You cannot build character and courage by taking away a man's initiative and independence.
Abraham Lincoln -

America is an idea, but it's an idea that brings with it some baggage, like power brings responsibility. It's an idea that brings with it equality, but equality even though it's the highest calling, is the hardest to reach. The idea that anything is possible, that's one of the reasons why I'm a fan of America. It's like hey, look there's the moon up there, let's take a walk on it, bring back a piece of it. That's the kind of America that I'm a fan of.
-Bono

I'm sick and tired of people who say that if you debate and disagree with this administration, somehow you're not patriotic. We need to stand up and say we're Americans, and we have the right to debate and disagree with any administration.
-Hillary Rodham Clinton



Perhaps my most important goal is to create a million millionaires.
-Mark Victor Hansen



I just know that there are a lot of people out there who are younger than I am, and I wish to be a role model for them. If they have a dream, I want to help them keep that motivation high, so that they can realize their dream. I want to show people that they CAN have fun in life.
-Takafumi Horie


If I regarded my life from the point of view of the pessimist, I should be undone. I should seek in vain for the light that does not visit my eyes and the music that does not ring in my ears. I should beg night and day and never be satisfied. I should sit apart in awful solitude, a prey to fear and despair. But since I consider it a duty to myself and to others to be happy, I escape a misery worse than any physical deprivation.
-Helen Keller



Today, whether it is a student who holds a sit-in to get the army recruiters off his campus, or the mother of a dead soldier who refuses to leave the front gate of the president's ranch, we continue to be saved by brave people who risk ridicule and rejection but end up turning huge tides of public opinion in the direction of righteousness. We owe them enormous debts of gratitude. It is not easy to stand up for what is right, especially when everyone else is afraid to leave the comfortable path of conformity.
-Michael Moore


“Everything is changing. People are taking their comedians seriously and the politicians as a joke.”
-Will Rogers



“Politicians are like diapers. They both need changing regularly and for the same reason.”
-unknown

My favorite, George Orwell:


All political thinking for years past has been vitiated in the same way. People can foresee the future only when it coincides with their own wishes, and the most grossly obvious facts can be ignored when they are unwelcome.
-George Orwell


All the war-propaganda, all the screaming and lies and hatred, comes invariably from people who are not fighting.
-George Orwell

At fifty everyone has the face he deserves.
George Orwell


Every war when it comes, or before it comes, is represented not as a war but as an act of self-defense against a homicidal maniac.
George Orwell


In a time of universal deceit - telling the truth is a revolutionary act.
George Orwell



Nationalism is power hunger tempered by self-deception.
George Orwell

People sleep peaceably in their beds at night only because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf.
George Orwell


Here is something you should carefully pay attention.

This was said by Hermann Goering, commander of the Lufthansa in Germany in WWII. the Right hand man of Hitler:






Naturally the common people don't want war: Neither in Russia, nor in England, nor for that matter in Germany. That is understood.
But, after all, It is the leaders of the country who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders.

That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the peacemakers for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. IT WORKS THE SAME IN ANY COUNTRY."

--Goering at the Nuremberg Trials


Can you relate it?


here is some from Adolf Hitler:

All propaganda has to be popular and has to accommodate itself to the comprehension of the least intelligent of those whom it seeks to reach.
Adolf Hitler

By the skillful and sustained use of propaganda, one can make a people see even heaven as hell or an extremely wretched life as paradise.
Adolf Hitler


Demoralize the enemy from within by surprise, terror, sabotage, assassination. This is the war of the future.
Adolf Hitler


How fortunate for governments that the people they administer don't think.
Adolf Hitler


If you tell a big enough lie and tell it frequently enough, it will be believed.
Adolf Hitler


The leader of genius must have the ability to make different opponents appear as if they belonged to one category.
Adolf Hitler


“The art of leadership. . . consists in consolidating the attention of the people against a single adversary and taking care that nothing will split up that attention. . . .”

how about George Mason? "To disarm the people is the best, and most effective way to enslave them."

i like that guy

How fortunate for governments that the people they administer don't think.
Adolf Hitler

sounds alot like this country at times

I have some of these quotes in my collection. Here:

War doesn’t determine who’s right. War determines who’s left
~Bertrand Russell

Sarcasm helps keep you from telling people what you really think of them

Expecting the world to treat you fairly because you are good is like expecting the bull not to charge because you are a vegetarian.

