About Fear "Am I afraid of being bombed? Of course. Everybody is. But within reason. I know I certainly wouldn't leave Los Angeles if [they] were to attack it tomorrow. No, it isn't that. ... If I fear anything, I fear the atmosphere of the war, the power which it gives to all the things I hate -- the newspapers, the politicians, the puritans, the scoutmasters, the middle-aged merciless spinsters. I fear the way I might behave, if I were exposed to this atmosphere. I shrink from the duty of opposition. I am afraid I should be reduced to a chattering enraged monkey, screaming back hate at their hate."
Click to see who said this.
On Behavior and Goodness
A man does not have to be an angel in order to be saint. Albert Schweitzer Political Correctness "Political Correctness" is a doctrine, fostered by a delusional, illogical minority, and rabidly promoted by an unscrupulous mainstream media, which holds forth the proposition that it is entirely possible to pick up a turd
by the clean end. Unknown Source
Wise Quote for a Lifetime:
Click on Card to see more inspirational cards.
Are we there yet?
The larger the mob, the harder the test. In small areas, before small electorates, a first-rate man occasionally fights his way through, carrying even the mob with him by force of his personality. But when the field is nationwide, and the fight must be waged chiefly at second and third hand, and the force of personality cannot so readily make itself felt, then all the odds are on the man who is, intrinsically, the most devious and
mediocre - the man who can most easily and adeptly disperse the notion that his mind is a virtual vacuum.
The Presidency tends, year by year, to go to such men. As democracy is perfected, the office represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. We move toward a lofty ideal. On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart's desire at last, and the White House will be adorned by a downright
moron. H. L. Mencken from an article entitled "Bayard vs. Lionheart" published in the July 26, 1920 edition of the Baltimore Evening Sun.
On the meaning of American democracy:
Unlike communism, democracy does not mean having just one ineffective political party; it means having two ineffective political parties.
Democracy means free television, not good television, but free.
Democracy is welcoming people from other lands, and giving them something to hold onto -- usually a mop or a leaf blower.
Democracy is the eagle on the back of a dollar bill, with 13 arrows in one claw, 13 leaves on a branch, 13 tail feathers, and 13 stars over its head -- this signifies that when the white man came to this country, it was bad luck for the Indians, bad luck for the trees, bad luck for the wildlife, and lights out for the American
eagle. Johnny Carson
On the need for Americans to lead a revolution in values:
...Increasingly, by choice or by accident, this is the role our nation has
taken, the role of those who make peaceful revolution impossible by refusing
to give up the privileges and the pleasures that come from the immense
profits of overseas investments. I am convinced that if we are to get on the
right side of the world revolution, we as a nation must undergo a radical
revolution of values. We must rapidly begin the shift from a thing-oriented society to a person-oriented society.
When machines and computers, profit motives and property rights, are
considered more important than people, the giant triplets of racism, extreme
materialism, and militarism are incapable of being conquered.
A true revolution of values will soon cause us to question the fairness and
justice of many of our past and present policies. On the one hand we are
called to play the Good Samaritan on life's roadside, but that will be only
an initial act. One day we must come to see that the whole Jericho Road must
be transformed so that men and women will not be constantly beaten and
robbed as they make their journey on life's highway. True compassion is more
than flinging a coin to a beggar. It comes to see that an edifice which
produces beggars needs restructuring.
A true revolution of values will soon look uneasily on the glaring contrast
of poverty and wealth. With righteous indignation, it will look across the
seas and see individual capitalists of the West investing huge sums of money
in Asia, Africa, and South America, only to take the profits out with no
concern for the social betterment of the countries, and say, "This is not
just." It will look at our alliance with the landed gentry of South America
and say, "This is not just." The Western arrogance of feeling that it has
everything to teach others and nothing to learn from them is not just.
A true revolution of values will lay hand on the world order and say of war,
"This way of settling differences is not just." This business of burning
human beings with napalm, of filling our nation's homes with orphans and
widows, of injecting poisonous drugs of hate into the veins of peoples
normally humane, of sending men home from dark and bloody battlefields
physically handicapped and psychologically deranged, cannot be reconciled
with wisdom, justice, and love. A nation that continues year after year to
spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is
approaching spiritual death.
America, the richest and most powerful nation in the world, can well lead
the way in this revolution of values. There is nothing except a tragic death
wish to prevent us from reordering our priorities so that the pursuit of
peace will take precedence over the pursuit of war. There is nothing to keep
us from molding a recalcitrant status quo with bruised hands until we have
fashioned it into a brotherhood.
...Our only hope today lies in our ability to
recapture the revolutionary spirit and go out into a sometimes hostile world
declaring eternal hostility to poverty, racism, and militarism. With this
powerful commitment we shall boldly challenge the status quo and unjust
mores, and thereby speed the day when "every valley shall be exalted, and
every mountain and hill shall be made low, the crooked
shall be made straight, and the rough places plain."
