Quotes about threat
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“Sometimes when family members least deserve love, they need it most. Love is not appropriately expressed in threats, accusations, expressions of disappointment, or retaliation. Real love takes time, patience, help, and continuing performances.”

Marvin J. Ashton (1915–1994) Apostle of the LDS Church

Love, Family, Disappointment, Time

“Ohh, how clever," Aden said and clapped. "A death threat. You know what's funny? That's not even my first of the day.”

Gena Showalter (1975) American writer

Source: Intertwined

Death

“… Families are Forever, and wondered if the slogan was meant as a promise or a threat.”

Brady Udall book The Lonely Polygamist

Source: The Lonely Polygamist

Family

“Now sod off back to your own world, you motherless scum, and save your threats for those who care.”

Darren Shan book Lord Loss

Source: Lord Loss

World

“The greatest threat to freedom is the absence of criticism.”

Wole Soyinka (1934) Nigerian writer

Source: The strong man syndrome https://www.thecable.ng/wole-soyinka-at-86/amp

Freedom

“Growing up is a trap," snapped Dr. Robbins. "When they tell you to shut up, they mean stop talking. When they tell you to grow up, they mean stop growing. Reach a nice level plateau and settle there, predictable and unchanging, no longer a threat.”

Tom Robbins Even Cowgirls Get the Blues

Source: Even Cowgirls Get the Blues

“Harmless as a setting dove," he agreed. "I'm too hungry to be a threat to anything but breakfast. Let a stray bannock come within reach, though, and I'll no answer for the consequences.”

Diana Gabaldon (1952) American author

“It would require a singularly stupid man to go hang around in narrow tunnels and cramped spaces alongside a threat like that.

"And I, Harry Dresden, am that man," I stated.”

Jim Butcher book Ghost Story

Source: Ghost Story

Stupidity

“You will tell me what you know now," he said.

"Or?"

He said nothing, so I elaborated. "See, this kind of threat usually has an 'or' attached to it. Or an 'and'. 'Tell me and I'll allow you to live' or something like that.”

Ilona Andrews American husband-and-wife novelist duo

Source: Magic Bites

“Never get angry. Never make a threat. Reason with people.”

Mario Puzo (1920–1999) American Novelist

People

“To be left alone on the tightrope of youthful unknowing is to experience the excruciating beauty of full freedom and the threat of eternal indecision.”

Maya Angelou book I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings

Source: I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings

Youth, Beauty, Freedom, Indecision

“It's hard to say who's a greater threat to the world, an ambitious CEO with a big ad budget or a crafty cleric with an obsolete Bible verse.”

Tom Robbins Fierce Invalids Home from Hot Climates

Source: Fierce Invalids Home from Hot Climates

World

“You," Madeline said, her voice hollow and wheezing, "are like a bad case of herpes, wizard. You're inconvenient, embarassing, no real threat, and you simplygo away.”

Jim Butcher Turn Coat

Source: Turn Coat

“Here's what I was thinking about:1. Who the new threat was 2. The air show in Mexico City 3. How to get Total to quit milking his injury, because enough was enough 4. My mom and Half sister Ella 5. Fang 6. Fang 7. Fang”

James Patterson (1947) American author

Moms, Thinking, Sister

“Usually the threat of death makes people a lot more aware of their lives.”

Paulo Coelho book The Alchemist

Source: The Alchemist

Death, People

“Advertising - A judicious mixture of flattery and threats.”

Stephen Leacock (1869–1944) writer and economist

“Life is easier when you can write off others as monsters, demon, as horrible threats that must be hated and feared the thing is you can't do that without becoming them, just a little.”

Jim Butcher book White Night

Source: White Night

Life, Hate, Fear

“His eyes widened just a bit, his lips flexed. I realized he was trying not to laugh. I hate it when people find my threats amusing.”

Laurell K. Hamilton book The Laughing Corpse

Source: The Laughing Corpse

Hate, People

“By all means, avoid words—threats, complaints, justification, narratives, reframing, attempts to win arguments, supplications; avoid words!”

Nassim Nicholas Taleb book The Bed of Procrustes: Philosophical and Practical Aphorisms

Source: The Bed of Procrustes: Philosophical and Practical Aphorisms

“Tomorrow. The word hangs in the air for a moment, both a promise and a threat. Then it floats away like a paper boat, taken from her by the water licking at her ankles.”

Thrity Umrigar book The Space Between Us

Source: The Space Between Us

Water

“A REASSURING ANNOUNCEMENT Please, be calm, despite that previous threat. I am all bluster - I am not violent. I am not malicious. I am a result.”

Markus Zusak book The Book Thief

Source: The Book Thief

“I looked at him. "You really need to work on your threats. I can't tell if you're threatening me or inviting me for tea.”

Ilona Andrews American husband-and-wife novelist duo

Source: Magic Slays

Tea

“There are two kinds of idiots - those who don't take action because they have received a threat, and those who think they are taking action because they have issued a threat.”

Paulo Coelho book The Devil and Miss Prym

Source: The Devil and Miss Prym

Thinking

“I hardly think a girl is much of a threat. I presume you searched her for weapons? But if she attempts to suffocate me with her straw mattress, I promise to call out for help.”

Mary Hoffman book City of Masks

Source: City of Masks

Search, Girl, Thinking, Help

“My enemies are everywhere. And sometimes, those we least suspect turn out to be our biggest threats.”

Sara Shepard (1973) Author

Source: Never Have I Ever

“And if he is lying and he double-crosses you, I’ll kill him for you.”

From anyone else, it would have been an idle threat, and I smiled, feeling loved.

(Ivy and Rachel)”

Kim Harrison (1966) Pseudonym

Source: Pale Demon

Love, Smile, Feeling, Lying

“As soon as the guards where gone, I lay down on my stone bench and dumped the king and his threats out of my head without ceremony. They were too unpleasant to worry over anyway.”

Megan Whalen Turner The Thief

Source: The Thief

“These are smart people;
They receive a mess from the east, and a good life from the west;
They never rush because only life rushes;
They are not interested in what awaits after tomorrow;
What is meant to be will come, and little of it depends on them;
When they are together they are in trouble, for this they do not like to be together often;
They rarely trust anyone, but it’s easiest to fool them with nice words;
They do not resemble heroes, but they are not easily scared with threats;
They pay attention to nothing, they care not of what happens around them;
And then out of nowhere suddenly everything interests them, they flip everything and look around;
Then they become sleepers again and do not like to remember what came to pass;
They are scared of change because it often brings evil;
They are easily fed up with a man, even if he does them good;Strange people;
They talk bad about you but love you, kiss you on the cheek but hate you;
Laugh at noble deeds but remember them;
They spend most of their life on spite and goodness;
And don’t know which is stronger when;
Evil, good, gentle, raw, unable to move on, stormy, open, hidden;
They are all this and everything in between;
And most importantly they are mine, and I am theirs;
And everything I’m saying; I’m saying about myself.”