Happiness is an attitude. We either make ourselves miserable, or happy and strong. The amount of work is the same.

It isn’t enough to talk about peace. One must believe in it. And it isn’t enough to believe in it. One must work at it.
1. - Eleanor Roosevelt

“Preventative war was an invention of Hitler. Frankly, I would not even listen to anyone seriously that came and talked about such a thing.” -Dwight D. Eisenhower

War is just one more big government program. – Joseph Sobran

Mankind must put an end to war, or war will put an end to mankind. ~John F. Kennedy, 1961

"There are no atheists in foxholes" isn't an argument against atheism, it's an argument against foxholes. ~James Morrow

The direct use of force is such a poor solution to any problem, it is generally employed only by small children and large nations. ~David Friedman

A great war leaves the country with three armies - an army of cripples, an army of mourners, and an army of thieves. ~German Proverb

The problem in defense is how far you can go without destroying from within what you are trying to defend from without. ~Dwight D. Eisenhower


War will exist until that distant day when the conscientious objector enjoys the same reputation and prestige that the warrior does today. ~John F. Kennedy

Never think that war, no matter how necessary, nor how justified, is not a crime. ~Ernest Hemingway


In war, there are no unwounded soldiers. ~José Narosky

If we let people see that kind of thing, there would never again be any war. ~Pentagon official explaining why the U.S. military censored graphic footage from the Gulf War


It is forbidden to kill; therefore all murderers are punished unless they kill in large numbers and to the sound of trumpets. ~Voltaire, War


The tragedy of war is that it uses man's best to do man's worst. ~Henry Fos****


In war, truth is the first casualty. ~Aeschylus (Thanks, Dan)


All wars are follies, very expensive and very mischievous ones. In my opinion, there never was a good war or a bad peace. When will mankind be convinced and agree to settle their difficulties by arbitration? ~Benjamin Franklin


War grows out of the desire of the individual to gain advantage at the expense of his fellow man. ~Napoleon Hill

We have war when at least one of the parties to a conflict wants something more than it wants peace. ~Jeane J. Kirkpatrick


Man is the only animal that deals in that atrocity of atrocities, War. He is the only one that gathers his brethren about him and goes forth in cold blood and calm pulse to exterminate his kind. He is the only animal that for sordid wages will march out... and help to slaughter strangers of his own species who have done him no harm and with whom he has no quarrel.... And in the intervals between campaigns he washes the blood off his hands and works for "the universal brotherhood of man" - with his mouth. ~Mark Twain


When the rich wage war, it's the poor who die. ~Jean-Paul Sartre


We have failed to grasp the fact that mankind is becoming a single unit, and that for a unit to fight against itself is suicide. ~Havelock Ellis

The basic problems facing the world today are not susceptible to a military solution. ~John F. Kennedy

If it were proved to me that in making war, my ideal had a chance of being realized, I would still say "no" to war. For one does not create a human society on mounds of corpses. ~Louis Lecoin


Liberty and democracy become unholy when their hands are dyed red with innocent blood. ~Gandhi, Non-violence in Peace and War, 1948


We saw the lightning and that was the guns and then we heard the thunder and that was the big guns; and then we heard the rain falling and that was the blood falling; and when we came to get in the crops, it was dead men that we reaped. ~Harriet Tubman

The military don't start wars. Politicians start wars. ~William Westmoreland

To kill a man is not to defend a doctrine, but to kill a man. ~Michael Servetus


Anyone who has ever looked into the glazed eyes of a soldier dying on the battlefield will think hard before starting a war. ~Otto Von Bismark


All wars are civil wars, because all men are brothers. ~François Fénelon

(tea) thoughts of the sane who've seen war..unfortunately the insane always force the sane to defend themselves

Green tea, yum

here's a few more I hope you don't mind if I add:

Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide. – John Adams (1814)

Our peculiar security is in the possession of a written Constitution. Let us not make it a blank paper by construction. - Thomas Jefferson to Wilson Nicholas, 1803

" I consider the foundation of the Constitution as laid on this ground: That "all powers not delegated to the United States, by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States or to the people." To take a single step beyond the boundaries thus specially drawn around the powers of Congress, is to take possession of a boundless field of power, no longer susceptible of any definition. - Thomas Jefferson

Do not separate text from historical background. If you do, you will have perverted and subverted the Constitution, which can only end in a distorted, bastardized form of illegitimate government. – James Madison

