“Eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot.”
Exodus 22, King James Version
“We are what we think. All that we are arises with our thoughts. With our thoughts we make the world.”
- The Buddha
“Every man, and every body of men on earth, possesses the
right of self-government. They receive it with their being from the
hand of nature. Individuals exercise it by their single will;
collections of men by that of their majority; for the law of the
majority is the natural law of every society of men.”
- Thomas Jefferson, Light and Liberty
Love is my religion – I could die for it.
- John Keats
“That the only purpose for which power can be rightfully
exercised over any member of a civilised community, against his will, is
to prevent harm to others.”
- J.S.Mill
I do earnestly wish to see the distinction of sex confounded in society, unless where love animates the behaviour.
- Mary Wollstonecraft
“And so, my fellow Americans: ask not what your country can do for you – ask what you can do for your country.
My fellow citizens of the world: ask not what America will do for you, but what together we can do for the freedom of man. “
- J F Kennedy. Inaugural Address by John F. Kennedy – January 20th 1961
Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself.
- Leo Tolstoy
The world must be made safe for democracy. Its peace must
be planted upon the tested foundations of political liberty. We have no
selfish ends to serve. We desire no conquest, no dominion. We seek no
indemnities for ourselves, no material compensation for the sacrifices
we shall freely make. We are but one of the champions of the rights of
mankind. We shall be satisfied when those rights have been made as
secure as the faith and the freedom of nations can make them.
Woodrow Wilson, address to Congress (April 2, 1917). (State of War with Germany).
“we shall defend our Island, whatever the cost may be, we
shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we
shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the
hills; we shall never surrender”
- Winston Churchill. Speech in the House of Commons (4 June 1940)
“The Red Army and Navy and the whole Soviet people must
fight for every inch of Soviet soil, fight to the last drop of blood for
our towns and villages…onward, to victory!”
Josef Stalin – July 1941
“It is not the strongest of the species that survives,
nor the most intelligent that survives. It is the one that is the most
adaptable to change. “
- Charles Darwin
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men
are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with inherent
and inalienable Rights; that among these, are Life, Liberty, and the
pursuit of Happiness”
- Thomas Jefferson, Declaration of Independence 1776
“You ask, what is our policy? I can say: It is to wage
war, by sea, land and air, with all our might and with all the strength
that God can give us: to wage war against a monstrous tyranny, never
surpassed in the dark, lamentable catalogue of human crime. That is our
policy. You ask, what is our aim? I can answer in one word: It is
victory, victory at all costs, victory in spite of all terror, victory,
however long and hard the road may be; for without victory, there is no
survival.”
- Winston Churchill. Speech in the House of Commons, after taking office as Prime Minister (13 May 1940)
“Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth
on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to
the proposition that all men are created equal. “
- Abraham Lincoln 1863 Gettysburg Address
” – that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth
of freedom—and that government of the people, by the people, for the
people, shall not perish from the earth.”
- Abraham Lincoln 1863, Gettysburg Address
“Cogito ergo sum” ( I think, therefore I am)”
- Rene Descartes – part IV of Discourse on the Method
“I stand here before you not as a prophet but as a humble
servant of you, the people. Your tireless and heroic sacrifices have
made it possible for me to be here today. I therefore place the
remaining years of my life in your hands.”
- Nelson Mandela. Speech on the day of his release, Cape Town (11 February 1990)
“A house divided against itself cannot stand.” I believe
this government cannot endure, permanently half slave and half free. I
do not expect the Union to be dissolved — I do not expect the house to
fall — but I do expect it will cease to be divided. It will become all
one thing or all the other.”
- Abraham Lincoln 1858 – House Divided Speech
“The calm and tolerant atmosphere that prevailed during
the elections depicts the type of South Africa we can build. It set the
tone for the future. We might have our differences, but we are one
people with a common destiny in our rich variety of culture, race and
tradition.”
- Nelson Mandela
” Five score years ago, a great American, in whose
symbolic shadow we stand today signed the Emancipation Proclamation.
This momentous decree came as a great beacon light of hope to millions
of Negro slaves who had been seared in the flames of withering
injustice. It came as a joyous daybreak to end the long night of their
captivity. But one hundred years later, we must face the tragic fact
that the Negro is still not free.”
- Martin Luther King – 1963
“And I’ve seen the promised land. I may not get there
with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people will get
to the promised land”
- Martin Luther King – 1968 – “I’ve Been to the Mountain Top Speech
“The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong.”
