Quotes about defender
page 11

Colin Powell photo
Edward Said photo
James Fenimore Cooper photo
Zell Miller photo

“Kerry would let Paris decide when America needs defending. I want Bush to decide.”

Zell Miller (1932–2018) Politician and United States Marine Corps officer

Speech given at the Republican National Convention, New York, September 1, 2004.

Frederick Douglass photo

“Had Abraham Lincoln died from any of the numerous ills to which flesh is heir; had he reached that good old age of which his vigorous constitution and his temperate habits gave promise; had he been permitted to see the end of his great work; had the solemn curtain of death come down but gradually, we should still have been smitten with a heavy grief, and treasured his name lovingly. But dying as he did die, by the red hand of violence, killed, assassinated, taken off without warning, not because of personal hate, for no man who knew Abraham Lincoln could hate him, but because of his fidelity to union and liberty, he is doubly dear to us, and his memory will be precious forever. Fellow citizens, I end, as I began, with congratulations. We have done a good work for our race today. In doing honor to the memory of our friend and liberator, we have been doing highest honors to ourselves and those who come after us. We have been fastening ourselves to a name and fame imperishable and immortal; we have also been defending ourselves from a blighting scandal. When now it shall be said that the colored man is soulless, that he has no appreciation of benefits or benefactors; when the foul reproach of ingratitude is hurled at us, and it is attempted to scourge us beyond the range of human brotherhood, we may calmly point to the monument we have this day erected to the memory of Abraham Lincoln.”

Frederick Douglass (1818–1895) American social reformer, orator, writer and statesman

1870s, Oratory in Memory of Abraham Lincoln (1876)

Aneurin Bevan photo

“What argument have they to persuade the young men to fight except merely in another squalid attempt to defend themselves against a redistribution of the international swag?”

Aneurin Bevan (1897–1960) Welsh politician

Hansard, House of Commons 5th series, vol. 346, col. 2139.
Speech in the House of Commons on 4 May 1939 opposing conscription.
1930s

Judith Sheindlin photo
Bhakti Tirtha Swami photo
Jonah Goldberg photo
Ben Klassen photo

“If there is one thing in this wonderful world of ours that is worth preserving, defending, and promoting, it is the White Race.”

Ben Klassen (1918–1993) American engineer, author and politician

Nature's Eternal Religion (1973), Ch. 2
Nature's Eternal Religion (1973)

Yvette Cooper photo

“I have to say, Mr. Deputy Speaker, the Ministers are like fraudsters in the fairy tale, telling gullible Liberal Democrat MPs about the beautiful progressive clothes that the emperor is wearing, if only they are clever enough and loyal enough to see them. And desperately, we have Liberal Democrats clinging to shreds of invisible cloth, reaching deep into their Liberal and Conservative history to pretend that they can be progressive now. They are claiming that Keynes might have backed the Budget. They are calling on Beveridge for support, kidding themselves that they can call on their history and that they are following in the footsteps of great liberal Conservatives like Winston Churchill, who supported the minimum wage, but the truth is that the emperor has no clothes.
The truth is that if you look at the detail, the Budget is nastier than any brought in by Margaret Thatcher. Instead of Churchill, Keynes or the founders of the welfare state, the Liberal Democrats have signed up, with the Right Honourable Member for Chingford and his Chancellor, to cut support for the poor. It is perhaps apt that in this week of World Cup disappointments, it was actually a footballer who got it right. In 2002, after England were defeated in the World Cup by Brazil, Gareth Southgate reflected ruefully on England's performance and said:
"We were expecting Winston Churchill and instead got Iain Duncan Smith."
That is the reality for the Liberal Democrats now. With all their high hopes, they have betrayed the poor and the vulnerable, whom they stood up to defend.
[The Minister of State, Department for Work and Pensions (Steve Webb) rose]
I will give way to the hon. Gentleman because I know he has a history of supporting people on low incomes and I do not know why he is betraying it now.”