A genuine revolution of values means in the final analysis that our
loyalties must become ecumenical rather than sectional. Every nation must
now develop an overriding loyalty to mankind as a whole in order to preserve
the best in their individual societies.
This call for a worldwide fellowship that lifts neighborly concern beyond
one's tribe, race, class, and nation is in reality a call for an
all-embracing and unconditional love for all mankind. This oft
misunderstood, this oft misinterpreted concept, so readily dismissed by the
Nietzsches of the world as a weak and cowardly force, has now become an
absolute necessity for the survival of man. When I speak of love I am not
speaking of some sentimental and weak response. I'm not speaking of that
force which is just emotional bosh. I am speaking of that force which all of
the great religions have seen as the supreme unifying principle of life....
We can no longer afford to worship the god of hate or bow before the altar
of retaliation. The oceans of history are made turbulent by the ever-rising
tides of hate. History is cluttered with the wreckage of nations and
individuals that pursued this self-defeating path of hate....
...We still have a choice today: nonviolent coexistence or violent
coannihilation. We must move past indecision to action. We must find new
ways to speak for peace and justice throughout the developing
world, a world that borders on our doors. If we do not act, we shall surely
be dragged down the long, dark, and shameful corridors of time reserved for
those who possess power without compassion, might without morality, and
strength without sight.
Now let us begin. Now let us rededicate ourselves to the long and bitter,
but beautiful, struggle for a new world. This is the calling of the sons of
God, and our brothers wait eagerly for our response. Shall we say the odds
are too great? Shall we tell them the struggle is too hard? Will our message
be that the forces of American life militate against their arrival as full
men, and we send our deepest regrets? Or will there be another message-of
longing, of hope, of solidarity with their yearnings, of commitment to their
cause, whatever the cost? The choice is ours, and though we might prefer it
otherwise, we must choose in this crucial moment of human history.
Martin Luther King, April 4, 1967, from a speech delivered at the Riverside Church in New York City. The Washington Post offered this insight to Dr. King's words (which were delivered in the time-context of the middle of the Vietnam War, three years after Dr. King won the Nobel Peace Prize and
one year before he was assassinated): "King has diminished his usefulness to his cause, his country, his people."
Time magazine offered these additional thoughtful words: "demagogic slander, a script for Radio Hanoi." These insights into the speech above are just a reminder that ignorance and failures of
perspective in the "mainstream press" is neither a new trend nor unusual.
Pick Your Favorite Quote on Patriotism
Patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrel.
Samuel Johnson
One of the great attractions of patriotism - it fulfills our worst wishes. In the person of our nation we are able, vicariously, to bully and cheat. Bully and cheat, what's more, with a feeling that we are profoundly virtuous.
Aldous Huxley
What this country needs, what every country needs occasionally, is a good hard bloody war to revive the vice of patriotism on which its existence as a nation depends.
Ambrose Bierce
Each nation feels superior to other nations. That breeds patriotism - and wars.
Dale Carnegie
Heroism on command, senseless violence, and all the loathsome nonsense that goes by the name of patriotism - how passionately I hate them!
Albert Einstein
Patriotism is the virtue of the vicious.
Oscar Wilde
Patriotism is the willingness to kill and be killed for trivial reasons.
Bertrand Russell
You'll never have a quiet world till you knock the patriotism out of the human race.
George Bernard Shaw
Patriotism is a kind of religion; it is the egg from which wars are hatched.
Guy de Maupassant
The excessive regard of parents for their children, and their dislike of other people's is, like class feeling, patriotism, save-your-soul-ism, and other "virtues," a mean exclusiveness at bottom.
Thomas Hardy
Patriotism is often an arbitrary veneration of real estate above principles.
George Jean Nathan
Patriotism is your conviction that this country is superior to all other countries because you were born in it.
George Bernard Shaw
Totalitarianism is patriotism institutionalized.
Steve Allen
You're not supposed to be so blind with patriotism that you can't face reality. Wrong is wrong no matter who does it or who says it.
Malcom X
Dissent, rebellion, and all-around hell-raising remain the true duty of patriots.
Barbara Ehrenreich
Quote from Christopher Isherwood, January 20, 1940, regarding the Japanese:
"Am I afraid of being bombed? Of course. Everybody is. But within reason. I know I certainly wouldn't leave Los Angeles if the Japanese were to attack it tomorrow. No, it isn't that. ... If I fear anything, I fear the atmosphere of the war, the power which it gives to all the things I hate -- the newspapers, the politicians, the puritans, the scoutmasters, the middle-aged merciless spinsters. I fear the way I might behave, if I were exposed to this atmosphere. I shrink from the duty of opposition. I am afraid I should be reduced to a chattering enraged monkey, screaming back hate at their hate." Back to Top