Meša Selimović (1910–1982) Yugoslav-Bosnian writer

Poem

Love, Life, Hate, People

“The World War II generation faced threats head-on. Now, by inactivity or through liberal self-loathing, we help those who are trying to kill us.”

Michael Savage (1942) U.S. radio talk show host, Commentator, and Author

Scorched Earth: Restoring the Country after Obama (2016)

War, World, Help

“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

“Indeed, racist views about the demographic 'threat' that the Palestinians constitute for a Jewish supremacist Israel are not confined to Ariel Sharon and the Israeli Jewish right wing (which is anyway a majority in Jewish Israel), but are also voiced by liberal and leftist Israeli Jews. In December 2000, the Institute of Policy and Strategy at the Herzlia Interdisciplinary Center in Israel held its first of a projected series of annual conferences dealing with the strength and security of Israel, especially with regards to maintaining its Jewish supremacist character. One of the 'Main Points' identified in the 52-page conference report is the concern over the numbers needed to maintain the Jewish supremacy of Israel.”

Joseph Massad (1963) Associate Professor of Arab Studies

Ibid.
"The Ends of Zionism: Racism and the Palestinian Struggle"

“"We've had death threats", Pete says, "saying, 'You're evil and your days are numbered." What was it, "Don't panic but be scared". Someone shat on our doorstep once and nailed a sparrow to our basement door. I don't mind, me. I'll out-weird any stalker.”

Pete Doherty (1979) English musician, writer, actor, poet and artist

On the downside of fame, NME (New Musical Express), March 13, 2004
People

Death, Evil

“This new quantum mechanics promised to explain all of chemistry. And though I felt an exuberance at this, I felt a certain threat, too. “Chemistry,” wrote Crookes, “will be established upon an entirely new basis…. We shall be set free from the need for experiment, knowing a priori what the result of each and every experiment must be.” I was not sure I liked the sound of this. Did this mean that chemists of the future (if they existed) would never actually need to handle a chemical; might never see the colors of vanadium salts, never smell a hydrogen selenide, never admire the form of a crystal; might live in a colorless, scentless, mathematical world? This, for me, seemed and awful prospect, for I, at least, needed to smell and touch and feel, to place myself, my senses, in the middle of the perceptual world.”

Oliver Sacks book Uncle Tungsten

Source: Uncle Tungsten (2001), pp. 312–313

World, Color, Feeling, Mathematics

“The brave and faithful people of Iran too have many questions and grievances, including: the coup d’etat of 1953 and the subsequent toppling of the legal government of the day, opposition to the Islamic revolution, transformation of an Embassy into a headquarters supporting the activities of those opposing the Islamic Republic (many thousands of pages of documents corroborate this claim), support for Saddam in the war waged against Iran, the shooting down of the Iranian passenger plane, freezing the assets of the Iranian nation, increasing threats, anger and displeasure vis-à-vis the scientific and nuclear progress of the Iranian nation (just when all Iranians are jubilant and celebrating their country’s progress), and many other grievances that I will not refer to in this letter.”

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad (1956) 6th President of the Islamic Republic of Iran

Paragraph 23
2006, Letter to George W. Bush, 2006

War, People, Faith, Question

“Freedom cannot be expected to tolerate that which would destroy it. Fundamentalist and extremist Islam is incompatible with freedom and Western liberal democracy. The real issue for those wishing to remain free is not an argument about headdress but the threat posed to our freedoms and way of life by a minority of people and how the state chooses to deal with it - if indeed it has the courage to do so at all.”

Gerard Batten (1954) British politician

Islamic fundamentalism is incompatible with freedom and Western liberal democracy https://web.archive.org/web/20070927174923/http://www.tfa.net/pdfs/60610.pdf (2006) 2006

Life, People, Way, Democracy

“To assume someone because of their age or gender, that they don't pose a threat, would be wrong.”

Sean Spicer (1971) American political strategist and former White House Press Secretary and Communications Director for President…

' White House Tells Dissenters in State Department: 'Get With the Program' or Quit http://time.com/4653958/white-house-dissent-state-department-response/', Time, January 30 2017 (defending the detention of a five year old child)

Age

“Our nation enters this conflict reluctantly -- yet, our purpose is sure. The people of the United States and our friends and allies will not live at the mercy of an outlaw regime that threatens the peace with weapons of mass murder. We will meet that threat now, with our Army, Air Force, Navy, Coast Guard and Marines, so that we do not have to meet it later with armies of fire fighters and police and doctors on the streets of our cities.”

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

2000s, 2003, Invasion of Iraq (March 2003)

People, Peace

“This new declaration which emphasizes the necessity of global disarmament is based on the purposes and principles of the United Nations, in particular the prohibition of the threat and use of force, and on the obligation to negotiate disputes in conformity with the UN Charter. It is a strong and positive example for the entire world.”

Alfred de Zayas (1947) American United Nations official

CELAC / Zone of Peace: “A key step to countering the globalization of militarism” – UN Expert http://www.ohchr.org/EN/NewsEvents/Pages/DisplayNews.aspx?NewsID=14215&LangID=E. 2014

World, Strong

“I've been lawsuit-threated [sic] by experts, and i can tell you from that experience, dv8 appears to not be an expert.”

Paul Vixie (1963) American internet pioneer

IETF mailing list archive http://www.ietf.org/mail-archive/web/ietf/current/msg30614.html

Appearance

“Due to Zionist tactics of silencing any Jewish criticisms within US Jewish organizations, and their threats to their opponents at the convention of the Central Conference of American Rabbis in June 1943, Reform Rabbi Louis Wolsey, a fierce anti-Zionist, feared that the prominent American Zionist Rabbi Stephen Wise had 'revealed by his tyranny over the non-conformist what the Zionists would do to the Arabs.”

Joseph Massad (1963) Associate Professor of Arab Studies

Ibid.
"The Ends of Zionism: Racism and the Palestinian Struggle"

Fear, Silence

“The object and practice of liberty lies in the limitation of governmental power. Through the ages the constantly expanding grasp of government has been liberty's greatest threat.”

Douglas MacArthur (1880–1964) U.S. Army general of the army, field marshal of the Army of the Philippines

Source: Reminiscences (1964), p. 417

Age

“But now, as throughout history, financial capacity and political perspicacity are inversely correlated. Long run salvation by men of business has never been highly regarded if it means disturbance of orderly life and convenience in the present. So inaction will be advocated in the present even though it means deep trouble in the future. Here, at least equally with communism, lies the threat to capitalism. It is what causes men who know that things are going quite wrong to say that things are fundamentally sound.”