Yvette Cooper (1969) British politician

During a budget response debate http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201011/cmhansrd/cm100628/debtext/100628-0012.htm, 28 July, 2010. Link to the video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NtORBuxY0MU.

Gabriel García Márquez photo
Francis Escudero photo
Klaus Kinski photo
Harbhajan Singh photo

“We have grown up playing on Indian conditions, we know the crowd, what is a defendable score and what is a chaseable target, while playing in home conditions has its challenges especially the expectations of the people, at the same time it also lifts you up to perform bette”

Harbhajan Singh (1980) Indian cricketer

Singh on playing at home grounds in cricket, quoted on sports.ndtv, "Harbhajan Singh Says he Urged Mahendra Singh Dhoni to Bat up the Order in Asia Cup Final" http://sports.ndtv.com/asia-cup-2016/news/256271-harbhajan-singh-says-he-urged-mahendra-singh-dhoni-to-bat-up-the-order-in-asia-cup-final, March 8, 2016.

George Fitzhugh photo
Margaret Cho photo

“Stop the fantasy we need to be defending freedom, because we don't have freedom in our own country yet.”

Margaret Cho (1968) American stand-up comedian

From Her Books, I Have Chosen To Stay And Fight, WAR

William Pitt, 1st Earl of Chatham photo

“When trade is at stake, it is your last entrenchment; you must defend it, or perish…Sir, Spain knows the consequence of a war in America; whoever gains, it must prove fatal to her…is this any longer a nation? Is this any longer an English Parliament, if with more ships in your harbours than in all the navies of Europe; with above two millions of people in your American colonies, you will bear to hear of the expediency of receiving from Spain an insecure, unsatisfactory, dishonourable Convention?”

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

Denouncing the Spanish Convention of Pardo in the House of Commons (6 March 1739), quoted in 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. 6-7.

Paul Kurtz photo

“Merely to critically attack religious beliefs is not sufficient. It leaves a vacuum. What are you for? We know what you're against, but what do you want to defend?”

Paul Kurtz (1925–2012) American professor of philosophy

A Bitter Rift Divides Atheists, NPR, 19th October 2009 http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=113889251

Albert Speer photo
Samuel Bowles photo
Judith Sheindlin photo

“to a defendant who called the plaintiff a "witch" after the judge ruled in the plaintiff's favor: You gotta learn to behave yourself, madam. I have a feeling you have a pretty hot temper - not as hot as mine. That's all - out!”

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

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xn9XiHQBe1k
Quotes from Judge Judy cases, Dress, stand, speak properly

Ken Ham photo
Hugo Black photo
Hubert Reeves photo
Geert Wilders photo
Benjamín Netanyahu photo

“You don't need to do nation building in Israel, we're already built. You don't need to export democracy to Israel, we've already got it. You don't need to send American troops to Israel, we defend ourselves… Israel is not what is wrong about the Middle East, Israel is what is right about the Middle East… The tyranny in Tehran brutalizes its own people. It supports attacks against American troops in Afghanistan and Iraq. It subjugates Lebanon and Gaza. It sponsors terror worldwide… A nuclear-armed Iran would ignite a nuclear arms race in the Middle East. It would give terrorists a nuclear umbrella. It would make the nightmare of nuclear terrorism a clear and present danger throughout the world. I want you to understand what this means. They could put the bomb anywhere. They could put it on a missile. It could be on a container ship in a port, or in a suitcase on a subway… Now the threat to my country cannot be overstated. Those who dismiss it are sticking their heads in the sand. Less than seven decades after six million Jews were murdered, Iran's leaders deny the Holocaust of the Jewish people, while calling for the annihilation of the Jewish state. Leaders who spew such venom, should be banned from every respectable forum on the planet. But there is something that makes the outrage even greater: The lack of outrage. In much of the international community, the calls for our destruction are met with utter silence. It is even worse because there are many who rush to condemn Israel for defending itself against Iran's terror proxies… When we say never again, we mean never again! Israel always reserves the right to defend itself… In Judea and Samaria, the Jewish people are not foreign occupiers. We are not the British in India. We are not the Belgians in the Congo. This is the land of our forefathers, the Land of Israel, to which Abraham brought the idea of one God, where David set out to confront Goliath, and where Isaiah saw a vision of eternal peace… No distortion of history can deny the four thousand year old bond, between the Jewish people and the Jewish land… Peace cannot be imposed. It must be negotiated. But it can only be negotiated with partners committed to peace.”

