GOD, RELIGION, & SCIENCE
" The Bible is not my book nor Christianity my profession. I could never give assent to the long, complicated statements of Christian dogma. " - Abraham Lincoln, lawyer, emancipator, 16th president
" Question with boldness even the existence of a God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason, than that of blind-folded fear. " - Thomas Jefferson, founding father of America, 3rd president, inventor, polymath, author Declaration of Independence
" I do not find in our particular superstition of Christianity one redeeming feature.....Millions of innocent men, women and children, since the introduction of Christianity, have been burned, tortured, fined and imprisoned. What has been the effect of this coercion? To make half the world fools and half hypocrites; to support roguery and error all over the world. " - Thomas Jefferson
" As you say of yourself, I too am an Epicurian. I consider the genuine (not the imputed) doctrines of Epicurus as containing everything rational in moral philosophy which Greece and Rome have left us. " - Thomas Jefferson, letter to William Short, Oct. 31, 1819
" Man once surrendering his reason, has no remaining guard against absurdities the most monstrous, and like a ship without rudder, is the sport of every wind. " - Thomas Jefferson, to James Smith, 1822
" I never submitted the whole system of my opinions to the creed of any party of men whatever in religion, in philosophy, in politics, or in anything else where I was capable of thinking for myself. Such an addiction is the last degradation of a free and moral agent. " - Thomas Jefferson, letter to Francis Hopkinson, March 13, 1789
" I have found Christian dogma unintelligible. Early in life, I absenteed myself from Christian assemblies. " - Benjamin Franklin, founding father of America, author, inventor
"Lighthouses are more helpful than churches. " - Benjamin Franklin
" During almost fifteen centuries has the legal establishment of Christianity been on trial. What has been its fruits? More or less, in all places, pride and indolence in the clergy; ignorance and servility in the laity; in both, superstition, bigotry, and persecution. " - James Madison, founding father of America, 4th president, political theorist
" What influence in fact have Christian ecclesiastical establishments had on civil society? In many instances they have been upholding the thrones of political tyranny. In no instance have they been seen as the guardians of the liberties of the people. Rulers who wished to subvert the public liberty have found in the clergy convenient auxiliaries. A just government, instituted to secure and perpetuate liberty, does not need the clergy. " - James Madison
" Religious bondage shackles and debilitates the mind and unfits it for every noble enterprise. " - James Madison
" This would be the best of all possible worlds, if there were no religion in it. " - John Adams, founding father of America, 2nd president, federalist
" The divinity of Jesus is made a convenient cover for absurdity. " - John Adams
" I do not believe in the creed of the Roman Church, in the Protestant Church, the Greek Church, or the Turkish Church. My own mind is my church. " - Thomas Paine, deist, author "Common Sense"
" Whenever we read the obscene stories, the voluptuous debaucheries, the cruel and tortuous executions, the unrelenting vindictiveness with which more than half the Bible is filled, it would be more consistent that we call it the word of a demon than the word of God. It is a history of wickedness that has served to corrupt and brutalize mankind. " - Thomas Paine, from The Age of Reason
" All national institutions of churches, whether Jewish, Christian or Turkish, appear to me no other than human inventions, set up to terrify and enslave mankind, and monopolize power and profit. " - Thomas Paine
" The Christian religion is a parody on the worship of the sun, in which they put a man called Christ in the place of the sun, and pay him the adoration originally payed to the sun. " - Thomas Paine
" I cannot believe in the immortality of the soul.... No, all this talk of an existence for us, as individuals, beyond the grave is wrong. It is born of our tenacity of life – our desire to go on living … our dread of coming to an end. " - Thomas Edison, American inventor (1847-1931)
" When I became convinced that the Universe is natural -- that all the ghosts and gods are myth, there entered into my brain, into my soul, into every drop of my blood, the sense, the feeling, the joy of freedom. The walls of my prison crumbled and fell, the dungeon was flooded with light and all the bolts, and bards, and manacles became dust. I was no longer a servant, a serf, or a slave. " - Robert G. Ingersoll, agnostic, humanist, freethinker (1833-1899)
" With soap, baptism is a good thing. " - Robert G. Ingersoll
" The inspiration of the Bible depends on the ignorance of the person who reads it. " - Robert G. Ingersoll
" Hands that help are far better then lips that pray. " - Robert G. Ingersoll
" Ministers say that they teach charity. That is natural. They live on hand-outs. All beggars teach that others should give. " - Robert G. Ingersoll
" For the most part we inherit our opinions. We are the heirs of habits and mental customs. Our beliefs, like the fashion of our garments, depend on where we were born. We are molded and fashioned by our surroundings. " - Robert G. Ingersoll
" Environment is a sculptor -- a painter. If we had been born in Constantinople, then most of us would have said: 'There is no God but Allah, and Mohammed is his prophet.' If our parents had lived on the banks of the Ganges, we would have been worshipers of Siva, longing for the heaven of Nirvana. As a rule, children love their parents, believe what they teach, and take great pride in saying that the religion of mother is good enough for them. " - Robert G. Ingersoll
" Why should I allow that same God to tell me how to raise my kids, who had to drown His own? " - Robert G. Ingersoll
" Whatever good you would do out of fear of punishment, or hope of reward hereafter, the Atheist would do simply because it is good; and being so, he would receive the far surer and more certain reward, springing from well-doing, which would constitute his pleasure, and promote his happiness. " - Ernestine L. Rose, abolitionist, atheist, freethinker, 1878
" The idea that God is an oversized white male with a flowing beard who sits in the sky and tallies the fall of every sparrow is ludicrous. But if by "God" one means the set of physical laws that govern the universe, then clearly there is such a god. This god is emotionally unsatisfying...It does not make much sense to pray to the law of gravity. " - Carl Sagan, astronomer, astrobiologist
" It is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring. " - Carl Sagan
" Science arouses a soaring sense of wonder. But so does pseudoscience. Sparse and poor popularizations of science abandon ecological niches that pseudoscience promptly fills. If it were widely understood that claims to knowledge require adequate evidence before they can be accepted, there would be no room for pseudoscience...
All over the world there are enormous numbers of smart, even gifted, people who harbor a passion for science. But that passion is unrequited. Surveys suggest that some 95% of Americans are 'scientifically illiterate.' That's... the same fraction... of slaves who were illiterate before the Civil War. " - Carl Sagan
" Skeptical scrutiny is the means, in both science and religion, by which deep thoughts can be winnowed from deep nonsense. " - Carl Sagan
" Those afraid of the universe as it really is, those who pretend to nonexistent knowledge and envision a Cosmos centered on human beings, will prefer the fleeting comforts of superstition. They avoid rather than confront the world. But those with the courage to explore the weave and structure of the Cosmos, even where it differs profoundly from their wishes and prejudices, will penetrate its deepest mysteries. " - Carl Sagan
" I do not believe in a personal God and I have never denied this but have expressed it clearly. If something is in me which can be called religion than it is the unbounded admiration for the structure of the world so far as our science can reveal it. " - Albert Einstein, theoretical physicist
" It seems to me that the idea of a personal God is an anthropological concept which I cannot take seriously. I also cannot imagine some will or goal outside the human sphere...Science has been charged with undermining morality, but the charge is unjust. A man's ethical behavior should be based effectually on sympathy, education, and social ties; no religious basis is necessary. Man would indeed be in a poor way if he had to be restrained by fear of punishment and hope of reward after death. " - Albert Einstein
" I cannot imagine a God who rewards and punishes the objects of his creation, whose purposes are modeled after our own-a God, in short, who is but a reflection of human frailty. Neither can I believe that the individual survives the death of his body, although feeble minds harbor such thoughts through fear or ridiculous egotism. It is enough for me to contemplate the mystery of conscious life perpetuating itself through all eternity, to reflect upon the marvelous structure of the universe which we can dimly perceive, and to try humbly to comprehend even an infinitesimal part of the intelligence manifested in nature. " - Albert Einstein
" I do not believe in the immortality of the individual, and I consider ethics to be an exclusively human concern with no superhuman authority behind it. " - Albert Einstein
" I don't think we're here for anything, we're just products of evolution. You can say 'Gee, your life must be pretty bleak if you don't think there's a purpose' but I'm anticipating a good lunch. " - Dr. James Watson, American biologist, dDiscoverer of DNA
" It appears to me (whether rightly or wrongly) that direct arguments against christianity and theism produce hardly any effect on the public; and freedom of thought is best promoted by the gradual illumination of men's minds which follows from the advance of science. " - Charles Robert Darwin, English naturalist
" Well, evolution is a theory. It is also a fact. And facts and theories are different things, not rungs in a hierarchy of increasing certainty. Facts are the world's data. Theories are structures of ideas that explain and interpret facts. Facts don't go away when scientists debate rival theories to explain them. Einstein's theory of gravitation replaced Newton's in this century, but apples didn't suspend themselves in midair, pending the outcome. And humans evolved from ape-like ancestors whether they did so by Darwin's proposed mechanism or by some other yet to be discovered. " - Stephen Jay Gould, paleontologist, evolutionary biologist, scientific historian
" Scientific education and religious education are incompatible. The clergy have ceased to interfere with education at the advanced state, but they still control that of the children. This means that children will have to learn about Adam and Noah instead of about evolution, about David killing Goliath instead of Koch killing cholera, about Christ's ascent into heaven instead of Montgolfier's and Wright's. Worse than that they are taught that it is a virtue to accept statements without adequate evidence, which leaves them prey to quacks of every kind and makes it difficult for them to accept the methods of thought that are successful in science. " - JB Haldane, geneticist
" Anxieties about ourselves endure. If our proper study is indeed the study of humankind, then it has seemed-and still seems-to many that the study is dangerous. Perhaps we shall find out that we were not what we took ourselves to be. But if the historical development of science has indeed sometimes pricked our vanity, it has not plunged us into an abyss of immorality. Arguably, it has liberated us from misconceptions, and thereby aided us in our moral progress.