John Kenneth Galbraith book The Great Crash, 1929

Source: The Great Crash, 1929 (1954 and 1997 https://openlibrary.org/books/OL25728842M/The_Great_Crash_1929), Chapter X, Cause and Consequence, p. 199

Life, Men, History, Communication

“The theory of repeated games is able to account for phenomena such as altruism, cooperation, trust, loyalty, revenge, threats (self-destructive or otherwise) – phenomena that may at ﬁrst seem irrational – in terms of the “selﬁsh” utility-maximizing paradigm of game theory and neoclassical economics.”

Robert Aumann (1930) Israeli-American mathematician

Source: War and peace (2005), p. 3

Game, Revenge, Loyalty

“They'd be no threat to me. I have a black belt in Haiku. And a black vest in the cleaners.”

Tom Robbins book Still Life with Woodpecker

Still Life with Woodpecker (1980)

“A really critical mind will not be content to remark the patent absurdity of the tales about supernatural beings and events in the "New Testament," but will go on to examine the purposes those tales were devised to serve. It requires no great critical acumen to perceive the appalling malice shown in Bolshevik promises that "the last shall be first"; the proletarian rancor of almost continual harping on the threat that rich men will be fried forever hereafter if they do not give all that they have to the poor and become paupers themselves; the frantic hatred of reason evinced by hostility to "the Greeks" who "seek after wisdom" and try to understand nature and the real world instead of drugging themselves with narcotic fantasies; the frightful malevolence of a god "who has made foolish the wisdom of this world" to profit a squalid and mindless rabble; and the hatred of all culture and civilization implicit in the election of illiterate boors as apostles and the insistence in the Drivel on the Mount on the need for bird-brains that "take no thought for the morrow" and, indeed, emulate the intellectual processes of vegetables.”

Revilo P. Oliver (1908–1994) American philologist

"The Bear in the Bush", Liberty Bell (September 1990)
1990s

Wisdom, Men, God, Hostility

“Social stability is the product of an equilibrium between a vigorous majority and violent minorities. Disorder does not come from an increased inner pressure or from the interaction of explosive ingredients. There is no reason to believe that the nature of the violent minorities is now greatly different from what it was in the past. What has changed is the will and ability of the majority to react.
It is hard to tell what causes the pervasive timidity. One thinks of video-induced stupor, intake of tranquilizers, fear of not living to enjoy the many new possessions and toys, the example of our betters in cities and on campuses who high-mindedly surrender to threats of violence and make cowardice fashionable.”

Eric Hoffer (1898–1983) American philosopher

Source: First Things, Last Things (1971), Ch. 8 "Thoughts on the Present"

Fear, Fashion, Nature, Thinking

“One of the topics [on the show last week] was the murder of women in the Arab sector, what is referred to, unfortunately, […] as 'honor killing' and has nothing to do with [anything worthy of] honor. The guest in the studio was a woman who had 20 years of experience working for the sake of those same women who die for no good reason, a woman whose everyday job was a holy work for the sake of thousands of Arab women who need a voice that will shout out and cry out their cries. After she had accused the government and the police and everyone of incompetence, I asked her, in a somewhat aggressive manner, as it were, '[…] Where are we in all of this? Where are we Arab women to teach and discipline our sons that a man has no right over a woman? […]' During the commercial break, she got up and told me that I had to learn how to talk to Arabs because the tone that I adopted and the things that I said were said to gain approval from Jews. So I've come to tell you today that I haven't come for approval from you; that I haven't come for approval from anyone; and this is the message that I want you to digest very, very well. In my life I have been accused of many things: that I am the fifth column; that an Arab will always stay an Arab, no matter how liberal he may look; that I bring shame on my family for being in a relationship with a person outside my religion. I've received threats after asking Palestinian residents live on the show why they don't go out against Hamas men, who use them and bring them to their slaughter; I've been attacked on Yom ha-Shoah and Yom ha-Zikaron that the managers at Arutz 2 dared to put an Arab on a show such as that as the host on a day such as that; I've been told that I make Arab women stray off the path of proper behavior; and that I've forgotten where I come from being an 'Ashkenazified', 'Judaized' Arab. So they blamed and they talked—as if that, in itself, made them right.”

Lucy Aharish (1981) Arab-Israeli journalist

Source: Lucy Aharish's campus speech http://www.onlife.co.il/%D7%A2%D7%91%D7%95%D7%93%D7%94/%D7%9E%D7%A0%D7%94%D7%99%D7%92%D7%95%D7%AA-%D7%94%D7%99%D7%95%D7%9D-%D7%90%D7%AA-%D7%94%D7%9E%D7%97%D7%A8/85312/%D7%9C%D7%95%D7%A1%D7%99-%D7%90%D7%94%D7%A8%D7%99%D7%A9-%D7%9C%D7%90-%D7%91%D7%90%D7%AA%D7%99-%D7%9C%D7%9E%D7%A6%D7%95%D7%90-%D7%97%D7%9F-%D7%91%D7%A2%D7%99%D7%A0%D7%99-%D7%90%D7%A3-%D7%90%D7%97%D7%93 at "מנהיגות היום את המחר". Onlife. 9 November 2014. Retrieved 27 January 2015. Video available.

Life, Women, Men, Family

“What worth peace when it was maintained by threat?
It was only the fearful who knelt in worship before order, and Galar refused to leave in fear.”

Steven Erikson book Forge of Darkness

Forge of Darkness (2013)

Fear, Peace

“The powerful have historically tried to impose their will through mechanisms of enforced ignorance such as censorship, secrecy, threats, physical intimidation and violence. This model is difficult to sustain in a networked world based on Enlightenment values. This is not to say that Western democracies have abandoned these heavy-handed tactics, but more often the methods have shifted to more sophisticated ways of maintaining power such as media management, public relations and legal intimidation. In the midst of all this information and misinformation how can we filter out what is important and true?”

Heather Brooke (1970) American journalist

Page 72.
The Revolution Will Be Digitised: Dispatches From the Information War, 1st Edition

World, Way, Democracy

“A neighbor with one billion people equipped with nuclear bombs and has expanded its military outlays by double digits for 17 years in a row, and it is unclear as to what this is being used for. It is beginning to be a considerable threat.”

Tarō Asō (1940) 92nd Prime Minister of Japan

About China, as quoted in "Japan alarmed by Chinese 'threat'" http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/4551642.stm, BBC, 22 December 2005.

People

“At the beginning of the last two decades of our century, we find ourselves in a state of profound, world-wide crisis. It is a complex, multi-dimensional crisis whose facets touch every aspect of our lives - our health and livelihood, the quality of our environment and our social relationships, our economy, technology, and politics. It is a crisis of intellectual, moral, and spiritual dimensions; a crisis of a scale and urgency unprecedented in recorded human history. For the first time we have to face the very real threat of extinction of the human race and of all life on this planet.”