Benjamín Netanyahu (1949) Israeli prime minister

Address to joint meeting of the U.S. Congress http://www.c-span.org/video/?299666-1/israeli-prime-minister-netanyahu-address-joint-meeting-congress (24 May 2011).
2010s, 2011, Address to joint meeting of the U.S. Congress (May 2011)

Georgi Dimitrov photo
Anish Kapoor photo

“It is more than a month that he's been completely disappeared. It is a true tragedy. Accuse him of something. Give him a lawyer. Let him defend himself …”

Anish Kapoor (1954) British contemporary artist of Indian birth

Anish Kapoor dedicates "Leviathan}, his largest ever art work at the Grand Palais in Paris to dissident Chinese artist Ai Weiwei.
Anish Kapoor dedicates Leviathan sculpture to Ai Weiwei

Vasily Grossman photo

“We would only multiply the number of victims. Our duty is to strengthen the state and defend the people, why, then, should we publish your book.”

Vasily Grossman (1905–1964) Soviet writer and journalist who originally trained as an engineer

1960s

Osama bin Laden photo

“The events that affected my soul in a direct way started in 1982 when America permitted the Israelis to invade Lebanon and the American Sixth Fleet helped them in that. This bombardment began and many were killed and injured and others were terrorised and displaced.
I couldn't forget those moving scenes, blood and severed limbs, women and children sprawled everywhere. Houses destroyed along with their occupants and high rises demolished over their residents, rockets raining down on our home without mercy. The situation was like a crocodile meeting a helpless child, powerless except for his screams. Does the crocodile understand a conversation that doesn't include a weapon? And the whole world saw and heard but it didn't respond. In those difficult moments many hard-to-describe ideas bubbled in my soul, but in the end they produced an intense feeling of rejection of tyranny, and gave birth to a strong resolve to punish the oppressors. And as I looked at those demolished towers in Lebanon, it entered my mind that we should punish the oppressor in kind and that we should destroy towers in America in order that they taste some of what we tasted and so that they be deterred from killing our women and children.
And that day, it was confirmed to me that oppression and the intentional killing of innocent women and children is a deliberate American policy. Destruction is freedom and democracy, while resistance is terrorism and intolerance.
This means the oppressing and embargoing to death of millions as Bush Sr did in Iraq in the greatest mass slaughter of children mankind has ever known, and it means the throwing of millions of pounds of bombs and explosives at millions of children - also in Iraq - as Bush Jr did, in order to remove an old agent and replace him with a new puppet to assist in the pilfering of Iraq's oil and other outrages.
So with these images and their like as their background, the events of September 11th came as a reply to those great wrongs, should a man be blamed for defending his sanctuary?”

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

Shashi Tharoor photo

“What is most important to me is Jawaharlal Nehru's idea of India, India as a pluralist society and polity, an idea which is central to India’s survival, which has held now in the four decades after his death and which is all the more in need of defending.”

Shashi Tharoor (1956) Indian politician, diplomat, author

Edited transcript of remarks, 11/13/03 Books for Breakfast, "Nehru: The Invention of India" Available Online http://web.archive.org/web/20060927152610/http://www.cceia.org/resources/transcripts/1075.html
2000s

Patrick Buchanan photo
George H. W. Bush photo
Sören Kierkegaard photo

“Of all the groups that sometimes claim to own your life, family is the hardest to defend your individual sovereignty from.”

L. Neil Smith (1946) American writer

"To Reduce Them Under Absolute Despotism" http://www.ncc-1776.org/tle2010/tle568-20100502-02.html 2 May 2010.

