liberty is making its way, one of its highest accomplishments is the guarantee of the freedom of the press. It has always been realized, sometimes instinctively, oftentimes expressly, that truth and freedom are inseparable. An absolutism could never rest upon anything save a perverted and distorted view of human relationships and upon false standards set up and maintained by force. It has always found it necessary to attempt to dominate the entire field of education and instruction. It has thrived on ignorance. While it has sought to train the minds of a few, it has been largely with the purpose of attempting to give them a superior facility for misleading the many. Men have been educated under absolutism, not that they might bear witness to the truth, but that they might be the more ingenious advocates and defenders of false standards and hollow pretenses. This has always been the method of privilege, the method of class and caste, the method of master and slave.”

Calvin Coolidge (1872–1933) American politician, 30th president of the United States (in office from 1923 to 1929)

1920s, The Press Under a Free Government (1925)

Men, Truth, Education, Way

“Do you solemnly swear to serve the Republic in thought, in word, and in deed; to defend its citizens, resist its enemies, and champion its justice with the whole of your heart, your strength, and your mind; to foreswear all other allegiances; to obey all lawful orders of your superior officers; to uphold the highest ideals of the Republic, and at all times to conduct yourself to the credit of the Republic as its commissioned officer, by witness of, aid from, and faith in the force?”

Matthew Stover book Shatterpoint

Mace Windu's Oath of Office, p. 213
Shatterpoint (2004)

Faith, Justice, Law, Time

“Australia cannot stand aside from the struggle to resist the aggressive thrust of Communism in Asia and to ensure conditions in which stability can be achieved. Our own national security demands this course. We cannot be isolationist or neutralist, placed as we are geographically and occupying, as we do, with limited national strength, this vast continent. We cannot leave it solely to our allies – and their national servicemen [conscripts] – to defend in the region the rights of countries to their own independence and the peaceful pursuit of their national way of life.”

Harold Holt (1908–1967) Australian politician, 17th Prime Minister of Australia

statement on the creation of a self-contained Australian task force to fight in Vietnam, 8 March 1966
As prime minister
Source: The Life and Death of Harold Holt, p. 178.

Life, Peace, Way, Communication

“It would be a contradiction in terms if the oppressors not only defended but actually implemented a liberating education.”

Paulo Freire (1921–1997) educator and philosopher

Source: Pedagogia do oprimido (Pedagogy of the Oppressed) (1968, English trans. 1970), Chapter 1

Education

“The Tippoo himself led the defenders north of the breach. The Tippoo had cursed Gudin for blowing the mines too early and thus wasting its terrible destructive power, but now he tried to revive the defense by his personal example. He stood in the front rank of his soldiers while behind him a succession of aides loaded jewel-encrusted hunting rifles. One by one the rifles were given to the Tippoo who aimed and fired, aimed and fired, and redcoat after redcoat was struck down.”

Bernard Cornwell (1944) British writer

Narrator, p. 351
Sharpe (Novel Series), Sharpe's Tiger (1997)

Success, Personality

“Yes, Dad was considered a "boat rocker," and he was prepared to make waves when necessary. He felt that if you needed to create a tsunami to make things right, then so be it. Sure, he cared about what people thought of him, he cared about them very much… but he cared about the Bible more. The Word of God was the foundation of his life. It was the air in his lungs and the blood in his veins. He never ceased to read it, contemplate it, apply it, and defend it.”

Ken Ham (1951) Australian young Earth creationist

Raising Godly Children in an Ungodly World: Leaving a Lasting Legacy (2008)

Life, God, People, Reading

“[Glossary of Broken Dreams] was born out of the frustration that debate culture (not only) on digital platforms has become radically fragmented and fractalized, making it hard to call it discourse. It's a Tower of Babel-like context confusion that pleases me as a nerd, but as a political being who wants society to progress, it doesn't please me at all. […] I just thought it was time for something like a political spring cleaning of concepts. Because picking up the broom and taking a chance to get rid of stuff is the only way to prevent us all from becoming social liberal hoarders. One of my examples is the concept of privacy that, at the moment, everyone coddles like a puppy. Let me say this, as a good old Neo-leftist, I'm having problems with the conservative and deeply bourgeois can of worms that the privacy debate entails. I think it's time to change our thought patterns here. Instead of trying to find ways to defend our privacy come hell or high water, we should ask ourselves why privacy is such a major concern for us? Is what we're trying to achieve here just reformist symptom-control rather than a solution to the underlying problems?”

