Quotes about terrorism
page 3

“I'm the terrorist, do what I say or I'll terrorize you.”

Source: Raven Rise

“You know, you’re a feminist.” It was not a compliment. I could tell from his tone—the same tone with which a person would say, “You’re a supporter of terrorism.”

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie We Should All Be Feminists

Source: We Should All Be Feminists

Support, Personality

“It feels like my soul is slowly leaving my body and heading off to an unknown place, some "safe" place where it doesn't have to put up with me and my night terrors.”

Paulo Coelho book Adultery

Source: Adultery

Feeling, Soul, Night

“Today I am a woman torn between the terror that everything might change and the equal terror that everything might carry on exactly the same for the rest of my days.”

Paulo Coelho book Adultery

Source: Adultery

Change

“His body rigid with terror as he waited for the savages to something horrible to him—bash his head with clubs, or stab him with spears, or…
…or tap him on the shoulder.”

Dave Barry book Peter and the Starcatchers

Source: Peter and the Starcatchers

Waiting

“Terrorism': the word that means nothing, yet justifies everything.”

Glenn Greenwald (1967) American journalist, lawyer and writer

“terror finally becomes almost
bearable
but never quite

terror creeps like a cat
crawls like a cat
across my mind”

Charles Bukowski book Love Is a Dog from Hell

Source: Love Is a Dog from Hell

Cats

“The fact thatis the word we use for almost everything—on terrorism, drugs, even poverty—has certainly helped to desensitize us to its invocation; if we wage wars on everything, how bad can they be?”

Glenn Greenwald (1967) American journalist, lawyer and writer

Source: A Tragic Legacy: How a Good vs. Evil Mentality Destroyed the Bush Presidency

War, Help

“If men only felt about death as they do about sleep, all terrors would cease… Men sleep contentedly, assured that they will wake the following morning. They should feel the same about their lives.”

Richard Matheson book What Dreams May Come

Source: What Dreams May Come

Death, Men, Feeling, Sleep

“What do you know about dragons?”
“They're big, scaly, four-legged creatures with wings who terrorized small villages until a virgin was offered up as a sacrifice.”
His grinned again. “I do miss the virgins.”

Katie MacAlister (1964) Author

Source: You Slay Me

“How fortunate it was for the world that when these great trials came upon it there was a generation that terror could not conquer and brutal violence could not enslave.”

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

World

“Why not rise from the grave and terrorize a little instead of staying buried and dead in the cemetery?”

Daniel Handler book Why We Broke Up

Source: Why We Broke Up

Dead

“Hooking on scuba gear and blindly diving into zombie-infested water is a wonderful way to mix the two childhood terrors of being eaten and drowning.”

Max Brooks book The Zombie Survival Guide

Source: The Zombie Survival Guide: Complete Protection from the Living Dead

Way, Water, Childhood

“How can you have a war on terrorism when war itself is terrorism?”

Howard Zinn (1922–2010) author and historian

War

“The greater a child’s terror, and the earlier it is experienced, the harder it becomes to develop a strong and healthy sense of self.”

Nathaniel Branden (1930–2014) Canadian–American psychotherapist and writer

Source: Six Pillars of Self-Esteem

Sense, Strong

“We need to decide that we will not go to war, whatever reason is conjured up by the politicians or the media, because war in our time is always indiscriminate, a war against innocents, a war against children. War is terrorism, magnified a hundred times.”

Howard Zinn (1922–2010) author and historian

"The Old Way of Thinking" http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Zinn/Old_Way_Thinking.html, in The Progressive (November 2001)

War, Children, Time

“The doctor says there are such boys springing up amongst us—boys of a sort unknown in the last generation—the outcome of new views of life. They seem to see all its terrors before they are old enough to have staying power to resist them. He says it is the beginning of the coming universal wish not to live.”

Thomas Hardy book Jude the Obscure

Jude the Obscure

Life, Spring, Boy, Universe

“You've faced horrors in these past weeks… I don't know which is worse. The terror you feel the first time you witness such things, or the numbness that comes after it starts to become ordinary.”

Tasha Alexander (1969) American writer

Source: A Fatal Waltz

Feeling, Time, Past

“The more you approach infinity, the deeper you penetrate terror”

Gustave Flaubert (1821–1880) French writer (1821–1880)

“The worst pair of opposites is boredom and terror. Sometimes your life is a pendulum swing from one to the other.”

Yann Martel book Life of Pi

Source: Life of Pi

Life

“Most hatred is based on fear, one way or another. Yeah. I wrapped myself in anger, with a dash of hate, and at the bottom of it all was an icy center of pure terror.”