Will Eisner photo
Hans Fritzsche photo
Richard Cobden photo
Michael Savage photo

“ You're listening to the sounds of the reason we're about to die as a nation. The vermin in the media…they all yesterday said it was a white man. There was Bloomberg saying it was a deranged man with a political agenda. Not one of them would say if it was a Muslim. Not one of them would say if it was a Middle-Easterner. Not one of them if it hit them in the face would acknowledge what's going on around them, which is why we must defend ourselves—we have a bunch of overly race-conscious government dupes running everything in this country. There were the news anchors and the reporters, you heard it with your own ears, just yesterday. Repeating "white male", "white male", "white male", "white male", "white male", "white male", "white male", "white male", "white male", "white male", "white male", "white male", "white male". Because they believe in blackmail, blackmail, blackmail, blackmail. They blackmail the entire white race into a corner. They blackmail the entire white race into a corner. And they're killing us. The Muslims are running wild in this country. The Muslims are running wild in this country, and the police are afraid of them. The police are afraid of CAIR. The police are afraid of the ACLU. The police are afraid of everybody but you. "White male", "white male", "white male", "white male", "white male", "white male". You haven't heard, "Muslim male", "Muslim male", "Muslim male", "Muslim male", "Muslim male", "Muslim male", "Muslim male", did you? After they found who it was? The guy gave himself up, and they won't say "Muslim male", "Muslim male", "links to Islam", "Islam", "Muslim", "Muslim", "Islam", "Islam", "Muslim!"”

Why won't they say it? Because they're a bunch of morons. And that's why we're in trouble. You heard it with your own damn ears, what more do I have to say to you?
The Savage Nation
The Savage Nation (1995- ), 2010-05-04
Radio (Audio: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iaE2YA8vFEs)
2010

Joseph Massad photo
Ron Paul photo
Leo Tolstoy photo

“This divergence and perversion of the essential question is most striking in what goes today by the name of philosophy. There would seem to be only one question for philosophy to resolve: What must I do? Despite being combined with an enormous amount of unnecessary confusion, answers to the question have at any rate been given within the philosophical tradition on the Christian nations. For example, in Kant´s Critique of Practical Reason, or in Spinoza, Schopenhauer and specially Rousseau.

But in more recent times, since Hegel´s assertion that all that exists is reasonable, the question of what one must do has been pushed to the background and philosophy has directed its whole attention to the investigation of things as they are, and to fitting them into a prearranged theory. This was the first step backwards.

The second step, degrading human thought yet further, was the acceptance of the struggle for existence as a basic law, simply because that struggle can be observed among animals and plants. According to this theory the destruction of the weakest is a law which should not be opposed. And finally, the third step was taken when the childish originality of Nietzsche´s half-crazed thought, presenting nothing complete or coherent, but only various drafts of immoral and completely unsubstantiated ideas, was accepted by the leading figures as the final word in philosophical science. In reply to the question: what must we do? the answer is now put straightforwardly as: live as you like, without paying attention to the lives of others.

If anyone doubted that the Christian world of today has reached a frightful state of torpor and brutalization (not forgetting the recent crimes committed in the Boers and in China, which were defended by the clergy and acclaimed as heroic feats by all the world powers), the extraordinary success of Nietzsche´s works is enough to provide irrefutable proof of this.

Some disjointed writings, striving after effect in a most sordid manner, appear, written by a daring, but limited and abnormal German, suffering from power mania. Neither in talent nor in their basic argument to these writings justify public attention. In the days of Kant, Leibniz, or Hume, or even fifty years ago, such writings would not only have received no attention, but they would not even have appeared. But today all the so called educated people are praising the ravings of Mr. N, arguing about him, elucidating him, and countless copies of his works are printed in all languages.”

Leo Tolstoy (1828–1910) Russian writer

Source: What is Religion, of What does its Essence Consist? (1902), Chapter 11

Robert Spencer photo
John Marshall photo

“The law does not expect a man to be prepared to defend every act of his life which may be suddenly and without notice alleged against him.”

John Marshall (1755–1835) fourth Chief Justice of the United States

In the Trial of Aaron Burr, August 1807

John Rhys-Davies photo

“Western Christianised Europe has values and experience that is worth defending.”