Johannes Grenzfurthner (1975) Austrian artist, writer, curator, and theatre and film director

from an interview about Grenzfurthner's film Glossary of Broken Dreams (via Boing Boing https://boingboing.net/2018/05/24/at-the-golden-calf-slaughterho.html)

Dreams, Way, Spring, Hell

“Mr. Chairman, when Oregonians first adopted the Death With Dignity Act and then defended it on a second ballot initiative, they sent their government a clear message. When the American people resisted government interference in the tragic case of Terri Schiavo, they sent their government a clear message. That message is that death is an intensely personal and private moment, and in those moments, the government ought to leave well enough alone.”

Ron Wyden (1949) American politician

Ron Wyden, (May 25, 2006), Speech of Senator Wyden: Wyden Testifies in Support of Oregon's Death with Dignity Act at Judiciary Committee Hearing http://wyden.senate.gov/newsroom/record.cfm?id=271918&&, United States Senate.

Death, People, Personality

“When I was a child the boys of the town never came near me except to make fun of me. I was almost always alone. Sometimes, finding me by chance among them, they hurled themselves against me, and not only with words. One day – and while he told me this his great eyes shone with an inner light - … they started to throw stones at me with more violence than usual, with the evilness which is found among children and the weak. I lost patience, and grabbing stones I too started to defend myself with such energy that my attackers were put to flight. Mario, I succeeded in beating them: I terrified them to such an extent that from that day they respected me and no longer annoyed me. I ran to my mother … and told her of my first victorious battle: she kissed me tenderly and it was the best prize that I could have wanted.”

Antonio Gramsci (1891–1937) Italian writer, politician, theorist, sociologist and linguist

Gramsci cited in Garuglieri's Garuglieri, 'Ricordo di Gramsci.' Societa, 691-701., 1946, p. 700.

Children, Boy, Kiss, Light

“Overall, the Pox has had the effect of an installment-plan World War III. In fact, there were several small, bloody shooting wars going on around the world during the Pox. These were stupid affairs—wastes of life and treasure. They were fought, ostensibly, to defend against vicious foreign enemies. All too often, they were actually fought because inadequate leaders did not know what else to do. Such leaders knew that they could depend on fear, suspicion, hatred, need, and greed to arouse patriotic support for war.
Amid all this, somehow, the United States of America suffered a major, nonmilitary defeat. It lost no important war, yet it did not survive the Pox. Perhaps it simply lost sight of what it once intended to be, then blundered aimlessly until it exhausted itself.”

Octavia E. Butler book Parable of the Talents

Source: Parable of the Talents (1998), Chapter 1 (pp. 8-9)

Life, War, Stupidity, World

“I would say any type of sexual activity has absolutely no place in the military. And the fact that they're making a point to include it as a provision within the military that we are going to recognize a group of people and give them a special privilege to — and removing 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell,' I think tries to inject social policy into the military. And the military's job is to do one thing, and that is to defend our country.”

Rick Santorum (1958) American politician

People, Thinking, Country

“The award of the Peace Prize to these two ardent defenders of education sends out a resounding message to the world on the importance of education for building peaceful and sustainable societies.”

Irina Bokova (1952) Bulgarian diplomat

abcnews.go.com http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/peace-prize-childrens-rights-met-praise-26098345.

World, Education, Peace

“We, the Great-Russian proletarians, who defend no privileges whatever, do not defend this privilege either. We are fighting on the ground of a definite state; we unite the workers of all nations living in this state; we cannot vouch for any particular path of national development, for we are marching to our class goal along all possible paths.”

Vladimir Lenin (1870–1924) Russian politician, led the October Revolution

"Right of Nations to Self-Determination", (1904), The Lenin Anthology
1910s

Fight

“I have never definitely broken with Christianity nor renounced it. To attack it has never been my thought. No, from the time when there could be any question of the employment of my powers, I was firmly determined to employ them all to defend Christianity, or in any case to present it in its true form.”