Laurell K. Hamilton book Guilty Pleasures

Source: Guilty Pleasures

Hate, Fear, Way, Anger

“That's how children deal with terror, they fall asleep.”

Khaled Hosseini book The Kite Runner

Source: The Kite Runner

Children

“Death is the mother of beauty,” said Henry. “And what is beauty?” “Terror.”

Donna Tartt book The Secret History

Source: The Secret History

Death, Beauty

“Beauty is terror. Whatever we call beautiful, we quiver before it.”

Donna Tartt book The Secret History

Variant: It's a very Greek idea, and a very profound one. Beauty is terror. Whatever we call beautiful, we quiver before it.
Source: The Secret History

Beauty

“From now on, I'm opting for ontological terrorism.”

Grant Morrison (1960) writer

Source: The Invisibles, Vol. 6: Kissing Mister Quimper

“For there is nothing quite so terror-inducing as the loss of sleep. It creates phantoms and doubts, causes one to questions one's own abilities and judgement, and, over time, dismantles, from within, the body.”

Charlie Huston Sleepless

Source: Sleepless

Question, Sleep, Loss, Time

“I urge you all today, especially today in these times of terrorism and chaos to love yourselves without reservation and to love each other without restraint. Unless you're into leather; then by all means, use restraints.”

Margaret Cho (1968) American stand-up comedian

From Her Tours and CDs, The Notorious C.H.O. Tour

Love, Time

“We don't go to the ocean for anything as simple as happiness, do we? We
go there to feel alive. Like life, the ocean holds chance and change, grief and terror and beauty. It promises mortality, not peace.”

Eileen Wilks Tempting Danger

Source: Tempting Danger

Life, Happiness, Peace, Beauty

“She dropped her shyness like a nightgown, and in the liquid glare of sunlight on old boards she held up her hands-as if, in the terror of the upcoming skirmish, she had at last understood that she was beautiful. In her own way.”

Gregory Maguire book Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West

Source: Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West

Beauty, Way

“I am in great terror of your understanding by which you penetrate into my world; and then I stand revealed and I have shared my kingdom with you.”

Anaïs Nin book House of Incest

Source: House of Incest

World, Understanding

“How do you defeat terrorism? Don’t be terrorized.”

Salman Rushdie (1947) British Indian novelist and essayist

Source: Step Across This Line: Collected Nonfiction 1992-2002

“We are all so guilty at the way we have allowed the world around us to become more ugly and tasteless every year that we surrender to terror and steep ourselves in it.”

Norman Mailer (1923–2007) American novelist, journalist, essayist, playwright, film maker, actor and political candidate

Source: In the Belly of the Beast: Letters From Prison

World, Way

“Roman might have survived the Great Vampire War of 1710, but he was about to face an even worse terror.
A mortal female in full rage.”

Kerrelyn Sparks (1955) American writer

Source: How to Marry a Millionaire Vampire

War, Rage

“Gazzy: Captain, like the captain of a ship. And then Terror, you know, T-E-R-O-R.”

James Patterson (1947) American author

Source: School's Out—Forever

“Neither love nor terror makes one blind: indifference makes one blind.”

James Baldwin If Beale Street Could Talk

Source: If Beale Street Could Talk

Love, Indifference

“Wanton killing of innocent civilians is terrorism, not a "war against terrorism."”

Noam Chomsky book 9-11

9-11, 2001 https://web.archive.org/web/20061015103427/http://indymedia.org.nz/usermedia/application/2/9-11.pdf Quotes 2000s, 2001

War

“As long as you persecute people, you will actually throw up terrorism.”

Antonia Fraser (1932) British author and novelist

People

“The concept of progress acts as a protective mechanism to shield us from the terrors of the future.”

Frank Herbert book Dune

Source: Dune

Future

“And mortal terror in a female was Z's favorite turn-on. He got off on it like most males favored crap from Victoria's Secret.”

Jessica Bird book Dark Lover

Source: Dark Lover

Secret

“One of the hardest parts of my job is to connect Iraq with the war on terror.”

George W. Bush (1946) 43rd President of the United States

September 7, 2006 interview with Katie Couric http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QhR04RkBFhs YouTube
2000s, 2006

War, Parting

“Fire can warm or consume,
water can quench or drown,
wind can caress or cut.

And so it is with human relationshps;
we can both create and destroy,
nurture and terrorize,
traumatize and heal each other”

Bruce D. Perry (1955) American psychiatrist

Water

“Too much mystery is merely an annoyance. Too much adventure is exhausting. And a little terror goes a long way.”