Fritjof Capra book The Turning Point

Source: The Turning Point (1982), Ch. 1. The Turning of the Tide.

Life, Health, World, History

“What I am saying is that it is not so much what man is that counts as it is what he ventures to make of himself. To make the leap he must do more than disclose himself; he must risk a certain amount of confusion. Then, as soon as he does catch a glimpse of a different kind of life, he needs to find some way of overcoming the paralyzing moment of threat, for this is the instant when he wonders who he really is - whether he is what he just was or is what he is about to be. Adam must have experienced such a moment.”

George Kelly (psychologist) (1905–1967) American psychologist and therapist

Variant: What I am saying is that it is not so much what man is that counts as it is what he ventures to make of himself. To make the leap he must do more than disclose himself; he must risk a certain amount of confusion. Then, as soon as he does catch a glimpse of a different kind of life, he needs to find some way of overcoming the paralyzing moment of threat, for this is the instant when he wonders who he really is - whether he is what he just was or is what he is about to be. Adam must have experienced such a moment.
Source: The Language of Hypothesis, 1964, p. 158

Life, Way

“Most of the time, organizations generate actions unreflectively and non-adaptively. To justify their actions, organizations create problems, successes, threats and opportunities. These are ideological molecules that mix values, goals, expectations, perceptions, theories, plans, and symbols. The molecules form while people are result watching, guided by the beliefs that they should judge results good or bad, look for the causes of results, and propose needs for action. Because organizations modify their behavior programs mainly in small increments that make sense to top managers, they change too little and inappropriately, and nearly all organizations disappear within a few years.”

William H. Starbuck (1934) American academic

Abstract
"Organizations as action generators," 1983

People, Behavior, Problem, Sense

“Why do people stop developing, or, like they stop the way you can rate their, psychologically, their development? Where they stop, and just from being children to maybe stopping at a very adolescent age, and they stay there until they die. Physically die. I mean, they react adolescently. They don't change. They don't develop. They don't — it's that continual read, that process which is is the total threat for the ego.”

Edie Sedgwick (1943–1971) Socialite, actress, model

Edie : Girl On Fire (2006)

Children, People, Age, Way

“I think it is clear to everyone what happens in the Fifth. The rejoicing is forced, created under threat, as in Boris Godunov. It's as if someone were beating you with a stick and saying, "Your business is rejoicing, your business is rejoicing," and you rise, shaky, and go marching off, muttering, "Our business is rejoicing, our business is rejoicing."”

Dmitri Shostakovich book Testimony

Page 183.
Testimony (1979)

Business, Thinking

“The only thing that saves us from the bureaucracy is inefficiency. An efficient bureaucracy is the greatest threat to liberty.”

Eugene McCarthy (1916–2005) American politician

Time magazine (12 February 1979)

“The spirit of our National Socialist idea has to overpower the spirit of liberalism and false democracy if there is to be a third Reich at all! Deeply rooted in organic life, we have realized that the false belief in the equality of man is the deadly threat with which liberalism destroys people and nation, culture and morals. violating the deepest levels of our being! We have to reject with fanatical zeal the frequent lie that people are basically equal and equal in regard to their influence in the state and their share of power! People are unequal, they are unequal from birth, become more unequal in life and are therefore to be valued unequally in their positions in society and in the state!”

Gregor Strasser (1892–1934) German politician, rival of Adolf Hitler inside the Nazi Psrty

Source: " Thoughts about the Tasks of the Future https://books.google.com/books?id=fG_oAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA87", by Gregor Strasser - (1926 June 15)

Life, People, Lie, Democracy

“What justice also demands, inspired by the same feeling, is the punishment of the guilty and effective guaranties against an active return of the spirit by which they were tempted; and it is logical to demand that these guaranties should be given, above all, to the nations that have been, and might again be most exposed to aggressions or threats, to those who have many times stood in danger of being submerged by the periodic tide of the same invasions. What justice banishes is the dream of conquest and imperialism, contempt for national will, the arbitrary exchange of provinces between states as though peoples were but articles of furniture or pawns in a game. The time is no more when diplomatists could meet to redraw with authority the map of the empires on the corner of a table. If you are to remake the map of the world it is in the name of the peoples, and on condition that you shall faithfully interpret their thoughts, and respect the right of nations, small and great, to dispose of themselves, and to reconcile it with the right, equally sacred, of ethnical and religious minorities - a formidable task, which science and history, your two advisers, will contribute to illumine and facilitate.”

Raymond Poincaré (1860–1934) 10th President of the French Republic

Welcoming Address http://www.firstworldwar.com/source/parispeaceconf_poincare.htm at the Paris Peace Conference (18 January 1919).

People, World, Justice, Dreams

““How dare you contradict their opinions! You are only a common servant.”
“Yes, miss,” he said wearily.
“You should be dismissed for being insolent to your betters.”
There was a long pause, and then Baine said, “All the diary entries and dismissals in the world cannot change the truth. Galileo recanted under threat of torture, but that did not make the sun revolve round the earth. If you dismiss me, the vase will still be vulgar, I will still be right, and your taste will still be plebeian, no matter what you write in your diary.”
“Plebeian?” Tossie said, bright pink. “How dare you speak like that to your mistress? You are dismissed.” She pointed imperiously at the house. “Pack your things immediately.”
“Yes, miss,” Baine said. “E pur si muove.”
“What?” Tossie said, bright red with rage. “What did you say?”
“I said, now that finally have dismissed me, I am no longer a member of the servant class and am therefore in a position to speak freely,” he said calmly.
“You are not in a position to speak to me at all,” Tossie said, raising her diary like a weapon. “Leave at once.”
“I dared to speak the truth to you because I felt you were deserving of it,” Baine said seriously. “I had only your best interests at heart, as I have always had. You have been blessed with great riches; not only with the riches of wealth, position, and beauty, but with a bright mind and a keen sensibility, as well as with a fine spirit. And yet you squander those riches on croquet and organdies and trumpery works of art. You have at your disposal a library of the great minds of the past, and yet you read the foolish novels of Charlotte Yonge and Edward Bulwer-Lytton. Given the opportunity to study science, you converse with conjurors wearing cheesecloth and phosphorescent paint. Confronted by the glories of Gothic architecture, you admire instead a cheap imitation of it, and confronted by the truth, you stamp your foot like a spoilt child and demand to be told fairy stories.””

Connie Willis book To Say Nothing of the Dog

Source: To Say Nothing of the Dog (1998), Chapter 22 (p. 374)

Truth, World, Beauty, Art

“The ever-increasing cattle population is wreaking havoc on the earth's ecosystems, destroying habitats on six continents. Cattle raising is a primary factor in the destruction of the world's remaining tropical rain forests. … Cattle are also a major cause of global warming. … The devastating environmental, economic, and human toll of maintaining a worldwide cattle complex is little discussed in public policy circles. … Yet, cattle production and beef consumption now rank among the gravest threats to the future well-being of the earth and its human population.”

