Quotes on Good and Evil and Power and TruthJohn Lord ActonPower tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Alfred AdlerIt is easier to fight for one's principles than to live up to them. AesopThose who voluntarily put power into the hands of a tyrant ... must not wonder if it be at last turned against themselves. AnacharsisLaws are like cobwebs that entangle the weak but are broken by the strong. Francis BaconKnowledge is power. Jeremy BenthamAll punishment is itself evil. Napoleon BonaparteIf I were to give liberty to the press, my power could not last three days. Soldiers usually win the battles and generals get the credit for them. John BrightForce is not a remedy ... Allan Bullock... evil is a form of incompetence. Edmund BurkeThe only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing. The people never give up their liberties but under some delusion. Thomas CampbellWhat millions died that Caesar might be great! Miguel de CervantesThe man who fights for his ideals is alive. Count CianoVictory has a thousand fathers. Defeat is an orphan. CiceroLaws are silent in time of war. Oliver Cromwell... by the bowels of Christ ... bethink you that you may be mistaken. Eugene DebsI'd rather vote for something I want and not get it than vote for something I don't want, and get it. Thomas Alva EdisonI am proud of the fact that I never invented weapons to kill. Non-violence leads to the highest ethics, which is the goal of all evolution. Until we stop harming all other living beings, we are still savages. I have friends in overalls whose friendship I would not swap for the favor of the kings of the world. Dwight EisenhowerA people that values its privileges above its principles soon loses both. John EltingA basic truth of statecraft: get the fashionable intellectuals on your side and you can get away with murder. Ralph Waldo EmersonThe corruption of man is followed by the corruption of language. Frantz FanonThe business of obscuring language is a mask behind which stands the much bigger business of plunder. Henry FieldingLet no man be sorry he has done good, because others have done evil. E. M. ForsterI distrust Great Men. They produce a desert of uniformity around them and often a pool of blood, too ... Anatole FranceThe law, in its majestic equality, forbids the rich as well as the poor from sleeping under bridges, begging in the streets, and stealing bread. Benjamin FranklinWe must indeed all hang together, or, most assuredly, we shall all hang separately. Frederick the GreatI begin by taking. I shall find scholars afterwards to demonstrate my perfect right. Erich FrommeThe lust for power is not rooted in strength but in weakness. Mahondas GandhiAs in laws or in war, the longest purse finally wins. William GodwinPower is not happiness. William HazlittIgnorance of the world leaves one at the mercy of its malice. Heinrich HeineWhenever books are burned, sooner or later men also are burned. Hermann HesseThose who cannot think or take responsibility for themselves need, and clamor for, a leader. Adolf HitlerThe great strength of a totalitarian state is that it forces those who fear it to imitate it. I am liberating man from the degrading chimera known as `conscience'. The primitive simplicity of their minds renders them a more easy prey to a big lie than a small one. Success is the sole earthly judge of right and wrong. The victor will never be asked if he told the truth. What luck for rulers that men do not think. William JamesA great many people think they are thinking when they are merely rearranging their prejudices. Thomas JeffersonI hope we shall crush in its birth the aristocracy of our moneyed corporations, which dare already to challenge our government to a trial of strength and bid defiance to the laws of the country. Samuel JohnsonHow come we hear the loudest yelps for liberty from the drivers of negroes? Power is gradually stealing away from the many to the few, because the few are more vigilant and consistent. Power is not sufficient evidence of truth. Joseph JoubertAbuse of words [is] the foundation of ideology. Immanuel KantHe who is cruel to animals becomes hard also in his dealings with men. We can judge the heart of a man by his treatment of animals. Martin Luther King, Jr.Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. To ignore evil is to become an accomplice to it. Henry KissingerPower is the ultimate aphrodisiac. Baron LaneLoss of freedom seldom happens overnight. Oppression doesn't stand on the doorstep with toothbrush mustache and swastika armband-it creeps up insidiously . . . step by step, and all of a sudden the unfortunate citizen realizes that it is gone. Harold LaskiHistorically, means cannot be separated from ends ... Vladimir LeninSoviet power is a new type of state in which there is no bureacracy, no police, no standing army. Pope Leo XIIIInequality of rights and power proceeds from the very Author of nature ... Martin LutherAn earthly kingdom cannot exist without inequality of persons. Some must be free, some serfs ... Niccolo Machiavelli... the end justifies the means. A prince never lacks legitimate reasons to break his promises. Joseph de MaistreEvery country has the government it deserves. Mao ZedungPolitical power grows out of the barrel of a gun. Charles de Montesquieu... every man who has power is impelled to abuse it. Power should be a check on power. Benito MussoliniIt was only one life. What is one life in the affairs of a state? The press of Italy is free, freer than the press of any other country, so long as it supports the regime. What the proletariat needs is a bath of blood. Martin NiemoellerIn Germany they came first for the Communists, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Communist. Then they came for the Jews, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Jew. Then they came for the trade unionists, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a trade unionist. Then they came for the Catholics, and I didn't speak up because I was a Protestant. Then they came for me, and by that time no one was left to speak up. Friedrich NietzcheDistrust all in whom the impulse to punish is powerful. Andre NortonEither the law exists, or it does not. There's no night without stars. George OrwellIf liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear. If thought corrupts language, language also corrupts thought. Thomas PaineThe protection of a man's person is more sacred than the protection of his property. St. PaulDo not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good. We then that are strong ought to bear the infirmities of the weak, and not to please ourselves. The Qu'ran... if any one slew a person ... it would be as if he slew the whole people; and if any one saved a life, it would be as if he had saved the life of the whole people ... Thomas ReedOne of the greatest delusions in the world is the hope that the evils of this world are to be cured by legislation. Adrienne RichLanguage can be used as a means of changing reality. Franklin Delano Roosevelt... the only thing we have to fear is fear itself --- nameless, unreasoning terror which paralyzes needed efforts ... Theodore RooseveltNo man is justified in doing evil on ground of expediency. Power always brings with it responsibility. Jean-Jacques RousseauBy doing good we become good. J. K. RowlingThere is no good or evil, there is only power ... Arthur SchopenhauerFreedom of the press is to the machinery of the state what the safety valve is to the steam engine. William ShakespeareThe devil is a gentleman. Joseph StalinMr. Churchill, Mr. Prime Minister, how many divisions did you say that the pope had? One death is a tragedy. A million deaths is a statistic. Gloria SteinemThe ends and means are a seamless web. TacitusLust of power is the most flagrant of all the passions. Rabindranath TagorePower takes as ingratitude the writhing of its victims. Theognis of MegaraNo man is wholly bad, nor wholly good. Cornelius VanderbiltLaw! What do I care about the law? Haven't I got the power? George WashingtonShow not yourself glad in the Misfortune of another though he were your enemy. They will avoid ... those Overgrown Military establishements which ... are ... particularly hostile to Republican liberty. Oscar WildeA thing is not necessarily true because a man died for it. Emile ZolaWhen truth is buried underground, it grows, it chokes, it gathers such an explosive force that on the day it bursts out, it blows up everything with it. |