Dean Koontz Odd Thomas

Source: Odd Thomas

Way

“And yet she can tell he is visited by fears so immense, so multiple, that she can almost feel the terror pulsing inside him. As though some beast breathes all the time at the windowpanes of his mind.”

Anthony Doerr book All the Light We Cannot See

Source: All the Light We Cannot See

Fear, Feeling, Time

“I feel the terror of idleness,
like a red thirst.
Death isn't just an idea.”

Mary Oliver (1935–2019) American writer

Death, Feeling, Idea

“Yeah, I know. Terror Aerobics. Just wait until they get it at the gym. It'll be bigge than pilates. --Eve”

Rachel Caine (1962) American writer

Source: Lord of Misrule

Waiting

“The problem in public life is learning to overcome terror; the problem in married life is learning to overcome boredom.”

Gabriel García Márquez book Love in the Time of Cholera

Source: Love in the Time of Cholera

Life, Problem, Learning

“I recognize terror as the finest emotion and so I will try to terrorize the reader. But if I find that I cannot terrify, I will try to horrify, and if I find that I cannot horrify, I'll go for the gross-out. I'm not proud.”

Stephen King (1947) American author

“Stories have no point if they don't absorb our terror.”

Don DeLillo Mao II

Part 2, Ch. 10
Source: Mao II (1991)

“Terrorism is not an expression of rage. Terrorism is a political weapon. Remove a government's facade of infallibility, and you remove it's people's faith.”

Dan Brown book Angels & Demons

Source: Angels & Demons

People, Faith, Rage

“Full circle. A new terror born in death, a new superstition entering the unassailable fortress of forever. I am legend.”

Richard Matheson book I Am Legend

Source: I Am Legend

Death

“Trav, if you cross us -- "
"I know. You'll get me. I'll try not to pee all over myself in terror.”

Rachel Caine (1962) American writer

Source: Midnight Alley

“So of course time is necessary. But nevertheless damn painful, for it transforms all the pieces of your life - joy and sorrow, youth and age, love and hate, terror and bliss - from fire into smoke rising up the air and dissipating on a breeze.”

Charles Frazier (1950) American writer

Love, Life, Pain, Hate

“Let a man once overcome his selfish terror at his own finitude, and his finitude is, in one sense, overcome.”

George Santayana (1863–1952) 20th-century Spanish-American philosopher associated with Pragmatism

Introduction to The Ethics of Spinoza (1910)

Sense, Selfishness

“The now famous slogan 'keep calm and carry on' poster from 1939 was designed as a motivational poster for people living in cities expecting to be bombed by the Nazis. But the UK wasn't just 'keeping calm': we had taken a stand like no other country in the world and declared war on a barbaric regime which was a global threat to peace and security. Today, as we wait to hear news from Manchester following the slaughter and maiming of innocent children, we have people calling for us to do nothing. But it's not the same 'carry on' as in 1939: they want us to accept terror attacks as a part of life we should now accept. Well, I don't accept it. How many people are we going to sacrifice on the alter (sic) of political correctness before we build up the courage to confront what most people will happily admit to their friends and family: that we are facing a continuing threat from radical Islam which hashtags and tea lights will not stop?”

Jane Collins (1962) British politician

Jane Collins MEP responds to terror attacks in Manchester http://jane-collins.org/news.php?id=79. Item on official website (May 23, 2017).

Life, War, Children, People

“Conflicts do not arise out of the blue. They occur as a result of causes and conditions, many of which are within the antagonists’ control. This is where leadership is important. Terrorism cannot be overcome by the use of force because it does not address the underlying problems. In fact the use of force may not only fail to solve the problems, it may exacerbate them, and frequently leaves destruction and suffering in its wake.”

Tenzin Gyatso (1935) spiritual leader of Tibet

:Dalai Lama in his “Commemoration of the First Anniversary of September 11, 2001

Problem, Suffering

“You see, essentially, you cannot win the war on terror by military force. It is first and foremost a battle of ideas. It is secondly a law enforcement effort and a cooperative effort among nations. And only as a last resort do you use military force. This president has distorted the capabilities of the United States Armed Forces. He's used our men and women in uniform improperly in Guantanamo and engaged in actions that I think are totally against the Uniform Code of Military Justice and against what we stand for as the American people.”

Wesley Clark (1944) American general and former Democratic Party presidential candidate

92nd Street Y Cultural Center (2007)

Women, Men, War, People

“Eight years ago, when the life of this Republic seemed frozen by a fatalistic terror, we proved that this is not true. We were in the midst of shock — but we acted. We acted quickly, boldly, decisively.”

Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882–1945) 32nd President of the United States

1940s, Third inaugural address (1941)

Life, Decision

“Our units of temporal measurement, from seconds on up to months, are so complicated, asymmetrical and disjunctive so as to make coherent mental reckoning in time all but impossible. Indeed, had some tyrannical god contrived to enslave our minds to time, to make it all but impossible for us to escape subjection to sodden routines and unpleasant surprises, he could hardly have done better than handing down our present system. It is like a set of trapezoidal building blocks, with no vertical or horizontal surfaces, like a language in which the simplest thought demands ornate constructions, useless particles and lengthy circumlocutions. Unlike the more successful patterns of language and science, which enable us to face experience boldly or at least level-headedly, our system of temporal calculation silently and persistently encourages our terror of time.
…
It is as though architects had to measure length in feet, width in meters and height in ells; as though basic instruction manuals demanded a knowledge of five different languages. It is no wonder then that we often look into our own immediate past or future, last Tuesday or a week from Sunday, with feelings of helpless confusion.”

Robert Grudin (1938) American writer

Time and the Art of Living (1982)

God, Feeling, Knowledge, Science

“Turned the wrong way around, the relentless unforeseen was what we schoolchildren studied in "History", harmless history, where everything unexpected in its own time is chronicled on the page as inevitable. The terror of the unforeseen is what the science of history hides, turning a disaster into an epic.”

Philip Roth book The Plot Against America

Source: The Plot Against America (2004), Chapter 3, "June 1941 – December 1941: Following Christians", pp. 113–114 ISBN 0547345313.

Way, History, Study, Science

“Terrorism must be outlawed by all civilized nations — not explained or rationalized, but fought and eradicated. Nothing can, nothing will justify the murder of innocent people and helpless children.”

Elie Wiesel (1928–2016) writer, professor, political activist, Nobel Laureate, and Holocaust survivor

Hope, Despair, and Memory (1986)

Children, People

“[Islamic terrorism] is different from all other forms of terrorism in at least three important respects. First, it rejects all the contemporary ideologies in their various forms; it sees itself as the total outsider with no option but to take control or to fall, gun in hand. It cannot even enter into talks with other terrorist movements which may, in some specific cases at least, share its tactical objectives. Considering itself as an expression of Islamic revival - which must, by definition, lead to the conquest of the entire globe by the True Faith - it bases all its actions on the dictum that the end justifies the means… The second characteristic that distinguishes the Islamic version from other forms of terrorism is that it is clearly conceived and conducted as a form of Holy War which can only end when total victory has been achieved. The term 'low-intensity warfare' has often been used to describe terrorism, but it applies more specifically to the Islamic kind, which does not seek negotiations, give-and-take, the securing of specific concessions or even the mere seizure of political power within a certain number of countries… The third specific characteristic of Islamic terrorism is that it forms the basis of a whole theory of both individual conduct and of state policy. To kill the enemies of Allah and to offer the infidels the choice between converting to Islam or being put to death is the duty of every individual believer as well as the supreme - if not the sole - task of the Islamic state.”

Amir Taheri (1942) Iranian journalist

Holy Terror: The inside story of Islamic terrorism (1987)

Death, War, Faith, Victory

“I agree with him that we are going to work together for having this strategic agreement between United States and Iraq, and also to continue our cooperation in our struggle against terrorism and for promotion of democracy in Iraq and in Middle East.”

Jalal Talabani (1933–2017) Iraqi politician

Statement made at a meeting with President George W. Bush — reported in Olivier Knox (June 25, 2008) "Bush, Talabani work on US-Iraq security pact", Agence France-Presse.

Democracy

“Although most Muslims utterly reject terrorism, some are all too ready to justify “death to the infidel.””

Tony Abbott (1957) Australian politician

2015, The religion of Islam must reform (December 9, 2015)

Death

“These horrific murders are only a symptom of a deeper malaise. Life is hell for the living too. Whole populations — millions of Dalits, Adivasis, Muslims and Christians — are being forced to live in terror, unsure of when and from where the assault will come.”

Arundhati Roy (1961) Indian novelist, essayist

Quoted in Was Arundhati Roy really misquoted by Pakistans... https://swarajyamag.com/ideas/was-arundhati-roy-really-misquoted-by-paks-un-rep-or-is-this-leftist-spin

Life, Hell

“It was an extremely heinous act. What kind of Muslims are these people? They don't have any religion, their only religion is terrorism.”