Jeremy Rifkin book Beyond Beef: The Rise and Fall of the Cattle Culture

Source: Beyond Beef: The Rise and Fall of the Cattle Culture (1992), pp. 1-2

World, Future

“But the first ingredient, let me emphasize, is the cessation of work on missile sites on Cuba and measures to render such weapons inoperable, under effective international guarantees. The continuations of this threat, or prolonging of this discussion concerning Cuba by linking these problems to the broader questions of European and world security, would surely lead to the peace of the world. For this reason I hope we can quickly agree along the lines outlined in this letter of October 26th.”

John F. Kennedy (1917–1963) 35th president of the United States of America

1962, Second Letter to Nikita Khrushchev

World, Peace, Hope, Question

“In Somalia, we know exactly what they had to gain because they told us. The chairman of the Joint Chiefs, Colin Powell, described this as the best public relations operation of the Pentagon that he could imagine. His picture, which I think is plausible, is that there was a problem about raising the Pentagon budget, and they needed something that would be, look like a kind of a cakewalk, which would give a lot of prestige to the Pentagon. Somalia looked easy. Let's look back at the background. For years, the United States had supported a really brutal dictator, who had just devastated the country, and was finally kicked out. After he's kicked out, it was 1990, the country sank into total chaos and disaster, with starvation and warfare and all kind of horrible misery. The United States refused to, certainly to pay reparations, but even to look. By the middle of 1992, it was beginning to ease. The fighting was dying down, food supplies were beginning to get in, the Red Cross was getting in, roughly 80% of their supplies they said. There was a harvest on the way. It looked like it was finally sort of settling down. At that point, all of a sudden, George Bush announced that he had been watching these heartbreaking pictures on television, on Thanksgiving, and we had to do something, we had to send in humanitarian aid. The Marines landed, in a landing which was so comical, that even the media couldn't keep a straight face. Take a look at the reports of the landing of the Marines, it must've been the first week of December 1992. They had planned a night, there was nothing that was going on, but they planned a night landing, so you could show off all the fancy new night vision equipment and so on. Of course they had called the television stations, because what's the point of a PR operation for the Pentagon if there's no one to look for it. So the television stations were all there, with their bright lights and that sort of thing, and as the Marines were coming ashore they were blinded by the television light. So they had to send people out to get the cameramen to turn off the lights, so they could land with their fancy new equipment. As I say, even the media could not keep a straight face on this one, and they reported it pretty accurately. Also reported the PR aspect. Well the idea was, you could get some nice shots of Marine colonels handing out peanut butter sandwiches to starving refugees, and that'd all look great. And so it looked for a couple of weeks, until things started to get unpleasant. As things started to get unpleasant, the United States responded with what's called the Powell Doctrine. The United States has an unusual military doctrine, it's one of the reasons why the U. S. is generally disqualified from peace keeping operations that involve civilians, again, this has to do with sovereignty. U. S. military doctrine is that U. S. soldiers are not permitted to come under any threat. That's not true for other countries. So countries like, say, Canada, the Fiji Islands, Pakistan, Norway, their soldiers are coming under threat all the time. The peace keepers in southern Lebanon for example, are being attacked by Israeli soldiers all the time, and have suffered plenty of casualties, and they don't like it. But U. S. soldiers are not permitted to come under any threat, so when Somali teenagers started shaking fists at them, and more, they came back with massive fire power, and that led to a massacre. According to the U. S., I don't know the actual numbers, but according to U. S. government, about 7 to 10 thousand Somali civilians were killed before this was over. There's a close analysis of all of this by Alex de Waal, who's one of the world's leading specialists on African famine and relief, altogether academic specialist. His estimate is that the number of people saved by the intervention and the number killed by the intervention was approximately in the same ballpark. That's Somalia. That's what's given as a stellar example of the humanitarian intervention.”

Noam Chomsky (1928) american linguist, philosopher and activist

Responding to the question, "what did the United States have to gain by intervening in Somalia?", regarding Operation Provide Relief/Operation Restore Hope/Battle of Mogadishu.
Quotes 1990s, 1995-1999, Sovereignty and World Order, 1999

People, World, Peace, Food

“Democracies that are under threat of destruction face the impossible dilemma of either yielding to that threat by insisting on preserving the democratic niceties, or violating their own principles by curtailing democratic rights.”

Richard J. Evans (1947) British historian

The Coming of the Third Reich (2003), p. 452.

Democracy

“The Protestants say that it is the duty of every person to read, to understand, and to believe this revelation—that a man should use his reason; but if he honestly concludes that the Bible is not a revelation from God, and dies with that conclusion in his mind, he will be tormented forever. They say:—“Read,” and then add: “Believe, or be damned.” “No matter how unreasonable the Bible may appear to you, you must believe. No matter how impossible the miracles may seem, you must believe. No matter how cruel the laws, your heart must approve them all!” This is what the church calls the liberty of thought. We read the Bible under the scowl and threat of God. We read by the glare of hell.”

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

The Truth (1896)

God, Law, Hell, Understanding

“Look, I think there is a gay and secular fascism in this country that wants to impose its will on the rest of us, is prepared to use violence, to use harassment. I think it is prepared to use the government if it can get control of it. I think that it is a very dangerous threat to anybody who believes in traditional religion. And I think if you believe in historic Christianity, you have to confront the fact. And, frank— for that matter, if you believe in the historic version of Islam or the historic version of Judaism, you have to confront the reality that these secular extremists are determined to impose on you acceptance of a series of values that are antithetical, they're the opposite, of what you're taught in Sunday school.”

Newt Gingrich (1943) Professor, Speaker of the United States House of Representatives

2008-11-15
The O'Reilly Factor
Fox News
2008-11-17
Gingrich: "<nowiki>[T]</nowiki>here is a gay and secular fascism in this country that wants to impose its will on the rest of us"
Media Matters for America
http://mediamatters.org/mmtv/200811170014
2011-03-30
discussing protesters against a California ballot initiative banning same-sex marriage
2000s

School, Religion, Thinking, Reality

“Well, moving swiftly sideways into cognitive neuroscience…In the past twenty years we’ve made huge strides, using imaging tools, direct brain interfaces, and software simulations. We’ve pretty much disproved the existence of free will, at least as philosophers thought they understood it. A lot of our decision-making mechanics are subconscious; we only become aware of our choices once we’ve begun to act on them. And a whole lot of other things that were once thought to correlate with free will turn out also to be mechanical. If we use transcranial magnetic stimulation to disrupt the right temporoparietal junction, we can suppress subjects’ ability to make moral judgements; we can induce mystical religious experiences: We can suppress voluntary movements, and the patients will report that they didn’t move because they didn’t want to move. The TMPJ finding is deeply significant in the philosophy of law, by the way: It strongly supports the theory that we are not actually free moral agents who make decisions—such as whether or not to break the law—of our own free will.
“In a nutshell, then, what I’m getting at is that the project of law, ever since the Code of Hammurabi—the entire idea that we can maintain social order by obtaining voluntary adherence to a code of permissible behaviour, under threat of retribution—is fundamentally misguided.” His eyes are alight; you can see him in the Cartesian lecture-theatre of your mind, pacing door-to-door as he addresses his audience. “If people don’t have free will or criminal intent in any meaningful sense, then how can they be held responsible for their actions? And if the requirements of managing a complex society mean the number of laws have exploded until nobody can keep track of them without an expert system, how can people be expected to comply with them?”