The theory of evolution explains to us what our ancestry has been. It does not explain away our worth. Why should we be afraid to learn more about what we are? " - Philip Kitcher, scientific philosopher
" Blind faith, no matter how passionately expressed, will not suffice. Science for its part will test relentlessly every assumption about the human condition. " - Edward O. Wilson, humanist, biologist, naturalist, researcher
" If history and science have taught us anything, it is that passion and desire are not the same as truth. The human mind evolved to believe in the gods. It did not evolve to believe in biology. Acceptance of the supernatural conveyed a great advantage throughout prehistory, when the brain was evolving. Thus it is in sharp contrast to biology, which was developed as a product of the modern age and is not underwritten by genetic algorithms. The uncomfortable truth is that the two beliefs are not factually compatible. As a result those who hunger for both intellectual and religious truth will never acquire both in full measure. " - Edward O. Wilson
" The whole thing is so patently infantile, so foreign to reality, that to anyone with a friendly attitude to humanity it is painful to think that the great majority of mortals will never be able to rise above this view of life. " - Sigmund Freud, Austrian physician, psychoanalyst
" I contend that we are both atheists. I just believe in one fewer god than you do. When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours. " - Stephen Henry Roberts, historian, professor emeritus Univ. of Sydney
" I believe that relgion is the belief in future life and in God. I don’t believe in either. I don’t believe in God as I don’t believe in Mother Goose. " - Clarence Darrow, civil libertarian, lawyer, agnostic
" I do not consider it an insult, but rather a compliment, to be called an agnostic. I do not pretend to know where many ignorant men are sure. " - Clarence Darrow
" The fact that a believer is happier than a skeptic is no more to the point than the fact that a drunken man is happier than a sober one. " - George Bernard Shaw, English playwright
" The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal,genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully. " - Richard Dawkins, British ethologist, evolutionary biologist
" I am an atheist, out and out. It took me a long time to say it. I've been an atheist for years and years, but somehow I felt it was intellectually unrespectable to say that one is an atheist, because it assumed knowledge that one didn't have. Somehow it was better to say one was a humanist or agnostic. I don't have the evidence to prove that God doesn't exist, but I so strongly suspect that he doesn't that I don't want to waste my time. " - Isaac Asimov, professor of biochemistry, science/science fiction writer
" Creationists make it sound like a 'theory' is something you dreamt up after being drunk all night. " - Isaac Asimov
" I condemn false prophets, I condemn the effort to take away the power of rational decision, to drain people of their free will--and a hell of a lot of money in the bargain. Religions vary in their degree of idiocy, but I reject them all. For most people, religion is nothing more than a substitute for a malfunctioning brain. " - Gene Roddenberry, Creator of Star Trek
" We must question the story logic of having an all-knowing all-powerful God, who creates faulty Humans, and then blames them for his own mistakes. " - Gene Roddenberry
" I don’t believe in God. My god is patriotism. Teach a man to be a good citizen and you have solved the problem of life. " - Andrew Carnegie, American industrialist, philanthropist
" All thinking men are atheists. " - Ernest Hemingway, American writer, journalist
" If Christ were here now there is one thing he would not be -- a Christian. " - Samuel Clemens "Mark Twain", American writer, satirist, lecturer
" Man is a marvelous curiosity... he thinks he is the Creator's pet... he even believes the Creator loves him; has a passion for him; sits up nights to admire him; yes and watch over him and keep him out of trouble. He prays to him and thinks He listens. Isn't it a quaint idea. " - Samuel Clemens "Mark Twain"
" One of the proofs of the immortality of the soul is that myriads have believed in it. They have also believed the world was flat. " - Samuel Clemens "Mark Twain"
" It is best to read the weather forecast before praying for rain. " - Samuel Clemens "Mark Twain"
" Faith is the commitment of one's consciousness to beliefs for which one has no sensory evidence or rational proof. A mystic is a man who treats his feelings as tools of cognition. Faith is the equation of feeling with knowledge. " - Ayn Rand, American writer, philosopher, playwright
" When I think of all the harm the Bible has done, I despair of ever writing anything to equal it. " - Oscar Wilde, Irish playwright, novelist, poet
" 'A philosopher,' said the theologian, 'is like a blind man looking in a dark room for a black cat which isn't there.'
'Yes,' replied the philosopher, 'and if I were a theologian, I'd find the cat!' " - Aldous Huxley, British writer, humanist (1894-1963)
" You never see animals going through the absurd and often horrible fooleries of magic and religion. Only man behaves with such gratuitous folly. It is the price he has to pay for being intelligent but not, as yet, intelligent enough. " - Aldous Huxley
" At least two-thirds of our miseries spring from human stupidity, human malice and those great motivators and justifiers of malice and stupidity: idealism, dogmatism and proselytizing zeal on behalf of religious or political ideas. " - Aldous Huxley
" At any given moment, life is completely senseless. But viewed over a period, it seems to reveal itself as an organism existing in time, having a purpose, trending in a certain direction. " - Aldous Huxley
" It is a capital mistake to theorize before one has data. Insensibly one begins to twist facts to suit theories, instead of theories to suit facts. " - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Scottish writer, author Sherlock Holmes
" All religion, my friend, is simply evolved out of fear, fraud, greed, imagination and poetry. " - Edgar Allen Poe, American writer, poet
" Religion prevents our children from having a rational education; religion prevents us from removing the fundamental causes of war; religion prevents us from teaching the ethic of scientific cooperation in place of the old fierce doctrines of sin and punishment. It is possible that mankind is on the threshold of a golden age; but, if so, it will be necessary first to slay the dragon that guards the door, and this dragon is religion. " - Bertrand Russell, British philosopher, writer, mathmetician, ethicist, logicist
" Religion is based mainly on fear... fear of the mysterious, fear of defeat, fear of death. Fear is the parent of cruelty, and therefore it is no wonder if cruelty and religion have gone hand in hand... My own view on religion is that of Lucretius. I regard it as a disease born of fear and as a source of untold misery to the human race. " - Bertrand Russell
" I believe that when I die I shall rot, and nothing of my ego will survive. I am not young, and I love life. But I should scorn to shiver with terror at the thought of annihilation. Happiness is none the less true happiness because it must come to an end, nor do thought and love lose their value because they are not everlasting. " - Bertrand Russell
" I am myself a dissenter from all known religions, and I hope that every kind of religious belief will die out. " - Bertrand Russell
" It's an incredible con job when you think of it, to believe something now in exchange for life after death. Even corporations with all their reward systems don't try to make it posthumous. " - Gloria Steinam
" Men become civilized, not in proportion to their willingness to believe, but in proportion to their readiness to doubt. " - Henry Louis "H.L." Mencken, American editor, critic
" For centuries, theologians have attempted to explain the unknowable in terms of the-not-worth-knowing. " - Henry Louis "H.L." Mencken
" The most common of all follies is to believe passionately in the palpably not true. It is the chief occupation of mankind. " - Henry Louis "H.L." Mencken
" Religion is fundamentally opposed to everything I hold in veneration--courage, clear thinking, honesty, fairness, and, above all, love of the truth. " - Henry Louis "H.L." Mencken
" God is the immemorial refuge of the incompetent, the helpless, the miserable. They find not only sanctuary in His arms, but also a kind of superiority, soothing to their macerated egos; He will set them above their betters. " - Henry Louis "H.L." Mencken
" Since the early days, [the church] has thrown itself violently against every effort to liberate the body and mind of man. It has been, at all times and everywhere, the habitual and incorrigible defender of bad governments, bad laws, bad social theories, bad institutions. It was, for centuries, an apologist for slavery, as it was an apologist for the divine right of kings. " - Henry Louis "H.L." Mencken
" There is so much in the bible against which every insinct of my being rebels, so much so that I regret the necessity which has compelled me to read it through from beginning to end. I do not think that the knowledge I have gained of its history and sources compensates me for the unpleasant details it has forced upon my attention. " - Helen Keller, American lecturer
" I turned to speak to God, About the world's despair; But to make bad matters worse, I found God wasn't there. " - Robert Frost, American poet
" Forgive, O Lord, my little joke on Thee and I'll forgive Thy great big one on me. " - Robert Frost
" I hold it to be the inalienable right of anybody to go to hell in his own way. " - Robert Frost
" I was born a heretic. I always distrust people who know so much about what God wants them to do to their fellows. " - Susan B. Anthony, American suffragist
" By simple common sense I don't believe in God, in none. " - Charlie Chaplin, British actor, director, producer
" I can very well do without God both in my life and in my painting, but I cannot, suffering as I am, do without something which is greater than I am, which is my life, the power to create. " - Vincent Van Gogh, Dutch painter
