Don't be a cynic and disconsolate preacher. Don't bewail and moan. Omit the negative propositions. Challenge us with incessant affirmatives.
Ralph Waldo Emerson

A cynic is not merely one who reads bitter lessons from the past; he is the one who is prematurely disappointed in the future.
--Sydney J. Harris

If we listened to our intellect, we'd never have a love affair. We'd never have a friendship. We'd never go into business, because we'd be cynical. Well, that's nonsense. You've got to jump off cliffs all the time and build your wings on the way down.
--Ray Bradbury

I think we too often make choices based on the safety of cynicism, and what we're lead to is a life not fully lived. Cynicism is fear, and it's worse than fear - it's active disengagement.
--Ken Burns

Cynics build no bridges; they make no discoveries; no gaps are spanned by them. Cynics may pride themselves in being realistic in their approach, but progress and the onward march of ... civilization demand an inspiration and motivation that cynicism never affords. If we want progress we must take the forward look.
--Paul L. McKay

It is not OK in this culture to talk to friends about causes you believe in, much less to ask them to join in. It's OK to blast perfect strangers with crass messages every hour of the day, but it's a tinge embarrassing, it brings up some shyness, it seems an intrusion, it risks rejection to share real heartfelt commitments. It's easier to share our cynicism with strangers than our dreams with friends.
--Dana Meadows

In the end, ... that's what this election is about. Do we participate in a politics of cynicism, or do we participate in a politics of hope?
--Barack Obama

Kings had always been involving and impoverishing their people in wars, pretending generally, if not always, that the good of the people was the object: Abraham Lincoln

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As scarce as truth is, the supply has always been in excess of the demand.": Josh Billings

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"False words are not only evil in themselves, but they infect the soul with evil." : Socrates

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"The trust of the innocent is the liar's most useful tool." : Stephen King

"Here the ways of men part: if you wish to strive for peace of soul and pleasure, then believe; if you wish to be a devotee of truth, then inquire." Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche

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"A person will worship something, have no doubt about that. We may think our tribute is paid in secret in the dark recesses of our hearts, but it will out. That which dominates our imaginations and our thoughts will determine our lives, and our character. Therefore, it behooves us to be careful what we worship, for what we are worshipping we are becoming." - Ralph Waldo Emerson:

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"He who joyfully marches to music in rank and file has already earned my contempt. He has been given a large brain by mistake, science for him the spinal cord would fully suffice. This disgrace to civilization should be done away with at once. Heroism at command, senseless brutality, deplorable love-of-country stance, how violently I hate all this, how despicable an ignorable war is; I would rather be torn to shreds than be a part of so base an action! It is my conviction that killing under the cloak of war is nothing but an act of murder." Albert Einstein

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During times of war, hatred becomes quite respectable, even though it has to masquerade often under the guise of patriotism: Howard Thurman:

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Collective fear stimulates herd instinct, and tends to produce ferocity toward those who are not regarded as members of the herd. Bertrand Russell:

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When will our consciences grow so tender that we will act to prevent human misery rather than avenge it? : Eleanor Roosevelt

"The things that will destroy us are: politics without principle; pleasure without conscience; wealth without work; knowledge without character; business without morality; science without humanity; and worship without sacrifice": Mahatma Mohandas K. Gandhi

... when the struggle seems to be drifting definitely towards a world social democracy, there may still be very great delays and disappointments before it becomes an efficient and beneficent world system. Countless people ... will hate the new world order ... and will die protesting against it. When we attempt to evaluate its promise, we have to bear in mind the distress of a generation or so of malcontents, many of them quite gallant and graceful looking people.
-- H. G. Wells, book entitled "The New World Order" (1939)

Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities.
--Voltaire

One of the most horrible features of war is that all the war-propaganda, all the screaming and lies and hatred, comes invariably from people who are not fighting. The P.S.U.C. militiamen whom I knew in the line, the Communists from the International Brigade whom I met from time to time, never called me a Trotskyist or a traitor; they left that kind of thing to the journalists in the rear. The people who wrote pamphlets against us and vilified us in the newspapers all remained safe at home, or at worst in the newspaper offices of Valencia, hundreds of miles from the bullets and the mud. And apart from the libels of the inter-party feud, all the usual war-stuff, the tub-thumping, the heroics, the vilification of the enemy—all these were done, as usual, by people who were not fighting and who in many cases would have run a hundred miles sooner than fight. […] Perhaps when the next great war comes we may see that sight unprecedented in all history, a jingo with a bullet-hole in him.
-- George Orwell, Homage to Catalonia

The United States is in no sense founded upon the Christian doctrine.
-- George Washington