Charles Stross book Rule 34

Source: Rule 34 (2011), Chapter 26, “Liz: It’s Complicated” (pp. 286-287)

People, Law, Way, Idea

“Neither the United States of America nor the world community of nations can tolerate deliberate deception and offensive threats on the part of any nation, large or small. We no longer live in a world where only the actual firing of weapons represents a sufficient challenge to a nation's security to constitute maximum peril. Nuclear weapons are so destructive and ballistic missiles are so swift, that any substantially increased possibility of their use or any sudden change in their deployment may well be regarded as a definite threat to peace.”

John F. Kennedy (1917–1963) 35th president of the United States of America

Source: 1962, Cuban Missile Crisis speech

World, Peace, Communication, Change

“The existence of the Zionist regime is tantamount to imposition of an unending and unrestrained threat so that none of the nations and Islamic countries of the region and beyond can feel secure from its threat. The closer these nations are to the epicenter of this threat, the more threatened they feel. The people of Palestine are at the very core of such a threat. They have not been able to spend a day with peace of mind for the past sixty years. Three generations of sons and daughters of Palestinians have lived and are presently living under these circumstances. The peoples of Egypt, Jordan, Syria, Lebanon and the entire Middle East are essentially under similar situation.”

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad (1956) 6th President of the Islamic Republic of Iran

2006, 2006 International Qods Conference address

People, Peace, Feeling, Past

“The awful events of September 11, 2001 declared a war we were vaguely aware of, but hadn't really comprehended how near the threat was, and how terrible were the plans of our enemies.
It's a big thing, this war.
It's a fight between a just regard for human dignity and a malevolent force that defiles an honorable religion by disputing God's love for every soul on earth. It's a fight between right and wrong, good and evil.
And should our enemies acquire for their arsenal the chemical, biological and nuclear weapons they seek, this war will become a much bigger thing.
So it is, whether we wished it or not, that we have come to the test of our generation, to our rendezvous with destiny.
And much is expected of us.
We are engaged in a hard struggle against a cruel and determined adversary.
Our enemies have made clear the danger they pose to our security and to the very essence of our culture …liberty.
Only the most deluded of us could doubt the necessity of this war.
Like all wars, this one will have its ups and downs.
But we must fight. We must.”

John McCain (1936–2018) politician from the United States

2000s, 2004, Speech at the Republican National Convention (2004)

Love, God, War, Religion

“Islamic Iran will resist … any kind of threat and will give a powerful answer to enemies and oppressors.”

Mostafa Mohammad-Najjar (1956) Iranian politician

Iran will resist "any threat": defense minister http://www.reuters.com/article/topNews/idUSL2329805520070523?src=052307_0815_DOUBLEFEATURE_ May 2007

“We will defend the American homeland by strengthening our intelligence community – focusing on human intelligence and the early detection of terrorist operations both here and abroad. And when direct threats to America are discovered, I know that the best defense can be a strong and swift offense – including the use of Special Operations Forces and long-range strike capabilities.”

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

1990s, A Period of Consequences (September 1999)

Intelligence, Communication, Strong

“By now it has become a formula to attach new ideas on the grounds of extremism and unintelligibility. Every phase of modern art has in turn been attacked on these grounds, until the new phase became acceptable. Although the present attacks are focused on those who emphasize the subjective side of abstract painting, the threat to other sections of the modern painting is implicit. The attacks are always focused on those who are considered the black sheep, for reasons of non-conformity. They are conspicuous, because they are different, and therefore may be easy targets.”

Adolph Gottlieb (1903–1974) American artist

Gottlieb's comment on the attacks on artistic freedom in the United States, 1948
Quote from Gottlieb's lecture at Forum: the Artist Speaks, museum of Modern Art, New York, May 5, 1948.
1940s

Art, Idea, Freedom, Painting

“The Sony saga has brought to light a hidden sinister: Cyber terrorism has reached a whole new level by combining cyber attacks and threats of physical terrorism.”

Newton Lee American computer scientist

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

Light

“The threats to privacy in America – from our own government – seem to never end. Does Congress really think they can just stick an ‘oh-by-the-way’ provision in an obscure piece of legislation directing the FAA to clear the way for 30,000 drones to fly over our neighborhoods, and have no one notice?”

Gary Johnson (1953) American politician, businessman, and 29th Governor of New Mexico

Gary Johnson Decries Domestic Drones
rawstory
2012-02-19
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2012/02/19/gary-johnson-decries-domestic-drones-big-brother-is-alive-and-well/
2012-02-24
2011

Way, Thinking, Flying

“America has shown we are serious about removing the threat of weapons of mass destruction."…"We now know that Saddam Hussein had the capacity to produce weapons of mass destruction…. We know he had the necessary infrastructure because we found the labs and the dual-use facilities that could be used for these chemical and biological agents. We know that he was developing the delivery systems — ballistic missiles — that had been prohibited by the United Nations.”

Dick Cheney (1941) American politician and businessman

Speech at a Fundraising dinner in New Mexico http://www.usatoday.com/news/politicselections/nation/president/2004-02-16-cheney-new-mexico_x.htm, (February 16, 2004) 2000s, 2004

“We want to ensure that we are not admitting into our country the very threats our soldiers are fighting overseas.”

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

"Trump signs executive order to keep out 'radical Islamic terrorists'" http://edition.cnn.com/2017/01/27/politics/trump-plans-to-sign-executive-action-on-refugees-extreme-vetting/, CNN (27 January 2017) 2010s, 2017, January

Fight, Country

“A person can meet anxiety to the extent that his values are stronger than the threat.”

Rollo May (1909–1994) US psychiatrist

Source: Psychology and the Human Dilemma (1967), p. 51

Personality

“Harry Dresden: Susan smiled at me, giving Molly the Female Once-Over--a process by which one woman creates a detailed profile of another woman based upon about a million subtle details of clothing, jewelry, makeup, and body type, and then decides how much of a social threat she might be. Men have a parallel process, but it's binary: Does he have beer? If yes, will he share with me?”