Sören Kierkegaard (1813–1855) Danish philosopher and theologian, founder of Existentialism

The Point of View for My Work as An Author, Soren Kierkegaard, translated by Walter Lowrie 1939, 1962 P. 77
1840s, The Point of View for My Work as an Author (1848)

Question, Time

“To approach Bach, one has to realize that 100 years after Bach’s death, Bach and his music totally had been forgotten. Even while he was still alive, Bach himself believed in the polyphonic power and the resulting symmetric architectures of well-proportioned music. But this had been an artificial truth - even for him. Other composers, including his sons, already composed in another style, where they found other ideals and brought them to new solutions. The spirit of the time already had changed while Bach was still alive. A hundred years later, it was Mendelssohn who about 1850 discovered Bach anew with the performance of the St. Matthew Passion. Now a new renaissance began, and the world learned to know the greatness of Bach. To become acquainted with Bach, many transcriptions were done. But the endeavors in rediscovering Bach had been - stylistically - in a wrong direction. Among these were the orchestral transcriptions of Leopold Stokowski, and the organ interpretations of the multitalented Albert Schweitzer, who, one has to confess, had a decisive effect on the rediscovery of Bach. All performances had gone in the wrong direction: much too romantic, with a false knowledge of historic style, the wrong sound, the wrong rubato, and so on. The necessity of artists like Rosalyn Tureck and Glenn Gould - again 100 years later - has been understandable: The radicalism of Glenn Gould pointed out the real clarity and the internal explosions of the power-filled polyphony in the best way. This extreme style, called by many of his critics refrigerator interpretations, however really had been necessary to demonstrate the right strength to bring out the architecture in the right manner, which had been lost so much before. I’m convinced that the style Glenn Gould played has been the right answer. But there has been another giant: it was no less than Helmut Walcha who, also beginning in the 1950, started his legendary interpretations for the DG-Archive productions of the complete organ-work cycle on historic organs (Silbermann, Arp Schnitger). Also very classical in strength of speed and architectural proportions, he pointed out the polyphonic structures in an enlightened but moreover especially humanistic way, in a much more smooth and elegant way than Glenn Gould on the piano. Some years later it was Virgil Fox who acquainted the U. S. with tours of the complete Bach cycle, which certainly was effective in its own way, but much more modern than Walcha. The ranges of Bach interpretations had become wide, and there were the defenders of the historical style and those of the much more modern romantic style. Also the performances of the orchestral and cantata Bach had become extreme: on one side, for example, Karl Richter, who used a big and rich-toned orchestra; on the other side Helmut Rilling, whose Bach was much more historically oriented.”

Burkard Schliessmann classical pianist

Talkings on Bach

Death, Truth, World, Music

“In the West, secularism implies pinpricking religious fraud and arrogance, but in India, secularists are the most eloquent defenders of myth and theocracy.”

Koenraad Elst (1959) orientalist, writer

2000s, Who is a Hindu, (2001)

Fraud

“America's greatness is built on the principles of liberty and preserved by the men and women who wear the uniform to defend it. As I have said on numerous occasions, a religious test for entering our country is not reflective of these fundamental values. I reject it. Many Muslim Americans have served valiantly in our military, and made the ultimate sacrifice. Captain Khan was one such brave example. His sacrifice—and that of Khizr and Ghazala Khan—should always be honored. Period.”

Paul Ryan (1970) American politician

Statement http://www.speaker.gov/press-release/statement-house-speaker-paul-ryan (July 31, 2016)

Women, Men, Country

“In the Prime Minister, we have a man who has forfeited the right to be believed or to be trusted. In more than 20 years in politics, he has betrayed every cause he believed in, contradicted every statement he has made, broken every promise he has given and breached every agreement that he has entered into. In 1982, the Prime Minister said that we would negotiate a withdrawal from the EEC. In 1994, he said: "Under my leadership, I will never allow this country to be isolated." In 1996, he said that he had made it clear that if it is in Britain's interest to be isolated then we will be isolated. There is a lifetime of U-turns, errors and sell-outs. All those hon. Members who sit behind the Prime Minister and wonder whether they stand for anything any longer, or whether they defend any point of principle, know who has led them to that sorry state. In one of his frequent meetings with the former leader of the Liberal party, whom he so much preferred to meeting his own Cabinet, the Prime Minister told us as it is. He said that he had taken from his party everything they thought they believed in and had stripped them of their core beliefs and that what kept them together was power.”

William Hague (1961) British politician

6 December 2000, House of Commons, Prime Minister's Questions.

Error, Country

“No amount of legislation can guarantee lasting peace and stability if the people it is supposed to serve are not spiritually and emotionally prepared to live by them (moral values) and where necessary defend them with their lives when it is breached.”

Taito Waradi Fijian businessman

18 May 2000
Comments on the government's proposed Reconciliation and Unity Commission

People, Peace

“In the eyes of God all men, indeed all creatures, may be equal: but the divine law of the individual is to maintain and to defend his individuality.”