John Rhys-Davies (1944) Welsh actor

As quoted in "Welsh star in race row", by WalesOnline (18 January 2004) http://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/wales-news/welsh-star-in-race-row-2453957

Hans Urs Von Balthasar photo
Ian Buruma photo
Chester Bowles photo

“I believe that we should take every opportunity to challenge the assumption that our European allies are doing us a favor whenever they provide us with the necessary facilities from which to defend their own continent.”

Chester Bowles (1901–1986) American politician

Chester Bowles, "The Azores," White House Memorandum to President John F. Kennedy, Washington, DC, June 4, 1962. Quoted in Alexander Cooley and Hendrik Spruyt, Contracting States: Sovereign Transfers in International Relations, Princeton University Press (2009), pg. 100.

Alan Charles Kors photo

“Milton Friedman, a great defender of liberty in my view.”

Alan Charles Kors (1943) American academic

2010s, Socialism's Legacy (2011), Q&A

Milo Yiannopoulos photo

“I would say, that situation I am describing on Joe Rogan show I was very definitely a predator on both occasions. As offensive as some people would find that I don’t much care. That was certainly my experience. The law is probably about right, that’s probably roughly the right age. I think it’s probably about okay, but there are certainly people who are capable of giving consent at a younger age, I certainly consider myself to be one of them. You’re misunderstanding what pedophilia means. Pedophilia is not a sexual attraction to somebody 13-years-old who is sexually mature. Pedophilia is attraction to children who have not reached puberty. Pedophilia is attraction to people who don’t have functioning sex organs yet. Who have not gone through puberty. Some of those relationships between younger boys and older men, the sort of coming of age relationships, the relationships in which those older men help those young boys to discover who they are, and give them security and safety and provide them with love and a reliable and sort of a rock where they can’t speak to their parents. You don’t understand what pedophilia is if you are saying I’m defending it because I’m certainly not.”

Milo Yiannopoulos (1984) British journalist

Episode 193 http://drunken-peasants-podcast.wikia.com/wiki/Episode_193 of Drunken Peasants Podcast debuted 4 January 2016 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=azC1nm85btY&t=3552s, transcript circulated 20 February 2017 by Heavy http://heavy.com/news/2017/02/milo-yiannopolous-pedophilia-transcript-pederasty-video-full-sex-boys-men-catholic-priest-cpac-quotes/ with supplements from discover-the-truth https://discover-the-truth.com/2017/02/20/full-unedited-video-of-milo-yiannopoulos-defending-pedophilia/
2017

Carl Sagan photo
Ludwig Boltzmann photo

“Bring forward what is true, Write it so that it is clear, Defend it to your last breath!”

Ludwig Boltzmann (1844–1906) Austrian physicist

S. Rajasekar, N.Athavan, "Ludwig Edward Boltzmann"
Attributed

Herbert Spencer photo
G. K. Chesterton photo
André Breton photo
Warren G. Harding photo
Clarence Darrow photo

“The Constitution is a delusion and a snare if the weakest and humblest man in the land cannot be defended in his right to speak and his right to think as much as the strongest in the land.”

Clarence Darrow (1857–1938) American lawyer and leading member of the American Civil Liberties Union

Address to the court in People v. Lloyd (1920)

Aron Ra photo

“When I read the gospels, I don’t see a wise and benevolent sage imparting truth. I see a religious extremist and faith-healer, who is just as much of a scam artist as any of the exorcists still practicing today. Remember that Jesus taught his disciples how to do faith healing too, just like tele-evangelists still do. Jesus didn’t believe in washing your hands because he didn’t know about pathogens. He believed in demons instead. And he cursed a fig tree because he didn’t know they were out-of-season. Likewise he didn’t know that the farmers of his day already knew about other seeds that were smaller than mustard seeds. My best evidence was Jesus’ complaint that the people who knew him since childhood wouldn’t buy any of his bullshit. So the only indications I had to believe in a historic Jesus were the very points that implied that he could not be a god nor have any real connection to God. So there are only two possibilities: Jesus was either an ignorant 1st century charlatan and cult leader heavily exaggerated like Robin Hood, or he’s a completely imaginary legendary figure like Hercules. Remember how Jesus said that he came not to bring peace but a sword; that he would divide husbands from their wives and children from their parents all on behalf of beliefs based on faith? Remember also that faith, (an unreasonable assertion of complete conviction which is not based on reason and is defended against all reason) —is the most dishonest position it is possible to have. Any belief which requires faith should be rejected for that reason.”