Jim Butcher The Dresden Files

Source: The Dresden Files, Changes (2010), Chapter 9

Men, Smile, Beer, Clothes

“Institutional blindness is a major threat to the future of all corporations.”

Patrick Dixon book Futurewise

Futurewise (1998)

Future

“Another response to racism has been the establishment of unlearning racism workshops, which are often led by white women. These workshops are important, yet they tend to focus primarily on cathartic individual psychological personal prejudice without stressing the need for corresponding change in political commitment and action. A woman who attends an unlearning racism workshop and learns to acknowledge that she is racist is no less a threat than one who does not. Acknowledgment of racism is significant when it leads to transformation.”

Bell Hooks (1952) American author, feminist, and social activist

(1984)

Women, Learning, Change, Personality

“Mercifully, we stay our hand. Earth’s cities will not be bombed. The free citizens of Venus Republic have no wish to slaughter their cousins still on Terra. Our only purpose is to establish our own independence, to manage our own affairs, to throw off the crushing yoke of absentee ownership and taxation without representation which has bleed us poor.
In doing so, in so taking our stand as free men, we call on all oppressed and impoverished nations everywhere to follow our lead, accept our help. Look up into the sky! Swimming there above you is the very station from which I now address you. The fat and stupid rulers of the Federation have made of Circum-Terra an overseer’s whip. The threat of this military base in the sky has protected their empire from the just wrath of their victims for more then five score years.
We now crush it.
In a matter of minutes this scandal in the clean skies, this pistol pointed at the heads of men everywhere on your planet, will cease to exist. Step out of doors, watch the sky. Watch a new sun blaze briefly, and know that its light is the light of Liberty inviting all of Earth to free itself.
Subject peoples of Earth, we free men of the free Republic of Venus salute you with that sign!”

Robert A. Heinlein book Between Planets

Source: Between Planets (1951), Chapter 6, “The Sign in the Sky” (p. 74) - Speech given before the destruction of the nuclear-armed satellite Circum-Terra.

Men, People, Stupidity, Light

“But we must never adjust to the present coarseness of our national dialogue with the tone set up at the top. We must never regard as normal the regular and casual undermining of our democratic norms and ideals. We must never meekly accept the daily sundering of our country. The personal attacks, the threats against principles, freedoms and institution, the flagrant disregard for truth and decency.The reckless provocations, most often for the pettiest and most personal reasons, reasons having nothing whatsoever to do with the fortunes of the people that we have been elected to serve. None of these appalling features of our current politics should ever be regarded as normal. We must never allow ourselves to lapse into thinking that that is just the way things are now.”

Jeff Flake (1962) American politician

Speech in the U.S. Senate (2017)

People, Truth, Way, Thinking

“States should practice multilateralism and abandon unilateral actions that adversely affect a democratic and equitable international order, refraining from the threat or use of force. They should apply international law uniformly, abandon overreliance on “positivism” and efforts to circumvent treaty obligations or invent loopholes. As “nature abhors a vacuum” (Spinoza, Ethics), human rights law abhors “legal black holes””

Alfred de Zayas (1947) American United Nations official

United Nations General Assembly - Promotion of a democratic and equitable international order http://www.ohchr.org/Documents/Issues/IntOrder/A-68-284_en.pdf. 2013

Law, Nature, Effort

“The vast majority of Europeans always believed that the threat posed by Saddam Hussein was more tolerable than the risk of removing him. But Americans, being stronger, developed a lower threshold of tolerance for Saddam and his weapons of mass destruction.”

Robert Kagan book Of Paradise and Power

Of Paradise and Power, p. 31

“Modern technologies of warfare have made it possible for an individual or nation to bring total destruction to large segments of our population. And the greatest threat comes from those nations which have the most depriving environments for their children and which are the most repressive of sexual affection and female sexuality. We will have the most to fear when these nations acquire the weapons of modern warfare. Tragically, this has already begun.”

James W. Prescott (1930) American psychologist

"Body Pleasure and the Origins of Violence" (1975)

Children, Fear

“When a strong central authority protects borders and reduces internal crime, people have little need for fortified dwellings, although the rulers may build walls and towers to define legitimate residents and defend the country against external threats. When central authority breaks down, however, individuals are more likely to fortify their homes. The presence of castles in the landscape indicates a decline in stability and peace.”

Marilyn Stokstad (1929–2016) art historian

Overview: Castles in Context
Medieval castles (2005)

People, Peace, Home, Strong

“Where you're going to have a problem is with your really orthodox groups, people who think the Earth is only 6,000 years old. They are going to see this as a threat to their very literalistic doctrines.”

Steven M. Greer (1955) American ufologist

Undated

People, Problem, Thinking

“The salient mystery of Dark Ages sets the stage for mass amnesia. People living in vigorous cultures typically treasure those cultures and resist any threat to them. How and why can a people so totally discard a formerly vital culture that it becomes vitally lost?”

Jane Jacobs book Dark Age Ahead

Source: Dark Age Ahead (2004), Chapter One, The Hazard, p. 4

People, Age

“They looked at me like I was some kind of threat. [Mick] Jagger really tried to put me down, but there was no way some crude, lippy guy was going to do a number on me. I was always able to squelch him. I found out that, if you stand up to Mick, he crumbles.”

Anita Pallenberg (1942–2017) German actress, model and Rolling Stones groupie

On becoming acquainted with the Rolling Stones. As quoted in Up and Down With The Rolling Stones, by Tony Sanchez.

Way, Guy

“In addition to not looking too dangerous to ourselves, we must not look too dangerous to our allies. This problem has many similarities with the problem of not looking too dangerous to ourselves, with one important addition—our allies must believe that being allied to us actually increases their security. Very few of our allies feel that they could survive a general war—even one fought without the use of Doomsday Machines. Therefore, to the extent that we try to use the threat of a general war to deter the minor provocations that are almost bound to occur anyway, then no matter how credible we try to make this threat, our allies will eventually find the protection unreliable or disadvantageous to them. If credible, the threat is too dangerous to be lived with. If incredible, the lack of credibility itself will make the defense seem unreliable. Therefore, in the long run the West will need "safe-looking" limited war forces to handle minor and moderate provocations. It will most likely be necessary for the U. S. to make a major contribution to such forces and to take the lead in their creation, even though there are cases where the introduction of credible and competent-looking limited war forces will make some of our allies apprehensive—at least in the short run. They will worry because such forces make the possibility of small wars seem more real, but this seems to be another case where one cannot eat his cake and have it.”

Herman Kahn (1922–1983) American futurist

The Magnum Opus; On Thermonuclear War

War, Feeling, Problem

“The sickness of our times for me has been just this damn thing that everything has been getting smaller and smaller and less and less important, that the romantic spirit has dried up, that there is no shame today … We're all getting so mean and small and petty and ridiculous, and we all live under the threat of extermination.”