When the tyrant has disposed of foreign enemies by conquest or treaty, and there is nothing to fear from them, then he is always stirring up some war or other in order that the people may require a leader.
-- Plato

Crime is contagious....if the government becomes a lawbreaker, it breeds contempt for the law.
--Justice Louis Brandeis

Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services, and the right to security in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old age or other lack of livelihood.
-- Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Article 25, passed unanimously by the United Nations General Assembly in December, 1948

"A pessimist is one who makes difficulties of his opportunities, and an optimist is one who makes opportunities of his difficulties."
Harry S. Truman

"If Tyranny and Oppression come to this land, it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy": - James Madison

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"There is no nonsense so errant that it cannot be made the creed of the vast majority by adequate governmental action": Bertrand Russell

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"The true civilization is where every man gives to every other every right that he claims for himself": Robert Ingersoll

What we see depends mainly on what we look for.
Sir John Lubbock

Free trade is the serial killer of American manufacturing and the Trojan Horse of World Government. It is the primrose path to the loss of economic independence and national sovereignty.
--Patrick Buchanan

The Trilateral Commission is intended to be the vehicle for multinational consolidation of the commercial and banking interests by seizing control of the political government of the United States.

The Trilateral Commission represents a skillful, coordinated effort to seize control and consolidate the four centers of power; Political, Monetary, Intellectual, and Ecclesiastical.
--U.S. Senator Barry Goldwater from his 1964 book, "No Apologies"

so, what are you trying to say?

I didn't say it, Barry Goldwater said it. Maybe ask him?

ok

I posted what Goldwater said to illustrate that in 1964 a Conservative said watch out for the things that are the root of the greater evil in the world today.

The purpose of a fish trap is to catch fish, and when the fish are caught, the trap is forgotten.
The purpose of a rabbit snare is to catch rabbits. When the rabbits are caught, the snare is forgotten.
The purpose of words is to convey ideas. When the ideas are grasped, the words are forgotten.
Where can I find a man who has forgotten words? He is the one I would like to talk to. - Chuang Tzu


I find it such a shame (literal shame) that women are, more often than not, excluded from such quotes. I think that works to the detriment of the quote, but it is till one of my favorites.

"Republicans have been accused of abandoning the poor. It's the other way around. They never vote for us." Dan Quayle

Our enemies didn't adhere to the Geneva Convention. Many of my comrades were subjected to very cruel, very inhumane and degrading treatment, a few of them even unto death. But every one of us -- every single one of us -- knew and took great strength from the belief that we were different from our enemies, that we were better than them, that we, if the roles were reversed, would not disgrace ourselves by committing or countenancing such mistreatment of them. - John McCain, Republican US Senator

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Shamefully we now learn that Saddam's torture chambers reopened under new management, U.S. management. - Edward Kennedy

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This fight has nothing to do with soldierly gallantry or principles of the Geneva Convention. If the fight against the partisans is not waged with the most brutal means, we will shortly reach the point where the available forces are insufficient to control the area. It is therefore not only justified, but it is the duty of the troops to use all means without restriction, even against women and children, so long as it ensures success. - Wilhelm Keitel, chief of staff of the Supreme Command of the Armed Forces of Germany [Dec. 16, 1942]

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This so-called ill treatment and torture in detention centers, stories of which were spread everywhere among the people, and later by the prisoners who were freed . were not, as some assumed, inflicted methodically, but were excesses committed by individual prison guards, their deputies, and men who laid violent hands on the detainees. - Rudolf Hoess, the SS commandant at Auschwitz

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The degree of civilization in a society can be judged by entering its prisons. - Fyodor Dostoyevsky

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The debate here isn't only how to protect the country. It's how to protect our values.

If cruelty is no longer declared unlawful, but instead is applied as a matter of policy, it alters the fundamental relationship of man to government. It destroys the whole notion of individual rights. The Constitution recognizes that man has an inherent right, not bestowed by the state or laws, to personal dignity, including the right to be free of cruelty. It applies to all human beings, not just in America -- even those designated as 'unlawful enemy combatants.' If you make this exception the whole Constitution crumbles. - Alberto J. Mora, former Navy General Counsel [Feb. 27, 2006 issue of The New Yorker, entitled "The Memo"]

Some of the biggest men in the United States, in the field of commerce and manufacture, are afraid of something. They know that there is a power somewhere so organized, so subtle, so watchful, so interlocked, so complete, so pervasive, that they had better not speak above their breath when they speak in condemnation of it.
--Woodrow Wilson

I tell you that the virtue is not given by money, but that from virtue comes money and every other good of man, public as well as private... The difficulty, my friends, is not in avoiding death, but in avoiding unrighteousness; for that runs faster than death.
--Socrates