Aron Ra (1962) Aron Ra is an atheist activist and the host of the Ra-Men Podcast

"Jesus never existed" http://www.patheos.com/blogs/reasonadvocates/2015/11/03/jesus-never-existed/, Patheos (November 3, 2015)
Patheos

Joseph Goebbels photo

“He who defends the Jew harms his own people.”

Joseph Goebbels (1897–1945) Nazi politician and Propaganda Minister

"Der Jude," Der Angriff. Aufsätze aus der Kampfzeit (Munich: Zentralverlag der NSDAP., 1935
1930s

Tori Amos photo
Winston S. Churchill photo

“We must recognise that we have a great treasure to guard; that the inheritance in our possession represents the prolonged achievement of the centuries; that there is not one of our simple uncounted rights today for which better men than we are have not died on the scaffold or the battlefield. We have not only a great treasure; we have a great cause. Are we taking every measure within our power to defend that cause?”

Winston S. Churchill (1874–1965) Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Speech at Théâtre des Ambassadeurs, Paris, 24 September 1936, "Thank God For the French Army"
Quoted in Never Give In!: Winston Churchill's Speeches https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=bcKOAQAAQBAJ&lpg=PA111&ots=Xh9ffWodWa&dq=churchill%20better%20men%20than%20we%20have%20not%20died%20on%20the%20scaffold%20or%20the%20battlefield&pg=PA110#v=onepage&q&f=false (2013), p. 111. ISBN 9781472520852
The 1930s

Alfred de Zayas photo
Irvine Welsh photo
Ravachol photo

“If I chose to speak, it is not to defend myself of the acts of which I'm accused, as only society, which by its organisation puts men into continual struggle each against the other, is responsible. Indeed, today do we not see in all classes and walks of life, people who desire, I will not say death as this sounds bad to the ear, but misfortune for their fellows if that can bring them advantages.”

Ravachol (1859–1892) French anarchist

Si je prends la parole, ce n'est pas pour me défendre des actes dont on m'accuse, car seule la société, qui, par son organisation, met les hommes en lutte continuelle les uns contre les autres, est responsable. En effet, ne voit-on pas aujourd'hui dans toutes les classes et dans toutes les fonctions des personnes qui désirent, je ne dirai pas la mort, parce que cela sonne mal à l'oreille, mais le malheur de leurs semblables, si cela peut leur procurer des avantages.
Trial statement

Pete Yorn photo

“The Hindus of this region had been victims of Muslim high-handedness for a long time, particularly in respect of their women. Murshid Qulî Khãn, the faujdãr of Mathura who died in 1638, was notorious for seizing “all their most beautiful women” and forcing them into his harem. “On the birthday of Krishna,” narrates Ma’sîr-ul-Umara, “a vast gathering of Hindu men and women takes place at Govardhan on the Jumna opposite Mathura. The Khan, painting his forehead and wearing dhoti like a Hindu, used to walk up and down in the crowd. Whenever he saw a woman whose beauty filled even the moon with envy, he snatched her away like a wolf pouncing upon a flock, and placing her in the boat which his men kept ready on the bank, he sped to Agra. The Hindu [for shame] never divulged what had happened to his daughter.” Another notorious faujdãr of Mathura was Abdu’n Nabî Khãn. He plundered the people unscrupulously and amassed great wealth. But his worst offence was the pulling down of the foremost Hindu temple in the heart of Mathura and building a Jãmi‘ Masjid on its site. This he did in AD 1660-61. Soon after, in 1665, Aurangzeb imposed a pilgrim tax on the Hindus. In 1668, he prohibited celebration of all Hindu festivals, particularly Holi and Diwali. The Jats who rightly regarded themselves as the defenders of Hindu hounour were no longer in a mood to take it lying. (Jadunath Sarkar, History of Aurangzeb, Vol. III, Calcutta, 1972 )”