" I wasn't raised Catholic, but I used to go to Mass with my friends, and I viewed the whole business as a lot of very enthralling hocus-pocus. There's a guy hanging upon the wall in the church, nailed to a cross and dripping blood, and everybody's blaming themselves for that man's torment, but I said to myself, 'Forget it. I had no hand in that evil. I have no original sin. There’s no blood of any sacred martyr on my hands. I pass on all of this. " - Billy Joel, American musician
" I believe that all important matters have to be settled here, not in the clouds somewhere after we kick off. " - Billy Joel
" If you want to get together in any exclusive situation and have people love you, fine- but to hang all this desperate sociology on the idea of The Cloud-Guy who has The Big Book, who knows if you've been bad or good- and CARES about any of it- to hang it all on that, folks, is the chimpanzee part of the brain working. " - Frank Zappa, American musician
" God is a concept by which we measure our pain. " - John Lennon, American musician
" I believe in God, only I spell it Nature. " - Frank Lloyd Wright, American architect
" Faith means not wanting to know what is true. " - Friedrich Nietzsche, German philosopher, philologist
" The Christian faith from the beginning, is sacrifice: the sacrifice of all freedom, all pride, all self-confidence of spirit; it is at the same time subjection, a self-derision, and self-mutilation. " - Friedrich Nietzsche
" All religions bear traces of the fact that they arose during the intellectual immaturity of the human race – before it had learned the obligations to speak the truth. Not one of them makes it the duty of its God to be truthful and understandable in his communications. " - Friedrich Nietzsche
" The most serious parody I have ever heard was this: In the beginning was nonsense, and the nonsense was with God, and the nonsense was God. " - Friedrich Nietzsche
" There is no devil and no hell. Thy soul will be dead even sooner than thy body: fear therefore nothing any more. " - Friedrich Nietzsche
" To regard Christ as God, and to pray to him, are to my mind the greatest possible sacrilege. " - Leo Tolstoy, Russian revolutionary
" The bible teaches that woman brought sin and death into the world, that she precipitated the fall of the race, that she was arraigned before the judgment seat of Heaven, tried, condemned and sentenced. Marriage for her was to be a condition of bondage, maternity a period of suffering and anguish, and in silence and subjection, she was to play the role of a dependent on man's bounty for all her material wants, and for all the information she might desire...Here is the Bible position of woman briefly summed up. " - Elizabeth Cady Stanton, American suffragist (1815-1902)
" Every sensible man, every honorable man, must hold the Christian sect in horror. " - Francois Marie Arouet "Voltaire", writer, playwright (1694-1778)
" Christianity is the most ridiculous, the most absurd and bloody religion that has ever infected the world. " - Francois Marie Arouet "Voltaire"
" Superstition, born of paganism and adopted by Judaism, invested the Christian Church from earliest times. All the fathers of the Church, without exception, believed in the power of magic. The Church always condemned magic, but she always believed in it: she did not excommunicate sorcerers as madmen who were mistaken, but as men who were really in communication with the devil. " - Francois Marie Arouet "Voltaire"
" If we believe absurdities, we shall commit atrocities. " - Francois Marie Arouet "Voltaire"
" Doubt is not a pleasant condition, but certainty is absurd. " - Francois Marie Arouet "Voltaire"
" Religion is regarded by the common people as true, by the wise as false, and by the rulers as useful. " - Seneca, Roman philosopher, writer, politician
" Religion is excellent stuff for keeping common people quiet. " - Napoleon Bonaparte, French emperor
" Religion is what keeps the poor from murdering the rich. " - Napoleon Bonaparte
" Man will never be free until the last king is strangled with the entrails of the last priest. " - Denis Diderot, French philosopher, author, encyclopedist (1713-1784)
" A tyrant must put on the appearance of uncommon devotion to religion. Subjects are less apprehensive of illegal treatment from a ruler whom they consider godfearing and pious. On the other hand they do less easily move against him believing that he has the gods on his side. " - Aristotle, Greek philosopher, early scientist
" The death of dogma is the birth of reason. " - Immanuel Kant, German philosopher
Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then He is not omnipotent.
Is He able, but not willing? Then He is malevolent.
Is He both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil?
Is He neither able nor willing? Then why call Him God? - Epicurus, Greek philosopher, circa 300 BCE
" What would be the use of immortality to a person who cannot use well a half hour? " - Ralph Waldo Emerson, poet, American philosopher, transcendentalist
" All religions of a spiritual nature are inventions of man. He has created an entire system of gods with nothing more than his carnal brain. Just because he has an ego and cannot accept it, he has had to externalize it into some great spiritual device which he calls "god."
God can do all the things man is forbidden to do, such as kill people, perform miracles to gratify his will, control without any apparent responsibility, etc. If man needs such a god and recognizes that god, then he is worshiping an entity that a human being invented. Therefore, HE IS WORSHIPING BY PROXY THE MAN THAT INVENTED GOD. Is it not more sensible to worship a god that he, himself, has created in accordance with his own emotional needs - one that best represents the very carnal and physical being that has the idea-power to invent a god in the first place? " - Anton Szandor LaVey, wrtier, occultist, founder Church of Satan
" Writing for a penny a word is ridiculous. If a man really wants to make a million dollars, the best way would be to start his own religion. " - L. Ron Hubbard, pulp writer, self-proclaimed demigod, founder of The Church of Scientology, millionaire
" Man creates God, then gets on his knees and worships his invention. " - Karl Marx, Prussian philosopher, political economist, founder Marxism
" The wretchedness of religion is at once an expression and a protest against real wretchedness. Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the feeling of a heartless world, just as it is the spirit of unspiritual conditions. It is the opium of the people. " - Karl Marx
" The social principles of Christianity preach cowardice, self-contempt, abasement, submission, humility, in a word all the qualities of the canaille. " - Karl Marx
" By the year 2000, we will, I hope, raise our children to believe in human potential, not God. " - Gloria Steinam, women's rights activist
" Do not find yourself in a ritual, for rituals are patterns; patterns never change and you will never either. " - Anonymous
" When religion is good, it will support itself. And when it is not, and God does not care to support it, and its professors call for the help of a civil power, 'tis a sign of its being a bad one. " - Benjamin Franklin
" The question is whether the god of nature will govern the world by his own laws or whether priests and kings shall rule it by fictitious miracles. " - John Adams, founding father of America, 2nd president
" I concur with you strictly in your opinion of the comparative merits of atheism and demonism, and really see nothing but the latter in the being worshipped by many who think themselves Christians. " - Thomas Jefferson, letter to Richard Price regarding the harm done by religion, Jan. 8, 1789
" It is between fifty and sixty years since I read it [the Apocalypse], and I then considered it merely the ravings of a maniac, no more worthy nor capable of explanation than the incoherences of our own nightly dreams. " - Thomas Jefferson, letter to General Alexander Smyth, Jan. 17, 1825
" The whole history of these books [the Gospels] is so defective and doubtful that it seems vain to attempt minute enquiry into it: and such tricks have been played with their text, and with the texts of other books relating to them, that we have a right, from that cause, to entertain much doubt what parts of them are genuine. In the New Testament there is internal evidence that parts of it have proceeded from an extraordinary man; and that other parts are of the fabric of very inferior minds. It is as easy to separate those parts, as to pick out diamonds from dunghills. " - Thomas Jefferson, letter to John Adams, January 24, 1814
" In every country and in every age, the priest has been hostile to liberty. He is always in alliance with the despot, abetting his abuses in return for protection to his own. " - Thomas Jefferson, letter to Horatio G. Spafford, March 17, 1814
" And the day will come when the mystical generation of Jesus, by the supreme being as his father in the womb of a virgin will be classed with the fable of the generation of Minerve in the brain of Jupiter. But may we hope that the dawn of reason and freedom of thought in these United States will do away with this artificial scaffolding, and restore to us the primitive and genuine doctrines of this most venerated reformer of human errors. " - Thomas Jefferson, letter to John Adams, April 11, 1823
" All eyes are opened, or opening, to the rights of man. The general spread of the light of science has already laid open to every view the palpable truth, that the mass of mankind has not been born with saddles on their backs, nor a favored few booted and spurred, ready to ride them legitimately, by the grace of God. " - Thomas Jefferson, letter to Roger C. Weightman, June 24, 1826 (in the last letter he penned)
" Millions of innocent men, women and children, since the introduction of Christianity, have been burnt, tortured, fined and imprisoned; yet we have not advanced one inch towards uniformity. " - Thomas Jefferson, Notes on Virginia, 1782
" I prayed for twenty years but received no answer until I prayed with my legs. " - Frederick Douglass, escaped slave, abolitionist, writer, statesman
WAR & VIOLENCE
" 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, and debts, and taxes are the known instruments for bringing the many under the domination of the few.