Stop thinking in terms of limitations and start thinking in terms of possibilities.
--Terry Josephson, 20th/21st-century motivational author

You must rouse into people's consciousness their own prudence and strength, if you want to raise their character.
--Marquis De Vauvenargues

Nevertheless, I resist cynicism and continue to believe in the possibilities for genuine democracy.
--William Greider

"I drank what?"
--Socrates

“I never doubted that equal rights was the right direction. Most reforms, most problems are complicated. But to me there is nothing complicated about ordinary equality.” Alice Paul

The problem, of course, lies with the realities concealed from us. This has always been the case. While the American public has slowly grappled with ongoing injustices visible within our own borders, it has long failed to discover and correct our government's abuses abroad. In the end, however, this is our government, and torture is being utilized in our names and supported by our tax dollars. We are responsible.": Jennifer Harbury: Writer, Lawyer, Human Rights Activist

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"It was a failure of citizenship of the American people that the Bush cabal was allowed to invade Iraq. Thus, every U.S. citizen who is not doing everything in their power to end this illegal and immoral occupation as quickly as possible is complicit with the war crimes being committed in Iraq on a daily basis." Dahr Jamail : Independent Journalist, War Reporter,

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"We're losing ground. This planet is losing ground. So things need to happen and they need to happen quick. Our message should be-loud and clear-there comes a time when the home needs protecting and the line needs drawing and anybody that dares cross it acts at their own peril.": Diane Wilson -Shrimp Fisher, Environmentalist, Activist,

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"The role of the U.S. in the new world corporate order is going to be to export security. That means endless wars and weapons in space. The Pentagon will send our kids off to foreign lands to suppress opposition to corporate globalization. How will we ever end America's addiction to war and violence as long as our communities are dependent on military spending for jobs? We must work to convert the military industrial complex to sustainable technologies like windpower, solar, and mass transit." Bruce Gagnon

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"The physical reality is that "sustainable growth" is an oxymoron. A soft energy landing from the last two hundred years of development will require massive conservation, especially by the overdeveloped countries, and that can only happen in a nongrowth ( and therefore noncapitalist ) society. The choice is now becoming either capitalism or humanity.": Stan Goff - Author, Veteran, Anti-war Activist, Feminist



Get in touch with your local activist.

"Those who make peaceful evolution impossible
make violent revolution inevitable."
-- John F. Kennedy

I hope our wisdom will grow with our power, and teach us, that the less we use our power the greater it will be.
Thomas Jefferson

The efficiency of the truly national leader consists primarily in preventing the division of the attention of the people, and always in concentrating it on a single enemy.
--Hitler, Mein Kampf

A politician thinks of the next election -
a statesman, of the next generation.
--James Freeman Clarke

Joy is not in things; it is in us.
--Richard Wagner

Where justice is denied, where poverty is enforced, where ignorance prevails, and where any one class is made to feel that society is an organized conspiracy to oppress, rob and degrade them, neither persons nor property will be safe.
--FREDERICK DOUGLASS

Our government has kept us in a perpetual state of fear – kept us in a continuous stampede of patriotic fervor – with the cry of grave national emergency. Always, there has been some terrible evil at home, or some monstrous foreign power that was going to gobble us up if we did not blindly rally behind it.
--General Douglas MacArthur

I found out that the things that hurt us the most can become the fuel and the catalyst that propel us toward our destiny. It will either make you bitter or it will make you better.
-- T.D. Jakes

The government is the potent omnipresent teacher. For good or ill it teaches the whole people by its example. Crime is contagious. If the government becomes a lawbreaker, it breeds contempt for law; it invites every man to become a law unto himself; it invites anarchy. To declare that the end justifies the means -- to declare that the government may commit crimes -- would bring terrible retribution.
--Justice Louis D. Brandeis

How many does it take to metamorphose wickedness into righteousness? One man must not kill. If he does, it is murder.... But a state or nation may kill as many as they please, and it is not murder. It is just, necessary, commendable, and right. Only get people enough to agree to it, and the butchery of myriads of human beings is perfectly innocent. But how many does it take?
--Adin Ballou, The Non-Resistant, 5 February 1845

The Administration chose to focus on the WMD issue as a justification for invading Iraq because it was the one issue that everyone could agree on.
--Paul Wolfowitz

Perhaps the most obvious political effect of controlled news is the advantage it gives powerful people in getting their issues on the political agenda and defining those issues in ways likely to influence their resolution. --
W. Lance Bennett

If we believe a thing to be bad, and if we have a right to prevent it, it is our duty to try to prevent it and damn the consequences.
--Lord Milner