Sita Ram Goel (1921–2003) Indian activist

Hindu Temples – What Happened to Them, Volume II (1993)

Jeremy Waldron photo
F. W. de Klerk photo
Barney Frank photo

“I do have things I would like to see adopted on behalf of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people: they include the right to marry the individual of our choice; the right to serve in the military to defend our country; and the right to a job based solely on our own qualifications. I acknowledge that this is an agenda, but I do not think that any self-respecting radical in history would have considered advocating people's rights to get married, join the army, and earn a living as a terribly inspiring revolutionary platform.”

Barney Frank (1940) American politician, former member of the House of Representatives for Massachusetts

Frank on being accused of having a "radical homosexual agenda" Statement of U.S. Representative Barney Frank on the Inclusion of people who are Transgender in Antidiscrimination Protection Legislation (March 2008) http://www.house.gov/frank/antidiscriminationmarch2008.html

E. M. S. Namboodiripad photo
Sri Aurobindo photo

“In the stupendous rush of change which is coming on the human world as a result of the present tornado of upheaval, ancient India's culture, attacked by European modernism, overpowered in the material field, betrayed by the indifference of her children, may perish for ever along with the soul of the nation that holds it in its keeping…. Each nation is a Shakti or power of the evolving spirit in humanity and lives by the principle which it embodies. India is the Bharata Shakti, the living energy of a great spiritual conception, and fidelity to it is the very principle of her existence…. To follow a law or principle involuntarily or ignorantly or contrary to the truth of one's consciousness is a falsehood and a self-destruction. To allow oneself to be killed, like the lamb attacked by the wolf, brings no growth, farthers no development, assures no spiritual merit. Concert or unity may come in good time, but it must be an underlying unity with a free differentiation, not a swallowing up of one by another or an incongruous and inharmonious mixture. Nor can it come before the world is ready for these greater things. To lay down one's arms in a state of war is to invite destruction and it can serve no compensating spiritual purpose…. India is indeed awaking and defending herself, but not sufficiently and not with the whole-heartedness, the clear sight and the firm resolution which can alone save her from the peril. Today it is close; let her choose,… for the choice is imperatively before her, to live or to perish.”

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

December, 1918
India's Rebirth

Mark Zuckerberg photo
Ron Paul photo
Tad Williams photo
Yoshirō Mori photo

“Ensure Japan's security and defend the kokutai.”

Yoshirō Mori (1937) 86th Prime Minister of Japan

As quoted in "Mori's Remarks Again Draw Criticism" http://articles.latimes.com/2000/jun/05/news/mn-37760 (5 June 2000), Associated Press.

James Bryce, 1st Viscount Bryce photo
Horatio Nelson photo
Richard Dawkins photo
Miguel de Unamuno photo
Attila photo