In war, too, the discretionary power of the Executive is extended; its influence in dealing out offices, honors, and emoluments is multiplied; and all the means of seducing the minds, are added to those of subduing the force, of the people. . . . [There is also an] inequality of fortunes, and the opportunities of fraud, growing out of a state of war, and . . . degeneracy of manners and of morals. . . . No nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare. . . .
[It should be well understood] that the powers proposed to be surrendered [by the Third Congress] to the Executive were those which the Constitution has most jealously appropriated to the Legislature. . . .
The Constitution expressly and exclusively vests in the Legislature the power of declaring a state of war . . . the power of raising armies . . . the power of creating offices. . . .
A delegation of such powers [to the President] would have struck, not only at the fabric of our Constitution, but at the foundation of all well organized and well checked governments.
The separation of the power of declaring war from that of conducting it, is wisely contrived to exclude the danger of its being declared for the sake of its being conducted.
The separation of the power of raising armies from the power of commanding them, is intended to prevent the raising of armies for the sake of commanding them.
The separation of the power of creating offices from that of filling them, is an essential guard against the temptation to create offices for the sake of gratifying favourites or multiplying dependents. " - James Madison, Father of the U.S. Constitution, April 20, 1795
" Never has there been a good war or a bad peace. " - Benjamin Franklin
" I'm fed up to the ears with old men dreaming up wars for young men to die in. " - George McGovern
" Never think that war, no matter how necessary, nor how justified, is not a crime. " - Ernest Hemingway
" Violence is the first refuge of the incompetent. " - Isaac Asimov
" I know with what weapons WWIII will be fought, but WWIV will be fought with sticks and stones " - Albert Einstein
" Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent. It takes a touch of genius, and a lot of courage, to move in the opposite direction " - Albert Einstein
" Peace cannot be kept by force; it can only be achieved through understanding. " - Albert Einstein
" The significant problems that we face today cannot be solved at the same level of thinking that created them. " - Albert Einstein
" The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy.
Peace is not merely a distant goal that we seek, but a means by which we arrive at that goal. " - Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
" The ultimate weakness of violence is that it is a descending spiral, begetting the very thing it seeks to destroy. Instead of diminishing evil, it multiplies it... Through violence you may murder the hater, but you do not murder hate. In fact, violence merely increases hate.... Returning violence for violence multiplies violence, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out hate; only love can do that. " - Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
" Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. The world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children... This is not a way of life at all, in any true sense. Under the cloud of threatening war, it is humanity hanging from a cross of iron. " - President Dwight Eisenhower, April 16, 1953
" Wars and revolutions and battles are due simply and solely to the body and its desires. All wars are undertaken for the acquisition of wealth; and the reason why we have to acquire wealth is the body, because we are slaves in its service. " - Socrates
" From the deepest desires often come the deadliest hate. " - Socrates
" What you cannot enforce, do not command. " - Socrates
" The more we sweat in peace, the less we bleed in war. " - Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit
" War doesn't determine who's right. War determines who's left. " - Confucius
" Once lead this people into war, and they'll forget there ever was such a thing as tolerance. To fight, you must be brutal and ruthless, and the spirit of ruthless brutality will enter into the very fiber of our national life, infecting Congress, the courts, the policeman on the beat, the man in the street. " - Woodrow Wilson, 1917
" My dynamite will sooner lead to peace than a thousand world conventions. As soon as men will find that in one instant whole armies can be utterly destroyed, they surely will abide by golden peace. " - Alfred Bernhard Nobel, inventor of dynamite, founder of the Nobel Prize
" Japan was already defeated ... dropping the bomb was completely unnecessary. I thought that our country should avoid shocking world opinion by the use of a weapon whose employment was no longer necessary to save American lives. " - General Dwight D.Eisenhower, Supreme Allied Commander, Europe, and later US President
MEDIA & PROPAGANDA
" What journalism is really about - it's to monitor power and the centres of power. " - Amira Hass
" A popular government without popular information, or the means of acquiring it, is a prologue to a farce or a tragedy, or perhaps both. " - James Madison
" In wartime, truth is so precious that she should always be attended by a bodyguard of lies. " - Sir Winston Churchill
" The first casualty when war comes is truth. " - US Senator Hiram Warren Johnson, 1918
" The pure and simple truth is rarely pure and never simple. " - Oscar Wilde
" There is nothing so absurd that it cannot be believed as truth if repeated often enough. " - William James
" As long as people believe in absurdities they will continue to commit atrocities. " - Voltaire
" It is hard to believe that a man is telling the truth when you know that you would lie if you were in his place. " - Henry Louis Mencken
" Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored. " - Aldous Huxley
" 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. " - General Herman Goering, President of German Reichstag & Nazi Party, Commander of Luftwaffe, April 18, 1946
" The books that the world calls immoral are the books that show the world its own shame. " - Oscar Wilde
" Assassination is the extreme form of censorship. " - George Bernard Shaw
" Next the statesmen will invent cheap lies, putting the blame upon the nation that is attacked, and every man will be glad of those conscience-soothing falsities, and will diligently study them, and refuse to examine any refutations of them; and thus he will by and by convince himself that the war is just, and will thank God for the better sleep he enjoys after this process of grotesque self-deception. " - Mark Twain, The Mysterious Stranger, 1916, Ch. 9
" Among the calamities of war may be jointly numbered the diminution of the love of truth, by the falsehoods which interest dictates and credulity encourages. " - Samuel Johnson, The Idler 1758
" After you've had somebody say to you for the thousandth time, 'How come we never hear about these issues in the media,' you start to realize that the media itself is an issue. " - Svend Robinson, 1997
" One journalist commented to us that news reporters were effectively told not to focus on explanation, but to go for eye-catching events like fighting, shooting or riots. As he put it, they had been stopped from doing "explainers" - now it was "all bang, bang stuff. " - Professor Greg Philo
" A principle familiar to propagandists is that the doctrine to be instilled in the target audience should not be articulated: that would only expose them to reflection, inquiry, and, very likely, ridicule. The proper procedure is to drill them home by constantly presupposing them, so that they become the very condition for discourse. " - Noam Chomsky
" It is easier to dominate someone if they are unaware of being dominated. Colonised and colonisers both know that domination is not just based on physical supremacy. Control of hearts and minds follows military conquest. Which is why any empire that wants to last must capture the souls of its subjects. " - Ignacio Ramonet
" One difficulty is that the media have little or no memory. War correspondents have short working lives and there is no tradition or means for passing on their knowledge and experience. The military, on the other hand, is an institution and goes on forever. The military learned a lot from Vietnam and these days plans its media strategy with as much attention as its military strategy. " - Phillip Knightley
" In [many cases], the U.S. and other western news media depend on the military for information.... And when the information that military officers provide to the public is part of a process that generates propaganda and places a high value on deceit, deception and denial, then truth is indeed likely to be high on the casualty list. " - William M. Arkin
" I mistrust the judgement of every man in a case in which his own wishes are concerned. " - First Duke of Wellington
" The corporate grip on opinion in the United States is one of the wonders of the Western world. No First World country has ever managed to eliminate so entirely from its media all objectivity - much less dissent.
Of course, it is possible for any citizen with time to spare, and a canny eye, to work out what is actually going on, but for the many there is not time, and the network news is the only news even though it may not be news at all but only a series of flashing fictions... " - Gore Vidal
" The national government will maintain and defend the foundations on which the power of our nation rests. It will offer strong protection to Christianity as the very basis of our collective morality. Today Christians stand at the head of our country. We want to fill our culture again with the Christian spirit. We want to burn out all the recent immoral developments in literature, in the theatre, and in the press--in short, we want to burn out the poison of immorality which has entered into our whole life and culture as a result of liberal excess during the past few years. " - Adolph Hitler, The Speeches of Adolph Hitler 1922-1939, Vol. 1
" Secular schools can never be tolerated because such a school has no religious instruction, consequently all character training and religion must be derived from faith. We need believing people. " - Adolph Hitler
" Belief is harder to shake than knowledge. " - Adolf Hitler
" The broad masses of a population are more amenable to the appeal of rhetoric than to any other force. " - Adolf Hitler
" The great masses of the people will more easily fall victims to a big lie than to a small one. " - Adolf Hitler
" The main doctrine of a fanatic's creed is that his enemies are enemies of God. " - Andrew White
" In the affairs of this world, men are saved, not by faith but the lack of it. " - Benjamin Franklin
" A great deal of intelligence can be invested in ignorance when the need for illusion is deep. " - Saul Bellow
" It is not always the same thing to be a good man and a good citizen " - Aristotle
" Nothing is more dangerous in wartime than to live in the temperamental atmosphere of a Gallup Poll, always feeling one's pulse and taking one's temperature. " - Sir Winston Churchill
" What is it men cannot be made to believe! " - Thomas Jefferson, to Richard Henry Lee, April 22, 1786
" Fox should say 'Occassionally Fair and Balanced' because they've violated a serious trust. " - Bob Kerry, former Governor of Nebraska, panelist on 9/11 Independent Commission
FREEDOMS & LIBERTIES
" This I believe: That the free, exploring mind of the individual human is the most valuable thing in the world.