To maintain the ascendancy of the Constitution over the lawmaking majority is the great and essential point on which the success of the [American] system must depend; unless that ascendancy can be preserved, the necessary consequence must be that the laws will supersede the Constitution; and, finally, the will of the Executive, by influence of its patronage, will supersede the laws ... -- John C. Calhoun (1782-1850)

They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety. – Benjamin Franklin

Peace, commerce and honest friendship with all nations; entangling alliances with none. – Thomas Jefferson

A wise and frugal government which shall restrain men from injuring one another, which shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned. This is the sum of good government. – Thomas Jefferson (1801)

The natural progress of things is for liberty to yield and government to gain ground. – Thomas Jefferson

Timid men prefer the calm of despotism to the tempestuous sea of Liberty. – Thomas Jefferson

If ye love wealth greater than liberty, the tranquility of servitude greater than the animating contest for freedom, go home from us in peace. We seek not your counsel, nor your arms. Crouch down and lick the hand that feeds you. May your chains set lightly upon you; and may posterity forget that ye were our countrymen. – Samuel Adams

The legitimate powers of government extend to such acts only as are injurious to others. But it does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods, or no god. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg. – Thomas Jefferson (1781)

Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty or give me death! -Patrick Henry to the Virginia House of Burgesses, 1775

To compel a man to furnish contributions of money for the propagation of opinions which he disbelieves and abhors, is sinful and tyrannical. – Thomas Jefferson

Those who expect to reap the benefits of freedom, must, like men, undergo the fatigue of supporting it. – Thomas Paine

Government at its best is a necessary evil, and at its worst, an intolerant one. – Thomas Paine

I have sworn upon the altar of god, eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man. – Thomas Jefferson (1800)

The preservation of the sacred fire of liberty, and the destiny of the Republican model of government, are justly considered as deeply, perhaps as finally staked, on the experiment entrusted to the hands of the American people. – George Washington

I have ever deemed it fundamental for the United States never to take active part in the quarrels of Europe. Their political interests are entirely distinct from ours. Their mutual jealousies, their balance of power, their complicated alliances, their forms and principles of government, are all foreign to us. They are nations of eternal war. – Thomas Jefferson (1823)

America does not go abroad in search of monsters to destroy. She is the well-wisher to the freedom and independence of all. She well knows that by enlisting under other banners than her own, were they even the banners of foreign independence, she would involve herself beyond the power of extrication in all the wars of interest and intrigue, of individual avarice, envy and ambition, which assume the colors and usurp the standards of freedom. – John Quincy Adams (1821)

An Avidity to punish is always dangerous to liberty. It leads men to stretch, to misinterpret, and to misapply even the best of laws. He that would make his own liberty secure must guard even his enemy from oppression; for if he violates this duty he establishes a precedent that will reach to himself. – Thomas Paine

God grants liberty only to those who love it, and are always ready to guard and defend it. – Daniel Webster (1834)

Not a place upon earth might be so happy as America. Her situation is remote from all the wrangling world, and she has nothing to do but to trade with them. – Thomas Paine (1776)

If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary. In framing a government that is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: you must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself. – James Madison

Sometimes it is said that man cannot be trusted with the government of himself. Can he, then, be trusted with the government of others? – Thomas Jefferson (1801)

Good intentions will always be pleaded for every assumption of authority. It is hardly too strong to say that the Constitution was made to guard the people against the dangers of good intentions. There are men in all ages who mean to govern well, but they mean to govern. They promise to be good masters, but they mean to be masters. – Daniel Webster (1782-1852)

In matters of Power, let no more be heard of confidence in men, but bind him down from mischief by the chains of the Constitution. – Thomas Jefferson

The Constitution is not an instrument for the government to restrain the people, it is an instrument for the people to restrain the government – lest it come to dominate our lives and interests. – Patrick Henry

The care of every man's soul belongs to himself. But what if he neglect the care of it? Well what if he neglect the care of his health or his estate, which would more nearly relate to the state. Will the magistrate make a law that he not be poor or sick? Laws provide against injury from others; but not from ourselves. God himself will not save men against their wills. – Thomas Jefferson

If we were directed from Washington when to sow and when to reap, we would soon want for bread. – Thomas Jefferson

There are more instances of the abridgement of the freedom of the people by the gradual and silent encroachment of those in power, than by violent and sudden usurpation. – James Madison