Sheikh Hasina (1947) Prime Minister of Bangladesh

In a nationally televised speech after the 2016 Gulshan, Dhaka attack. http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-36692613 (2 July 2016)

People, Religion

“American civil rights activist and U. S. Army Sergeant Medgar Evers once said that "you can kill a man, but you can't kill an idea." His statement applies to both good and evil. Drones are powerful assassination weapons that offer short-term fixes. Drones kill terrorists, but not the idea of terrorism in the long term.”

Newton Lee American computer scientist

Counterterrorism and Cybersecurity: Total Information Awareness (2nd Edition), 2015

Idea, Evil

“We're importing radical Islamic terrorism into the West through a failed immigration system and through an intelligence community held back by our president.”

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

2010s, 2016, June, Speech about the Orlando Shooting (June 13, 2016)

Intelligence, Communication

“You really could call the new TVR Cerbera heavy metal were it not fashioned from plastic. The best way to experience this car is to be about seven miles away. As it comes toward you, it's like being in a horror movie. The monster is getting closer. The Thing. The Blob. Terror has no shape. But God, what a noise.”

Jeremy Clarkson book Born to be Riled

Source: Born to be Riled (1999), p. 6

God, Cars, Way, Fashion

“The conventional mind is at best a petty piece of machinery. It is oyster-like in its functioning, or, perhaps better, clam-like. It has its little siphon of thought-processes forced up or down into the mighty ocean of fact and circumstance; but it uses so little, pumps so faintly, that the immediate contiguity of the vast mass is not disturbed. Nothing of the subtlety of life is perceived. No least inkling of its storms or terrors is ever discovered except through accident.”

Theodore Dreiser book The Financier

Source: The Financier (1912), Ch. XXX

Life

“For so many who had been driven from their office buildings, these five weeks were only the prelude to spending months cloistered in cramped and inadequate office space while they advised senators on some of the toughest calls they would ever have to make … As the gap widened between perceptions of fear or danger in Washington and in much of the rest of the country, I believe it had a significant influence on why representatives reacted to terrorism concerns in a way that was fundamentally different from most of their constituents.”

Russ Feingold (1953) Wisconsin politician; three-term U.S. Senator

On the effects of the 2001 anthrax attacks, from While America Sleeps: A Wake-up Call for the Post-9/11 Era, as quoted in [Moyer, Justin, The speed read: ‘While America Sleeps,’ by Russ Feingold, https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/we-read-so-you-dont-have-to-while-america-sleeps-by-russ-feingold/2012/02/28/gIQATdIszR_story.html?utm_term=.8231b88d08d1, 20 August 2018, The Washington Post, March 8, 2012]
2012

Fear, Way, Country

“Ah, the immortal ocean.
Consider the instructive metaphor: every conceivable terror dwells in her depths; she receives all wreckage, refuse, corruption of every kind, she pulls down into her depths human calamity indescribable; but none of this is any consideration to the sea. Let the screaming mortal passengers fight for room in the lifeboats, as the wreck belches flame and settles below the extinguishing wave; next morning she’ll still be beautiful and serene, her combers no less white, her distances as blue, her seabirds no less graceful as they wheel in the pure air. What perfection, to be so heartless. An inspiration to any lesser immortal.”

Kage Baker book The Children of the Company

Source: The Children of the Company (2005), Chapter 4, “Son Observe the Time” (p. 165)

Beauty, Fight, Perfection, Sea

“I could not find my way back in dreams, I knew then. They were memory and desire, terror and hope; they told me only what I already knew.”

Patricia A. McKillip book Winter Rose

Source: Winter Rose (1996), Chapter 16, p. 155.

Dreams, Hope, Way, Memory

“When I was 17, I saw a program on television about African Elephants and how they were endangered at that time. It really struck a chord with me. It awoken something inside of me, a sensitivity, that had been suppressed by my schooling, family and upbringing. … Since then, that sensitivity has always been a part of me, admittedly, it was a part of me that I lost and buried away and suppressed myself in many years of self-denial and self-loathing, but that I am very happy to have regained. … I first went Vegan in 1991 or so. I had been leaning towards that type of lifestyle before I’d ever even heard the word. My own sensitivity and understanding of myself was what initially lead me in that direction. I was a vegetarian between 1987 and 1999 but then I lost my way. In 2013, I found myself outside the walls of a pig slaughterhouse in Louisville, Kentucky. The screams that I heard will haunt me forever. They were distinct, individual voices screaming out in sheer terror and pain. It woke me up.”