And this I would fight for: The freedom of the mind to take any direction it wishes, undirected.
And this I must fight against: Any idea, religion, or government which limits or destroys the individual. " - John Steinbeck
" It is by the goodness of God that in our country we have those three unspeakably precious things: freedom of speech, freedom of conscience, and the prudence to never practice either of them. " - Mark Twain
" A citizen of America will cross the ocean to fight for democracy, but won't cross the street to vote in a national election. " - Bill Vaughan
" People demand freedom of speech to make up for the freedom of thought which they avoid. " - Soren Kierkegaard
" They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety. " - Benjamin Franklin, 1759
" When you're in this type of conflict, when you're at war, civil liberties are treated differently. " - Senate Minority Leader Trent Lott, 2001
" There is a road to freedom. Its milestones are Obedience, Endeavor, Honesty, Order, Cleanliness, Sobriety, Truthfulness, Sacrifice, and love of the Fatherland. " - Adolf Hitler
" There will never be a generation of great men until there has been a generation of free women. " - Robert Ingersoll
" The strongest principle of growth lies in the human choice. " - George Eliot
" One of the annoying things about believing in free will and individual responsibility is the difficulty of finding somebody to blame your problems on. And when you do find somebody, its remarkable how often his picture turns up on your driver's license. " - P.J.O. Rourke
" In May of 1776, Abigail Adams wrote to her husband John, who was on the committee to draft the Declaration of Independence: 'I cannot say that I think you are very generous to the ladies, for whilst you are proclaiming peace and good-will to Men, Emancipating all Nations, you insist upon retaining an absolute power over Wives. But you must remember that Arbitrary power is, like most other things which are very hard, very liable to be broken-and we have it in our power not only to free ourselves but to subdue our masters, and without violence, throw both your natural and legal authority at your feet.' " - Eyes of the Nation, page 60
" If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear. " - George Orwell
IGNORANCE & INDOLENCE
" How fortunate for leaders that men do not think. " - Adolf Hitler
" Americans are the best entertained and the least informed people in the world. " - Neil Postman
" The recipe for perpetual ignorance is very simple: Be satisfied with your opinions and content with your knowledge. " - Elbert Hubbard
" All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed, second it is violently opposed, and third, it is accepted as self-evident. " - Arthur Schopenhauer, philosopher, 1788-1860
" New opinions are always suspected, and usually opposed, without any other reason but because they are not already common. " - John Locke
" The individual is handicapped by coming face to face with a conspiracy so monstrous he cannot believe it exists " - J. Edgar Hoover, former head of the FBI
" Language is the biggest barrier to human progress because language is an encyclopedia of ignorance. Old perceptions are frozen into language and force us to look at the world in an old fashioned way. " - Edward de Bono
" If a man is offered a fact which goes against his instincts, he will scrutinize it closely, and unless the evidence is overwhelming, he will refuse to believe it. If, on the other hand, he is offered something which affords a reason for acting in accordance to his instincts, he will accept it even on the slightest evidence. " - Bertrand Russell
" Most people would rather die than think; in fact, they do so. " - Bertrand Russell
" The man who doesn't read good books has no advantage over the man who can't read them. " - Mark Twain
" One person with a belief is equal to a force of ninety-nine who have only interests. " - John Stuart Mill
" Any fact facing us is not as important as our attitude toward it, for that determines our success or failure. " - Dr. Norman Vincent Peale
" Those who profess to favor freedom and yet depreciate agitation, are people who want crops without ploughing the ground; they want rain without thunder and lightning; they want the ocean without the roar of its many waters. The struggle may be a moral one, or it may be a physical one, or it may be both. But it must be a struggle. Power concedes nothing without a demand; it never has and it never will. " - Frederick Douglass
" I am only one, but still I am one. I cannot do everything, but I can still do something; and because I cannot do everything, I will not refuse to do the something that I can do. " - Edward Everett Hale
" I know I'm not gonna rule the world, but I know if I keep talkin' about how dirty it is, somebody's gonna clean it up. " - Tupac Shakur
" Of all the communities available to us, there is not one I would want to devote myself to... except for the society of the true searchers... which has very few living members at any time. " - Albert Einstein
" Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I'm not sure about the universe. " - Albert Einstein
" First they came for the Jews
and I did not speak out --
because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for the communists
and I did not speak out --
because I was not a communist.
Then they came for the trade unionists
and I did not speak out --
because I was not a trade unionist.
Then they came for me --
and there was no one left
to speak out for me. " - Pastor Niemoeller (Nazi victim)
" If a person would move the world, he must first move himself. " - Socrates
" Who are the learned? They who practice what they know. " - Mohammed
" Teachers open the door...you enter by yourself. " - Chinese proverb
" Many people reach their conclusions about life like lazy school children. They copy the answers from the back of the book without troubling to work out the sum for themselves. " - Kierkegaard
" Perhaps the most valuable result of all education is the ability to make yourself do the thing you have to do when it ought to be done, whether you like it or not. " - Thomas Henry Huxley
" It is not the 'courage to be' that we must develop as much as the 'courage to become.' We are responsible for our destiny. The meaning of life is not located in some hidden crevice in the womb of nature but is created by free persons, who are aware that they are responsible for their own futures and have the courage to take this project into their own hands. " - Paul Kurtz
" If the doors of perception were cleansed, everything would appear to man as it is, infinite. For man has closed himself up, till he sees all things through narrow chinks of his cavern. " - William Blake
" A great deal of intelligence can be invested in ignorance when the need for illusion is deep. " - Saul Bellow
" The mind is not a vessel to be filled but a fire to be lighted. " - Plutarch
" People are always blaming their circumstances for what they are. I don't believe in circumstances. The people who get on in this world are the people who get up and look for the circumstances they want, and, if they can't find them, make them. " - George Bernard Shaw, 1893
PAX AMERICANA
" Fascism should more properly be called corporatism, since it is the merger of state and corporate power. " - Premier Benito Mussolini, the Father of Fascism
" In the counsels of Government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the Military Industrial Complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists, and will persist. We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. " - President Dwight Eisenhower, January 1961
" I see in the near future a crisis approaching that unnerves me and causes me to tremble for the safety of my country. As a result of the war, corporations have been enthroned and an era of corruption in high places will follow, and the money power of the country will endeavor to prolong its reign by working upon the prejudices of the people until all wealth is aggregated in a few hands and the Republic is destroyed. " - Abraham Lincoln, November 21, 1864 (in a letter to Col. Elkins)
" The great nations have always acted like gangsters, and the small nations like prostitutes. " - Stanley Kubrick
" The world has achieved brilliance without conscience. Ours is a world of nuclear giants and ethical infants. " - General Omar Bradley
" Success is the sole earthly judge of right and wrong. " - Adolf Hitler
" The corporate grip on opinion in the United States is one of the wonders of the Western world. No First World country has ever managed to eliminate so entirely from its media all objectivity - much less dissent.
Of course, it is possible for any citizen with time to spare, and a canny eye, to work out what is actually going on, but for the many there is not time, and the network news is the only news even though it may not be news at all but only a series of flashing fictions... " - Gore Vidal
GOVERNMENT & POLICY
" Give me control of a nation's money supply, and I care not who makes its laws. " - Mayer Amschel Rothschild, founder of Rothschild Banking Dynasty
" I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous than standing armies... If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of currency... the banks and corporations that will grow up around them will deprive the people of their property until their children wake up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered. " - Thomas Jefferson
" If you want to remain slaves of the bankers and pay for the costs of your own slavery, let them continue to create money and control the nation's credit. " - Sir Josiam Stamp
" Our great industrial nation is controlled by its system of credit. Our system of credit is privately concentrated, the growth of the nation, therefore, and all our activities are in the hands of a few men... who necessarily, by very reason of their own limitations, chill and check and destroy the economic freedom.
We have come to be one of the worst ruled, one of the most completely controlled and dominated governments in the civilized world. No government by free opinion. No longer a government by conviction and the vote of the majority, but a government by the opinion and the duress of small groups of dominant men. " - Woodrow Wilson, reflecting upon his enactment of the Federal Reserve Bank
" A world banking system was being set up here... a superstate controlled by international bankers... acting together to enslave the world for their own pleasure. The Fed has usurped the government. " - Congressman Louis Mcfadden
" It was a carefully contrived occurrence. International bankers sought to bring about a condition of despair, so that they might emerge the rulers of us all. " - Congressman Louis Mcfadden
" The question was how should we maneuver them into firing the first shot... It was desirable to make sure the Japanese be the ones to do this so that there should remain no doubt as to who were the aggressors. " - Henry Stimson, Secretary of War on Nov 25, 1941
" Liberalism is trust of the people tempered by prudence. Conservatism is distrust of the people tempered by fear. " - William Gladstone
" Oderint dum metuant " (Let them hate so long as they fear) - Lucius Accius (motto of Roman Emperor Caligula)
" Every time we do something you tell me America will do this and will do that... I want to tell you something very clear: Don't worry about American pressure on Israel. We, the Jewish people, control America, and the Americans know it. " - Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, 2001
" Americans always try to do the right thing -- after they've tried everything else. " - Sir Winston Churchill
" A government is the only known vessel that leaks from the top. " - James Reston
" The first panacea for a mismanaged nation is inflation of the currency; the second is war. Both bring a temporary prosperity; both bring a permanent ruin. But both are the refuge of political and economic opportunists. " - Ernest Hemingway
" America is a melting pot, the people at the bottom get burned while all the scum floats to the top. " - Charlie King
" So, apparently, if you are a pre-sentient mass of cells, this country will protect you and your rights to the n-th degree. If you have made the mistake of becoming an Iraqi citizen, apparently we can just drop bombs on you with impunity. " - Janeane Garofalo
" It's not John Kerry, it was Jesus Christ who said 'for those whom much has been given, much will be expected'. You've been given a lot, pay your damn taxes and quit whining... This country's been good to you. " - Paul Begala, CNN Crossfire
" I fondly remember a time when real Republicans stood for fiscal responsibility. Apparently those days are long gone for some in our party. " - Senator John McCain, (R) Arizona
" To win the war against terrorism, we need to reevaluate our definition of security. The more the U.S. militarizes the Middle East, the less secure we have become. All the sophisticated weaponry, all the brave fighting men and women, and all the talented military leadership we may possess will not stop terrorism as long as our policies cause millions of people hate us.