Where is it written in the Constitution, in what section or clause is it contained, that you may take children from their parents and parents from their children, and compel them to fight the battle in any war in which the folly or the wickedness of government may engage it? – Daniel Webster

When all government, in little as in great things, shall be drawn to Washington as the Center of all power, it will render powerless the checks provided of one government on another and will become as venal and oppressive as the government from which we separated. – Thomas Jefferson

I predict future happiness for Americans if they can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them. – Thomas Jefferson

On every question of construction, let us carry ourselves back to the time when the Constitution was adopted, recollect the spirit manifested in the debates, and instead of trying what meaning may be squeezed out of the text, or invented against it, conform to the probable one in which it was passed. – Thomas Jefferson

When the government fears the people, it is liberty. When the people fear the government, it is tyranny. – Thomas Paine

The course of history shows that as a government grows, liberty decreases. – Thomas Jefferson

Before a standing army can rule, the people must be disarmed; as they are in almost every kingdom of Europe. The supreme power in America cannot enforce unjust laws by the sword; because the whole body of people are armed, and constitute a force superior to any body of regular troops that can be, on any pretense, raised in the United States. – Noah Webster

I believe the states can best govern our home concerns and the federal government our foreign ones. – Thomas Jefferson

The policy of the American government is to leave their citizens free, neither restraining nor aiding them in their pursuits. – Thomas Jefferson

A body of men holding themselves accountable to nobody ought not to be trusted by anybody. – Thomas Paine

These are the times that try men's souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of his country; but he that stands it now deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Heaven knows how to put a proper price upon its goods; and it would be strange indeed if so celestial an article as Freedom should not be highly rated. – Thomas Paine

I have thought that a man of tolerable abilities may work great changes if he first forms a good plan and makes the execution of that same plan his whole study and business. – Benjamin Franklin

The man who reads nothing at all is better educated than the man who reads nothing but the newspapers. – Thomas Jefferson

Arbitrary power is most easily established on the ruins of liberty abused to licentiousness. – George Washington

I am not a friend to a very energetic government. It is always oppressive. – Thomas Jefferson

Resistance to tyranny is service to God. – James Madison

Single acts of tyranny may be ascribed to the accidental opinion of a day. But a series of oppressions, begun at a distinguished period, and pursued unalterably through every change of ministers, too plainly proves a deliberate systematic plan of reducing us to slavery. – Thomas Jefferson

The principle of spending money to be paid by posterity, under the name of funding, is but a swindling futurity on a large scale. – Thomas Jefferson

Democracies have been found incompatible with personal security or the rights of property; and in general have been as short in their lives as they have been violent in their death. – James Madison

The democracy will cease to exist when you take away from those who are willing to work and give to those who would not. – Thomas Jefferson

It will be of little avail to the people that the laws are made by men of their own choice if the laws be so voluminous that they cannot be read, or so incoherent that they cannot be understood, if they be repealed or revised before they are promulgated, or undergo such incessant changes that no man, who knows what the law is today, can guess what it will be like tomorrow. – James Madison, Federalist Paper #62

If there be any among us who wish to dissolve the Union or to change its Republican form, let them stand undisturbed, as monuments of the safety with which error of opinion may be tolerated where reason is left free to combat it. – Thomas Jefferson's First Inaugural Address

Experience [has] shown that, even under the best forms [of government], those entrusted with power have, in time and by slow operations, perverted it into tyranny. – Thomas Jefferson 1779

The Constitution only guarantees the American people the right to pursue happiness. You have to catch it yourself. –Benjamin Franklin

In a republican nation whose citizens are to be led by reason and persuasion and not by force, the art of reasoning becomes of first importance. – Thomas Jefferson, 1824

The ground of liberty is to be gained by inches, and we must be contented to secure what we can get from time to time and eternally press forward for what is yet to get. It takes time to persuade men to do even what is for their own good. – Thomas Jefferson

I shall exert every faculty I possess in aiding to prevent the Constitution from being nullified, destroyed, or impaired; and even though I should see it fail, I will still, with a voice feeble, perhaps, but earnest as ever issued from human lips, and with extinguish, call on the people to come to its rescue. – Daniel Webster

Of all the enemies to public liberty, war is perhaps the most to be dreaded, because it comprises and develops the germ of every other. War is the parent of armies; from these proceed debts and taxes; and armies, debts, and taxes are the known instruments for bringing the many under the domination of the few … No nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare. – James Madison