Mike Vallely (1970) American skateboarder and singer

"Pro Skater Mike Vallely On Being Vegan" https://www.punkglobe.com/mikevallelyinterview0816.php, interview with Punk Globe (August 2016).

Pain, Happiness, School, Family

“There could be no negotiation between people who thought that cocaine was a vaguely naughty and salacious drug and the intravenous addict who know that it was an opportunity to experience the arctic landscape of pure terror.”

Edward St. Aubyn (1960) British writer

Bad News, Chapter 4

People

“Only a few of us had been able to face directly the obscene conditions we inflicted on animals in our farm factories and modern slaughter houses; but most of us knew on some level that they entailed a suffering that was too much to “stomach.” We can appreciate now what it did to us to eat animals kept long in pain and terror. Because the mass methods employed to raise and kill animals for our tables were relatively new, we did not fully realize the deprivation and torture they entailed. Only a few of us guessed that the glandular responses of the cattle and pigs and chickens pumped adrenalin into their bodies and that we ate with their flesh the rage of the chickens, the terror of the pigs and cattle… Acting now with more respect for other beings, we find we have more respect for ourselves.”

Joanna Macy (1929) American activist

Foreword https://books.google.it/books?id=h-9ARz2YAlgC&pg=PT5 to Diet for a New America by John Robbins (H J Kramer, 2011)

Pain, Suffering, Rage, Animals

“Go by reverently, and read with sober care
How a great people, riding with defiant shouts
The centaur of Revolution,
Spurred and whipped to frenzy,
Shook with terror, seeing the mist of the sea
Over the precipice they were nearing,
And fell from his back in precipitate awe
To celebrate the Feast of the Supreme Being.”

Edgar Lee Masters (1868–1950) American writer

" Captain Orlando Killion http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/captain-orlando-killion/'

People, Reading, Sea

“The decent people in this administration — mainly career military brass and Condi's circle — are finally pushing back against the war crimes of Cheney and Rumsfeld. But the Bush mojo is the same. They don't actually care about the effectiveness of their policies, just how they can be used as wedge issues. Last summer, Karl Rove was determined to use torture and Gitmo as his electoral path to retaining the Congress. He thought he could portray the Democrats as weak on terror. Of course, only cowards and failures use torture. And how many Democrats or Republicans could have made us more vulnerable to more terror than Bush has these past five years?”

Andrew Sullivan (1963) Journalist, writer, blogger

"The Alternative to Torture" http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2007/05/the_alternative.html The Daily Dish (30 May 2007)

War, People, Failure, Past

“This moment in time will be remembered for three things: the war against terror, sure; the Internet, probably; and how we let an entire continent, Africa, burst into flames and stood around with water in cans.”

Bono (1960) Irish rock musician, singer of U2

CNN Larry King Weekend (2002)

War, Water, Time

“France must live with terrorism, but we will not give in”

Manuel Valls (1962) French Socialist Party (PS) politician

la France doit vivre avec le terrorisme, mais nous ne céderons pas Statement regarding Nice attacks https://www.rt.com/news/351228-valls-nice-statement-social-media/, Russia Today, 15 July 2016

“It is a country (Israel) in which a clear majority of the population, battered by wars and terrorism and heartbreak and frustration, still wants to see negotiations leading to a Palestinian state alongside Israel, and an end to occupation.”

Bradley Burston israeli journalist

What Does 'Death to Israel' Mean to You? (2011)

War, Country

“Sirs, I have tested your machine. It adds a new terror to life and makes death a long-felt want.”

Herbert Beerbohm Tree (1852–1917) English actor and theatre manager

Page 183
His reply to a gramophone company who had asked for a testimonial.
Beerbohm Tree (1956)

Life, Death

“Appreciate the congrats for being right on radical Islamic terrorism, I don't want congrats, I want toughness & vigilance. We must be smart!”

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

Twitter, 12 June 2016 https://twitter.com/realdonaldtrump/status/742034549232766976, after the 2016 Orlando nightclub shooting 2010s, 2016, June

“The labeling of products of the Jewish state by the European Union brings back dark memories. Europe should be ashamed of itself. It took an immoral decision. Of the hundreds of territorial conflicts around the world, it chose to single out Israel and Israel alone, while it's fighting with its back against the wall against the wave of terror.”

Benjamín Netanyahu (1949) Israeli prime minister

As quoted in "EU: Products from West Bank and Golan cannot be labeled 'from Israel'" http://www.cnn.com/2015/11/11/europe/eu-labeling-israel-territories/ (11 November 2015), by Don Melvin and Oren Liebermann, CNN, State of Georgia: Cable News Network. 2010s, 2015

World, Decision, Memory, Fight

“Terror ripped through me as I was falling, falling, falling toward the sea.”