President George W. Bush is wrong when he claims we are targeted because we are a 'beacon for freedom.' We are targeted because the support of freedom is not part of our policy in the Middle East, which has instead been based upon alliances with repressive governments and support for military occupation. We would be much safer if the U.S. supported a policy based more on human rights, international law, and sustainable development -- and less on arms transfers, air strikes, and punitive sanctions. " - Stephen Zunes
" The United States spends more on arms annually, $275 billion presently, than the rest of the Security Council combined. U.S. arms expenditures are approximately 25 times the gross national product of Iraq.
The U.S. has in its stockpiles more nuclear bombs, chemical and biological weapons, more aircraft, rockets and delivery systems in number and sophistication than the rest of the world combined. Included are twenty commissioned Trident II nuclear submarines any one of which could destroy Europe. " - Ramsey Clark, former U.S. Attorney General, November 1998
" There's nothing Christian about nuking Afghan civilians, nor spying on American students; just as there is nothing Muslim about hijacking planes and flying them into the twin towers of the World Trade Center or the Pentagon.
Yet US history has shown that, by appealing to their Christian identity, Americans will accept much that is contemptible, and confuse the ideological with the theological. With this mindset, "Hallelujah!" amounts to a war cry, and "Onward, Christian Soldiers" to a latter-day crusade. This is bad religion passed off as good. " - Christina Odone, Observer of London
" By threatening war against Iran, Iraq and North Korea in his now-famous "Axis of Evil" address, the president painted himself into a corner. Either Bush now goes to war against one of these regimes, or he will be humiliated and exposed as a bellicose bluff.
Let me say it again: Whoever fed Bush those lines, or did not argue against his delivering them, disserved the president. For that speech has blown our coalition against terror to smithereens. " - Patrick Buchanan, February 19, 2002
" It Happened. My spell checker suggested 'jingoism' as a replacement for 'Gingrich.'
From the dictionary:
jingoism (jîng¹go-îz´em) noun
Extreme nationalism characterized especially by a belligerent foreign policy; chauvinistic patriotism. " - Wayne Wilson, Editor of The Utah Humanist, November 1995
" Forget that Bush lied about the reasons for putting our sons and daughters in harm's way in Iraq; and forget that he sent 140,000 troops there with bull's-eyes on their backs, then dared their attackers to bring it on. It was the height of irresponsibility to have done so in the middle of a war on al-Qaida, the real and proven threat to America. Bush diverted those troops and other resources - including intelligence assets, Arabic translators and hundreds of billions of tax dollars - from the hunt for Osama bin Laden and other al-Qaida leaders along the Afghan-Pakistani border. And now they've regrouped and are as threatening as ever. That's inexcusable, and Bush supporters with any intellectual honesty and concern for their own families' safety should be mad as hell about it - and that's coming from someone who voted for Bush. " - Paul Sperry, editorial on WorldNetDaily.com 10/06/03
" When the government puts its imprimatur on a particular religion it conveys a message of exclusion to all those who do not adhere to the favored beliefs. A government cannot be premised on the belief that all persons are created equal when it asserts that God prefers some. " - Supreme Court Justice Harry A. Blackmun, (Lee v. Weisman 1992)
" In the relationship between man and religion, the state is firmly committed to a position of neutrality. " - Associate Supreme Court Justice Tom C. Clark in 1963
" Christianity neither is, nor ever was a part of the common law. " - Thomas Jefferson, letter to Dr. Thomas Cooper, February 10, 1814
" They [the clergy] believe that any portion of power confided to me, will be exerted in opposition to their schemes. And they believe rightly; for I have sworn upon the altar of god, eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man. But this is all they have to fear from me: and enough, too, in their opinion. " - Thomas Jefferson, to Dr. Benjamin Rush, Sept. 23, 1800
" History, I believe, furnishes no example of a priest-ridden people maintaining a free civil government. This marks the lowest grade of ignorance of which their civil as well as religious leaders will always avail themselves for their own purposes. " - Thomas Jefferson, to Alexander von Humboldt, Dec. 6, 1813
" The President is merely the most important among a large number of public servants. He should be supported or opposed exactly to the degree which is warranted by his good conduct or bad conduct, his efficiency or inefficiency in rendering loyal, able, and disinterested service to the Nation as a whole. Therefore it is absolutely necessary that there should be full liberty to tell the truth about his acts, and this means that it is exactly necessary to blame him when he does wrong as to praise him when he does right. Any other attitude in an American citizen is both base and servile. To announce that there must be no criticism of the President, or that we are to stand by the President, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public. Nothing but the truth should be spoken about him or any one else. But it is even more important to tell the truth, pleasant or unpleasant, about him than about any one else. " - Roosevelt (in the Kansas City Star) May 7, 1918
HUMANITY & HUMAN NATURE
" When the power of love overcomes the love of power, the world will know peace. " - Jimi Hendrix
" Many people die with their music still in them. Why is this so? Too often it is because they are always getting ready to live. Before they know it, time runs out. " - Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr., Supreme Court Justice
" The end of any thing is its nature. " - Friedrich Nietzche
" Once we realize that imperfect understanding is the human condition there is no shame in being wrong, only in failing to correct our mistakes. " - George Soros
" The fact that man knows right from wrong proves his intellectual superiority to other creatures; but the fact that he can do wrong proves his moral inferiority to any creature that cannot. " - Mark Twain
" Perhaps we think that we won't find another human being inside that person. Perhaps we think that there are some people in this world who I can't ever communicate with, and so I'll just give up before I try. And how sad it is to think that we would give up on any other creature who's just like us. " - Fred Rogers
" It is what a man thinks of himself that really determines his fate. " - Henry David Thoreau
" Destiny is no matter of chance. It is a matter of choice. It is not a thing to be waited for, it is a thing to be achieved. " - William Jennings Bryan
" Why should I fear death? If I am, death is not. If death is, I am not. Why should I fear that which can only exist when I do not? " - Epicurus
" A human being is part of the whole, called by us 'Universe'; a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings, as something separated from the rest - a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and affection for a few persons nearest us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole nature in its beauty. Nobody is able to achieve this completely, but striving for such achievement is, in itself, a part of the liberation, and a foundation for inner security. " - Albert Einstein
" So of cheerfulness, or a good temper-the more it is spent, the more it remains. " - Ralph Waldo Emerson
" What lies behind us and what lies before are tiny matters compared to what lies within us. " - Ralph Waldo Emerson
" Conversation is our account of ourselves... Conversation is the vent of character as well as thoughts... It is the laboratory of the student. " - Ralph Waldo Emerson
" Today a young man on acid realized that all matter is merely energy condensed to a slow vibration. That we are all one consciousness experiencing itself subjectively. There is no such thing as death, life is only a dream, and we are the imagination of ourselves. Here's Tom with the weather. " - Bill Hicks
" The world is like a ride at an amusement park. And when you choose to go on it, you think its real because thats how powerfull our minds are. And the ride goes up and down and round and round. It has thrills and chills, and its very brightly coloured , and its very loud and its fun, for a while. Some people have been on the ride for a long time, and they begin to question - is this real, or is this just a ride? And other people have remembered, and they come back to us. They say, 'Hey! Dont worry, dont be afraid, ever, because, this is just a ride. " - Bill Hicks
" Good conversation is as stimulating as black coffee, and just as hard to sleep after. " - Anne Morrow Lindbergh
" Life is not a having and a getting, but a being and a becoming. " - Matthew Arnold
" When you are crossing the desert, plant trees, for you may be coming back the same way in your old age when you will be glad of the shade. " - Persian proverb
" Put an end once and for all to this discussion of what a good person should be, and be one. " - Marcus Aurelius
" Life is truly known only to those who suffer, lose, endure adversity and stumble from defeat to defeat. " - Anais Ninn
" An atmosphere of freedom and tolerance is essential to assure the opportunities for human happiness. As an enlightened hedonist, my philosophy of life is not confined to publications or monthly lectures. I live it out each day and each moment...listening to a piece of music, reading an article on genetics and behavior, sharing a joke with a friend, relishing a meal, solving a puzzle, helping a neighbor. The light of reason and wisdom is but one part of the hedonic gospel, along with the flowers of beauty and the nectar of devotion; nor are they hidden beneath a basket but placed upon a table for all to see and approach with celebration. " - Eric Merrill Budd, September 1993