“Here you stand, after conquering mighty nations and subduing the world. I therefore think it foolish for me to goad you with words, as though you were men who had not been proved in action. Let a new leader or an untried army resort to that. It is not right for me to say anything common, nor ought you to listen. For what is war but your usual custom? Or what is sweeter for a brave man than to seek revenge with his own hand? It is a right of nature to glut the soul with vengeance. Let us then attack the foe eagerly; for they are ever the bolder who make the attack. Despise this union of discordant races! To defend oneself by alliance is proof of cowardice. See, even before our attack they are smitten with terror. They seek the heights, they seize the hills and, repenting too late, clamor for protection against battle in the open fields. You know how slight a matter the Roman attack is. While they are still gathering in order and forming in one line with locked shields, they are checked, I will not say by the first wound, but even by the dust of battle. Then on to the fray with stout hearts, as is your wont. Despise their battle line. Attack the Alani, smite the Visigoths! Seek swift victory in that spot where the battle rages. For when the sinews are cut the limbs soon relax, nor can a body stand when you have taken away the bones. Let your courage rise and your own fury burst forth! Now show your cunning, Huns, now your deeds of arms! Let the wounded exact in return the death of his foe; let the unwounded revel in slaughter of the enemy. No spear shall harm those who are sure to live; and those who are sure to die Fate overtakes even in peace. And finally, why should Fortune have made the Huns victorious over so many nations, unless it were to prepare them for the joy of this conflict. Who was it revealed to our sires the path through the Maeotian swamp, for so many ages a closed secret? Who, moreover, made armed men yield to you, when you were as yet unarmed? Even a mass of federated nations could not endure the sight of the Huns. I am not deceived in the issue;--here is the field so many victories have promised us. I shall hurl the first spear at the foe. If any can stand at rest while Attila fights, he is a dead man.”

Attila (406–453) King of the Hunnic Empire

As quoted by Jordanes, The Origin and Deeds of the Goths http://people.ucalgary.ca/~vandersp/Courses/texts/jordgeti.html#attila, translated by Charles C. Mierow

George W. Bush photo
John F. Kennedy photo
John Rhys-Davies photo
Georg Brandes photo
A. James Gregor photo
Hillary Clinton photo

“That was a poor choice of words. As I've said throughout this campaign, the people at the heart of this issue are children, parents, families, DREAMers. They have names, and hopes and dreams that deserve to be respected. I've talked about undocumented immigrants hundreds of times and fought for years for comprehensive immigration reform. And I will continue to do so. We are a country built by immigrants and our diversity makes us stronger as a nation – it's something to be proud of, celebrate, and defend.”

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

2015-11-24
Hillary Apologizes For Saying ‘Illegal Immigrant': ‘That Was a Poor Choice of Words’
Alex Griswold
mediaite.com
http://www.mediaite.com/online/hillary-apologizes-for-saying-illegal-immigrant-that-was-a-poor-choice-of-words/
Presidential campaign (April 12, 2015 – 2016)

Jean-François Revel photo

“Clearly, a civilization that feels guilty for everything it is and does will lack the energy and conviction to defend itself.”

Jean-François Revel (1924–2006) French writer and philosopher

This quote was used, and attributed to Jean-Francois Revel, by Jeane Kirkpatrick in her August 20, 1984 speech to the Republican national convention in Dallas, Texas. As cited in Lend Me Your Ears: Great Speeches in History (rev.), ed. William Safire, W. W. Norton & Co. (2004), p. 1029 ISBN 0393059316, 9780393059311
1980s

Tadamichi Kuribayashi photo
Robert G. Ingersoll photo

“Religion can never reform mankind because religion is slavery. It is far better to be free, to leave the forts and barricades of fear, to stand erect and face the future with a smile. It is far better to give yourself sometimes to negligence, to drift with wave and tide, with the blind force of the world, to think and dream, to forget the chains and limitations of the breathing life, to forget purpose and object, to lounge in the picture gallery of the brain, to feel once more the clasps and kisses of the past, to bring life's morning back, to see again the forms and faces of the dead, to paint fair pictures for the coming years, to forget all Gods, their promises and threats, to feel within your veins life's joyous stream and hear the martial music, the rhythmic beating of your fearless heart. And then to rouse yourself to do all useful things, to reach with thought and deed the ideal in your brain, to give your fancies wing, that they, like chemist bees, may find art's nectar in the weeds of common things, to look with trained and steady eyes for facts, to find the subtle threads that join the distant with the now, to increase knowledge, to take burdens from the weak, to develop the brain, to defend the right, to make a palace for the soul. This is real religion. This is real worship.”

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

What Is Religion? (1899) is Ingersoll's last public address, delivered before the American Free Religious association, Boston, June 2, 1899. Source: The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll, Dresden Memorial Edition Volume IV, pages 477-508, edited by Cliff Walker. http://www.positiveatheism.org/hist/ingwhatrel.htm