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

"Hip, Hell, and the Navigator" in Western Review No. 23 (Winter 1959); republished in Conversations with Norman Mailer (1988) edited by J. Michael Lennon.

Time

“Barack and Michelle Obama arrived on the North Portico just before 10:00 a. m. Laura and I had invited them for a cup of coffee in the Blue Room, just as Bill and Hillary Clinton had done for us eight years earlier. The Obamas were in good spirits and excited about the journey ahead. Meanwhile, in the Situation Room, homeland security aides from both our teams monitored intelligence on a terrorist threat to Washington. It was a stark reminder that evil men still want to harm our country, no matter who is serving as president. After our visit, we climbed into the motorcade for the trip up Pennsylvania Avenue. I thought back to the drive I'd made with Bill Clinton eight years earlier. That day in January 2001, I could never have imagined what would unfold over my time in office. I knew some of the decisions I had made were not popular with many of my fellow citizens. But I felt satisfied that I had been willing to make the hard decisions, and I had always done what I believed was right. At the Capitol, Laura and I took our seats for the Inauguration. I marveled at the peaceful transition of power, one of the defining features of our democracy. The audience was riveted with anticipation for he swearing-in. Barack Obama had campaigned on hope, and that was what he had given many Americans. For our new president, the Inauguration was a thrilling beginning. For Laura and me, it was an end. It was another president's turn, and I was ready to go home.”

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

Source: 2010s, 2010, Decision Points (November 2010), p. 474

Men, Peace, Hope, Democracy

“Out security agencies work with each other and with others around the globe to track people who are threats to Canada and to watch threats that may evolve. I think though, this is not a time to commit sociology, if I can use an expression. It’s time to treat this- these things are serious threats. Global terrorist attacks, people who have agendas of violence—deep and abiding threats to all the values that our society stands for.”

Stephen Harper (1959) 22nd Prime Minister of Canada

In response to an alleged plot to attack a VIA Rail passenger train, Toronto Star, April 25, 2013, http://www.thestar.com/news/2013/04/25/stephen_harper_terror_threats_are_no_time_for_apos_sociology_apos_.html
2013

People, Thinking, Time

“Mr. President, today, in his speech to the National Endowment for Democracy, President Bush gave a vivid and, I believe, compelling description of the threat to America and to freedom from radical Islamic fundamentalism. He made, in my view, a powerful case for what is at stake for every American. Simply put, the radical fundamentalists seek to kill our citizens in great numbers, to disrupt our economy, and to reshape the international order. They would take the world backwards, replacing freedom with fear and hope with hatred. If they were to acquire a nuclear weapon, the threat they would pose to America would be literally existential. The President said it well. The President is right that we cannot and will not retreat. We will defend ourselves and defeat the enemies of freedom and progress.”

Joe Biden (1942) 47th Vice President of the United States (in office from 2009 to 2017)

October 6, 2005 http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/R?r109:FLD001:S11190 2000s

World, Fear, Hope, Democracy

“We have Dodd-Frank and we will break up banks that pose a systemic threat to our economy.”

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

Presidential campaign (April 12, 2015 – 2016), Democratic Presidential Debate in Miami (March 9, 2016)

“I must say, in my non-strategic… ‘cuz I’m under attack all the time, if you see it on Twitter. The [unclear] call me gay, it’s just, they’re vicious, there are death threats, and everything. And so, there are times where I’m not thinking as clearly as I should, and in those unclear moments, I always think to myself, ‘Fire the first shot.’Bring it on. Because I know who’s on our side. They can only win a rhetorical and propaganda war. They cannot win. We outnumber them in this country, and we have the guns. [laughter] I’m not kidding. They talk a mean game, but they will not cross that line because they know what they’re dealing with.And I have people who come up to me in the military, major named people in the military, who grab me and they go, ‘Thank you for what you’re doing, we’ve got your back.’They understand that. These are the unspoken things we know, they know. They know who’s on their side, they’ve got Janeane Garofalo, we are freaked out by that. When push comes to shove, they know who’s on our side. They are the bullies on the playground, and they’re starting to realize, what if we were to fight back, what if we were to slap back?”

Andrew Breitbart (1969–2012) American writer and publisher

Speaking to a Massachusetts tea party group http://www.mediaite.com/online/andrew-breitbart-to-tea-partiers-we-outnumber-liberals-and-we-have-the-guns/ (September 16, 2011)

Death, War, People, Game

“Any religion that endorses violence is incapable of delivering spiritual enlightenment — how obvious does that have to be? — and it has no right even to call itself a religion. Without the shield of religion to hide behind, Islam would be banned in the civilized world as a political ideology of hate — and we have no obligation to make allowances for it, any more than we do for Nazism. It's a bigger threat to our freedom than Nazism ever was. Yes, both are totalitarian, and both divide the world unnecessarily into us-and-them, the pure and the impure, and both make no secret of their desire to exterminate the Jews. But we were all more or less on the same side against the Nazis, whereas the Islamonazis have got plenty of friends among people in the West who ought to know better.”

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

"No mosque at Ground Zero" (4 June 2010) http://youtube.com/watch?v=vjS0Novt3X4 2010

Hate, People, Secret, World

“Religion’s preferred punishment is almost always death, regardless of the crime. But the death penalty is a statistical failure just like all their proposed solutions to other problems always are. Here in the US, the states that still have the death penalty also have the highest murder rates; its a negative correlation. The problem there is one of society, the conditions imposed and the types of responses that are culturally coaxed. When murder happens, and that person is caught and tried, we should remove them as a threat, and whether they are imprisoned, institutionalized, or what have you should be determined by the particulars in each case.”

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

Patheos, How is secular humanist governance better than theocracy? http://www.patheos.com/blogs/reasonadvocates/2013/09/07/how-is-secular-humanist-governance-better-than-theocracy/ (September 7, 2013)

Death, Religion, Penalty, Failure

“I still hear people say that I should not be talking about the rights of lesbian and gay people and I should stick to the issue of racial justice. But I hasten to remind them that Martin Luther King Jr. said, "Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere." I appeal to everyone who believes in Martin Luther King Jr.'s dream to make room at the table of brother- and sisterhood for lesbian and gay people.”

Coretta Scott King (1927–2006) American author, activist, and civil rights leader. Wife of Martin Luther King, Jr.

Reuters (31 March 1998)

People, Justice, Dreams

“Cause federal and state was built for a black fate
Her emptiness was filled with beatings and court dates
They fabricated cases, hoping one would stick
And said she robbed places that didn't exist
In the midst of threats on her life and being caged with Aryan whites
Through dark halls of hate she carried the light”

Common (rapper) (1972) American rapper, actor and author from Illinois

"A Song for Assata" (Track 15)
Albums, Like Water for Chocolate (2000)

Life, Hate, Fate, Hope

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Quotes about threat
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