" I'm for truth, no matter who tells it. I'm for justice, no matter who is for or against it. I'm for whoever and whatever benefits humanity as a whole. " - Malcom X, 1965
" For the person and for the species, love is the form of behavior having the highest survival value. " - Ashley Montagu
" I have learned to be happy where I am. I have learned that locked within the moments of
each day are all the joys, the peace, the fibers of the cloth we call life... The meaning is in the moment. There is no other way to find it. You feel what you allow yourself to feel, each and every moment of the day. " - Russ Berrie
" Money can buy a fine dog but it is kindness that makes him wag his tail. " - Unknown
" What should it matter that one bowl is dark and the other pale, if each is a good design and serves its purpose well? " - Hopi Indian saying
KNOWLEDGE & HUMILITY
" All truth passes through three stages: First, it is ridiculed, second it is violently opposed, and third, it is accepted as self-evident. " - Arthur Schopenhauer, philosopher, 1788-1860
" By three methods we may learn wisdom: First, by reflection, which is noblest; Second, by imitation, which is easiest; and third by experience, which is the bitterest. " - Confucius
" A hundred times every day, I remind myself that my inner and outer life are based on the labors of other men, living and dead, and that I must exert myself in order to give in the same measure as I have received. " - Albert Einstein
" Oh, that God would give us the very smallest of gifts To be able to see ourselves as others see us! " - Robert Burns
" Most people are other people. Their thoughts are someone else's opinions,their lives a mimicry, their passions a quotation. " - Oscar Wilde
" Reading makes a full man, meditation a profound man, discourse a clear man. " - Benjamin Franklin
" Only the shallow know themselves. " - Oscar Wilde
" Education is an admirable thing, but it is well to remember from time to time that nothing that is worth knowing can be taught. " - Oscar Wilde
" Education is to learning as tour groups are to adventure. " - Richard Saul Wurman
" Real knowledge is to know the extent of ones ignorance. " - Confucius
" If a man is proud of his wealth, he should not be praised until it is known how he employs it. " - Socrates
" I know nothing except the fact of my ignorance. " - Socrates
" Wisdom begins in wonder. " - Socrates
" Crito, I owe a cock to Asclepius; will you remember to pay the debt? " - Socrates (last words)
" Having the fewest wants, I am nearest to the gods. " - Socrates
" One cannot collect all the beautiful shells on the beach. " - Anne Morrow Lindbergh
" The only acceptable substitute for intellect is silence. " - Unknown
" Worry not that no one knows of you, seek to be worth knowing " - Confucius
" It is better to light one small candle than to curse the darkness. " - Confucius
" Learn as though you would never master it; hold it as though you would be in fear of losing it. " - Confucius
" I would rather be courageous, ambitious, and passionate than to hide my true self for the benefit of another. However, I will not keep my feelings on my sleeve for the world to see, as only the naive would have me do. " - Unknown
" Never express yourself more clearly than you think. " - Neils Bohr
" Talk slowly but think quickly. " - Unknown
" When you lose, don't lose the lesson. " - Unknown
" Judge your success by what you had to give up in order to get it. " - Unknown
" Believe nothing merely because you have been told it, or it has been traditional, or because you yourself have imagined it. Believe whatsoever you find to be conducive to the good, to benefit the welfare of others. " - Buddha
" There seems scarcely any limit to what could be done in the way of producing a good world, if only men would use science wisely. " - Bertrand Russell
" One should always keep an open mind, but not so open that one's brains fall out. " - Bertrand Russell
" The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, but wiser people so full of doubts. " - Bertrand Russell
" The leader of genius must have the ability to make different opponents appear as if they belonged to one category. " - Adolf Hitler
PERSEVERANCE
" Do not go gentle into that good night ... Rage, rage against the dying of the light. " - Dylan Thomas
" I am an optimist. It does not seem too much use being anything else. " - Sir Winston Churchill
" If you're going through hell, keep going. " - Winston Churchill
" The happiest of people don't necessarily have the best of everything; they just make the most of everything that comes along their way. " - Anonymous
" I do the very best I know how--the very best I can--and I mean to keep on doing so until the end. " - Abraham Lincoln
" If it falls your lot to be a street sweeper, sweep streets like Michelangelo painted pictures, sweep streets like Beethoven composed music, sweep streets like Leontyne Price sings before the Metropolitan Opera. Sweep streets like Shakespeare wrote poetry. Sweep streets so well that all the hosts of heaven and earth will have to pause and say: Here lived a great street sweeper who swept his job well. If you can't be a pine at the top of the hill, be a shrub in the valley. Be be the best little shrub on the side of the hill. " - Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
" Remember that there is nothing stable in human affairs; therefore avoid undue elation in prosperity, or undue depression in adversity. " - Socrates
" There is nothing permanent except change. " - Heraclitus, circa 500 BCE
" Pull the string, and it will follow wherever you wish. Push it, and it will go nowhere at all. " - Dwight D. Eisenhower
" The foolish man seeks happiness in the distance, the wise grows it under his feet. " - James Oppenheim
" For if there is a sin against life, it consists perhaps not so much in despairing of life as in hoping for another life and in eluding the implacable grandeur of this life. " - Albert Camus
" Absence diminishes small loves and increases great ones, as the windblows out the
candle and blows up the bonfire. " - La Rochefoucauld
" You always pass failure on the way to success. " - Mickey Rooney
" You don't have to go away to find something. Everything can be brought to you. " - Stanley Kubrick
" A man can not ride your back unless it is bent. " - Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
" Our greatest glory is not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall " - Confucius
" I haven't failed, I've found 10,000 ways that don't work. " - Ben Franklin
" We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars " - Oscar Wilde
" It is not the mountain we conquer but ourselves. " - Sir Edmund Hillary, first man to reach the summit of Mt. Everest
" When I was a child, my mother said to me," If you become a solider you'll be a general, if you become a monk you'll end up as the Pope. Instead I became a painter and wound up as Picasso. " - Pablo Picasso
" At bottom is the best soil to sow and grow something new again. In that sense, hitting bottom, while extremely painful, is also the sowing ground. " - Clarissa Pinkola Estes
CONSERVATIVE IDIOCY & THE RELIGIOUS RIGHT
" The swing voters---I like to refer to them as the idiot voters because they don't have set philosophical principles. You're either a liberal or you're a conservative if you have an IQ above a toaster. " - Ann Coulter, Beyond the News, Fox News Channel 06/04/2000
" To occupy Iraq would instantly shatter our coalition, turning the whole Arab world against us and make a broken tyrant into a latter-day hero ... assigning young soldiers to a fruitless hunt for a securely entrenched dictator and condemning them to fight in what would be an un-winnable urban guerilla war. It could only plunge that part of the world into even greater instability. " - George Bush Senior, in A World Transformed, 1998
" I don't know that atheists should be regarded as citizens, nor should they be regarded as patriotic. This is one nation under God. " - George Bush Senior, 1988
" I think that gay marriage is something that should be between a man and a woman. " - Arnold Schwarzenegger, Gov. California (R)
" More and more of our imports are coming from overseas. " - George W. Bush
" I know how hard it is for you to put food on your family. " - George W. Bush
" I will have a foreign-handed foreign policy. " - George W. Bush
" I know the human being and fish can coexist peacefully. " - George W. Bush
" Faimly is where our nation finds hope, where our wings take dream. " - George W. Bush
" Rarely is the question asked, 'Is our children learning?' " - George W. Bush
" Actually, I — this may sound a little West Texan to you, but I like it. When I'm talking about — when I'm talking about myself, and when he's talking about myself, all of us are talking about me. " - George W. Bush
" One of the common denominators I have found is that expectations rise above that which is expected. " - George W. Bush
" It's your money. You paid for it. " - George W. Bush
" The reason we start a war is to fight a war, win a war, thereby causing no more war! " - George W. Bush
" We need to stop the exquisite sex and wholesome violence that underscore our children. " - George W. Bush
" I would have my secretary of treasury be in touch with the financial centers, not only here but at home. " - George W. Bush
" That's a chapter, the last chapter of the 20th, 20th, the 21st century that most of us would rather forget. The last chapter of the 20th century. This is the first chapter of the 21st century. " - George W. Bush
" If you don't stand for anything, you don't stand for anything! " - George W. Bush
" They said this issue wouldn't resignate with the people. They've been proved wrong, it does resignate. " - George W. Bush
" I think we ought to raise the age at which juveniles can have a gun. " - George W. Bush
" If affirmative action means what I just described, what I'm for, then I'm for it. " - George W. Bush
" I mean, there needs to be a wholesale effort against racial profiling, which is illiterate children. " - George W. Bush
" It's going to require numerous IRA agents. " - George W. Bush, regarding Gore tax plan
" It's a school full of so-called at-risk children. It's how we, unfortunately, label certain children. It means basically they can't learn. ... It's one of the best schools in Houston. " - George W. Bush