Government ought to be as much open to improvement as anything which appertains to man, instead of which it has been monopolized from age to age, by the most ignorant and vicious of the human race. Need we any other proof of their wretched management, than the excess of debts and taxes with which every nation groans, and the quarrels into which they have precipitated the world? – Thomas Paine

The spirit of resistance to government is so valuable on certain occasions, that I wish it to be always kept alive. It will often be exercised when wrong but better so than not to be exercised at all. I like a little rebellion now and then. It is like a storm in the atmosphere. – Thomas Jefferson (1743-1846), U.S. President, Letter to Abigail Adams, 22 February 1787

To preserve our independence, we must not let our rulers load us with perpetual debt. We must make our election between economy and liberty, or profusion and servitude. .I place economy among the first and most important of republican virtues, and public debt as the greatest of the dangers to be feared. – President Thomas Jefferson

It would be thought a hard government that should tax its people one tenth part. – Benjamin Franklin

No nation was ever ruined by trade. – Benjamin Franklin

My reading of history convinces me that most bad government results from too much government. – Thomas Jefferson.

If a law is unjust, a man is not only right to disobey it, he is obligated to do so. – Thomas Jefferson

The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. – James Madison (1751-1836)

If people let government decide what foods they eat and what medicines they take, their bodies will soon be in as sorry a state as are the souls of those who live under tyranny. – Thomas Jefferson

An elective despotism was not the government we fought for. – Thomas Jefferson

I cannot undertake to lay my finger upon an article of the Constitution which granted a right to Congress of expending, on the objects of benevolence, the money of their constituents. – James Madison

Rightful liberty is unobstructed action according to our will within limits drawn around us by the equal rights of others. I do not add "within the law," because law is often but the tyrant's will, and always so when it violates the rights of the individual. – Thomas Jefferson

Tyranny is defined as that which is legal for the government but illegal for the citizenry. – Thomas Jefferson

To say that a bad government must be established for fear of anarchy is really saying that we should kill ourselves for fear of dying. – Richard Henry Lee (1732- 1794), Member of Continental Congress, Signer of the Declaration of Independence, U.S. Senator

The power to declare war, including the power of judging the causes of war, is fully and exclusively vested in the legislature … the executive has no right, in any case, to decide the question, whether there is or is not cause for declaring war. – James Madison (1751-1836), 4th U.S. President

If Tyranny and Oppression come to this land, it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy. – James Madison (1751-1836), 4th U.S. President

It is the duty of the patriot to protect his country from its government. – Thomas Paine (1737-1809)

The constitution vests the power of declaring war in Congress; therefore no offensive expedition of importance can be undertaken until after they shall have deliberated upon the subject and authorized such a measure. – George Washington

Where Liberty dwells, there is my country. – Benjamin Franklin

Laws are made for men of ordinary understanding and should, therefore, be construed by the ordinary rules of common sense. Their meaning is not to be sought for in metaphysical subtleties which may make anything mean everything or nothing at pleasure. --Thomas Jefferson to William Johnson, 1823. ME

Our legislators are not sufficiently apprized of the rightful limits of their power; that their true office is to declare and enforce only our natural rights and duties, and to take none of them from us. – Thomas Jefferson, Letter to F. W. Gilmer, 1816

Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty. – Thomas Jefferson

Congress has not unlimited powers to provide for the general welfare, but only those specifically enumerated. – Thomas Jefferson

With respect to the words "general welfare," I have always regarded them as qualified by the detail of powers connected with them. To take them in a literal and unlimited sense would be a metamorphosis of the Constitution into a character which there is a host of proofs was not contemplated by its creators. – James Madison

When a man assumes a public trust, he should consider himself public property. – Thomas Jefferson

The issue today is the same as it has been throughout all history, whether man shall be allowed to govern himself or be ruled by a small elite. – Thomas Jefferson

That measures of this nature [military conscription] should be debated at all in the councils of a free government is cause of dismay. The question is nothing less than whether the most essential rights of personal liberty shall be surrendered and despotism embraced in its worst form. – Daniel Webster

Nothing gives one person so much advantage over another as to remain always cool and unruffled under all circumstances. – Thomas Jefferson

It is our true policy to steer clear of entangling alliances with any portion of the foreign world. The great rule of conduct for us in regard to foreign nations is, in extending our commercial relations, to have with them as little political connection as possible. – George Washington