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XXXIX. No freeman shall be taken, or imprisoned, or outlawed, or exiled, or in any way harmed, nor will we go upon him, nor will we send upon him, except by the legal judgment of his peers, or by the law of the land.
— Magna Carta, written 1215
“I’d call Cheney a lying sack of shit except that it denigrates three things I hold in higher regard than him.”
— Atrios, reacting to the vice president’s assessment of the U.S. military operations in the Iraq civil war, “If you look at the general overall situation, they’re doing remarkably well. “
Color line is a great problem of this century. . . . Back of the problem of race and color lies a greater problem which both obscures and implements it; and that is the fact that so many civilized persons are willing to live in comfort, even if the price of this is poverty, ignorance and disease of the majority of their fellowmen; that to maintain this privilege men have waged war until today war tends to become universal and continuous, and the excuse for this war continues largely to be color and race.
— W.E.B Du Bois (1868-1963), American writer, editor
He who will not reason is a bigot; he who cannot is a fool, and he who dares not is a slave.
— William Drummond of Hawthornden (1585-1649), Scottish poet
“One has a stronger hand when there’s more people playing your same cards.”
— George W. Bush, on multilateral diplomacy
Few men desire liberty; most men wish only for a just master.
— Sallust (Gaius Sallustus Crispus) (86-34 B.C.), First great Roman historian
“Anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no account be allowed to do the job.”
— Douglas Adams (1952-2001), British author
Anyone who has the power to make you believe absurdities has the power to make you commit injustices.
— Voltaire (1694-1778), French philosopher
The power to destroy the world by the use of nuclear weapons is a power that cannot be used — we cannot accept the idea of such monstrous immorality …. The time has now come for the nations of the world to submit to the just requisition of their conduct by international law.
— Linus Pauling (1901-1994), American scientist, winner of the Nobel Peace Prize and Nobel Prize for Chemistry
America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves.
— Abraham Lincoln