Houston Stewart Chamberlain book The Foundations of the Nineteenth Century

The Foundations of the Nineteenth Century (Die Grundlagen des neunzehnten Jahrhunderts) (1899)

Men, God, Law

“The right's approach is to release the dogs of the market, throwing all traditional verities into disarray; and then, in this tumult of insecurity, offer themselves up as the last bastion of order and hierarchy, the stalwart defenders of the authority of churches and fathers against the barbarians they have themselves unleashed.”

David Graeber (1961) American anthropologist and anarchist

Army of Altruists (2007)

Dogs

“It is quite clear that if by sudden attack by an Enemy landed in strength our Dock-yards were to be destroyed our Maritime Power would for more than half a century be paralysed, and our Colonies, our commerce, and the Subsistence of a large Part of our Population would be at the Mercy of our Enemy, who would be sure to shew us no Mercy—we should be reduced to the Rank of a third Rate Power if no worse happened to us. That such a Landing is in the present State of Things possible must be manifest. No Naval Force of ours can effectually prevent it. … One night is enough for the Passage to our Coast, and Twenty Thousand men might be landed at any Point before our Fleet knew that the Enemy was out of Harbour. There could be no security against the simultaneous Landing of 20,000 for Portsmouth 20,000 for Plymouth and 20,000 for Ireland our Troops would necessarily be scattered about the United Kingdom, and with Portsmouth and Plymouth as they now are those Two dock yards and all they contain would be entered and burnt before Twenty Thousand Men could be brought together to defend either of them. … if these defensive works are necessary, it is manifest that they ought to be made with the least possible delay; to spread their Completion over 20 or 30 years would be Folly unless we could come to an agreement with a chivalrous Antagonist, not to molest us till we could inform him we were quite ready to repel his attack—we are told that these works might, if money were forthcoming be finished possibly in three at latest in four years. Long enough this to be kept in a State of imperfect Defence.”

Henry Temple, 3rd Viscount Palmerston (1784–1865) British politician

Letter to Gladstone (15 December 1859), quoted in Philip Guedalla (ed.), Gladstone and Palmerston, being the Correspondence of Lord Palmerston with Mr. Gladstone 1851-1865 (London: Victor Gollancz, 1928), pp. 115-117.
1850s

Men, Money, Parting, Night

“The universe,” says Wyvern, “is a Ph. D. thesis that God was unable to successfully defend.”

James K. Morrow book Only Begotten Daughter

Source: Only Begotten Daughter (1990), Chapter 13 (p. 221)

God, Universe

“The greatness of heroic victory over Fascist Germany is in the fact that the Soviet Union did not defend the socialist state alone, but that it selflessly fought to defend the internationalist proletarian goal- defeat the bulk of the Nazi armed forces and deliver the peoples of Europe from occupation. The Soviet people have not forgotten other peoples' contribution to the victory over the common enemy. Our army and people remember and value the courage of the Resistance fighters.”

Georgy Zhukov (1896–1974) Marshal of the Soviet Union

p. 691

People, Courage, Victory

“I have always been a proponent of a national health care system. It just seemed eminently fair and right. How can we call this a civilized society when the children or parents of the rich get the medical attention they need in order to stay alive, while members of working-class families, who lack health insurance, have to die or needlessly suffer--or go hopelessly into debt to get the care they need? This is an outrageous injustice and it cannot be rationally defended.”

Bernie Sanders book Outsider in the House

Outsider in the House (1997), p.175
1990s

Children, Health, Family, Parent

“I am here to defend the right of a member to express his views.”

Shankar Dayal Sharma (1918–1999) Indian politician

When his ruling was protested by a member of the Parliament in the Raja Sabha and when he even threatened that he would resign from the post of Chairman, Rajya Sabha and Vice President of India, which eventually ended when the Congress party apologized to him on the floor of the house.
Source: Commissions and Omissions by Indian Presidents and Their Conflicts with the Prime Ministers Under the Constitution: 1977-2001, P.202.

“Serve well your country with a true-red heart.
Defend your people with an iron will.”

Đặng Trần Côn (1710–1745) writer

Source: Chinh phụ ngâm, Lines 369–370

People, Heart, Country

“Am I morally obligated to defend the president every time somebody says something bad or controversial about him? I don't think so!”

