Category: Verbatim

The most tyrannical governments are those which make crimes of opinions, for everyone has an inalienable right to his thoughts.

— Baruch Spinoza (1632-1677), Dutch philosopher

They wrote in the old days that it is sweet and fitting to die for one’s country. But in modern war there is nothing sweet and fitting in your dying. You will die like a dog for no good reason.

— Ernest Hemingway (1898-1961), American writer, Nobel Prize 1954

National hatred is something peculiar. You will always find it strongest and most violent where there is the lowest degree of culture.

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832), German poet, dramatist, philosopher

The right of a minority is to draw its salaries, and its function is to make a quorum.

— Thomas Brackett Reed (1839-1902), Speaker of the House of Representatives

More than any other time in history, mankind faces a crossroads. One path leads to despair and utter hopelessness. The other, to total extinction. Let us pray we have the wisdom to choose correctly.

— Woody Allen

Fanaticism consists in redoubling your effort when you have forgotten your aim.

— George Santayana (1863-1952), American skeptical philosopher

In the final analysis, victory is gained or defeat suffered, not by armies, but by peoples as a whole.

— Boris M. Shaposhinkov (1882-1945), Marshall of the U.S.S.R.

Those who begin coercive elimination of dissent soon find themselves exterminating dissenters. Compulsory unification of opinion achieves only a unanimity of the graveyard.

— Robert H. Jackson (1892-1954), U.S. Supreme Court Justice

The increase in armaments that is intended in each nation to produce consciousness of strength, and a sense of security, does not produce these effects. On the contrary, it produces a consciousness of the strength of other nations and a sense of fear. Fear begets suspicion and distrust and evil imaginings of all sorts.

— Sir Edward Grey (1862-1933), British statesman