- Mahatma Gandhi “Interview to the Press” in Karachi about the execution of Bhagat Singh (26 March 1926);
“I can predict with absolute certainty that within
another generation there will be another world war if the nations of the
world do not concert the method by which to prevent it.”
- Woodrow Wilson League of Nations Address (25 September 1919)
“The Communists disdain to conceal their views and aims.
They openly declare that their ends can be attained only by the forcible
overthrow of all existing social conditions. Let the ruling classes
tremble at a Communistic revolution. The proletarians have nothing to
lose but their chains. They have a world to win. WORKING MEN OF THE
WORLD, UNITE!”
“A spectre is haunting Europe; the spectre of Communism.”
- Karl Marx, F.Engels, Communist Manifesto 1848
“The Soviet people want full-blooded and unconditional democracy.”
- President Mikhail Gorbachev Speech (July 1988)
“Freedom in capitalist society always remains about the
same as it was in the ancient Greek republics: freedom for the
slave-owners. “
- Lenin
“What passing-bells for these who die as cattle?
Only the monstrous anger of the guns.”
- Wilfred Owen, from Anthem for Doomed Youth
“In war-time the word patriotism means suppression of truth”.
- Siegfried Sassoon in
Memoirs of an Infantry Officer
“Patriotism is, fundamentally, a conviction that a particular country is the best in the world because you were born in it…”
- George Bernard Shaw The World (15 November 1893)
“If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face— forever.”
- George Orwell, 1984
“Now I will tell you the answer to my question. It is
this. The Party seeks power entirely for its own sake. We are not
interested in the good of others; we are interested solely in power,
pure power.”
- George Orwell, 1984
“Repeal the Missouri Compromise — repeal all compromises —
repeal the Declaration of Independence — repeal all past history, you
still can not repeal human nature. It still will be the abundance of
man’s heart, that slavery extension is wrong; and out of the abundance
of his heart, his mouth will continue to speak.”
- Abraham Lincoln 1854
“With malice toward none, with charity for all, with
firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on
to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation’s wounds, to care
for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his
orphan, to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace
among ourselves and with all nations.”
- Abraham Lincoln 1865 Second Inaugural Address
“I am for freedom of religion, & against all maneuvres to bring about a legal ascendancy of one sect over another.”
- Thomas Jefferson
“I have sworn upon the altar of God Eternal, hostility
against every form of tyranny over the mind of man”, “I have sworn upon
the altar of God eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over
the mind of man”, and “I have sworn upon the altar of God, eternal
hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man.”
- Thomas Jefferson
“I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who
has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to
forgo their use.”
Galileo Galilei (1564-1642)
“I am an optimist and I believe that together we shall be
able now to make the right historical choice so as not to miss the
great chance at the turn of centuries and millenia and make the current
extremely difficult transition to a peaceful world order. “
- President Mikhail Gorbachev Nobel Address 1991
“Why not?”
President Mikhail Gorbachev – When asked if he thought the Berlin Wall should be dismantled. (unsourced)
“Private travel into foreign countries can be requested
without conditions […]. Permission will be granted instantly. Permanent
relocations can be done through all border checkpoints between the GDR
into the FRG or Berlin (West).”
— Günter Schabowski, November 9th, 1989 East Germany
“The atomic bomb made the prospect of future war
unendurable. It has led us up those last few steps to the mountain pass;
and beyond there is a different country.”
- J. Robert Oppenheimer quotes (American theoretical Physicist nicknamed the ‘Father of the Atomic Bomb’. 1904-1967)
“This morning the British Ambassador in Berlin handed the
German Government a final note stating that unless we heard from them
by eleven o’clock that they were prepared at once to withdraw their
troops from Poland, a state of war would exist between us. I have to
tell you that no such understanding has been received and that
consequently this country is at war with Germany.”
Neville Chamberlain – 3rd September 1939
“Change will not come if we wait for some other person or
some other time. We are the ones we’ve been waiting for. We are the
change that we seek.”
- Barack Obama:
“A tyrst with destiny – A the stroke of midnight hour,
when the world sleeps, India will awaken to life and Freedom” – August
14th 1947.
- Jawaharlal Nehru
Some men see things as they are and say, “Why?” I dream of things that never were and say, “Why not?”
- George Bernard Shaw:
” Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world.”
- Nelson Mandela
“Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake.”
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