Quotations that fit today

[Johnny_L.A]

I’ve been thinking of quotations that seem especially relevent today. Here are two:

@Dwight D. Eisenhower

In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the militaryindustrial 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. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together.

@Carl Sagan

But what worries me is that a Carlos will come along with bigger fish to fry – attractive, commanding, patriotic, exuding leadership… We will leap at the opportunity to support, to believe, to feel good. Most reporters, editors, and producers – swept up with the rest of us – will shy away from real skeptical scrutiny. He won’t be selling you prayers or crystals or tears. Perhaps he’ll be selling you a war, or a scapegoat, or a much more all-encompassing bundle of beliefs… Whatever it is, it will be accompanied by warnings about the dangers of skepticism.

Are there any other quotes that you find ‘fit the day’?

[cabdude]

Maybe this?

@John Stuart Mill

War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things: the decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks nothing worth a war, is worse. When a people are used as mere human instruments for firing cannon or thrusting bayonets, in the service and for the selfish purposes of a master, such war degrades a people. A war to protect other human beings against tyrannical injustice; a war to give victory to their own ideas of right and good, and which is their own war, carried on for an honest purpose by their own free choice–is often the means of their regeneration. A man who has nothing which he cares about more than he does about his personal safety is a miserable creature who has no chance of being free, unless made and kept so by the existing of better men than himself. As long as justice and injustice have not terminated their ever renewing fight for ascendancy in the affairs of mankind, human beings must be willing, when need is, to do battle for the one against the other.
John Stuart Mill, “The Contest in America,” pp. 208-09, in John Stuart Mill, Dissertations and Discussions (Boston: William V. Spencer, 1867)

[rowrrbazzle]

“I also advise Democrats to argue positions on the merits, starting with values, since values plus facts jointly constitute the merits of an issue. I tell Democrats not to depend on magic words…” George Lakoff

“When all diplomatic efforts, dialogue and other means of pressure such as economic sanctions has failed to induce a tyrant to change his behaviour, the use of force is inevitable. Not doing so can have more tragic consequences with more loss of lives and dangers of wider aggression.” – Dr. Jose Ramos-Horta, 1996 Nobel Peace Prize Laureate

“There are people who are convinced of the wickedness both of armies and of police forces, but who are nevertheless much more intolerant and inquisitorial in outlook than the average person who believes that it is necessary to use violence in certain circumstances. They will not say to somebody else, ‘Do this, that and the other or you will go to prison,’ but they will, if they can, get inside his brain and dictate his thoughts for him in the minutest particulars.”

Orwell, “Lear, Tolstoy, and the Fool,” CEJL, 4:301. http://www.george-orwell.org/Lear,_Tolstoy_and_the_Fool/0.html

[EnderWay]

They tha can give up essential liberty to
obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither
liberty or safety.

Benj Franklin 1759

[Black_Train_Song]

Almost anything written by Emerson. I just popped open a book to a random page and read this:

“Our action should rest mathematically on our substance. In nature, there are no false valuations”

Not a favorite but hey.

[What_Exit]

@EnderWay

They tha can give up essential liberty to
obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither
liberty or safety.

Benj Franklin 1759

I Love this quote and I love to use it, but I understand Ben may not have said it.
From Wikiquote http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Benjamin_Franklin
Those who would give up Essential Liberty to purchase a little Temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.
This statement was used as a motto on the title page of An Historical Review of the Constitution and Government of Pennsylvania. (1759) which was attributed to Franklin in the edition of 1812, but in a letter of September 27, 1760 to David Hume, he states that he published this book and denies that he wrote it, other than a few remarks that were credited to the Pennsylvania Assembly, in which he served. The phrase itself was first used in a letter from that Assembly dated November 11, 1755 to the Governor of Pennsylvania. An article on the origins of this statement here includes a scan that indicates the original typography of the 1759 document. Researchers now believe that a fellow diplomat by the name of Richard Jackson to be the primary author of the book. With the information thus far available the issue of authorship of the statement is not yet definitely resolved, but the evidence indicates it could well have been Franklin.