Abby Sunderland (1993) Camera Assistant, Inspirational Speaker and Sailor

Source: Unsinkable: A Young Woman's Courageous Battle on the High Seas (2011), p. 123

Sea

“People never stop to think about these basic facts when they watch wars and cop shows on the television. People take too much for granted. Each time a gun is fired the whole history of engineering comes into play. Of politics, too: war, assassination, revolution, terror. Guns aren't just history's props and agents: they're history itself, spinning alternate futures in their chamber, hurling the present from their barrel, casting aside the empty shells of the past.”

Tom McCarthy (writer) book Déjà vu

Source: Remainder (2005), Ch. 11.

War, People, History, Thinking

“In these conditions, our people can make miracles. I have often had the opportunity to realize that the sense of duty of our villagers is authentic. It is a sign of awareness. One call by the National Council is enough for him to leave his home and to rush to arms, when there is nothing that compels him to do so. At the time, the mobilization by the Russian government was always executed on the force of terror.”

Aram Manukian (1879–1919) Armenian revolutionary, politician and general who managed and led the Van Resistance and instrumented the …

On January 5, 1918, on the eve of Armenian Christmas. Attributed without citation in [Death of Aram Manoukian - January 29, 1919, http://thisweekinarmenianhistory.blogspot.com/2013/01/death-of-aram-manoukian-january-29-1919.html, thisweekinarmenianhistory.com, 29 January 2013, 15 March 2014]

People, Home, Sense, Time

“He has attained supremacy in one particular line: he succeeds in inspiring a mysterious terror better than any other writer.”

J. Sheridan Le Fanu (1814–1873) Irish writer of Gothic tales and mystery novels

M. R. James "The Novels and Stories of J. Sheridan Le Fanu" (1923). http://www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~pardos/ArchiveLeFanu.html Criticism

“The pivotal struggle which must be waged in the ranks of the working class is consequently the open, unreserved battle against entrenched racism. The white worker must become conscious of the threads which bind him to a James Johnson, Black auto worker, member of UAW, and a political prisoner presently facing charges for the killings of two foremen and a job setter. The merciless proliferation of the power of monopoly capital may ultimately push him inexorably down the very same path of desperation. No potential victim of the fascist terror should be without the knowledge that the greatest menace to racism and fascism is unity!”

Angela Davis (1944) American political activist, scholar, and author

If They Come in The Morning (1971)

Knowledge

“…my commitment to Israel is because I am an active citizen. Although its neighbors have wanted to destroy Israel, they have defended democracy. Israel has only led defensive wars, Arafat has only gone to attack. They are murdering women and children in order to spread fear and terror. When Israel accidentally kills, it is not the intention to harm civilians like Arafat does.”

Carl I. Hagen (1944) Norwegian politician

Speech at a meeting in the independent Christian organisation Levende Ord in 2004, published in Dagbladet (14 July 2004) http://www.dagbladet.no/nyheter/2004/07/14/403017.html

Women, War, Children, Fear

“It was ready-made for them to call an emergency and pretend it was war-time, you know, the war on terrorism is a metaphor, and terrorism is an abstract noun. It's like a "war on dandruff." There's no such thing, you know. It isn't war, it's just a slogan. But using the slogan they got through the U. S. A. Patriot Act, which removes many of our liberties. Nobody made a sound when we lost Habeas Corpus—due process of law—and suddenly Bush managed to get rid of it. Where was a voice on television, aside from mine, that spoke out against this? Where were all those noble jurists, those great lawyers, those lovers of liberty, where the hell were they? They were nowhere!”

Gore Vidal (1925–2012) American writer

2010s, "Gore Vidal: The United States of Amnesia" (2013)

War, Law, Lovers, Hell

“[R]adical Islam is heir, above all, to Nazism. The destruction of the World Trade Center was meant not only to wreak terror. Like the smashing of the Bamiyan Buddhas, it was meant to obliterate greatness and beauty, elegance and grace. These artifacts represented civilization embodied in stone or steel. They had to be destroyed. This worship of death and destruction is a nihilism of a ferocity unlike any since the Nazis burned books, then art, then whole peoples. Goebbels would have marvelled at the recruitment tape for al Qaeda, a two-hour orgy of blood and death: image after image of brutalized Muslims shown in various poses of victimization, followed by glorious images of desecration of the infidel-mutilated American soldiers in Somalia, the destruction of the USS Cole, mangled bodies at the American embassies in Kenya and Tanzania.”