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

2010s, 2015

Thinking, Time

“Patrick Harper was an Ulsterman from Donegal and had been driven into the ranks of Britain's army by hunger and poverty. He was a huge man, four inches taller than Sharpe who was himself six feet tall. In battle Harper was an awesome figure, yet in truth he was a kind, humorous and easygoing man whose benevolence disguised his life's central contradiction, which was that he had no love for the king for whom he fought and for the country whose flag he defended, yet there were few better soldiers in all King George's army, and none who was more loyal to his friends.”

Bernard Cornwell (1944) British writer

Narrator, p. 19
Sharpe (Novel Series), Sharpe's Battle (1995)

Love, Life, Hunger, Truth

“For centuries men looked for comfort to their deepest anguish, but all answers seemed small before death. Until someone, it’s unknown who, discovered the truth. And since they saw it served all as an answer to the fears of the first man, they defended it with their blood and with the blood of others, first and then with the lie.”

Jorge Majfud (1969) Uruguayan-American writer

La ciudad de la Luna (2009)

Death, Men, Truth, Lie

“The most heated defenders of a science, who cannot endure the slightest sneer at it, are commonly those who have not made very much progress in it and are secretly aware of this defect.”

Georg Christoph Lichtenberg (1742–1799) German scientist, satirist

F 8
Aphorisms (1765-1799), Notebook F (1776-1779)

Science

“I was angry with you about him, furious that he so much as set eyes on you. I would rather kill you than see you lie in his arms.” “is that love then? A thing that leads to murder?” “I don’t know. In all honesty, I don’t know. You’re mine. What’s mine I keep, I rule, and give my body over to defend. I offer you my honor, and my life. That’s not an easy thing. Its within your power to break my pride, and take that life, insignificant though it is.” “you put it very simply.” “its not. Such a gift rouses strange passions, fears of treachery, and deep distrust. I’m not immune to them.” “no one told me it would be like this. Perhaps it won't go into words, what I feel for you. Its not desire, yet I love your touch, the warm softness of your flesh against mine.””

Alice Borchardt (1939–2007) American fiction writer

Devoted

Love, Life, Lie, Fear

“Christianity, in order to defend itself, puts the brand of infamy on the brow of honesty. Christianity marks with a letter “C,” standing for “convict” every brain that is great enough to discover the frauds.”

Robert G. Ingersoll (1833–1899) Union United States Army officer

Interview with the Chicago Times, Feb. 14, 1881.

Fraud

“The key is to find out whether being gay is an illness that requires medical treatment or whether it is a natural phenomenon which was unfortunately misunderstood over the years because gay people consisted of a relatively smaller proportion of the human population. If scientific evidence supports the former statement, I would defend the current law, which maintains that marriage is a commitment between a male and a female; but if science proves the latter to be correct, I would argue that current law violates gender equality and thus must be amended.”

Hsu Tzong-li (1956)

Hsu Tzong-li (2016) cited in " Hsu Tzong-li approved as Judicial Yuan pres. http://www.chinapost.com.tw/taiwan/national/national-news/2016/10/26/482156/Hsu-Tzong-li.htm" on The China Post, 26 October 2016.

Marriage, People, Law, Support

“Many of my male colleagues who have suffered imprisonment for their part in the democracy movement have spoken of the great debt of gratitude they owe their womenfolk, particularly to their wives who stood by them firmly, tender as mothers nursing their newly born, brave as lionesses defending their young. These magnificent human beings who have done so much to aid their men in the struggle for justice and peace -- how much more could they not achieve if given the opportunity to work in their own right for the good of their country and of the world.”

Aung San Suu Kyi (1945) State Counsellor of Myanmar and Leader of the National League for Democracy

Opening Keynote Address at NGO Forum on Women, Beijing China (1995)

Men, World, Peace, Justice

“There were abuses, many of them. I do not pretend to defend these abuses. There were kind masters and cruel masters. There were violations of the moral law that made mulattoes as common as blackberries. In this one particular slavery doomed itself. When white men were willing to put their own offspring in the kitchen and corn field and allowed them to be sold into bondage as slaves and degraded as another man's slave, the retribution of wrath was hanging over this country and the South paid penance in four bloody years of war.”

Rebecca Latimer Felton (1835–1930) American politician

On slavery, in her 1919 autobiography Country Life in Georgia in the Days of My Youth Felton, p.79 http://www.google.com/books?id=gHsLIvQ_BN0C&dq=rebecca+latimer+felton&printsec=frontcover&source=in#PPA79,M1.

Men, War, Law, Country

Quotes about defendant page 8

Quotes about defendant
page 8