" I am a person who recognizes the fallacy of humans. " - George W. Bush
" As governor of Texas, I have set high standards for our public schools, and I have met those standards. " - George W. Bush
" Well, I think if you say you're going to do something and don't do it, that's trustworthiness. " - George W. Bush
" It's clearly a budget. It's got a lot of numbers in it. " - George W. Bush
" Will the highways on the Internet become more few? " - George W. Bush
" To let schools reach out beyond the confines of the current structure to recruit teach for teach for the children type teachers. " - George W. Bush
" This is Preservation Month. I appreciate preservation. It's what you do when you run for president. You gotta preserve. " - George W. Bush
" I don't remember debates. I don't think we spent a lot of time debating it. Maybe we did, but I don't remember. " - George W. Bush
" The most important thing is for us to find Osama bin Laden. It is our number one priority and we will not rest until we find him. " - George W. Bush, 9/13/01
" I don't know where bin Laden is. I have no idea and really don't care. It's not that important. It's not our priority. " - George W. Bush, 3/13/02
" I am truly not that concerned about him. " - George W. Bush, to a question about bin Laden's whereabouts, 3/13/02
" I trust God speaks through me. Without that, I couldn't do my job. " - George W. Bush, prophet, messiah
" As people do better, they start voting like Republicans... unless they have too much education and vote Democratic, which proves there can be too much of a good thing. " - Karl Rove, GOP political strategist, White House advisor
" One of the leaders who definitely, everybody knows, is supporting Senator Kerry over President Bush is Kim Jung-il the communist dicator of North Carolina. " - Bob Novak
" It looks like the people of San Francisco are an endangered species. That's probably good news for the country. Did I just say that out loud? " - Jeb Bush, Gov. Florida, commenting on a map showing the prevalence of wildlife in California
" Take that bone out of your nose and call me back. " - Rush Limbaugh, to a black caller
" They are 12 percent of the population. Who the hell cares? " - Rush Limbaugh, on black people
" It's easy for people to say that if they shoot up on heroin the only people they're hurting are themselves. But that's not true ... Drug abusers destroy their families ... If we legalize these vices, we erode the societal support for prohibitions against crimes such as murder. The erosion of the moral fabric of society is a gradual, insidious process ... And so if people are violating the law by doing drugs, they ought to be accused and they ought to be convicted and they ought to be sent up. " - Rush Limbaugh, a self-proclaimed drug abuser
" Oh, you're one of the sodomites? You should only get AIDS and die, you pig. How's that? Why don't you see if you can sue me, you pig ... you piece of garbage. You have got nothing to do today, go eat a sausage and choke on it. " - Michael Savage, to a gay caller on MSNBC's the "Savage Nation"
" Because we're a Christian nation, because our foundation and roots are Judeo-Christian and the enemy is a guy named Satan. " - Lt. Gen. William "Jerry" Boykin, labelling the War on Terror a religious war
" [Saddam & Osama] will only be defeated if we come against them in the name of Jesus. " - Lt. Gen. William "Jerry" Boykin, labelling the War on Terror a religious war
" There is no God. If there was a God, he would have been here to protect my soldiers! " - Lt. Gen. William "Jerry" Boykin, after 1993 Mogadishu raid
" I said it back then, and I'll say it again now: God is the basis of our law and our government. " - Roy Moore, Alabama chief justice
" Reports that say something hasn't happened are always interesting to me, because as we know, there are known knowns; there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns -- the ones we don't know we don't know. " - Donald Rumsfeld
" Let me tell you about our civilization. Our civilization deserves to advance, not because it is equal to the others, but because it is superior. Our culture is superior to the other cultures, and I'll tell you why... " - Pat Buchanan
" Our culture is superior. Our culture is superior because our religion is Christianity and that is the truth that makes men free. " - Pat Buchanan
" How do we win this cultural war? We have suffered defeats, but we win it the same way Ronald Reagan led us to victory in the Cold War. Not by a policy of containment, but by a policy of roll back. " - Pat Buchanan
" We cannot give up this cultural war because it is about who we are and what we believe. I am proud to say that the scalp of John Frohnmayer occupies a place of honor in the trophy case of the Buchanan Brigades. " - Pat Buchanan
" Multi-culturalism is an across the board assault on our Anglo-American heritage. It runs from the deconstruction of our literature to the debasing of our national heros. " - Pat Buchanan
" Where does the word culture come from? It comes from the word cult -- a religion or beliefs. And our culture is superior because our religion is Christianity, and that is the truth that makes men free. We are going to prevail. We are not going to lose. ... Robert Frost will be remembered when Maya Angelou is forgotten, and the New Testament will live long after we've heard the last of the New Age psycho-babble of Hilary Rodham. " - Pat Buchanan
" Universal education is the most corroding and disintegrating poison that liberalism has ever invented for its own destruction. " - Adolf Hitler
" I am strongly in favour of using poisonous gas against uncivilised tribes ... to spread a lively terror. " - Winston Churchill, writing as President of the Air Council, in 1919
" If our country were defeated, I hope we should find a champion as admirable (as Hitler) to restore our courage and lead us back to our place among the nations. " - Winston Churchill, in his Great Contemporaries, 1937
" We are able to keep arms from him. His military forces have not been rebuilt. " - Condoleezza Rice in July 2001, regarding containment of Saddam Hussein
" He has not developed any significant capability with respect to weapons of mass destruction. He is unable to project conventional power against his neighbours. " - Colin Powell in February 2001, on Saddam Hussein
UNCATEGORIZED
" An expert is someone who knows more and more about less and less until he knows absolutely everything about nothing. " - Unknown
" Anything worth shooting is worth shooting twice. Ammo is cheap. Life is expensive. " - Unknown
" Only the dull are brilliant at breakfast. " - Oscar Wilde
" Nothing is so aggravating as calmness. " - Oscar Wilde
" The aim of art is to represent not the outward appearance of things, but their inward significance. " - Aristotle
" The person who knows that enough is enough will always have enough. " - Lao-Tsu
" When fighting monsters, take care not to become a monster in the process. And when you gaze deep into the abyss, the abyss looks back into you. " - Friedrich Nietzche
" If all our misfortunes were laid in one common heap, whence everyone must take an equal portion, most people would be content to take their own and depart. " - Socrates
" Illegal immigrants have been a problem in America for hundreds of years...Just ask any Indian. " - Peter Jennings
" Patriotism is the virture of the vicious. " - Oscar Wilde
" If the blind lead the blind, both shall fall into the ditch. " - Matthew 15:14
" There he goes -- one of God's own prototypes -- a high powered mutant of some kind never even considered for mass production. Too weird to live and too rare to die. " - Raoul Duke
" With a bit of luck his life was ruined, forever thinking that just behind some narrow door in all his favorite bars, men in red pendleton shirts are getting incredible kicks from things he'll never know. " - Raoul Duke
" Every normal man must be tempted at times to spit on his hands, raise the black flag, and start slitting throats. " - H.L. Mencken
" Women are apt to see chiefly the defects of a man of talent, and the merits of a fool. " - Unknown
" When you're rich, you're not crazy; You're eccentric. " - Lionel Luthor
" Man who stands on hill with mouth open will wait long time for roast duck to drop in. " - Confucius
" I think therefore I am (Ergo Cogito Sum). " - Descartes
" A true friend stabs you in the front. " - Oscar Wilde
" Rudeness is the weak man's imitation of strength. " - Eric Hoffer
" Beware lest in your anxiety to avoid war you obtain a master. " - Demosthenes
" Every man is guilty of all the good he didn't do. " - Voltaire
" The way to get rid of temptation is to yield to it. " - Oscar Wilde
" Always forgive your enemies; nothing annoys them so much. " - Oscar Wilde
" By the time the rules of the game are clear, the window of opportunity will be closed. " - Santhanem Sheker
" When you come to a fork in the road, take it. " - Yogi Berra
" Anything good in life is either illegal immoral or fattening. Anything not fitting into these categories causes cancer in rats. " - Unknown
" Never argue with an idiot. They drag you down to their level then beat you with experience " - Unknown
" You can go a long way with a smile. You can go a lot farther with a smile and a gun. " - Al Capone
" Nothing is wrong with Southern California that a rise in the ocean level wouldn't cure. " - Ross McDonald
" Beware of all enterprises that require new clothes " - Henry David Thoreau
" Conscience is the inner voice that warns us somebody may be looking " - Henry Louis Mencken
" Everybody wants to be somebody: Nobody wants to grow " - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
" If you have one foot in tomorrow and one foot in yesterday, you'rebound to find yourself pissing on today. " - Anonymous
" It's better to be hated for something you are, than loved for something you are not. " - Andre Gild
" Don't accept your dog's admiration as conclusive evidence that you are wonderful. " - Ann Landers
" Better a thousand times to go down fighting than to dip your colors to dishonorable compromise. " - Woodrow Wilson
" Confusion now hath made this masterpiece. " - William Shakespeare
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