Charles Krauthammer (1950–2018) American journalist

2000s, 2001, The Enemy is not Islam. It is Nihilism (2001)

Death, People, Books, World

“You've got to be a very clever people to win a big war and to rule half the world -- but the Japanese didn't behave is clever people. In the first few weeks of conquering any town, they would hold marching exercises as part of their campaign to terrorize residents. They marched six to eight to twelve abreast, chanting Japanese martial songs and stamping on the ground in an exaggerated manner.”

Robert Kuok (1923) Malaysian businessman

Cap 3 "Under the Japanese Heel"

War, People, World, Exercises

“Wherever you have weakening states and turmoil, you will have a fertile petri dish for terrorism.”

Robert D. Kaplan (1952) American writer

Robert D. Kaplan, cited in: Steve Lamy, ‎John Masker (2016), Introduction to Global Politics. p. 232

“The widespread intimidation of the population provided the essential precondition for a process that was in train all over Germany in the period from February to July 1933… The Nazi takeover of the federated states provided a key component in this process… At the same time as the state governments were being overthrown, local Nazis, backed by squads of armed stormtroopers and SS men, were occupying town halls, terrorizing mayors and councils into resigning, and replacing them with their own nominees.”

Richard J. Evans (1947) British historian

Source: The Coming of the Third Reich (2003), p. 381

Men, Time, Training

“Robespierre listened to me with terror. He grew pale and silent for some time. This interview confirmed me in the opinion that I always had of him, that he unites the knowledge of a wise senator with the integrity of a thoroughly good man and the zeal of a true patriot but that he is lacking as a statesman in clearness of vision and determination.”

Jean-Paul Marat (1743–1793) politician and journalist during the French Revolution

L'Ami du peuple, vol. 7, p. 3965

Knowledge, Time

“Old forms of government finally grow so oppressive, that they must be thrown off even at the risk of reigns of terror.”

Herbert Spencer (1820–1903) English philosopher, biologist, sociologist, and prominent classical liberal political theorist

On Manners and Fashion
Essays on Education (1861)

“How can we escape from the trap that the terrorists have set us? Only by recognizing that the war on terrorism cannot be won by waging war. We must, of course, protect our security; but we must also correct the grievances on which terrorism feeds. Crime requires police work, not military action.”

George Soros (1930) Hungarian-American business magnate, investor, and philanthropist

Address at the University of Pennsylvania (2002); quoted in "White House playing into Soros' hands?" by J. Michael Waller, in WorldNetDaily (1 December 2003) http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=35893

War

“I feel it is our duty to sustain the federated action of Europe. I think it has suffered by the somewhat absurd name which has been given to it—the Concert of Europe—and the intense importance of the fact has been buried under the bad jokes to which the word has given rise. But the federated action of Europe—if we can maintain it, if we can maintain this Legislature—is our sole hope of escaping from the constant terror and the calamity of war, the constant pressure of the burdens of an armed peace which weigh down the spirits and darken the prospects of every nation in this part of the world. ["Hear, hear!"] The federation of Europe is the only hope we have; but that federation is only to be maintained by observing the conditions on which every Legislature must depend, on which every judicial system must be based—the engagements into which it enters must be respected.”

Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury (1830–1903) British politician

Speech http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/lords/1897/mar/19/speech-by-lord-kimberley-at-norwich in the House of Lords (19 March 1897) 1890s

War, World, Peace, Hope

“Senator Kerry now tells us he has a clear position on the [war on terror]. He voted no on Desert Storm in 1991 and yes on Desert Shield today. Then he voted no on [troop funding], just after he'd voted yes. He's campaigned against the [war] all year, but says he'd vote yes today. This nation can't afford [presidential leadership] that comes in 57 varieties.”

Mitt Romney (1947) American businessman and politician

Republican Convention Speech, 2004.
2003–2007 Governor of Massachusetts

War

“"Ultra-nationalism" stands naked as nothing but a euphemism for the worship of violence in service of autocratic goals - be they the terrorism and holy war of Islamic fundamentalists or the refusal of dictatorial systems to accept political democracy.”

Liu Xiaobo (1955–2017) Chinese literary critic, writer, professor, and human rights activist

"Bellicose and Thuggish: The Roots of Chinese "Patriotism" at the Dawn of the Twenty-First Century" (2002)
No Enemies, No Hate: Selected Essays and Poems

War, Democracy

Quotes about terrorism page 3

Quotes about terrorism
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